"In their book, Mario Silva and Michael Giles have shown that we did more than just assimilate and integrate the culture of these new immigrants. We accepted and encouraged their culture, with freedom to practice it, foster its creativity and produce it in their new-found home with music, dance, drama, literature and visual arts. By doing this, Canadians brought these newcomers close within the community, relieving their anxieties and homesickness and helping them adjust to this new experience." - Sam Sniderman, O.C. "Sam the Record Man"

"Great cities are often characterized as having the tallest "this", the widest "that" or the longest "whatever". Frequently missing from this portrait, however are the many citizens who have contributed to the city's greatness. Mario Silva and Michael Giles have attempted to rectify this oversight. In their new book, the reader is presented with a selection of stories written about a few of the people who have chosen Toronto as their new home and, in a variety of ways, made our city even greater." - Mike Filey (Popular Toronto historian and Toronto Sun columnist)

In this collection of the personal stories of a few of the many immigrants that poured into Canada in the postwar years, the authors allows those of us who also arrived on these shores in search of greener pastures to feel less alone and isolated. Like the poet who finds an accomplice in the empathy of his reader, so do the narrators of these stories reach out to us, making us feel ourselves at home in their descriptions of the commonalities of the immigrant phenomenon. The suffering and isolation implicit to all things new, language and education barriers, homesickness, different socio-cultural, political and professional values are among the many challenges newcomers face.

Evidently, judging by the ethnic diversity of the tales selected, the authors have gone to great lengths to mirror the diversity of the multicultural spectrum of modern day Toronto, where all peoples meet and learn to live in harmony. The book includes the stories of immigrants from all five continents.

Being themselves products of postwar immigration to Canada, Michael Giles from Ireland and Mario Silva from Portugal, they too have experienced, all be it in their youth, the hopes, expectations and dilemmas reflected in the stories they have collected for us.

Like many of the individuals whose stories are recounted in "Fabric of a Nation", the authors Mario Silva and Michael Giles are in themselves stories of success made possible by the many opportunities Canada has opened up to newcomers over the years.

This book makes for easy, accessible reading for all those of us who seek in the past the key to the reality we live in as we, in turn, pave the way to future generations.

Mario Silva

Michael Giles