14 Years and One Tweet
Luis, a journalist and author fled to Canada after receiving death threats from organized crime and corrupt officers in Mexico. He has experienced difficulty finding employment despite his education and experience. He had to take a janitorial job and and when he expressed his frustrations on Twitter it went viral.
Photo by Luis Horacio Nájera
On September 27, 2022, on our 14th anniversary of arriving in Canada seeking refuge after fleeing Mexico to survive death threats from organized crime and corrupt officers, I signed my contract as a part-time janitor in a supermarket in Toronto. The next day, I was introduced at the Voices-in-Exile conference at the University of Ottawa as an award-winning journalist in exile and author published by the world’s largest printing house.
After two days of inspiring interactions with activists-in-exile, I returned to Toronto and prepared for my first early morning shift, but not my first time, cleaning toilets and mopping floors on Canadian soil. Hours later, I shot a couple of photos and posted them on Twitter with the following text: “Because two master degrees from local universities are not enough for a refugee to get a seat at the table with the good Canadian society, here I am, back to be a janitor again, after 11 years of studying, applying and publishing.” With an uncomfortable sense of relief after venting my grievances online, I turned off my phone and returned to work.
To my surprise, my tweet became a forum with 496,000 impressions and 47,300 interactions from both sides of the political spectrum. Some were empathic, some aggressive. Overwhelmed by the unintended attention to my post, I realized there is a need to evolve as a country, transitioning from being refugee-friendly only to an immigrant-embracing one, where experience overseas is recognized, integrated and promoted within Canada’s social and economic fabric.
I have been in this country for 14 years, navigating between lining up outside food banks in the suburbs of Vancouver to high-table dinners at Massey College. As a newcomer in 2008, my survival jobs included delivering community papers, painting houses, replacing windows, and cleaning five different buildings. My wife also worked as a housekeeper in the mornings while I cared for our three children.
In 2011, we moved to Toronto with a scholarship from Massey College as a journalism fellow. A new world was revealed to me as I transitioned from a protected person to a permanent resident and from a night cleaner to a guest speaker. During my fellowship, I understood that journalism was in a dire situation. After Massey, I enrolled in the Munk School of Global Affairs for a master’s degree, which would help me reinvent my career using my Spanish and professional background as foundations. Two years and considerable debt in student loans later, my hypothesis proved wrong, even after receiving Canadian citizenship. Many unsuccessful cover letters and crafted résumés later, I redirected my efforts toward academia and applied to four different PhDs programs across the country. None of them wanted me.
In 2015, the Toronto Star hired me as a content editor for The Star Touch app. After six months, the project failed, and as one of the last to come, I was among the first to leave. From there, another fellowship and some casual gigs helped to pay my credit card while taking care of my wife during her two-year-long, excruciating cancer treatment. Then, my second attempt at reinventing brought me to study -and complete in just one year- a master’s in Disaster and Emergency Management at York University with additional diplomas in Latin American and Global Security studies.
I also co-authored a book on drug cartels and Canadian millennials, which has been praised as an eye-opener, and a warning, of how the dangerous tentacles of Mexican organized crime groups have extended into Canadian soil with its deadly consequences. This was my job and my duty as a journalist in Mexico, and despite it is not my job anymore, it still is my responsibility to my fellow Canadians to expose such ugly truths. Nevertheless, it’s early 2023 now, and the only position I got an interview for is the janitorial one, a job I kept for two months until an early morning email invited me to apply for a position as a seasonal teacher assistant in Toronto Metropolitan University’s school of journalism. Apparently, among the thousands of viewers of my cyber-rant, someone thought I could be a good fit for the position.
Luis’ book, “The Wolfpack”
The world is not the same as in 1969 when Canada signed the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. As knowledge and information became more accessible and interconnected, more rebelled against injustice, fought for democracy, or denounced criminals; many of us fled our country, and some came to Canada for safety, carrying our most valuable possessions: our minds, our professional experiences and our human dignity.
“it is time for society and government to adapt, adopt and expand the skills, knowledge and experiences of all Canadians towards the common good, from newcomers to first nations. ”
Doctors, farmers, teachers, journalists, and many more received a second chance to survive in Canada but not to live fully as Canadians because of prejudice, fear or ignorance. It is time for society and government to adapt, adopt and expand the skills, knowledge and experiences of all Canadians towards the common good, from newcomers to first nations. I know there is not enough room for some professions; therefore, education is essential to reinvent, replace or rediscover who we are because an experienced lawyer in Afghanistan has the potential and experience to become a trained social worker or youth councillor in Alberta.
Let us pay back with all we have and as diverse as we are.
