In today's episode, you will hear Dozie Anyaegbunam share his experience of immigrating to Canada.

Dozie is a Content strategist, storyteller, budding documentary filmmaker, and immigrant. He hosts The Newcomers Podcast and writes a newsletter about wine for normal folks.

Why you should listen to today's episode:

In this episode of "Speak English Fearlessly," Dozie Anyaegbunam, a Nigerian immigrant to Canada, talks about his transition and the challenges he faced while settling into his new life.

Dozie discusses his proactive networking approach and the importance of storytelling and communication skills for immigrants seeking employment. He shares the difficulties of finding housing due to a lack of credit history and facing discrimination, including outright rejection based on his nationality.

Despite these hurdles, Dozie eventually secures a home, emphasizing that such biases are individual rather than racial. He also touches on the pressure to adjust his accent and the significance of building a supportive community.

The episode highlights the resilience and determination required for immigrants to overcome obstacles and integrate into a new society.

Dozie's Journey to Canada (00:05:09) Dozie shares his decision to move from Lagos, Nigeria, to Canada in 2021 and the reasons behind his immigration.

Career Transition and Networking (00:07:16) Dozie discusses his career transition from marketing in Lagos to content strategy in Canada and the networking and preparation he did before immigrating.

Informational Interviews and Job Search (00:10:18) Dozie explains how he conducted informational interviews and utilized networking on LinkedIn to find job opportunities in Canada.

Honing Your Story for Job Search (00:12:55) Dozie emphasizes the importance of refining one's story and skills for job interviews as an immigrant in a new country.

Challenges and Adjustments (00:17:12) Dozie reflects on the challenges and support he encountered during his family's landing in Canada.

The timestamps indicate the progression of the conversation and the topics covered in the podcast episode transcription segment.

Job Hunting and Housing Challenges (00:17:24) Dozie discusses the challenges of job hunting and finding housing as an immigrant in Canada.

Landlord Discrimination (00:19:35) Dozie recounts discriminatory experiences with landlords, including biased questions and rejections based on race.

Finding a Home (00:23:49) Dozie shares the process of finding and moving into his first home in Canada, detailing the challenges and delays.

Rental Competition (00:25:51) The discussion touches on the competitive rental market and the challenges of finding a place to live in Canada.

Immigration and Family (00:29:01) Dozie reflects on his greatest accomplishment in Canada, emphasizing the positive impact on his family life.

Family Bonding (00:31:49) The conversation shifts to a lighthearted discussion about family bonding over activities like playing Minecraft.

Language and Accent Challenges (00:34:23) Dozie discusses the unexpected experiences related to his use of English and his accent in Canada.

Immigrant challenges (00:34:46) Dozie discusses demoralizing workplace experiences due to his accent and feeling demotivated to speak up.

Overcoming self-doubt (00:36:31) Dozie shares how he initially stopped talking at work and felt invisible due to self-doubt and struggles with accent adaptation.

Perception and biases (00:39:22) The discussion touches on how accents can shape listener perceptions, affecting how seriously immigrants are taken at work.

Establishing a new life (00:42:43) Dozie emphasizes the importance of informational interviews and the need for a supportive community for immigrants in a new country.

You won't want to miss Dozie share about:

• Job hunting strategies before and after arriving in Canada. You'll hear Dozie's excellent job hunting strategy that you can and should be using for your own search!
• Challenges in finding housing and how Dozie overcame them.
• Dealing with racism and accents: Dozie shares about his struggle with people who told him things like, 'Oh, what an interesting accent you have." "Maybe you should learn how to speak English properly - slow down so I can understand you better."
• The importance of building community around you because the truth is, you can't immigrate to Canada successfully (and survive) without the help and support of others.

• Important advice for new immigrants - from one immigrant to another.

Links I Referenced In The Episode

How much do Canadians judge people for their accents? Experts say it starts early on (From cbc.ca)

Follow Dozie Online:

The Newcomers Podcast - Dozie's excellent podcast that tells the story of newcomers as they make their life in Canada. If you're a newcomer to Canada, or about to be one, you need to check this podcast out!

Dozie's newsletter about wine.

Follow Dozie on Twitter

Follow Dozie on LinkedIn

Follow Dozie on YouTube

Free Newcomer Support Resources

Mentioned in this episode:

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That immigration is the wildest thing anyone should can do. I think anyone that does it is not normal. It resets your brain completely. You start life afresh. It's a wild thing. If you're an adult, you are both 30, 20.

If you come here as a young kid, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 20, 20, I feel like you're just like, oh yeah, I want to have fun. But when you've worked for a while in your home country and you get up and say you want to move to another country, gosh, like it's mad.

