{"id":35772,"date":"2025-01-30T17:32:34","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T22:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=35772"},"modified":"2025-01-30T17:32:38","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T22:32:38","slug":"immigrant-experiences-come-to-life-at-aurora-public-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/immigrant-experiences-come-to-life-at-aurora-public-library\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigrant experiences come to life at Aurora Public Library"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Erminia Tonnelli emigrated to Canada from a small village in Italy, aged just 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A difficult journey for anyone, regardless of age, she rose to the occasion \u2013 or, as her husband, Sholom says, \u201cate challenges for breakfast.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having passed away in 2017, it\u2019s left to Sholom Wargon to tell her story as a new Canadian, and the masticated challenges that popped up in her path. But he\u2019s also sharing the story of so many others who came to Canada from so many different places \u2013 for so many different reasons \u2013 in The Immigrant Story, a new installation that opens February 1, at the Aurora Public Library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Designed by Wargon, the installation focuses on the words of each immigrant as they tell their stories. Representing nearly two-dozen countries, they may have come from a variety of nations and cultures, but are united by the drive to seek a better life for themselves and their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 2018 and 2019, I had a major exhibition as a tribute to her entitled, \u2018My Invincible Wife: The Erminia Tonnelli Story\u2019 which was well-received \u2013 and I thought for my next project, I could do something that would allow other immigrants to tell their stories. There are about 82 stories now in place and growing and we continue to add stories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he developed the ever-evolving installation, Wargon sought out stories from his friends and colleagues in Toronto. As he says, \u201cToronto is the melting pot of the world, or close to it,\u201d so he had myriad experiences to draw upon. He also reached out to other professional writers for contributions, many of whom had previously published on the lives they had led.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are always surprises and new twists,\u201d he says of the collection process. \u201cThere are certain ongoing themes that present themselves [such as] people overcoming obstacles. For someone to come across an ocean, which is usually the case, that\u2019s a big deal. If I have to drive to Hamilton, it\u2019s a big deal \u2013 and I have to make sure I have an energy drink in the car! People often came with no money, often without knowing the language, so it\u2019s a big deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur platform is open to people from all walks of life, all ethno-cultural religious backgrounds. The only real criterion is they immigrated to Canada at some point, or wherever the story is about. It could be a family member, it could be a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another criterion, perhaps one that is a bit unusual for an exhibition like this in our current climate: no religion or politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re focused on what happened to you before you came to this country, what happened on the way to this country, and what happened after you got here,\u201d Wargon explains. \u201cIt\u2019s basically starting your life from scratch, those common threads that are often interwoven in the stories. The funny thing though is the people who feel like they haven\u2019t gone through really significant obstacles in their mind, they\u2019re not escaping from war \u2013 they often say, \u2018My story is nothing special,\u2019 but that\u2019s not true. Everybody\u2019s story is special. It is my job as the writer to ferret out the interesting details.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Libraries, he adds, are often great places for installations like these because they allow him to \u201cferret out\u201d details from those who come to absorb the stories of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s that magic moment when someone says, \u2018I want to be a part of this\u2019,\u201d he says with a smile. \u201cI even had someone come up and say, \u2018Why isn\u2019t my story here?\u2019 and I love that. I want their takeaway to be that everyone has a story and everyone\u2019s story is interesting, riveting, compelling \u2013 whether they were born in this country or whether they emigrated. This all goes back to my late wife \u2013 I owe it to her to tell the world what a great person she was and just about everything I have in my life right now that\u2019s good is because of her. That\u2019s how it started, but it has evolved and I\u2019m always super-excited when I get a story from a country I haven\u2019t yet covered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition will be in place in the Colleen Abbott Gallery, and in other parts of the Library complex, through to the end of March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wargon plans to attend the exhibition regularly throughout its run and, on February 27 in the Library living Room, he will be part of an Artist Give Back Talk and Q&A from 7 \u2013 8.30 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erminia Tonnelli emigrated to Canada from a small village in Italy, aged just 13. A difficult journey for anyone, regardless of age, she rose to the occasion \u2013 or, as her husband, Sholom says, \u201cate challenges for breakfast.\u201d Having passed away in 2017, it\u2019s left to Sholom Wargon to tell her story as a new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/2025-01-30-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9iY","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 07:54:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35774,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35772\/revisions\/35774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}