Canada

Sarah’s Immigration Story – Ottawa, Canada to Terlingua, Texas

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Family

Sarah’s parents were born in the US and met in Watertown, New York – right across the border from Canada. Her mom was a young reporter for the Watertown Daily Times about to go study at Harvard, and her father was a new graduate of Columbia’s journalism program.

“My dad waltzed in with his big-city look with bell-bottoms and platform shoes. He was the new editor.”

Sarah’s grandmother did not like her 18-year-old dating this 25-year-old. They dated that summer and then Sarah’s father moved to Sudbury, Ontario to work in radio and television. After Sarah’s mother graduated from university she joined him and got a job at the local Sudbury newspaper. 

Above: Sarah, age five, with her older sister

Sarah’s parents moved to Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, and had Sarah, their second child. When she was three, they moved to Toronto, Canada’s largest city. While in Toronto her father founded YTV, a popular children’s TV channel. When Sarah was 12, the family moved from Toronto to the nearby suburbs of Oakville.

Trash Talking Canadians

Looking back, it bothers Sarah how so many Canadians “talk trash” about the US. She felt defensive from a young age as a daughter of Americans. Sarah wanted to ask those critiquing the US: “what do you really know about America?” For example, Canadians like to pretend that they are more environmentally friendly than their American neighbors. In reality, Canadians just have more space, but individually, they still create just as much pollution.

“Canadians spend so much time looking at what’s going on in the United States and laughing. They don’t stop and look at what’s going on in their own country.” (audio below)

Above: Sarah with the same electric guitar she has had since age 15 [left], & Sarah, her two siblings and parents in 2006 [right]

California Dreaming

Sarah’s childhood dreams transitioned from being an astronaut, to an archeologist, to camp director, and then a teacher. The one dream that stayed consistent was for Sarah to one day become a professional singer.

In fourth grade, Ken Whiteley, a Canadian roots music legend, visited her English class and helped the students write and record songs on cassette tapes. 

“I was already making songs and singing them to my stuffed animals, but that was the first time I realized it was a job!”

Sarah picked up the guitar in seventh grade and couldn’t stop writing songs. She dreamt of moving to California to perform.

“Singing is instinctual. It’s definitely therapy. It helps me understand things. If I’m writing a song, I might start with a problem and by the end of it have a solution. It’s mostly about feelings and relationships and experiences – difficult situations mostly.” (audio below)

University

Sarah studied English Literature and Film Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, thinking she would one-day work in film. The experience wasn’t as expected. Sarah didn’t connect with her profs, and it was clear it wasn’t what she wanted to do. Despite not liking her degree choice, she did enjoy the extracurriculars. Sarah worked for a poetry magazine and helped organize local concerts.

Open Mic

Sarah went home for the summer to Oakville to serve in restaurants. One of her coworkers had recently graduated from a prestigious music school. After hearing some of Sarah’s songs he dragged her to a busy local cafe’s open mic night. Sarah, 21 years old, hadn’t performed in front of a crowd since an eighth-grade talent show, but she got up and sang. When she finished everybody clapped.

“It was the most exhilarating performance of my life.”

After that Sarah played some shows at university pubs but she still didn’t believe that she could make a career of music.

Above: Sarah in the shack where she lived when she first moved to Terlingua

Backpacking to Busking

After graduating from university, in 2004 Sarah had saved up enough from waitressing to go backpacking Europe. Along the way, Sarah waitressed, had a desk job, and even worked as a preschool teacher.

Sarah figured that when the trip finished, she was going to return home and start a career. In the back of her mind, she knew that music was what she wanted to do, but she had never done it to make money. She decided to see if she could make money with her music on the streets of New Zealand. With a ukulele and a borrowed guitar, Sarah went out in Auckland to busk.

“Being originally a very shy kid, it was always the most terrifying thing, but I would fantasize about it as a kid. I would have to sing my way to make money to buy a train ticket to get home.” (audio below)

Soon enough, she was making more money in the streets than all her other jobs. Sarah started hitchhiking around New Zealand, busking on the road during the day, and sleeping in a tent at night. She even stayed in a commune for a bit.

Flailing Around

Sarah returned to Canada and enrolled in a music program at Seneca College. After graduating she “flailed around trying to figure out how to work as a musician.” Slowly Sarah started to make a living by touring and in 2010 she booked her first tour to California. After the tour, life wasn’t going so well: Sarah had a bad breakup, she put out a record that didn’t sell, she threw her back out at her waitressing job and played shows while in pain. She was depressed and struggling to make ends meet financially. Sarah decided that she needed to return to the US to tour again.