Like I think you're mad. I think you're mad. You might mean to try that. A good kind of mad. And so you're dealing with all that, you're dealing with all that energy and all that stuff. And you need to still get a job and start earning and start paying the bills.

Well hello there and welcome to the Speak English Fearlessly podcast. This is the podcast for motivated English learners who want to speak English fearlessly and learn practical tips and strategies to conquer the CELPIP exam.

I also love the feature encouraging interviews with regular people, people just like you, who are working towards becoming fluent in English. So we can learn from their experiences together. Who am I?

My name is Aaron Nelson and I've been an English teacher for over 16 years and I now work to help students prepare for the Selphap exam through online classes. Today I am very happy and excited to be able to welcome my guest, I guess speaker, his name.

I surely hope I'm going to get it right and my friend Dozie it. You're going to correct me, okay, if I get it wrong. So, Dozie Anyaegbunam.

Okay, that works.

Are you cringing and thinking, oh my gosh, this guy butchered it.

To be honest, I'm not. Like, I mean, it's, like I said, it's this accent, just constant, this different vibe. So like, you really try it. Because the people who have pronounced it the first time, I go like, that's not funny at all.

Oh dear. Well, you're very gracious, Dosey. And I thank you for your graciousness. So, Dosey is a content strategist, a storyteller, a very good one by the way, and we're going to talk about that in a second.

He's a budding documentary filmmaker, an immigrant, and he hosts a podcast that I want you, yes, you dear listener, to check out. You need to listen to this podcast. If you are new to Canada, or if you're about to become a newcomer to Canada, please listen to Dosey's amazing podcast.

It's called The Newcomers podcast, and I will have a link to it in our show notes today so that you can check him out and listen to him and all the really great stories that he shares with real people who are going through the real experience of trying to immigrate to Canada and establish their life here.

He also writes a newsletter about how normal folks can find the right wine for them. I don't know if that's the fair way to describe it, but I think I might have to follow along on that newsletter as well because I kind of suck at pairing wine with different dishes.

So maybe Dosey's going to school me on wine at one of these times, but I found Dosey from his podcast, which I think is really cool. His podcast, like I already said, features immigrants on their journey to Canada, and the things that they go through, the experiences that they've had in their own words.

They share their story, the real stories. It's not sugar coated. It's not nice and shiny and clean. They tell the real truth, and I think that it's very inspiring in a way to hear what people have gone through to make it to Canada.

And Dosey does an excellent job of drawing their story out. So without further ado, Dosey, thank you for being daring enough to come on and join us today. Welcome.

Thank you so much for having me on this. I mean, like you, you do me too well with all the the way you've introduced me and stuff. But like, um, like I am super, super, super excited to be here to be honest.

I'm looking forward to, to just having the conversation.

Awesome. Well, those of you know this, and I think that some of our, if you've been listening to this podcast for a little while, you know that at the beginning of January, I read an article, well over the Christmas break, actually, that was all about, it was just profiling some newcomers and their journey to arriving here in Canada and how difficult it was for them.

And it really, it made me remember some of the experiences that my wife and I have been going through. And it also made me think about some of the podcast episodes that I've been listening to of Dozies.

And I thought, man, I would love to talk to Dozie about his experience. So that's what this little mini series is all about, is just trying to help newcomers as they get themselves or try to get themselves established here in Canada to feel hopeful.

There is hope at the end of the long, dark tunnel that it can often feel like. And you find that hope very often by listening to other people share their stories. So I'm going to try to get Dozie to share some of his story with us.

All right, so that'll be my first question for you, man. How did you end up here in Canada? And where are you from, first of all?

Yeah, you know, first of all, you know what's interesting is that, like I've been said, I need to find someone to record me about my own story because all I've done the past 12 months is just listen to others tell me their stories while I interject to the beat of my hair there.

So like this is actually so excited that I have to get the chance to share my story with someone else. But yeah, I moved from Lagos, Nigeria to Canada 2021. And why Canada? I think it was a mix of a couple of things.

I was at a point in my career where I was just asking myself like, so like what's the next step like what do I want to do next? You know, we had this four year old. It just kind of felt like, oh, you know, there was so much to the world out there in the world to explore, you know, my home country teams weren't exactly going well at that point in time.

And so I just said, remember what I've just said, you know, let's try, you know, let's just try and see like it's there's no harm in immigrating, you know, I mean, if I knew how difficult it was going to be, I would probably, you know, you know, approach the bit more.

A bit more care. I mean, I do think that we did try our best to prep to come though, but you know, that was the thought process was more like, hey, like the country exactly things aren't exactly working as we want it to be.

