This Q&A about moving to Canada from the US is part of Why I Moved, a recurring series about Americans building a life abroad.
From the romantically disheveled basement of an indie bookstore in Toronto, Claire Foster tells me, on a zoom call, that she’s long felt a desire to live outside of the United States. This feeling first led the Ohio native to Paris, where she taught at a local high school, and then to Toronto in 2018 to pursue her Masters in English (with a fitting focus on Diaspora and Transnational Studies). “I had become really interested in living sort of aslant—slightly on the outside, at a distance far from home,” she tells Condé Nast Traveler. “I feel that a big part of my politics of living is to do the inconvenient thing of staying in a place that you’re not from.”
Building a life abroad, with people who are from a different place than you, “provides a texture to every baseline experience,” says Foster, who is a French literary translator and the general manager of Type Books’ flagship store. Of course, “immigration is always going to be hard,” she adds. It’s designed to be—particularly when it comes to the bureaucratic matters of visas and taxes. But for Foster, sticking with the discomfort of building a life aslant of America has led to a fulfilling career, good friends, and lots of stories—whether to be read, translated, or experienced for herself.
Where did you move to, and why this place?
“I moved here in 2018 to begin a Master’s in English at the University of Toronto. After graduating, I applied for a bookseller job here at the bookstore and started working here in 2019, and then in 2020 I also became their events manager. It was a funny time to begin events, obviously, because two months after that everything shut down. But I continued working here and then about two years ago, I also took on the role of General Manager. So now I’m the manager and events person at the flagship store; there are three Type Books locations in Toronto.”
What prompted you to move out of the US?
“I was already living outside of the US—in Paris—when I decided to move to Toronto. That’s where I moved after undergrad, which I did at Skidmore College in Upstate New York. I’m originally from Cincinnati, Ohio but moved to Paris to teach English, which basically involved talking to different high-school students about American culture and politics. I had also lived in France for a year during my undergrad, and loved it (I continue to love France). So I already had an ongoing interest in living abroad, which led me to Toronto because I wanted to write in English and pursue graduate school in English.
I also wanted to continue to live out of the US because I had become really interested in living sort of aslant—slightly on the outside, at a distance far from home. Of course, the distance between America and Canada is much smaller than the distance between America and France. But yeah, another reason is that grad school costs way less in Canada, even factoring in a higher international student fee. It was also only a one-year program, so that was important. And then at that time, Trump was in office for the first time. I didn’t know that he would be in office again, but I didn’t want to live in the country.”
Did you move alone or with a partner, family, or friends?
“I moved here with a partner. We’re not together anymore, but we lived in the same apartment, and we both came here for the same grad school, so we were navigating the same things. We found our apartment when we were staying at an Airbnb in the city, and we were completely petrified of the process, because the housing market in Toronto is pretty much mythic in the bad reputation it had, and maintains now, of apartments being scarce and expensive. It can be scary, especially if you don’t know anyone in the city, and we were the only people that the other knew in Toronto. We took one of the first places that we saw, which was a pretty basic apartment in a building, and we lived there for four years.”
Give us a top-level explanation of the process of moving.
“Fortunately, it was very easy to get here, because it was through a university. When you’re obtaining a student permit, you have the university backing you and helping you. I also had a mother helping me, so that, you know, made it a little easier. From there, I got a work permit and then a work permit extension. I’m now—I think—a few weeks away from getting a permanent residency card in the mail. So, fingers crossed.”
What was the biggest challenge to moving or navigating your new life?
“The most stressful things are all related to bureaucracy—so immigration and taxes. Immigration is always going to be hard. Everything about moving to a place where you’re not from, even if it’s just to a different state, or even if it’s to a country that’s mostly Anglophone like Canada, everything is made to be hard. You’re meant to sort of stay where you are, and stay in your lane, in your country. If moving is something that you’re motivated to do—for reasons that relate to either politics or intellectual interest or love or whatever it is that you are pursuing—it’s worth staying with the difficulty of immigration. I feel that a big part of my politics of living is just continuing to do the inconvenient thing of staying in a place that you’re not from. And I think it’s a really worthwhile thing to do.”