June 2025 Vol 7 Issue 6
Tell Your Story Newsletter (TYSN):
Teaching English-as-a-Second Language to Economic Immigrants
Let us help you tell your story!
Welcome Mid-June, 2025!
As I prepare this issue of “Tell Your Story” Newsletter, my readers will know that Northern Saskatchewan has already endured a terrible forest fire season. Twenty-three active wildfires were counted last week and 258 over the season so far, well ahead of the average of 147 fires over the past five years.
The Canadian Red Cross has registered evacuees from more than 3,700 homes and from more than 10,500 acres of at-risk land in our beleaguered province.
More urban-based Saskatchewanians have watched with worry, noting the frequent air quality advisories and warnings and knowing how much worse conditions both evacuees and firefighters have faced (some of the latter coming from Europe and Australia to help us). Thank you to them!
Last Saturday, after many parched weeks, we received the grace of some steady rain: what firefighters, farmers and river-boat captains (on our beloved South Saskatchewan River) wouldn’t do, for some more of the same!
Yet, not disregarding these challenges, the month of June (with the official start of summer) marks what we often call the “good weather” in our province! Glorious flowering trees have flourished. Busy gardeners are overseeing seedlings, bedding plants and perennials, longing for more heat and rain.
I keenly anticipate generous gifts of plums, berries, zucchini, cucumber, tomatoes and potatoes from the gardens of friends this summer, some of whom read this newsletter!
Yesterday was Father’s Day and I hope each you you found time to spend with your (or someone else’s–lol) father, grandfather or other family members on that gorgeous, sunny day.
Recently, I opted to shorten “Tell Your Story Newsletter” to focus on one article (instead of two), to reduce reading time for you (and to free myself to engage in memoir writing, on-the-side.) But please know that occasional snippets of word stories and jokes may still sometimes return, under the moniker of “Storytellers’ Corner!”
This month, I visit two high-achieving entrepreneurs’ reflections on diversity, a concept democratic countries like Canada must daily fight for, given the state of world politics:
American tradesman-turned-professional gardener, Paul Avellino, and beloved Canadian celebrity investor, Arlene Dickinson, have weighed in on Facebook and Linkedin, respectively. I share their gripping commentary in full-length, because it reminds us of why we must make a stand to preserve democracy, in a world beset by violence and chaos.
Although spring this year began as a season of loss for me (with my elderly mother passing one month ago), I am equally grieved by the nightly news. And yet, I find through the multi-layered nature of grief that slowly, light, love and laughter do seep in.
May the summer that is unfurling around us bring you JOY, good reader. While losses must be faced, I also wish you prosperity in your relationships, in time spent in nature’s diversity, and among the diversity of family, friends, colleagues and newcomers–now and always.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth
Principal
Storytelling Communications
www.elizabethshih.com
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IN THIS ISSUE:
MAIN ARTICLE: On the value of diversity from Paul Avellino and Arlene Dickinson
SHOP NEWS
ABOUT US
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Main Article: On the value of diversity, from Paul Avellino and Arlene Dickinson
On Facebook recently, my former entrepreneurial coach and valued friend, Deanna Litz (of Powerful Nature Coaching and Consulting, Inc.), shared some philosophy from American farmer, Paul Avellino, aka “The Garden Guinea.” Avellino is a self-described “gardener, writer, chef [and] father.”
Avellino is a former tradesman who took up domestic farming (he prefers the understated term “gardening”) during early Pandemic times. He’s an advocate for growing one’s own food and for living with kindness toward the earth and each other.
Avellino recommends what others call “forest bathing” or time spent in nature, where humans–especially in these deeply troubled times–can quickly appreciate the health that comes from ecological diversity. He writes:
“Take a walk through any thriving forest, and you won’t find uniformity—you’ll find balance through variety. Trees of every kind, fungi laced through the soil, insects, birds, predators, pollinators, and plants that bloom at different times, all playing their part. That’s not an accident. It’s a blueprint.
Diversity isn’t something nature tolerates. It’s something it requires to survive.
So when people talk about human diversity like it’s a threat to stability, or when systems are designed to flatten, exclude, and erase—remind them that ecosystems collapse without diversity.
That monocultures breed disease, and closed loops break.
We don’t thrive despite our differences—we thrive because of them. Just like the forest, just like the coral reef, just like the world we’re all lucky [or blessed] enough to be part of.
Diversity isn’t a threat. It has always been the plan.”
Avellino shares wonderful memes, pairing his philosophy and work on Instagram, which I encourage you to visit! . . . . .
AND, also this week, in a more urban register, immigrant investor, entrepreneur, author and pioneering “dragon” on CBC’s “Dragon’s Den,” Arlene Dickinson, shared her insights on our communities’ diversity on Linkedin.
Dickinson wrote about the need we as Canadians have for diversity as part of our cherished sovereignty, and when false but alarming fear and anxiety are stoked by autocratic politicians who fill the media newsfeed (notably in the US and beyond):
“Do we need to feel fear as much as we do, watching the TV news, these days?“ Dickinson asks.
She continues: “In the USA, fear is now the central tool of politics. Immigrants and migrants are being blamed for economic hardship and crime. DEI [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion] programs are painted as dangerous and divisive. Judges, educators and journalists are all being framed as threats and people we should distrust.