We think that the world is a much bigger place and there are a lot of opportunities out there. You know, so the question was like, where in the world can we go to and leave and, you know, really explore the opportunities at the same time give our kids.

The chance to future potential, you know, so we say, you know what, let's try kind of so yeah, we apply for the express entry, got into the pool, got invited. COVID did its work later a bit, but then 2021 we landed here, you know, in Ottawa, first of all, actually, before we moved to Calgary.

Yeah, 2022. All right.

So back in La Vos, you said you, what was your career or what is your career?

career. So in Lagos, I was working, I was working by level, working with Diage. So I had spent some time, I was in marketing in Lagos, brand marketing and comms. I had done some startup work then. But as I was planning to now move down here, I started asking myself like, what skill set do I have that I can apply to Canada?

You know, and you just, you just at that point in time, also, you just also felt like, so I was doing in B2C, I was working in B2C most of the time, Diage. So I was doing, I was doing a lot of work with content, you know, and I had also done some, I don't love writing as a kid, I had one, it's a competition as a kid.

So I like to write. So I just have saying, Oh, you know what? Stepping if content marketing is still part of marketing. So maybe that's the that's the part of my skill set that, you know, fits what I can do in in Canada, because it's a different environment, different culture.

So you start asking yourself the hard questions, like, you know, how do I ensure that I transition without having to, because what I didn't want to do, I didn't want to start trying to go to school again, or start trying to learn a new skill.

I was asking myself like, yo, like, what's the skill I have that can work here? And so we turned out was content. So I said, Oh, you know what? While I was in Nigeria, I started, I applied for Miami Art School, got into a bootcamp there.

So I just started trying things that doing courses in content, started trying to do some freelance work just to get a sense of how people over here work, what's the cultural difference, like, what's expected of me, that sort of thing.

And, and then that was pretty helpful. And then the other part also was that, while I was Miami Art School, one of my lecturers, they told me that I should try what they call informational interviews, which is basically just you reaching out to people in the industry going walking and saying, Hey, hey, this is who I am, I'm planning to move to Canada.

I just want to get a sense of what's happening in the industry. Because for a funny reason, if you ask people, can I give me a job? They don't give you a job. If you ask them, give me advice on how to get a job, they're so willing to give you advice on how to get a job.

You know, I, well, I do that too, you know, so. But the interesting part is that when you have those conversations, and you have a really good conversation, you get referrals. Like so, yeah, I before I got into Canada, I had probably done between 20 to 30 of those informational interviews.

Every single person I spoke to, I'll be like, once I'm done, I'll be like, is there someone you can introduce me to that I can talk to. And I built a huge network that way, recruiters, people in the industry.

And so once I landed, you know, it really got it really got me going. Basically, like, it got me going, to be honest.

Wow, that's a really interesting story and a great strategy to follow. Yeah. And how did you get your first interview, your first information interview? How did you find that person?

So what I just did was, because I was in Miami Art School, so what I did was I just went on LinkedIn and just started looking around like, hey, who's in the industry that I know that looks like I want this way, where I want to work in?

And so I would connect with them on LinkedIn, then send them a DM and say, hey, my name is Duzzie, I'm Miami Art School currently. I see you work in marketing, advertising. I'm moving to Canada in the next four or five months and I'm just trying to get a sense of what industry is like.

Would you have like 15, 20 minutes for a virtual coffee chat, just to kind of just ask and just get a sense of what's happening. That's how I got the first two. And I also asked some of my lecturers there and like, hey, I'm moving to the country, I just want to just talk and just get a sense of what the job market's like.

And it was pretty helpful. They introduced me to people and it just snowballed from there. It's like, you talk to the first, once you get the first person, the first three, four people, I feel like you just, like, maybe if you get three, four people, two people, introduce you to two more people and it just keeps on going.

And before I knew I was going on, I was talking to people like three, four, five people every week. Wow. You know, and it was pretty helpful because, you know, I tell people, when we talk about looking for jobs here, I tell people that the reason why it takes you three months to get a job is because it actually takes you about two months to get your story right.

Like, and like I was in my wife, for example, my wife said job hunting when we came, my wife was pregnant. So she got a job. She did some job with a customer service company for a bit. Then we're going to maternity leave the now.

And said, she's a project manager. So she now said, OK, I'm doing maternity leave. I want to start looking for a job. And so when she said interview, and I told her when she was about to get a job, I told her, you know, I said, you're going to get a job soon because when I listen to you talk, you're now clear about the value proposition you bring because it kind of takes time.

It's very, very immigrant. You're not confident yet. You're still on shore. You're trying to get a sense of like what? What was the what? What am I selling? Like, what do I have that I'm selling right now?

