The DP pecking order

Of the various DP tribes, all of them naturally assumed that they were at the top of the pecking order.

And depending on where you went in the land, they might have been right.

Once you got west of Thunder Bay your Bohunk peoples pretty much ruled the roost. East of Thunder Bay it was the Germans who had primacy. All across the land the Pollacks secretly believed that they were in fact the most important immigrant group, but they kept it secret for fear of getting beat up by the Krauts in the east and the Bohunks in the west.

Relations among the DP populations were smoothed over largely because that rising tide of post-war prosperity was indeed lifting all boats. That's what enabled every new wave of DPs to take root in the promised land.

Persons displaced from Viet Nam and Laos and Ethiopia and Somalia, to name just a few.

Canada has been a veritable riot of DP immigration.

It is standard modus operandi for the groups already settled to shit on the latest wave of newcomers.

The most virulent racism against immigrants from India and Pakistan back in the 60s came not from the anglo population but from the Krauts and the Wops and from Bohunks of all stripes.

Hey, at least we were white!

Over time, and due at least in part to that rising tide, ethnic divisions eventually gave way to class divisions.

Many a DP labourer from whatever ethnic background found their way into one of the construction trades. I'm told that to this day it helps to speak Portuguese if you want to prosper in the cement finishing trade in Toronto. Ditch diggers morphed into excavation contractors. Excavation contractors became infrastructure providers. A few of them became billionaires.

As the little guys became big people, they realized they had more in common with other big people than with the little people of their own ethnic group. And that's a beautiful thing. That's why the Toronto Star can now regularly showcase the children of immigrants in its flattering coverage of Toronto's fund-raisers and philanthropists. You'll see the second and third and fourth generation spawn of Jews and Germans and Italians and Iranians and Hungarians and you name it who all reaped the manifold blessings of life in the new land.

Proving yet again that an Italian billionaire has more in common with a German or an Iranian billionaire than he has in common with an Italian labourer.

But that's not news.

Nor is the fact that every DP making their way in this land, no matter where they stand on the socio-economic ladder, has at least one ethnic group they can still look down on.

The Canadian Indian.

Alzheimer lottery; the luck of the draw

My mother had two brothers. Both of them came of age in DP camps in Denmark after the WW II. Then their paths diverged.

The elder one found a millwright apprenticeship in Switzerland. Plied his trade at the Degussa works in Rheinfelden for a few years. Came to Canada in the mid fifties. Gave General Electric the rest of his working life. Welding inspector. Spent his days inhaling the same toxic stew every day that I did. In fact, we worked together for a time. He's into his eighties now. Sharp as the proverbial tack.

The younger brother took a scholarly turn. Breathed a more rarefied air. Had a great career. History professor. Delivered learned papers at symposia in Geneva and Heidelberg and Tubingen. Wrote books. Took early retirement because of the dementia snapping at his heels. Today he sits in front of the TV, talking to Colonel Gaddafi.

I'm at an age where I'm wondering. I've been to the Alzheimer Society's website. They've got a top ten list of symptoms. I can see all of them. Then again, I'm pretty sure I could have seen all of them thirty years ago if I'd been looking for them. So I don't know what to think. I'm hoping the toxic welding fumes that inoculated the elder brother might have worked their magic on me too.

But on a bad day I'm pretty sure I can hear it sniffing round my door.