Shastri Sookdeo

Shastri Sookdeo currently lives in France and was born in Canada to parents from Trinidad and Tobago. His prose can be found in The Write Review, Saltfront and Thoughtful Dog. Read more at Shastri’s personal blog: About a Lot of Things.

I possess a Canadian passport. I am the only member of my family to have ever held this passport. My ownership of this passport is largely a matter of luck since I have lived outside of Canada for most of my life. I was fortunate enough to have been born in Toronto when my parents were living there and despite moving back to Trinidad at a young age, I remain a Canadian citizen.

Citizenship and passports are linked but not: it is not necessary to have a passport to be a citizen. For the majority of my life, I have had only one passport. My Trinidadian passport was first issued to me at the age of twenty-one despite my having been a Trinidadian citizen my whole life. If one only counted passports, then I was just Canadian.

There are three ways to become Canadian. To be a Canadian by birth, which the category I fall under is perhaps the only category other than some cases of descent that allows one to be Canadian without spending a lot of time on Canadian soil.   Being of Canadian descent still has citizenship restricted to one generation born abroad (children of a Canadian born abroad are not automatically Canadian).  And to become a naturalized Canadian, in all cases, even by marriage, means spending some time in Canada.

Undoubtedly being Canadian is not the same as being a Canadian citizen. Someone who has grown up in Canada as well as being born there may make a moral claim to be more Canadian than I am. They might well be right. But this is subjective. Someone with two parents who are both Canadian citizens may make the claim to be more Canadian than someone with one Canadian parent or parents who immigrated and hold permanent residency. People with dual citizenship may be seen as less Canadian (as Bills C-6 and C-24 both reference loss of Canadian citizenship for dual citizens, this view can sometimes go all the way to the top). People who can pass the citizenship test are be seen as Canadian enough to obtain citizenship, or else why would it exist?

However, these measures are all arbitrary and none has any real claim on whether someone is more or less Canadian in terms of identity. However, a Canadian passport is not arbitrary. It is a declaration that the government of Canada recognizes the holder as a citizen.

Passports are usually, in my experience anyway, a document needed just at airports. My current passport is full of stamps and visas and prior to my last trip to Morocco via Italy, I have never had my Canadian passport questioned. That I have a Canadian passport and my reasons for having one are obvious as both my passports state that my city of birth is Toronto. In fact, when travelling on my Trinidadian passport I have had British and Indian border officials ask if I had the Canadian passport too (though they didn’t ask to see it).

However while entering and exiting Morocco as well as entering Italy upon returning from Morocco, I have been questioned as to what my origin is and where my parents or grandparents are from. From having never had such questions posed to me, to having it from three separate border officials in five days, was quite a strange experience.

For the officials who asked about my background, Trinidad and Tobago was not an illuminating answer. Even after showing them my passport, I was then asked about my grandparents and if their origin was from India. Trinidad and Tobago is a small country and I don’t expect that everyone has heard about it, even the people who work at border crossings. But it seems bizarre that even when given two passports, an official still feels the need to inquire about distant family origins.

Of course, I am indeed a Trinidadian of Indian descent and this is obvious by my names and (apparently) by my looks. When I confirmed that my great-grandparents were from India to the Moroccan officials, I saw them write “Origin: IND” on my landing and exit cards. This is incorrect and since a border crossing is concerned with the people that enter the country and their nationalities, this is a fundamental mistake.

It brings two things to mind: why does my origin matter at all and of what relevance is it to border crossing? The expectation is that my passport will be checked and the only possible reason that the question of my origin could be relevant would be to confirm whether I had another passport. But after this confirmation, any other questions about background would have been irrelevant as I confirmed I only had two passports.

Which Canadians would have not been asked about their origin? Logically, it would be the vast majority of Canadians that would face such questions since most have origins from abroad. Yet, somehow I feel like Canadians of European descent may not be asked where their origins are from when presenting a Canadian passport. I may be wrong about this. I hope I am, if only for the sake of consistency.

The second thing I considered is at what point my Indian origin will cease to be relevant or become superseded by me being Canadian or Trinidadian. I am of Indian descent, certainly, and much of my life has links to India such as religion and culinary tradition. But these links are historical and have little to do with India as a country. At a border crossing, all links to India as a nation, are tenuous. I have been to India only once in my life and my parents and grandparents have never visited. The country of India is as foreign to me as any other since the Indian-derived traditions in the Caribbean have evolved to become distinct from those still practiced on the subcontinent. I have no issue with being linked to India, either as country or a place of origin. But I don’t believe that it is relevant for border agents to know my family background is Indian when the last person in my family to hold an Indian passport left India more than 100 years ago.

These Moroccan officials may have been following a policy of checking of origins and this may be something unique to the country. Italy, however, is part of the European Union and it’s also a country I’ve been through many times. The difference, this time, is that I entered the country from Morocco and was in the non-citizens line with many Moroccans. It is perhaps this that set up the situation, so that I could be asked what I consider to be one of the most ridiculous questions ever posed to me by a government official—“How did you get this passport?”

After I stated I was born in Toronto, I was then asked if I had a Moroccan passport also. At this point it became clear that I was mistaken for a Moroccan citizen by the Italian border guard (in Morocco though, no one ever thought I was Moroccan. The vendors yelled the words “India” and “Bangladesh” at me). I stated I was not Moroccan and I once again had to explain my family background was Trinidadian and then Indian, since he had no idea where Trinidad was.

Now, I was less bothered about having to explain my background as a clarification but more by the fact that the need for this explanation comes from a place of supposition. By looking at me, assumptions were made and in this case it was the assumption that I was Moroccan which then needed to be addressed and explained.

Looking at people and making guesses about their background is fairly common, of course. There is nothing wrong with being mistaken for Moroccan or Indian, of course. But to make such assumptions is outside of the scope of the role of border guard. The passport given, should be checked against records and confirmed as valid with the valid entry clearance. Any other assumptions about the background of the holder of the passport are completely irrelevant and shouldn’t be aired. Maybe later at the bar the officials can talk about which Canadian they wouldn’t have guessed was Canadian. But at the border, my ethnic origins are not up for any kind of relevant discussion.