And to be honest, some people, some people get it with the first one month. Some people are lucky. I got a job. I got my job. I got a job within six weeks of landing. But I feel like it takes you about three months.

And I probably that why I got the job that fast was because I had spent like four, five months in Nigeria refining the story I was going to tell, you know, going through. I'm saying, OK, yeah, this is the part of my experience that matters to recruiters.

This is the story. This is the skills I have. And this is how because as you talk to people, you get feedback, you know, they ask you questions and that's just went on. And so I got a job in six weeks, but I spent, give or take four months prepping to for the interviews, to be honest.

Right. Yeah. So the.

Where you began working, was that directly a result of one of your information interviews? Like, was that an opening that you found out about?

No, no, that wasn't actually, so I had, like I had a lot of interviews. So I got in, what was I going to Canada? I got like four interviews straight away, all from referrals for my information interviews.

Like, hey, you're in town, oh sure, let's talk. Oh yeah, we're looking for people, that sort of stuff. And then, but I was also applying for the roles at that same time. So the thing about being an immigrant, like the first job that comes, you wanna get a job quickly and just like getting, get going and move.

So the first offer that came, I took it. And then I moved to another job within the month. I mean, apologies to App 8 and stuff.

And was that job that you moved to a result of the interviews and the connections that you have made? Yes, yes, yes.

Yeah, it was it was it was a result of the interviews and collections I had made. I was interested in someone I knew someone I was picking to out in Nigeria. Like, hey, I think you should apply for this role.

Like it looks it looks like it's up your wheelhouse. Yeah. And I applied for that role and I got the job.

That's a really great strategy. I'm definitely gonna be highlighting that in the show notes for people. Cause I think that's valuable cause you don't know, well, you don't know what you don't know. Like when you arrive, you think that the way I look for work in my home country is gonna apply here in Canada.

And it can be very, very different. And like you said, you need to hone your story. I really like that idea. Yeah, I think that that could be very helpful.

Yeah, I tell that to everyone. I'm like, you need to hone your story. You have to hone your story. And you have to hone your story and own your story because like two things that I'll say from an Nigerian point of view, like I think that job hunting is a really interesting process of where two people are gauging how much they like themselves.

Now, the point is that they're looking out for your skill set, but they're also looking at like your energy or like what you're doing to do. Like it's just because you're humans, like we can pretend all we want, but there's a lot of bias and confinial bias going on.

Can I work with this person? Okay, he has the skill. He or she has the skill set, but like do we kind of, do they communicate properly? And that's why I really like your story or doing English and stuff.

Like, do they know how to express themselves and use the right terms and know how to pace and all those things. And when I say hone your story and own your story, it takes you time because I think that immigration is the wildest thing anyone should can do.

Like it is, I think anyone that does it is not normal. I'm sorry, that's what I think. It is the most, it resets your brain completely. You start life afresh. Yeah. It's a wild thing. It's very if you're an adult, you are both 30, 20.

I mean, if you come here as a young kid, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 20, 20, I feel like you, you're just like, oh yeah, I want to have fun. But when you've worked for a while in your home country and you get up and say you want to move to another country, gosh, like it is mad.

Like I think you're mad. I think you're mad. You might mean to try that, you know, a good kind of mad. And so you're dealing with all that, you're dealing with all that energy and all that stuff. And you need to still get a job and start earning and start paying the bills.

Yeah. So that process of just owning the story and honing what you're saying to people takes time, you know. And so you need to kind of practice it. If you or else it'll take you time.

That's great advice. Thank you for sharing that. So you've talked about the challenge of finding work. Were there any other major hurdles or obstacles or challenges that you and your family encountered as you arrived here?

I think we had a really amazing landing. I mean, I have this friend who I'm internally grateful to. His name is Oka, his wife Adanna. Like I'm so grateful to them. We spent two months in their house when we landed.

So that was fantastic. It allowed us to just settle in and start trying to find our way. But I think the part I found interesting was looking for a house. Because it's interesting how people say, oh, immigrants come.

And then when they start job, when they start looking for a house, just asking immigrants, you don't have a credit score. Of course, immigrants have a credit score. Like where am I going to get a credit score from?

I just got into Canada. Like you know the sort of thing. Or like I had this landlord who was who. You know, I wish I could find an image of the questions. Like hold on. Let me find an image of the questions he was asking me.

Because it was so much that I saved it. I was like, I saved it. And I said, I'm going to save this thing for someday in my life. Like because it didn't make sense to us. Like he sent an email to my people I was working with.

He first sent us a really long checklist of questions. And we answered all those ones. Because immigrants, you want to get a job. We had a four -year -old. The baby was on the way. And we were desperate for it.

