"You'll have to work twice as hard as everybody else." Generations of Black people have been raised on those words. It's the enduring soundtrack to the Black experience.
The constant refrain that echoes in every space we find ourselves in. But what if working twice as hard isn't the only path forward? What if, sometimes, joy and exploration are forms of success too?
When I quit my full-time job last year and relocated to Toronto, I didn't feel like I was working twice as hard as anybody else. I eagerly traded financial stability for adventure. I was hyper aware that I was choosing a path most immigrant parents would caution against, if not forbid altogether. But I was also choosing something my grandmother's generation rarely had the luxury to choose: a life beyond survival mode.
In June 1965, 60 years before I boarded a one-way flight to Toronto, my Granny boarded a steamship from the Seychelles (a small island in the Indian Ocean) to Britain. While she moved to Britain in search of economic stability, I moved to Canada in search of adventure. The difference between our journeys reveals how much has shifted—and how much further we still need to go.
Before my Granny immigrated to England, she worked as a server at a hotel in the Seychelles, catering to guests who brought traces of what life beyond the Indian Ocean could look like. These travellers came for pleasure, for exploration. My Granny would leave for survival.