Sarah thought about how nice it would be to find a small town in a warmer place where she could plant some roots. She wanted to own a house – an impossibility in Toronto. A friend recommended that she check out Terlingua, Texas, so Sarah booked a gig at the Starlight Theatre for her tour.

Above: Sarah performing an acoustic version of her song “Desert Sky”

Moving South

It was April 2015 when Sarah first arrived in Terlingua, Texas, also known as, “Ghost Town”. 

“I got out of the car at the Starlight, and I thought, ‘I’m finally hot enough!’ ” 

After that tour, she returned to Canada and started looking online at buying land in a warmer climate. She finally decided on Los Angeles. She was thinking she had to be in a big city if she was going to make it in music. 

The plan was to save up money bartending in Canada, return to Terlingua, chill out for a bit, and then continue to Los Angeles to live. But Sarah didn’t make as much money as she thought she would bartending- it wouldn’t be enough for first and last month’s rent in LA. Still, she got in her minivan and headed south, unsure how she would be able to afford life in California. 

To make financial matters worse, Sarah got robbed right after crossing the border. While she played her first show in Detroit, someone broke into her minivan and stole her acoustic guitar, laptop, and hard drives. (audio below)

Change of Plans

Despite the robbery, Sarah arrived in Terlingua in 2016. She still planned on only being there for a month before moving on to LA. Sarah lived in her minivan – a friend built her a bed in the back. She booked a bunch of shows, and before Sarah knew it, she was working three jobs.

“I needed the money, and there was a lot of work here. In this town, if you are willing to work, there is a job for you.” 

She decided to stay longer, work, and make money, still thinking she would go to LA. Then she met a guy and started thinking; maybe she didn’t need to leave Terlingua.

“Not to be a super cheeseball but happiness was something I was on a quest for. I never felt truly happy, and one day I was at brunch, and I was like, ‘I’m actually happy! I finally get it.’ To access it, I had to travel all over North America and find this little town.”

Terlingua

Sarah describes Terlingua as a hot, dusty, old mining town at the foot of Big Bend National Park. It’s a place with an eclectic mix of people: Mexicans because it’s close to the border, “wanderers”, “artsy types”, “lost souls” and, of course, tourists.

“It’s hard to say politically where the town stands, but everyone seems to get along.” (audio below)

Sarah explains how some people “hermit” in Terlingua – people you would never see on the porch of the Starlight (a regular gathering spot). 

“Most people come here as far as I can tell because it’s a place you can start something from nothing. The house we’re in is a combination of a historic rock building and a bunch of garbage. There are a lot of places like that here.”

My Land

Sarah ended up buying a little five-acre plot of land on the outskirts of Terlingua [see the above photos].

“They aren’t making any more land, so it’s good to have some. If all else fails and shit hits the fan in my life, there is a place I can go to that’s my own.” (audio below)

So far, Sarah has made the driveway of her home by hacking the creosote – a plant that has solid roots – with a pickaxe.

“It’s quite the experience digging up creosote. It’s a good workout and good therapy. I took out rage I didn’t even know I had, building that driveway!”

Guns

“I know someone in this town that has held a gun to a person’s head for no reason other than being drunk and mad. That’s not cool. It is a gun culture.”

Many if not most people Sarah knows in Texas have guns. She remembers going on a date once with a guy in Austin who wanted to show her his gun collection. It felt incredibly uncomfortable for a first date. Sarah isn’t against guns when used safely for hunting or recreation. Her dad, a US army brat, grew up learning about guns. When Sarah arrived in Texas, she did some shooting with hunting rifles “that felt appropriately hard to use”. What she finds scary are these tiny handguns that are so easy to use.

“You have this militant nation where everybody is ready to shoot. It’s really scary. I don’t think people need to have their guns taken away. I also don’t think anybody needs a semi-automatic weapon. If you look at what other countries have done after their mass shootings and you can statistically see fewer gun deaths, it seems so obvious.”

Still, she sees things starting to change in the wake of recent mass shootings. She knows of one local guy who took his automatic rifle, destroyed it, and put the video on youtube. Still, Sarah finds the topic of guns a hard thing to talk about with people around Terlingua. (audio below)

Future

Sarah hopes to build a house on her land in the future. In the meantime, she will continue playing music, traveling, connecting with people, and trying to make music that has a positive influence on the world. 