I wanted to get that sorted out. I wish I could find those questions. I know that I saved them somewhere. But like if I read them to you, it's hilarious. Because I opened it some days ago with my wife.

And we're just laughing about it. We're like the things we go through when we're trying to settle in as immigrants is just interesting. He sent his ask questions like, is does he a permanent worker? Is does he scream at work?

Is he calm? Does he come late to work? Is he? What did he use? Is he dedicated? Is he focused? We had a ton of questions. My boss sent it to me and goes like, who's this? I'm like, it's a potential landlord.

And did you end up staying with them?

Oh, so lucky. Oh, good. Yes, the funny part was that he still rejected us. I thought my answer almost all those questions. But luckily for us at that same time, oh yeah, I found some of them. Can you please confirm that Dozier is employed at your company?

How long has it been working with you? Are there any terms of employment? Is this a full -term position, contract or a trial? Does he come to work on time? What is the general etiquette? Is he professional at work?

How do you like working with him? Has he ever been promoted at work? Oh my goodness. What is the long -term job prospects for him? That's insane. I was just like, yo, I'm just asking for a house. I'm asking for a house.

That's all I'm asking for, a house. Or the ones where we call the person and I tried to go take the high road and only say that they're all between the world who just don't, who have biases and stuff.

But it was just so sad. And it happened twice. And it was actually Asians that did that just twice. You come to say, oh, you're Nigerian and we don't give houses to black people. We got it like two times.

And the interesting part was, which is why I said, which is why I always say to people that, why I think about racism, I think about, I don't say it's a race thing. I say it's an individual issue because the landlord that gave us a house was an Asian.

Ended up being a Chinese lady. But it was an Asian that says, so it was like one of them, we called her. She was like, oh yeah, you want to come in spectrum? Yeah, we're coming to spectrum. She's like, okay, where are you from?

We're Nigerians. She cuts the phone on us. We tried to call the phone again. I'll say the number, you can't reach this number anymore or something. Like basically whether she blocked us or something.

Or the one just goes straight up like, hey, sorry, we don't give black people our homes. We can give you our home. And it can be a lot to take in, but I'm just like, yeah, it was a lot to take in to be honest, but that's life.

I mean, there will be people who meet you and that's how they'll see you. And I just go like, that's okay. Because our landlord, the house we ended up getting, she literally, we just sent her an email saying, hey, we saw your house, we like it.

This who we are. We're walking Nigeria. This how much we were ending back in Nigeria. We're trying to get a home. I have a wife, my wife is pregnant with a kid. We have a four year old and she's like, yeah, she sends us a contract that night.

Please come and take the home. Without, she never met us once. She was living in San Francisco all this while. She never, I never saw her. Like I never saw her. I don't know how she looks. I only saw her husband once on a video call, once.

Right. When we were talking about, when we were about to leave and we were talking about something we need to fix in the house. And so I said to people, like, so that's what I say for me. It's an individual issue, not a race.

So I don't, I want to, I mean, I said Asians, but like I was trying to make the point that those two Chinese people are racist to me, but the person that gave me the house, gave me the house with a Chinese person.

So I'm like, that's just, yeah.

You know, yeah, it's the individual, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. It's the individual. Not the individual.

not the race like oh these people are these people are races now I'm like no it's some people people some humans can be racists yeah humans just tend to always look at the world through a setting filter and that's okay that's who they are that's fine like I don't know what trauma they're dealing with or why did that happen I'll just keep doing my thing

That's right. It's tough though, especially when you imagine you're going to, I mean, Canada has that fame or that reputation maybe of being an inclusive country of equal opportunity where everyone is welcome, where we're friendly to immigrants.

And like you said, you'll find people who are the opposite of them. Just like anywhere else, right? Exactly, exactly. And so how long did it actually take you to find your first home? I'm assuming that where you are now, that's where you, that was the place you found.

No, so we, our first home, this is our second home right now because we move, we live in Ottawa, then we moved to Calgary and then we got a home in Calgary. But the first home, yes, we landed February 4th, 2021.

We moved into our first home April 2nd, 2021. So and then what we got the place like around, I think about the last two weeks of March, it probably took us like about six, seven weeks to get the first to get the landlord that says, Hey, yeah, I'm going to give you a house.

But also before then we had done the total inspections. We had got in stood up a couple of times like, yeah, I remember one that I always remember that one clearly because you know, when I look at my kid, I'm like, yeah, that's part of life.

I went out with my kid and my wife, she's heavily pregnant. It was really cold and we get there and the agent doesn't show up and we're waiting and we're calling the agent agent doesn't show up to show us the house.

And I'm just like, that's life. You know, it's, it's just what it is.

It's so frustrating.

Yeah, it's just what it is.