In Canada, over 33% of biz owners are immigrants. In the USA, it’s a fact that immigrants commit fewer crimes than citizens born there. Undocumented workers pay more than $20 billion in taxes yearly, including into Social Security (which they don’t even receive). And, by the way, being undocumented isn’t a criminal offense; it’s a civil violation.
These people are contributing to society, not taking from it. They are building America, not destroying it.
But fear is way louder than facts, because we don’t feel facts.
We feel fear. So immigrants become political pawns not because the facts support it, but because fear gives [greedy] people power.
The same fear is being used against DEI. The fact is that diverse teams make better decisions, build more trust, and outperform homogeneous ones.
Transgender athletes are another manufactured threat. Fewer than 10 transgender athletes are competing across [more than] 500,000 college student-athletes in the USA, but somehow, they’ve become a national crisis. It’s absurd. And it’s cruel.
Democracies weaken with fear. Fear of each other, of our differences, and of imagined threats.
What frightens me isn’t immigration or diversity. It’s how fast suspicion about each other spreads. How easily neighbours become enemies. How many people fall for the lie that inclusion is dangerous?
I’m so proud to be Canadian. Proud that we’re a mosaic, not a melting pot. Proud that we value difference, not sameness. But that only matters if we’re willing to protect it.
Immigrants aren’t the problem.
Black people aren’t the problem.
Women aren’t the problem.
Gay people aren’t the problem.
Trans people aren’t the problem.
The problem is the super elite in power [i.e. autocrats and oligarchs] who believe they’re entitled to control the rest of us. Who weaponize fear to hold on to power and money.
I’m tired of it. I’m tired of fear. I’m tired of seeing each other as enemies instead of as decent humans trying to survive and live with dignity.
There’s real evil in the world for us to fear and focus on. Hezbollah, Hamas, The IRGC-Quds Force, Al-Qaeda, ISIS. The Wagner Group. And I could go on.
We should fear and fight factions like these, not the people who are escaping from horrors in order to save their lives and live in peace.”
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These fighting words from Avellino and Dickinson rewarded me for visiting Facebook and Linkedin last week, when so often social media elicits only doomscrolling, undue anxiety and despair from consumer-readers.
In my work teaching ESL to economic immigrants and newcomers, who Dickinson rightly says make more than one-third of the business owners in Canada–including in Saskatchewan–I regularly meet diversity and the strength it brings. When I speak to newcomers about values of mutual respect, understanding of each others’ cultures, values like hard work and responsibility,
And now it’s your turn: What is happening in your family or circle of friends to help to cultivate and recognize diversity–and to oppose the homogenizing forces of the world?
What tangible things can we do to overpower the injustice of manufactured fear and despair, in our times?
Please write in; I’d be delighted to hear from you.
SHOP NEWS:
I ended this month’s “main article” by asking how each of us can outdo the injustice of manufactured fear and despair, in these times.
Some of my colleagues and friends have been answering that, notably through our most recent Federal election in Canada. Falsehoods and fake news of many kinds were ably exposed and subverted by entrepreneur Silvia Martini and writer Michael Robin, to name but two. Thank you to them.
Thank you also to my long-term friend, writer and former fellow U of English student, Paula Jane Remlinger, for penning cogent analyses over Facebook on the hateful machinations of Trump and allies who threaten our weary world.
Other “thank yous” go out this month to friends Beth Brimner and Lenore Swystun for reminding me that even–or especially--in such times, we find (and need) JOY.
Joy can exist, even as we oppose the violence of Russia in Ukraine; Israel against Palestine in Gaza; North versus South Korea; China versus Taiwan; Afghanistan (the Taliban versus ISIS and insurgents [NRF]); and Sudan (the Sudanese military versus the paramilitary), to name only a few of our global “hot spots.”
Thank you and congratulations to my South African friend, Christel Jordaan Schlebusch, for pursuing Canadian midwifery certification, when her significant skills and experience are greatly needed in Saskatchewan.
The popular English TV program “Call the Midwife” (viewed here on PBS) depicts some of the extraordinary work of midwives in saving infants, mothers and their families from medical and other risks.
Thank you to two remarkable correspondents whose messages are always heartening, even in trying times and as we all age–English Professor (Emeritus) Bob Calder; and former Managing Editor of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Wilf Popoff.
And thank you, good readers, for continuing to read, share and respond to this monthly newsletter, some 14+ years after I started it as a copywriter and editor, and now as I teach English-as-a-Second Language (ESL).
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ABOUT US:
Between 2011 and December 2018, Elizabeth Shih Communications chronicled the stories of B2B marketing and communications on the Prairies and across the country.
Effective January 1, 2019, I rebranded as “Storytelling Communications.” I now help economic immigrants to get better jobs or secure larger contracts by improving their English language skills (by my ESL classes). And, when time allows, I also edit memoirs and legacy stories of individuals and major companies.
Interested in learning more? Please contact me through my website (www.storytellingcommunications.ca).
After I receive your message, I’ll be pleased to discuss projects with you!
Meantime, please tune in next month for another issue of “Tell Your Story Newsletter!”