Sarah says she used to be an activist, but found herself exhausted, broke and ineffective as an activist and a musician. Today she tries to live by the advice of Canadian-born singer-songwriter Neil Young who during an acceptance speech at the Junos told young artists wanting to create change to focus on their music first. He said they should try to reach as wide an audience as possible, and then think about what cause they wanted to work towards. At that point, their message will be a lot stronger.

*Update: Sarah moved back to Canada due to the Covid-19 and work no longer being available in Texas. Still, Sarah is building her house in Terlingua. She plans on dividing her time over the coming years between Canada and the US. To find more of Sarah’s work visit her website.

#FINDINGAMERICAN

To receive updates on the book release and exhibition of “Finding American: Stories of Immigration from all 50 States” please subscribe here. This project is a labor of love and passion. If you would like to support its continuation, it would be greatly appreciated!

© Photos and text by Colin Boyd Shafer | Edited by Kate Kamo McHugh. Quotes are edited for clarity and brevity.

Thierry’s Immigration Story – Le Mans, France to Pasadena, California

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Le Mans

Thierry was born ten weeks early in Le Mans, while his parents were visiting his grandparents, but raised in a suburb outside Paris. To keep it simple, when people ask where he is from, Thierry tells them Paris. 

Once a year, Thierry and his three siblings would visit one set of grandparents in Le Mans and the others in Les Vosges. The maternal grandparents in Les Vosges had a farm, and he loved picking blueberries there. It was the same farm his mom and her eleven siblings grew up on and were fed by. He considers himself lucky to have had a “boring happy childhood”. He started going to sleepaway “holiday camps” in the summer at age five and bicycling to school alone when he was only six. His parents encouraged his independence. 

Thierry’s mom worked in management for French telecommunications, and his dad worked for Air France. He actually started with the company as a carpenter, at a time when planes contained wood! The perk of his job was that the family could travel a lot. They weren’t wealthy but were never in need of anything. 

“I guess because I was flying all the time, I didn’t feel like borders were a thing. I always felt like I could take a plane and be somewhere else.”

Canada

At 18 Thierry moved to Quebec to go to university and be with his first girlfriend, a Canadian. Despite how Canada is commonly perceived, Thierry didn’t find Canada to be as welcoming a place. He also found it unusual that he had to do a French test – and barely passed with a 60% – even though he is from France!

It was in Canada while studying that he started developing an interest in photography.  Thierry’s first photographs were landscapes inspired by Canada’s natural beauty. Thierry got a “real camera” and attempted some portraits. The first portrait he felt looked professional was of a little child he spotted looking out the window when he was at his brother’s wedding in the South of France [see the photo below].

When he was 20, Thierry and his Canadian girlfriend broke up. All of his friends in Canada were connected to his ex-girlfriend, so he decided it was best to move back to France. For the next five years, he lived in Paris, researching in a lab, pursuing a Ph.D. in cancer research. The fact that his father was battling cancer heightened his passion for the field. Sadly, all of this time in a lab meant less time with his father who was dying. He found it hard to stand the 60 hours a week inside in a lab environment and was happy when it was over. At age 25, with a Ph.D. in cancer research, Thierry decided to switch careers and become a photographer.

Photography

Thierry already spent so much of his free time on photography and wanted to see if he could make a career of it. After his father passed away Thierry left France and traveled with his camera to Brazil, Thailand, Morocco, Japan, China, and even spent a few months traveling in the US. The first time he went to Los Angeles, he fell in love with the weather and the people. He also thought it was the perfect place for him to work as a photographer.

“I knew there was something different for me in this city. It was the place to be for me. I felt very stuck in France. I knew it would be a challenge because everyone is a photographer or model here.”

Above: Thierry’s father was particularly fond of Russian cameras. Thierry found this one in Thailand, as it felt like something his father would have used had he been a photographer. 

Thierry can’t see himself in any other career – photography is his way of expressing himself. Thierry’s late father always loved photography. Thierry knows that his father would have loved to be a professional photographer. For someone who started working as a carpenter at 14, it simply wasn’t a realistic career option.

“I feel like photography is a mission, not only for me but for my father, to do what he would have loved to do. I hope he is proud of what I am doing.” (audio below)

Scientific Approach

Thierry feels like, in a roundabout way, his studies in the sciences are useful for his work as a photographer.  

