Marriage certificate of Len’s grandfather, Leonardo Abate, and grandmother, Lucia Maria Volino – 1913

The story of Canada for the past 150 years is, for me, the story of my family.  My great-grandfather on my mother’s side, Giovanni Abate, came to Canada with his brother a few short years after Canada was officially ‘born’.  They came from a small rural community in southern Italy called Laurenzano, in the region of Potenza in the province of Basilicata.  They came looking for a better life than was available for them back home.

Shortly after arriving in Toronto they found work with the construction of the Trans-Canada railway, and were assigned to a crew operating out of Thunder Bay.  My great-great-uncle became the foreman of that crew.  One interesting note from his time there was that he lost an eye in a raid on the party by local indigenous people.  The man lived to be 97 and, in testimony of the high esteem in which they held him, his workers continued to visit him in Toronto up to his death.

The wedding of Len’s mother, Lucille Abate, and father, Pascal Altilia, 1941.

So my family, or at least that side of it, has been a part of the Canadian story almost from the beginning.  My father’s side of the family came a little later, with my grandfather Giacomo and his brother Nicola arriving in 1899 to settle in Toronto.  My parents met and married in Toronto in the 1940’s. The family has lived through all that Canada has experienced, the prosperous times and the challenging times, the successes and the failures.  

Len’s mother, Lucille, with her mother, Lucia, and brother, Leonard, on her wedding day in 1941.

As an immigrant family we have been integrated into Canadian society, which means that we have absorbed the Canadian culture, sometimes without even realizing what that involved.  While we proudly celebrated our Italian heritage our parents were diligent in ensuring that we became Canadian first and foremost, even to the point of avoiding the use of the Italian language in our home, something I have always regretted.

Unfortunately, one of the consequences of the cultural absorption, of becoming Canadian, was the unreflective development of all of the prejudices of the dominant white European culture in which we grew up.  So we were taught by the world around us and even in our own home to look down on Indians and blacks and Pakistanis, and anyone else that wasn’t like us, and to accept without question that this was the right way to think.

Len Altilia, SJ

As I have grown older I have been forced by experience and by my faith to examine those prejudices and to acknowledge with humility and repentance how I have contributed, often unwittingly, to the pain and suffering, to the humiliation and oppression of other human beings who, like me, have been created in the image and likeness of God.

However, with that knowledge, as uncomfortable as it is, comes the hopeful realization that change is possible, that reconciliation and reformation is a real and legitimate expectation for the future.  And so I look forward to the future of our country with optimism that we as a nation of diverse peoples can grow in appreciation of our differences and can find a common ground of mutual respect upon which we can celebrate and promote all that Canada can become.

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All photos courtesy of Len Altilia, SJ.