And did you, you were in Toronto, right? For that one. Ottawa, yeah. Ottawa, yeah. So I believe that Toronto and Vancouver, for example, at least in Canada are some of the most difficult places just because of competition, you know, for the housing market, just to find rentals, you know, it's super hard.

Here in Victoria, where I am, it's also very, very, very difficult to find a place that you can afford. Yeah, it's really tough. And I was wondering when you were hunting for a place, did you encounter like multiple people going after the same spot as you, like having to wade through, or wade through a crowd of people, you know, who are also like in competition for the same spot as you?

Did that happen?

No, I don't think so. I think that I don't think so. Oh, you didn't feel that way to be honest. Like I, there was no time I went to your house. I mean, yes, you would, the landlord will tell you or the agent to say to you that, Hey, that there's someone who's, who's probably, um, who's probably interested in his home too.

But it just didn't feel like there was always a lot of competition. I do think it's worse now. I mean, I think that the past one, the past 18 months have been a bit wild in Canada for rentals and buying a house in general.

Yeah, I think it's worse now. Um, but I think that then it was a bit easier than it is right now. Yeah.

Would you say the same was true about your experience in Calgary?

Yeah, it was the same. Yeah, literally the Calgary house, we got it. We got it from Ottawa. Like we literally got the house. Like in December, we moved in February. So we got the house like two months before.

So it was much easier this time around. We had lived in Canada for a bit, so we probably had credit score. The things. All that stuff.

All that stuff. Just out of curiosity with your first place, when you didn't have all that, like, I mean, I know here, it's common practice here in Victoria, Vancouver area, to ask that the landlord will ask you for references, they'll ask you for credit, credit check.

What, how did you make it through that first round when you didn't necessarily have that locally anyway? Yeah.

So what we just told, we told Lani did that, we just give her like, we'll pay her two months advance and so we don't have credit like yeah but we'll pay you two months, we'll give you two months advance to keep and then we'll we'll move in and so that's what happens.

She's like okay, that's fine, that works for me and so we pay for your move.

Well, thank you for sharing your experience of finding your first places to live in Canada. That can be an unexpected journey. And like what you say, I think that it's gotten more difficult as time has gone on.

I know in Victoria, when we were hunting, like when we were looking for a place to rent, we, I remember showing up to one place and I kid you not, there was at least 25 other people waiting. Oh gosh.

Yeah. Waiting to go in for an appointment to see the place. So the competition is fierce. And it is really tough.

As Wild.

Yeah, and that's a common experience that I've some of our friends have told me the same thing you know crowds of people trying to get into the same spot and Yeah, not easy not easy All right next my next question for you is what would you say?

So you arrived in Canada in? 2021 you said yeah, okay, so in the Three plus years almost four years that you've been here Your greatest victory

Well, it's three years. I'll be three years in a couple, in a month. There's two plus years. Yeah, it's three years. I, you know, the greatest accomplishment for me is just being, so because Canada is very different from Nigeria, in Nigeria, we had helps and stuff.

So I wasn't exactly close to my kid. I think my greatest win here is that I'm much, much better than my kids now. Yeah, I think for me, like, that's the greatest thing, to be honest. Like when I look back at this past three plus years, is that I know my kids much better.

And that's just, and that's one thing immigration did for me, because coming here meant that I had to let go of all the trappings of the life I had back in Nigeria, having the house help, having a nanny who could help take care of the kid and now have to be on the wife, have to come, have to come together and do that ourselves.

That also meant that I'm now more invested in what's going on in the home and a much closer to my son and the second one that came here, so that we get better here. I'm like, to be honest, that's the biggest win for me.

I mean, I know that's not what everybody says, but for me, that's just the biggest win.

Yeah. Well, that's amazing. What a win to get, hey? Out of all the wins you could think of, that's an awesome win. And one that could last for as long as you do. Exactly. Right? You create your legacy.

Yeah, exactly. For me, like that's the, because for me, it's, I feel like the one of the best ways to change the world is to really great kid, you know. And so for me, it's like just being able to be there for them and because I work from home and drop them at school or daycare and spend time with them and play and all that stuff, you know.

Yeah. It's, it's, so that's for me, like that's the most fulfilling thing, you know, because I was thinking about it this morning. Yesterday we went out with the seven year old and then we got to the wall matter.

He's like, he's like, let's go to the book section. So taught him to read and he reads by himself now. And so he picked up a Minecraft book and I said, okay, I'll get that for you. And he starts to read and walk around and my wife is, and I'm like, stop doing that.

My wife is like, no, just let him be like, you know, you know, happy that your son likes to read so much that he can't, he can't, he's, he gives me a book and he wants to get through the book instantly.

