The emerging reality of rural Alberta reflected in the diversity of students’ faces


S By TIM KALINOWSKI


ixteen-year-old Anna Zynyuk came to St. Joseph’s Collegiate in Brooks almost a year ago from Ukraine. Like so many recent immigrants in Brooks, Zynyuk and her parents came to the city in search of a better life, even if it meant leaving family and old friends behind.


“It’s just very hard,” explains Zynyuk, “because my mom talks to her mom every day because she just really misses her. And my father’s mom got in the hospital. What if she had died and I couldn’t even get to say good-bye? It was really painful. But, thank God, she didn’t.”


Zynyuk admits she is still getting used to the idea that her life is now in Brooks and her old life is so far away. She knew some English before she came to Canada and this made the transition a little easier. It’s been more difficult for her mom.


“My mom hands me the phone a lot and says: ‘You speak. You speak.’ I always go with her to the doctor’s appointment. At work she works with her hands and doesn’t have a chance to talk to people, and those around her doesn’t really speak English too. So she always tries to get me speak English at home.”


She is very glad to have so many friends at St. Joseph’s who are in a similar situation to herself. Forty per cent of the school population of St.


Joseph’s speaks English as its second language and it’s even higher in the adjoining K-6 Holy Family Academy at 58 per cent.


For Zynyuk, who loves math and cheerleading, having a school where people come from so many different backgrounds makes her feel like everyone around her understands how hard it is to move to a new place so far away from home.


“It’s good to get to know different traditions here, not just Canadian. There’s a Filipino. There’s African. There’s like Spanish guys — there’s lots of people. And you feel like at home still because there’s lots of different cultures and you just cooperate and have fun with each other. It’s awesome.”


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www.brooksgolfclub.ca 104 | 2013 REPORT ON SOUTHEAST ALBERTA


41110441•03/26/13 41110658•03/26/13


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