“I still have the scientific approach – trial and error, and statistics. The way I photograph, I think about the physics of it. A lot of people take photos in a very experimental way. I think in many ways, my knowledge of physics allows me to do a little less trial and error.” (audio below)

All those years studying and researching for his Ph.D. taught Thierry discipline, a quality he believes he needs as an artist trying to live from his craft.

Above: Young Thierry dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

Misconceptions

Thierry has found that Americans often think the French hate them, and if you go to France, you shouldn’t mention you are American. He thinks this is wrong.

“We fantasize about the US, like how the Americans fantasize about France.”  

A lot of the French TV shows he watched during his childhood were just reproductions of American shows. The French government had to create laws making it mandatory that radio stations play a certain quota of French music or else it would be all American. Thierry believes that if a company is “American,” it will succeed in France. 

“Even though Starbucks is the worst coffee, it’s American, so people in France go there. We have much better coffee in Europe than that, but it works. There is a fascination about America, and I think it comes from after WWII they were seen as our savior.” (audio below)

Despite this fascination, Thierry never imagined himself living in the US.

California

When Thierry first moved to the US in 2014, he moved to Orange County, California. In 2017 he moved to Pasadena, a city northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Thierry thinks LA is a city you either love or you hate, and having a normal job is anything but a nine to five. He also thinks it is a place where if you are good at what you do, you can succeed. 

“What I like here compared to France is that if you are good, people will give you a chance. In France, they like what you are doing but they already have a photographer. People aren’t willing to change unless there is a major problem like the photographer died or he’s blind. People here are more open to change and to try and experiment. It is more performance-based. If you bring them more money, everything is good.”

Most people Thierry encounters in LA work in the entertainment industry, but most of them also need to supplement their artistic endeavors with another job like bartending.

“It’s very easy to get lost because a lot of people are doing five or six different things. There are so many distractions and events going on. It’s easy to be at events every day.”

Los Angeles is a city where people from outside the US, and people from inside the US, migrate. Thierry knows it is more diverse and open-minded than most places in America.

“In Temecula Valley, two hours from LA, I was doing a photoshoot and I made a wrong turn. I stopped to make a call on my cell phone and someone came out of their house with a shotgun. ‘Get off my property, or I’ll shoot!’” (audio below)

Relationships

Thierry and his ex-wife [see the photo above] didn’t meet on a set, even though she is a makeup artist, and he’s a photographer. A friend of a friend introduced them, thinking they would get along. Thierry knows that his career can be a challenge in any relationship. 

“It’s very hard to be a photographer and be in a relationship, no matter if your partner understands or not. Last year I did ten publications in Playboy [see the photo below]. It’s not necessarily easy being in a relationship when you do that.”

Daughter

In 2017 Thierry became a father. 

“I discovered what unconditional love is. With my daughter, I can’t even imagine, no matter what she does that I will not love her. There is this deep connection, and it changed my life.” (audio below)

Thierry reflected on his finances after having a daughter.

“I changed from whatever comes is good; to now, I need to make money and feed my kid. Before having my daughter, I would accept a lot of unpaid jobs. Since then, I have focused on my need to make an income.”

Photography an industry where people are always trying to push to pay you less. Thierry is invited regularly to events, where people think he will take photos and share them for free. Now he is straightforward about it; for his daughter’s sake – he needs to be paid.

“You don’t invite your dentist to your house and expect them to fix your teeth!” (audio below)

Green Card

Thierry’s green card came through marriage. He can’t believe the complexity of the process.

“There is no one that wants to move out of their country unless they have a very good reason for it. Either they are fleeing something, or they are aiming at something specific like me. It’s much more comfortable for someone to stay where they are. I don’t think that crazy strict regulations on immigration are a good thing. One of my hopes for the future is that emigrating will be easier, and ideally, borders would be a thing of the past.” (audio below)

Nutrition

Thierry loves cooking healthy natural foods. 

“After my dad passed, I started being very health conscious because I didn’t want to be on the same path. His cancer was very related to food. I think, for the most part, most cancers are related to lifestyle. Even things like smoking are not even close to being as bad as having bad eating habits.” (audio below)

Thierry wants his daughter to know where her food comes from. When he was young, he did. His grandparents were raising about 30 rabbits at any time, and that was the main meat they ate.