I'm like, that's actually true. You know, yeah. Like, so it was like, oh yeah, like he loves to read, like, oh gosh, he's reading. Because you're like, if you love to read, like, there's a lot of things that can come good for you in the world.

Oh yeah. Yeah.

I want to be mindful of the time here for you, but you came with English being... That's your first language, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we already talked about how accents can play a part in the experience of immigrating.

Even if English is your first language, you know, that can be an issue. Have you experienced anything unexpected with related to your use of English and the accent and how people engage with you or disengage just because of how your accent is?

Yeah, I think I think they had two sides to it. I think I'll do what I see it from two angles. I mean, there's people that people who have said to me, you need to kind of slow down when you talk. And it was kind of the more and it was at a workplace.

It was kind of demoralizing to hear that. You can slow down when you talk and you know, and also again, you've also kind of, I think what happens at some point, you adjust a bit because you could switch as an immigrant.

You kind of could switch every now and then and you adjust. But then that part of just trying, the those statements like, oh, can you just talk a bit slower? I can't hear what you're saying or, oh, you have an accent.

Your accent is pretty interesting. Your accent is pretty funny. You know, those sort of things. When I hear those ones, I just find them funny because I'm like, oh yeah, I could actually say it's same to you that your accent is pretty funny too because everyone has an accent.

Like, so why is mine the funny one? But I think as I've gotten older and also been here longer, I just, I'm at that point where I just say to myself, like, I'm just going to talk to why I talk. I'm not going to try to adjust for anyone, you know, just because the other person is not just for me too.

So why should I adjust? You know, why do I want to take the mental payload of trying to adjust my accents? Like, I'm just going to talk to why I talk. It's just what it is. It's who I am. It's part of my identity, you know?

Yeah. My kid, my kid has an accent. He speaks like, he's always an actor from Nigeria and he speaks like, he speaks like, he doesn't speak like us, but that's him. Like, and that's okay because he's a kid.

And he's came here much younger than I did. You know, so it's just, it's all those, those things happen. That haven't happened in a long time. But yeah, I think the first time I heard it, it was pretty demoralized to hear that, to be honest.

It just almost like, oh yeah, like, you know, could you just talk a bit slower? Like, someone says like, oh, I think you need to go and do speech coaching or something.

What? Oh, that's so annoying.

I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do speech. I'm gonna go to the speech coaching. Yeah, I'll do speech coaching.

So when you heard that, did it kind of slow you down? Did it make you feel like maybe I should just be quiet? Or did it kind of?

At some point, yes, at some point, it did slow me down. At some point, I did stop fucking at work.

Yeah.

you know, at some point I did stop talking at work. I just, I was, I was scared of kind of saying stuff because he just felt like I would stalk and know and hear what I'm saying. And I would second guess myself all the time because I'm trying to pick the right words or the right accent.

You know, so I'll just keep quiet and talk.

Yeah. Did you feel like you were trying to be a bit like invisible?

Yeah, it felt a bit that way sometimes where you just feel like you, like you just don't, you just don't know what to say. You, you, you want to talk, but you're like, if I talk, like they might not hear what I'm saying properly or, you know, this is just, I struggle with that a bit to be honest.

But then at some point I just go like, you know what, it is what it is. Yeah, I just have to be myself. And if I say, it doesn't hear me, you can ask me, what did you say? And I'm going to repeat myself again.

That's right. When someone was, and I don't hear someone, I'm like, sorry, I didn't get what you said. And this is like, you piece themselves. And like, so just don't need to kind of wallowing self pity or just say, oh, I am, I'm less of myself.

But to be honest, yeah, it can be a struggle. Sure. Yeah.

And I would say that you're probably not alone in that. I think that it's a very common experience. I know my wife has it all the time. Or like even now that she's been here for, we've been here for eight years almost, but especially when she used to work in retail and she would often have customers that are just individuals, like what we said earlier, individuals who just did not have that social emotional sensitivity, I guess you could say.

And they would just kind of shut down whenever they heard her speaking. And she doesn't, to me anyway, she doesn't seem like she has a strong accent. I know she does, like you say, we all do. But I think that people hear an accent and if they're not mentally prepared for it or if they've not experienced something like that before, they have the tendency to just shut down and think, oh, I don't understand this person.

And you can't get past it. An easy way through it. And that can be so discouraging, as you say, because you came thinking, I speak English, I know English. And then I'm going to an English speaking country.

So what's the problem? There's no problem. I don't have to learn English, I already know it. And yet there still are these little speed bumps that you have to go over from time to time that can really set you back.

So yeah, it's important to prepare ourselves, I guess, for those things to push through. Because in a way, did you find that people took you seriously at work because of the accent thing? Like I heard, I think it was on the CBC or something like that the other day, I heard just a fragment of an interview.

