Leah Buchholz
Leah Buchholz: Canadian By Chance
On this 150th year in Canada’s history, I stand in awe as I look at the fabric which weaves together this nation. Here is a country where an orphan like myself, someone without a family, genealogy, or even a name is given the chance to pursue her dreams.
In truth, it is by chance that I am Canadian. At the onset of my life in my orphanage, the entirety of this world could have been home. Through shuffled files, errant inquiries, and headshots sent across the Pacific, my profile landed with a Canadian family based in Vancouver. It is this which set in motion my life’s trajectory. After 4.5 years living in my orphanage, I was jet set to began a new life in an unknown world. My singular piece of luggage was a backpack which housed my change of clothes and packed all the hopes, dreams, and love of my birth mother. After a 13 hours and 8,154 km, I disembarked and peered into Canada not knowing what incredible adventures awaited.
To be adopted as a near-preschooler is very different than as an infant or toddler. For the first months of my life in Canada, I quietly listened to the world around me while the phonemes of Korean were slowly eased and rewritten in English. My Korean name, Ah Kee Chung, faded as I learned my English name, and along with it, a new lexicon, new customs, and a new place to call home. Slowly I understood that the cabinets would always have food, that there were toys to call my own, and that the 10 pound Lhasa Apso named Sushi was not a beast to be terrified of, but an adorable companion who loved to sleep under my bed. In my room, she slept and together we navigated this new life in Canada.
To my adoptive family’s credit, they loved camping when I say loved it, I mean relished every summer they could peering from a tent or our Dodge Grand Caravan. While my peers’ summers were spent lounging on the beach, mine were made of bon fires, frosty mornings, noise makers to ward off bears, and hikes deep into the woods. This was how we traversed from Vancouver, north to the Yukon, further north to Tuktoyaktuk, east across the Territories and west back home through the Prairies. I was given a front row seat of this incredibly stunning country and saw how diverse the flora and fauna. I feel so lucky to call this breathtaking land my home.
While growing up I observed a different world for my aunt with severe cerebral palsy. Hers was a world wherein her lack of speech created a contract life, one which was vastly smaller than the intellect and light within her. Her muted voice reduced her agency to advocate for herself and be heard. This was unjust and led me to pursue my first career as a speech-language pathologist in hopes to give voice those who are voiceless.
While working as a clinician in Vancouver, I witnessed some truly incredible moments in people’s lives. It was then wherein I saw transformations unfold, patients with aphasia learning to speak again, children with autism connecting with their parents, and those with cleft palate to finally being intelligible.
Language is one of the defining properties of who we are as humans, how we connect, how we make meaning of the world, and how we preserve and share histories. During intervention, I saw technology transform patents’ lives and giving them new mediums for being heard. As incredible as it was, perhaps I saw pieces of myself from when I was learning English. I was reminded of the challenges of learning new norms and communication and how hard it is to fit into a foreign world, just as my patients were learning how to fit into their new lives. Speechlanguage pathology will forever be in my heart. It was the profession that showed just what a gift it is to speak, to have language, and to be heard.
As a listener, I have experienced the profound impact that words can have. When I was in my 20s, I met the Lieutenant Governor General of British Columbia Honourable Iona Campagnolo at an awards ceremony. During the event, she said, “Canada needs you.” These words echoed deep within me. They reverberated within my core for they demonstrated that here was a country that saw me, an orphan from a distant land as an asset. This in part led to founding my first non-profit organization, the Asian Adult Adoptees of British Columbia.
As an adult, I sought to learn about my Korean heritage. Part of these lessons included eating Korean food. As I dove into dishes of kimchi, and various stews, I scooped the sticky rice onto my chopsticks only to find it tasted familiar. Somewhere deep within my cortex my tastebuds remembered these flavours and where my life began. I became a student of Korea, diligently learning what most children absorb through osmosis from their parents. I read about the Korean War which precipitated the mass migration of international adoptees, the traditions and festivals, and tried to immerse myself in a culture that was now foreign. During these self-imposed studies, I observed that the voices of adult adoptees were absent from the adoption triad. There were few resources for adult adoptees to learn their history and roots of belonging. Once an adult, adoptees are absorbed by their world and with this, our histories are erased.
With the words of the Lieutenant Governor General Campagnolo resonating and the taste of my past life in Korea lingering on my palate, I dedicated myself to providing adult adoptees in Canada a place and space to find their roots with the Asian Adult Adoptees of British Columbia, (Triple ABC). Triple ABC was Canada’s first international adult adoptee organization. It was through this community that adoptees were able to reconnect with their histories in Korea, China and Vietnam. These countries were no longer foreign lands on their adoption paperwork, but real, tangible entities with histories they re-learned, cuisine they re-tasted, and roots that they reformed. Triple ABC continues to provide a place for individuals grow and integrate their histories with their present lives.
Through a wayward series of events and a dash of chance, I met Senator Yonah Martin. Senator Martin became an incredible supporter of the adoptee community and I remain thankful for her presence and support. As the years unfolded, there was an opportunity to join her office as Legislative Assistant during the review of Canada’s health care accord. Having worked as a clinician in Vancouver, this opportunity provided the chance to apply a clinical perspective to her study in this role. As much as I loved the individual impact that I was able to have on my patients and the adoptee community with Triple ABC, I thought that perhaps I could contribute further with federal policy.
So, I uprooted my life, bid the familiar streets of Vancouver and rhythm of the ocean adieu. It was hard to leave my patients and amazing colleagues but I was fuelled by optimism and the hopes of bringing change and adding a new voice within the federal government.