“I remember seeing the rabbit, playing with the rabbit, then you take a rabbit, you skin it and you eat it. To most people, it seems really rough, but to me, it made me appreciate it. I would never waste any meat because this was something that was living.” (audio below)

Future

Thierry is busy doing commercial photography, weddings, running a studio, working as a director of photography for TV shows, and he has even acted in a few. Despite all of this work, his number one priority is his daughter. 

Thierry feels a sense of duty to expose his daughter to as much of the world as possible. He believes a lot of the world’s problems stem from peoples’ lack of exposure and knowledge. Traveling and experiencing different cultures and ways of life was one way that Thierry thinks he became more empathetic to others. The more you travel, the more you realize that people have the same basic needs. 

“When you meet a family from a country you had a misconception about, you see that no matter what, they love their kids and would do anything for their kids. Anywhere you go, you will see that people love their kids and would do anything for them. My hope for the future is that we raise children that travel more and understand other cultures and are empathetic to others. I think that the new generation is more open. I’m hopeful for that.” 

Borderless World

Thierry likes to believe that we are moving towards a better world – that people are starting to see how “hard borders” are creating more problems than they are solving. It makes sense to Thierry that if it is incredibly hard to get from Mexico to the US, once someone does, they are going to stay because they paid so much money and went through so much trouble to migrate in the first place. If it were easier, like it was in the past, people would come and go, back and forth. (audio below)

Thierry believes that just because someone is born in a certain country, it shouldn’t give them any more right to be in that place. He dreams of a borderless world for his daughter’s future.

#FINDINGAMERICAN

To receive updates on the book release and exhibition of “Finding American: Stories of Immigration from all 50 States” please subscribe here. This project is a labor of love and passion. If you would like to support its continuation, it would be greatly appreciated!

© Photos and text by Colin Boyd Shafer | Edited by Kate Kamo McHugh. Quotes edited for clarity and brevity.

Jonathan’s Immigration Story – Kitchener, Canada to Las Vegas, Nevada

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Childhood

Jonathan was born in Kitchener, a city he describes as not the nicest place, but also not the worst. Jonathan’s mom ran a flower shop, and his father sold parts for transport trucks.

“My childhood was great. We were poor, but I didn’t know it. I was given a lot of free time to create. Since I wasn’t able to get all the fancy toys, I would make them. I was content with that because I didn’t know better.”

Dreams

“When I was very young, one of my dreams was to fly. I have vivid memories of me walking, and I would be stepping on air. I wanted to fly, and I wanted to do something amazing. I’ve continued trying to be part of something amazing.” (audio below)

When Jonathan was just three, he became a fan of Michael Jackson, and by six, he taught himself how to moonwalk.

“Down by my house, there was a video rental store with one copy of ‘Moonwalker’ and one copy of ‘Thriller.’ Every week I would rent them, and it was a seven-day rental. I would bring them back, and that same day I would rent them again. They let me do that for a year and a half, then finally they said, ‘just keep them.’ I ended up burning through ‘Moonwalker’, though. I played it so many times it melted and got stuck in the VCR. Those movies I would watch and rewind and watch and rewind to teach myself. I only started dancing when I was 14, so I had a lot of years of just watching and copying.” (audio below)

Dance

Every year Jonathan would ask his mother if he could take dance lessons, and each year the answer was “maybe next year.” He didn’t know it at the time, but his mother was afraid of the teasing her son would likely endure if he took up dancing – and she didn’t know if he could take it. Finally, when he was 14, his mother gave in. Two years later, Jonathan went to study under the choreographer Sheila Barker, who took him under her wing, and to whom Jonathan refers to her as his “dance mom.” She was the biggest influence in his dance life and pushed him hard. “If Sheila made you cry, that meant you were something special.”

Dance came easily to Jonathan. When it comes to learning movement, Jonathan says his brain is like a sponge. It was everything outside of dance that was a challenge.

“I gave up hockey and baseball to dance. My uncles teased the crap out of me. I was known in my family as ‘fairy boy.’ The joy I get from dancing always outweighs whatever I was getting outside of it.” (audio below)

Assumptions

From Jonathan’s experience, the assumption for any male who pursues dance is that they are gay. Canadian society, when Jonathan was young, wasn’t as progressive and accepting as he likes to believe that it is now.