And I should look and see if I can find it again. But the person was saying that a person's accent can shape the way the listener perceives you. That they can either, they'll either think that you're really interesting and they'll want to lean in and hear more from you.

Or the negative one, and probably the more common response is to kind of lower how they see you. Like your ideas don't matter as much, or maybe you're not as intelligent as other people, just because you can't pronounce or express yourself in a more exact way or in a way that's easier for them to understand, did you find that happening to you at all?

I don't know. I'm not sure. I didn't just, I think the thing about me is that I, like I can deal with self -pity and self -doubt, but it doesn't change how I see myself or stuff I do. I don't, I just, what it looks like.

I try to focus on what I can control, which is myself, but I try to fix that. The other person, I don't care what you think. Like you can go do whatever you want to do. I'm going to find my way. Um, you know, but I, it kind of makes sense, you know, why it feels like sometimes you talk to immigrants and they say to you that they feel like they have to walk two times harder because they need to prove themselves.

You know, they need to prove that they can do it or they know what they're saying or, you know, they need to defend themselves. You know, that sort of thing. Yeah. They get second checked every single time.

Oh yeah. Can you, can you, can someone just kind of, hey, Isaac, I mean, so, X, can you take a look at what this guy is doing and tell me if he makes sense? Like, and you're like, yo, I'm the one who's the expert in this field.

Why are you asking someone else to sense check my work? You're not asking me to sense check his work. Like, why are you doing that all the time? Um, but you know, biases are pretty interesting because people don't know when they do them.

You know, they just do, they just do them and they just do them and move on. Um, you can talk about aggressive, they just do them, you know, but again,

That's who you are.

Yeah, exactly. Just play these and you just do your best with what you have and focus on what you control. What you can control.

That's right. Okay, Dosey, my last question is, what would you say has helped you the most in establishing your life here that maybe you could pass on as a piece of advice for someone who is trying to get themselves started on their journey to immigrating to Canada?

I think two things, one, if you're looking to get a job in informational interviews, you know, I think the second thing also is that I think you need a community. I'm all for, you know, coming to a new place and experiencing the new place.

But I also think you quickly need a community of people and the alignment could be different things. The alignment could be that you guys love games or you guys love soccer or you guys love something or it could be people from your home country.

But you need a community. You need that community because you need that place where your mental payload goes down. You just kind of stop thinking about, you stop trying to adjust or fitting. You're just there.

Because the thing about being an immigrant is that you're always trying to fit in. You walk into a bar, you're like, okay, how am I doing this right? Is this how to move around here? I'm already too many, like, example, I walk into a bar and I'm like, oh yeah, there's no black, there's no colored person here.

I'm already colored person here. Or you get hired and you wonder, are you a diversity hire? Those are real questions. Yeah. You know, those are real questions. So you need that place where you go and you're just you.

You're not the immigrants. Right. You're just yourself and you're just finding yourself. Yeah.

and you're accepted.

Yeah, exactly. Yes, accepted for who you are. Nobody's trying to set on guess or just you're just yourself and you're not thinking too much about everything that is going on around you. I think everyone needs that.

Absolutely. I agree wholeheartedly with you.

Yeah.

Yeah, you can't do it alone, at least not well. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay, well, Dozy, thank you so much for sharing part of your morning with me and for sharing your story with us. It has been a treat to get to know you a little bit.

I really hope that we can do this again sometime. Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, so if someone, and I hope that someone was like really interested in your story, if someone wanted to connect with you, what would be the best way for someone to follow you?

I'd say send me a DM on Twitter. Dozya and Yebuna, Twitter. LinkedIn also, dozya and Yebuna. I think those are the fastest places to get me. I always respond. I'm not a snob on there. I probably wouldn't.

I can attest it.

that you responded to me and that was a stranger to you.

I don't tweet a lot. I don't post on LinkedIn all the time. I post when I have something to say, but one thing I would do is someone who's out to me and it's a genuine connection. I would definitely respond to it by saying, like, hey, yeah, yeah, what's going on?

See.

All right, so I'll definitely be posting those links in the show notes so someone can find them and hopefully connect with you. And definitely once again, this is a little promo for your podcast, the Newcomers podcast.

Look for it. If you're new here to Canada, you've got to listen. You'll be glad you did. Dossy's a great interviewer and he tells wonderful stories.

I've also got a lot of interesting content coming down. Like I'm so excited for this year, all things we have coming down the pipeline to be honest. But yeah, looking forward to those who come and listen and give me feedback.

Awesome. Well, thanks, Dozy. Thank you for your time.

So, thanks a lot.