From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Estonians/Karl Aun
The Estonians who settled in Canada before 1939 had no hope, nor any real wish, to maintain Estonian cultural patterns; they wanted to assimilate socially and culturally as quickly as possible. A handful contributed to the culture of Canada, including the artist Oscar Daniel de Lall, who settled in Canada in 1924, and the seminary professor Eduard Aksim, who was in Canada from 1900. The settlements of rural Alberta left little imprint on the surrounding culture. Most of the second generation moved to the city and were quickly absorbed into the mainstream of Canadian culture.
Post-war immigrants, in contrast, wanted to “remain Estonian” and formed strong and cohesive ethnic communities. During the early decades after the war Estonians abroad had a strong desire to foster the culture of their Soviet-occupied homeland. They formed Estonian associations and participated in cultural activities. They idealized the way of life of pre-war Estonia, which became the measure of life in their new lands. Many Estonian immigrants saw Canada as a vast but undeveloped country, with sparsely inhabited countryside, unkempt farms lacking orchards, dirty railway stations, and sloppily dressed people; it lacked facilities for amateur sports, loved “American materialism,” and measured everything in dollar terms. Social etiquette, they felt, was either clumsy or artificially refined and self-consciously snobbish. Canadians supposedly were interested only in professional sports, neighbourhood gossip, cars, and economic life, while Estonians discussed world and European politics, about which Canadians seemed either uninterested or uninformed and naïve. However, Estonians found Canadians uniformly friendly, helpful, and completely lacking in prejudice.
Alleged cultural differences reinforced the value of Estonian society and organizations, especially when the workplace could not afford full satisfaction. The older the immigrant, and the less proficient in English, the more separate the two spheres became. The most committed “dualists” spent a great deal of time and effort building Estonian organizations in Canada. Dualism preserved both status and mental balance; for example, a former member of parliament in Estonia, now a maintenance man, was still treated as a parliamentarian within the community.
Paradoxically, strong ethnocentrism led to a drive for economic and professional success. Thus the community created the myth, and operated on the assumption, that an Estonian was successful in Canadian society mainly because he or she was an Estonian. The community demanded that children remain Estonian but that they be outstanding in school simply because they were Estonian. Though it sneered at “keeping up with the Joneses,” catching up with other Estonians in material goods became normal, and with other Canadians in status almost a moral imperative.
Age, domicile, and marriage influence language retention and transfer to English. In 1971 a still comparatively high 79 percent of Estonian Canadians reported Estonian as their mother tongue; ten years later the figure was 68 percent, and in 1991, only 53 percent. Among younger groups, over the decades, two-thirds had English as their home language; only in Toronto have youth-oriented Estonian organizations and cultural activities – essential to language retention – emerged since the 1970s.
It is only in endogamous marriages that the home language becomes the mother tongue of the children. About two-thirds (68 percent in 1986) of Canadians of Estonian origin under the age of forty are married to non-Estonians (as compared to 5 percent of those aged 65–74). In Toronto only about half of those under forty are married to non-Estonians. Statistics for Canada and for Toronto show a relentless trend towards exogamous marriages. In the post-war Estonian community in Canada, generational conflict took on the overtones of a community of political refugees. Estonian activities were intended to preserve a culture, keep patriotic spirit intact for a return to the homeland, and create a new generation ready to do the same. Many community leaders, however, overestimated their ability to influence the next generation. Young people who grew up in Canada could not be expected to devote their energies to the nationalist cause like their elders, or master the language perfectly, or to marry only Estonians. “Relapses” out of “Estonianness” were soon noticed and deplored, and young people and their parents blamed. As time went on, fewer and fewer youths joined the adult-oriented organizations, and a number eventually disappeared from ethnic activities, only to reappear some years later as passive spectators. In smaller communities, the principal organizations became more and more dominated by the same older people.
In the 1960s personal contact with people from Estonia produced another kind of problem. A few residents of Soviet Estonia were permitted to travel or visit their close relatives abroad, and a few Canadians visited relatives for short periods in Estonia. Estonian central organizations in Canada, however, proscribed any visits to the homeland or meetings with visitors from Estonia. They considered contact of any kind to be a validation of the Soviet regime, and feared that such contact would lead to pragmatic acceptance of the occupation and thereby undo the community’s virtual unanimous revulsion against the occupation. Despite the ban, visits and contacts gradually became more common. Many young people returned from Estonia more anti-Communist and anti-Soviet than they had been before. But the trips also stimulated their interest in Estonian culture, both past and present, and they brought back news of an unusual cultural revival in Estonia. The rearguard now claimed that the changes in Estonia were illusory and merely Soviet propaganda. At its peak the controversy over contacts with the homeland split the community. Though the diehards in Toronto still dominated the main ethnic organizations and influenced the Estonian-language press, they could only condemn, but not prevent, exchanges. The changes in Estonia could be denied, but the denials rang false. This controversy increased awareness of ethnocultural matters, especially among the young.
The Estonian group in Canada is too small to reproduce itself, and there does not seem to be any significant new immigration of Estonians. The original immigrants established a facsimile of the culture they had left behind and operated as an identifiable community. The refugees by the 1960s had become good Canadians but remained Estonian in socio-cultural habits and value systems. Gradually, the younger among them began to place their talents at the service of the host society and assimilated culturally. The 1970s saw significant changes in both the attitudes and the composition of the community and the emergence of Canadians of Estonian background, that is, people born and brought up in Canada who consciously pursue Estonian ethnicity.
Such individuals realize that Estonian culture can flourish only in Estonia, where active development takes place, and they make a special effort to read or speak Estonian as a second or third language. In the 1990s these people will dominate ethnic organizations and activities in Canada. Most younger Estonians can now be identified as members of the Estonian community only by their surnames. Nevertheless, many have also pursued Estonian folk dancing, music, literature, art, and folk art.
The advent of glasnost in the 1980s facilitated increased contact between Estonians in the homeland and those in Canada. As a result, however, Estonian Canadians soon came to the realization that they had been changed by their residence in Canada, just as culture and language had evolved in Estonia during the same period. Similarly, many choirs visited Canada, and the singers stayed with Estonian-Canadian families. The earliest choirs received an extremely warm welcome, but, with an ever-increasing number of troupes arriving, the novelty wore off and often attendance dropped.
Estonian independence has not led to major resettlement. A very few younger professionals have returned for a while to the homeland: from patriotic fervour, out of obligation, to rediscover a culture almost lost, but mostly out of curiosity. Salaries, however, are minuscule; most returnees rely on prior savings or a family stipend. Canadian grants have allowed many to work in Estonia. For the original immigrants, the long separation has been alienating; children and grandchildren in Canada provide strong emotional reasons to stay.
While ethnic organizations and activities will continue, the unifying goal of restoring an independent Estonia has disappeared. Canadian organizations are attempting to influence Estonia’s development, but with decreasing effect. The loss of a singular purpose will greatly change the community’s cohesion. The community is at a crossroads, and a new uniting force must evolve if the community is to survive.