“As soon as I started dancing, they would push me around – they’d beat me up. For my grade eight graduation, my mom came to pick me up, and my friends spit on our car because I was dancing, and I was gay, a fairy boy. They spit on our car – my friends I had grown up with!” (audio below)

Jonathan had been dancing for one year when he decided to go to Eastwood, an art-focused high school in his hometown. Being around other artistic kids fed his drive, but still, he wanted more.

“It was whipped cream topping, but I wanted the whole cake.”

Immediately after high school, Jonathan got a job at an amusement park called Canada’s Wonderland, performing as Michael Jackson. When he looks back on it, he realizes how they were taking advantage of him. He did thirty shows a week and was receiving meager pay. Still, he loved it. He was so busy he forgot to eat. When his mom came to visit, she was furious. He remembers her taking him straight to the grocery to buy frozen meals. Despite the intensity, he still loved it – the freedom of being away from home. “It was one of the best jobs I’ve had, period.”

Ship Life

After that summer of dancing, he got a job on a world cruise. Jonathan had no idea what he was getting into. He had never been on a cruise ship, and the work schedule was intense. Jonathan was 18, very eager, and much younger than everyone else. He felt disliked right away and found himself in a toxic, bitter cast. It was his first experience of “the ugliness of the performing world.” He remembers how on his birthday, a fellow cast member stepped on his head on purpose and knocked him out during a show. He spent his birthday night alone, getting phone calls every hour from the doctor to make sure he was awake.

“Ship life is not for everyone. You are in confined quarters, surrounded by the people you work with. You can’t get away. ”

Still, there were positives to the experience – he moonwalked at age 19 on the Great Wall of China!

After the experience on the ship, Jonathan returned to Canada and started dancing in Toronto. He secured a part in the pantomime Aladdin starring the famous wrestler Bret “The Hitman” Hart – someone he was a huge fan of as a kid. In 2005, after living in Toronto for three years, he moved to New York. His best friend’s father, who had recently passed away, left Jonathan money in his will to be used for dance training. Jonathan’s agent didn’t like the idea, and looking back, Jonathan realizes how harmful this decision was to his Canadian dance career.

“I was a face in the Toronto dance scene, and I fell off the map.” 

Jonathan believed that a year studying in New York at the Broadway Dance Centre would turn him into a “different dancer”. When he arrived, he realized many of the classes were beginner level, and some of his classmates had never taken dance before. Jonathan started skipping class because of how useless it felt. He liked being in New York, but this wasn’t what he was looking for.

A Close Call

In 2006 he went on a cross-Canada tour with the Aladdin show. During this tour, Jonathan collapsed during the show and woke up with concerned people surrounding him. Jonathan tried to brush it off, but that night he couldn’t see, his head was pounding, and he couldn’t sleep from the pain. Jonathan tried to pretend to be feeling better. He went to the doctor, who told him not to worry about it.

Jonathan returned to New York to train and received a call from his mother. She said the stroke clinic had been calling the house, wondering why he hadn’t been to his appointment. The malformation in his brain looked like damage from a stroke. Although the tests came back negative, Jonathan had a severe migraine six days a week and was throwing up regularly. He has a malformation of blood vessels, and if he has surgery, there is a 60% risk of losing some of his motor skills. 

“You know I’m a dancer, right? That’s not an option.”

The focus became treating his migraines rather than surgery. Still, the doctor warned that by the age of 50, Jonathan could have severe issues with day to day functioning if the condition worsened. After this scare, Jonathan got serious about his health. Luckily the malformation hasn’t grown, but Jonathan knows that it could at any point. (audio below)

Above: “That shock I had at 25 and being told I had lived half my life. I need to remind myself that time is fleeting. The only guarantee in life is that you are going to pass away.”

After his medical scare and suffering from severe migraines, he had his first experience at “a regular-person job.” Jonathan worked at his hometown grocery store, stocking shelves on the night shift. He lasted three months. 

“As a performer, you perform on stage and can hopefully bring joy and a moment of escape for the people watching. Stocking shelves, you work so hard and come in the next day, and it is like you weren’t ever there! ” 

Las Vegas

Jonathan received medical clearance to return to dance. After once again working on a cruise ship, he decided to try his luck in the USA. In 2009 Jonathan drove down to Las Vegas to work in a Cirque du Soleil show. Upon arrival, they told him he was no longer needed, as the person he was replacing was staying in the show. Jonathan had moved his whole life to Vegas for a job that didn’t exist.

“It’s always a series of unfortunate events it seems for me, but I always try to make the best of it.”

