More Americans by birth, Canadians by choice

Over here in the political blogosphere, we all have a tendency to have blogrolls that consist exclusively, or almost exclusively, of other political blogs. But political blogs aren't the Alpha and the Omega of the blogging world, and last year, this recognition even led to Robert expanding his Canadian Blog Awards beyond just the political. Recently, I was excited to find that there's a whole subcommunity of bloggers out there who are blogging about their personal journeys as Americans who have decided to emigrate to Canada. Some of them are lefties, some of them are queer, some of them just felt out of place in the U.S., and some are all of the above. And while I've got a rather different sort of blog over here, I still feel an affinity with all of them.

There's Laura from We Move to Canada, a freelance writer who shares a bloggy tagline with me, and who left New York City for Toronto along with her partner Allan last summer. She details her journey not only in her blog, but in a Cafepress book.

There are the two gay men from Florida who write the Moving to Vancouver blog. They already sport a "No Deep Integration with the USA" banner on their blog, despite still being in the process of applying for permanent residency in Canada.

There's Daniel and his husband Alan from Would-Be Canadians, who hope to move from Seattle to Vancouver. Their blog details the anxiety over the limbo that immigrants can feel as they're wondering when and if their applications will be accepted.

There's Juan and Mr Tew of Wondrous Canadian Renewal, a binational (U.S. and an unknown Latin American country) couple who are currently living in Michigan and hoping to move just across the border to Windsor.

There's Tom of Canadian Hope, one half of another binational gay couple living in New Jersey. Due to his mother's recent illness, he's been thinking a lot about what it means to move far away from his close-knit family to an entirely different country. But he seems grounded in his decision to move to Canada when he writes about everything that's going wrong in the U.S. and its politics, and his hopes to find something different in this country.

There are the two women of Two Moms to Canada, a couple from Minnesota who have delved deeply enough into Canadian politics to link to the Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Council of Canadians, and Rabble. They were recently in Montreal for the national conference connected with the OutGames, and were particularly impressed with Louise Arbour and Irshad Manji.

There's Mason and Nick of Life Without Borders, who after several long years of waiting, have just received their official permission to come to Canada (congratulations, guys!). Their recent posts are eloquent statements of the combination of sadness and happiness, of trepidation and excitement that inevitably surrounds any decision to leave the country where you've spent your whole life.

I've long maintained that becoming an immigrant is about more than just deciding you're unhappy where you are; it's also about choosing a particular other place and doing the work that's necessary to be happier there. It's an act not just of despair and rejection, but also of hope and acceptance. These people embody both sides of that sentiment. Their stories take me back to my own fears and worries about coming here for good, and my own process of figuring out what makes Canada tick and affirming the reasons why I wanted to live here. If you found my recent post about my own immigrant journey interesting, you might want to check some of them out.