Starting a new career in a new city is no small feat. The days were long and work was staggering in politics, but I was in awe that I was within Parliament. The stone steps were worn and warped, each undulation telling the history of those hallowed hallways. There lay 150 years of stories that the walls and rooms held of world leaders, treaties signed, bills debated, and dreams made and broken all within the Parliamentary precinct. Here was Canada’s history, etched into the tunnels and furniture, recited in the protocols and procedures, and embedded in the House of Commons with opposing party seats positioned ever so precisely two sword lengths apart.
Through chance and luck, this orphan was able to have a seat within the heart of Canada’s Parliament. My time in Ottawa was incredible, punctuated by challenges and breathtaking moments. During those years, I not only helped to pass legislation in healthcare, immigration, and industry, but also met the Dali Lama and the President of Korea; heard from leaders across industries; and took the most photos for tourists than I’ve taken in the entirety of my life. In sum, it was an incredibly accelerated lesson of Canada, government and governance.
At times I was reminded of just how recent it was that someone of my demographics was welcomed to work there. My final role in Parliament was as a Parliamentary Affairs /Policy Advisor in the Senate Leadership Office. I was the first to sit at that desk as a female minority. It was a beautiful office complete with plush red carpets and an ensuite. Within the ensuite was a medicine cabinet and as though to remind me of just how new I was, there stood a sticker labelling a shelf for “razors” in that bold, brash Cyrillic font. As a rebuttal, I lined my lipsticks in a row on that shelf, as though to respond that my voice, one which echoes so many others in Canada, is here.
During my time in politics, I reflected on how a government can create the right setting environment to give everyone the chance to succeed, to engage, to learn, to be healthy and to be fully present in their communities. I thought more about the entire landscape of this incredible country and the citizens within it. It made me see that there are ways in which we can encourage dialogue and communication and see the many pieces of the mosaic that contributes to our vibrant whole.
Again, this insight made me turn to my community and ask, “in what ways were new immigrants not being given the same chances to succeed in Canada as my peers with generations before them?” Creating opportunities, services, and programs which provided this were the foundation of my second non-profit organization, Hanway Society. A new generation of immigrants were given the chance to connect with mentors across various fields, to see and walk the hallways of Parliament, and to have the chance to connect and learn from community and industry leaders. It was an opportunity to have people within the community help them to find their voice and place of belonging and become part of this countries present and future.
After 3 blurringly busy years, the familiar winds of change beckoned that it was time for a new challenge. As though to assure me that the timing was right, my final week in politics included the Parliamentary shooting in 2014. As one of the many individuals on the Parliamentary precinct, I can tell you the unknown was scary. The event also served to remind me of how much chance has played into my life. It was chance that paired me with my adoptive family, enabled me to learn the beauty of language that led to a career as a speech-language pathologist, and meet the Japanese tourists who happened to be visiting Parliament to see our history and unknowingly become part of it.
Of all the days to visit Canada’s Parliament, they chose to come on this historic day wherein the very core of our democracy was challenged. It was an odd feeling, that sense of limbo while waiting in the holding room, not knowing what may be outside those double doors. We watched the news, as they watched us in this inception-esque tango. I sat and played with with a little girl part of the Japanese tourist family visiting. I sensed that this must be even more terrifying for the family with little English and being in a foreign country. Finally, we were cleared to evacuate the premise. Before the little girl left, she threw her arms around me, gave me a huge mini hug while shouting up at me, “I love you!” At that moment, I was so proud and warmed. This is my Canada, a place where people come together even in times of fear and uncertainty.
While working in the government, I saw a focus on innovation and technology. This, coupled with my previous life as a speech-language pathologist and witnessing how my patients’ lives were transformed with innovative technology led me to the start-up community in Toronto. Since entering the tech ecosystem, I’ve seen its incredible growth. As someone who grew up in the age of dial-up internet, brick cell phones and pagers, it’s truly phenomenal to see the birth of autonomous cars, 3-D printers, and innovations in healthcare. Working in tech has enabled me to have an impact at scale while still touching individuals’ lives. It’s been phenomenal to witness the digitization of our lives. Despite the technological revolution, at the heart of all companies are its people. The employees are the ones writing each line of code, innovating new operations and procedures, and creating the future in which we will live.
As a coda to my childhood and camping across Canada, earlier this year in coordination with Canada’s 150th, I was invited to the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference and visited the Prince Edward Island, the final coast I’d yet to see. When I received the invitation, I was in awe that someone like myself could be given the chance to even be present without corporate sponsorship or other designation. There I was, slated to see the Charlottetown, the birthplace of Confederation. It was incredible to learn of our history, though imperfect, demonstrates the wayward path of a nation moving forward. In my conversation with the Lieutenant Governor General of PEI, Honourable H. Frank Lewis, I asked him what he thought the future of Canada would be and he replied, “I don’t know.” It struck me. In our entire history, we’ve never known. From the fathers of Confederation, to the social worker who shuffled my adoption paperwork through, no one knows what the future holds. All we do know is that we are moving forward.
It was as though fate led me to the this country, the syllables of which comprise the first three letters in the Korean alphabet, Ka.Na.Da. The opportunities Canada has afforded to this orphan are not lost. With each breath and turn and each chance extended, I am ever thankful. Thankful that here is the country that became my passport, the land in which I call my home, and where I look to the future and how I can help to make the next 150 years brighter and even more welcoming to those who are missing a voice.