While Jonathan was trying to find any job to pay the rent, he went to an audition his friend suggested. He was surprised when they asked him if he was willing to trim his leg hair as a requirement to get the part, and although Jonathan still didn’t know anything about the show, he agreed. Soon after another person walked in, introducing himself as “Cher”, and informed Jonathan, he had auditioned for Divas Las Vegas, a drag show. Jonathan became one of six male backup dancers to the performers. (audio below)

So You Think You Can Dance

In 2009 he auditioned for So You Think You Can Dance Canada. He hadn’t prepared anything and made up a solo right there on the spot. It was great, but then they asked him to do the routine a second time. How could he replicate something he had improvised? Still, he managed to get on the show. (audio below)

In 2011, the producers of the show reached out to his agent, asking if Jonathan intended to audition for season three of the show. Although he hadn’t planned to do so as he was busy in Las Vegas, the phone call encouraged him to try again. He did well that season and made it to the top 12, but the show wasn’t the big break he was hoping for.

“I thought it was going to be that moment when I was like, ‘yes, I’ve done it.’ It wasn’t.” 

After returning to the drag show, Jonathan was in a 50 Shades of Gray-themed topless show. The producer started trying to put nudity into the numbers of the show that didn’t involve nudity. Any numbers that they couldn’t do topless he cut. This show that Jonathan initially thought was creative became a “generic topless show.”

“Grandma taught me if something is wrong to speak up.”

Jonathan told the producer that he thought his choices were demeaning and disrespectful to the women in the show. He’s glad he did because the producer listened, and changed the show for the betterment of the cast. Jonathan next performed in a show called Donny and Marie, for almost three years. During this time, he was having difficulty with his visa and was engaged to a Canadian woman. Jonathan moved to Vancouver to see if his relationship with his fiancée would work, but it didn’t. 

The directors at Donny and Marie wanted him to come back to the show, so he started the process of getting a new visa. On the day he was driving down to Vegas, Jonathan found out that the job he thought was available wasn’t. It was like deja-vu – driving to Vegas without a job lined up. Jonathan had spent $9000 on a work visa, so he figured he should try to make use of it. Once again, for the third time, Jonathan was back in the drag show.  

Above: This 2002 Pontiac Sunfire, which he calls his “shitfire,” has been with him since 2009. It had 45,000 miles when he got it, and it now has 180,000 miles.

“Las Vegas is something everyone should experience once in their life. A completely different world than anything else that exists. After living here, going anywhere else is a huge culture shock. You get used to things never closing here.”

Grandma

Losing his grandmother in 2012, was an incredibly difficult time in Jonathan’s life. When the family was sorting through her belongings, they found plaques of newspaper articles about Jonathan that she hadn’t even unwrapped yet. Jonathan can’t bring himself to take the plastic wrap off. She was his biggest fan. Jonathan got a feather tattoo as a symbol of her.

“She was so close to me. She pretty much raised me. I was either at the flower shop or at grandma’s. She was Scottish and blunt and I learned so much for her. She always danced and she taught me about Tom Jones and Rod Stewart – all these ladykillers. My grandma always motivated my dancing. I was her superstar.” (audio below)

Future

Jonathan emphasizes how hard it was for him to get work visas (he has had two). 

“They go through your stuff with a fine-tooth comb. Freelancers aren’t established enough to get a work visa. I’ve been seriously considering moving back to Canada.”  

Jonathan doesn’t want to stop dancing and is looking for his next job. He is trying to focus on his priorities now, like taking care of his dog Dexter, and to take things slower.

“If I couldn’t dance anymore, it would be rough. This time while freelancing, I’ve come to learn that I am okay with not dancing. I’m not super content and happy, but I’m okay.”

Jonathan has advice the next generation of dancers.

“Believe in yourself because no one else will. Always stick to your gut. No matter what gets thrown at you, keep moving forward. It is one of the hardest industries to be in. Take every moment that you are dancing and just enjoy it. If you enjoy that experience of dancing, you are going to get something out of it. You lose jobs on stupid things: on eye color, hair color, or height. These things are outside of your control, so let go of them. Things inside your control – work your ass off for them.”  (audio below)  

*Update: Jonathan decided to move back to Canada. He is currently teaching dance, spending time caring for his mother, and in the process of trying to find his path.

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© Photos and text by Colin Boyd Shafer | Edited by Kate Kamo McHugh & Janice May. Quotes are edited for clarity and brevity.