“I don’t wanna give it, why you wanna give it? Why you wanna give it all away?”

— Big Yellow Taxi (Counting Crows version of Joni Mitchell‘s song)

Unlike Richard Wright, the great author who moved to Paris in 1949, and wrote upon his arrival in Paris the famous piece “I Choose Exile,” I did not choose this. As I write this from Quebec, let me be clear: Exile chose me.

And it is my experiences in the US and Canada in the past few months that prompt this comment.

Two years ago my wife of Quebec origin and I decided that it would be great to move to Quebec for our retirement years. We started the process with the Canadian immigration authorities back then and had expected that the process would take another year or so into 2026.

As it turned out the process went quicker than expected and I was granted permanent residency in February 2025. As it became clear in April that I would not be needed to teach as an adjunct this fall, we thought that this would be the time to make the move.

As we began and continue to close up our life in Charlottesville and prepare to leave, I was struck by the reactions of several Americans when we told them we were moving to Canada.

Uniformly Americans were happy for us and said so. Some would say we must be doing this to escape Trump or out of fear of Trump. There is a running joke with them that our third bedroom may end up serving as a place to rest for a little time for friends or family who are “refugees” from Trump and his Administration.

On the Canadian side, one of the first joking comments I heard after getting my permanent residence was that I was escaping Trump.

Our plans of course pre-date Trump and his Administration, yet these comments led me to think that some of these people think of us as exiles from the Trump America like refugees leaving Germany in 1933-34.

The thing is that we did not choose exile if that is what people think this is, and the irony seems to be that in some weird mystery of life it may be that exile chose us.

This exile that chose us is exile choosing us in order to protect us from ambient fascism that is attempting to be put in place in the US by the current administration, the judiciary, and Congress both at the federal and state level.

All that being said, since I arrived here the negative reactions to Trump from the Canadians I have met has been uniform.

The toughest one was the one reported to me of a famous Canadian author who sold his house of 30 years in Key West. I understood he said that America was founded by violent and racist men and that they are back in power.

I am also hearing of people who lived in the US but have a sufficient link to Canada or other countries that they have packed their bags and moved out of the US since the 2024 election of Trump.

Ponder that.

During the campaign way before the election I did my best to warn people to not choose Trump. And since his inauguration I have done my best to critique him and his Administration to him, Elon Musk and DOGE dogs, my representatives, and anyone who would read or listen. I have demonstrated in Charlottesville and Washington, DC in the large indivisible type demonstrations but also every Thursday from 5:00-6:00 pm in support of the Palestinians against their genocide by Israel in Gaza in the smaller demonstrations in front of the federal courthouse in Charlottesville.

Now, once again an immigrant, when I wear my “Pray for Immigrants” t-shirt (“American Solidarity” on the back) that I wore in Charlottesville, I feel that feeling I had in my 17 years in Paris about the French of being thankful for the citizens of Canada here who stand up for inclusion and support for people like me.

When I observe the flurry of masked ICE agents tearing families apart, when I see the glee with which the Alligator Alcatraz concentration camp is met by too many and think of the 56,000 in ICE detention and more camps being built by profit seeking companies, I shake my head in a profound sadness.

When I hear of those deported by America to human rights violating third countries where they are abused and tortured, I am reminded of the 54 country torture regime that the Bush Administration put in place in the War on Terror sending foreigners designated as terrorists to torture and sometimes death. Many of us railed against that then and rail against that abomination now.

When I see the willingness to be compliant to fascism and the fear of so many in America to call out and resist that fascism, I am reminded of the good little Germans so eager to follow their leader into the abyss.

When I see universities, law firms and businesses who have done nothing wrong nevertheless succumb to what feels a lot like extortion by giving up their rights and paying out huge sums of money to the Trump Administration as they “go along to get along,” I am reminded of Viktor Klemperer’s I shall bear witness diary of 1933-1942 where year after year he asked “Where are the Germans?”

Where are the Americans? For all the bravado about individualism and freedom one hears in proclamations about the greatness of America, what you see is cowardice, venality, and a pitiful lack of character by so many in the face of true fascism.

And this does not even speak to those who seem to relish the developments since Trump came to power: the Project 2025 types happy to erase any semblance of empathy or decency or respect for the less fortunate in America. Or memory of anyone who is not white.

When one sees persons avowing their deep Christian beliefs rejoicing in increasing oppression on the least of those in favor of the most privileged and richest people in the history of the world, I am reminded of the perversion of Christianity that was the faith of those who supported slavery and segregation.

When I see being heralded the same kind of ugly boorish racism, sexism and xenophobia that has been fought for decades, I see such a sickness in the hearts of all those who ascribe to this degradation of America.

When I see a proposal to Mar-a-Lago-ize the White House, I shake my head at the lack of understanding of the meaning of these sites: paving the Rose Garden reminds me of Joni Mitchell’s paving paradise and putting up a parking lot.

When I watch the press bend the backbone and the knee to the Trump Administration’s happy talk when they know that awful is happening, I salute those who leave those entities out of disgust.

When I see the so called trade deals being heralded and read the analyses that demonstrate that the “frameworks” or whatever they are called are smokescreen agreements with the only real aspect of them being increasing the tariffs Americans have to pay for imported goods—impoverishing Americans with tax increases through tariffs and the Big Beautiful Bill.

When I see people’s personal data thrown around the government with no respect for our privacy and given to private companies like Palantir to exploit to make technologies of oppression, I am reminded of IBM’s role providing the technology for the Holocaust.

I watch the cruelty with a profound sadness for those young people having to live their lives in an environment where their freedom is curtailed instead of enhanced whether through student loan oppression or really making sure the government is of no help to those who do not have the means and intergenerational wealth.

I see the desecration of the environment planned and the hostility toward new forms of energy to placate the fossils of the fossil fuel industries that can only push America back.

In short, I see all this insanity that Americans brought upon themselves when they should have known better and I wonder whether two years ago Providence was choosing to protect me by choosing to exile me.

I did not choose exile. Exile chose me.