Somar & Co.: An Immigrant's Pocket Guide to Assimilation by Alya Somar

Alya Somar is a Guyanese-Canadian writer from Mississauga, Ontario. She holds an Honours Bachelor's Degree in Creative Writing and Publishing from Sheridan College, and is currently undertaking a Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph.
She shared this piece with Living Hyphen at the Peel Art Gallery, Museum + Archives to honour the stories of finding (or not finding!) home, community, and belonging in Peel Region. This storytelling gathering was in anticipation the new exhibition Stories of Home: Finding Community and Belonging in Peel, which examines the newcomer experience in Peel and Canada. As hyphenated individuals who call the nation-state of “Canada” home, but who also have roots elsewhere, we invited storytellers to explore their migration journey and how it felt to lay roots in Peel.
Living Hyphen is a community that explores what it means to live in between cultures. Our mission is to reshape the mainstream and turn up the volume on voices that all too often go unheard. Learn more at www.livinghyphen.ca.