Evidence & Analysis, continued.
Migration to Canada
Migration to Canada was one
of a handful of options for a man having just received his draft induction
notice, as the 105-page book Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada
outlined. "Four other alternatives are open to draft-age Americans:
deferment, conscientious objector status, jail or the armed forces…the toughest
problem a draft resister faces is not how to immigrate but whether he really
wants to. And only you can answer that for yourself (Dickerson, 12).”
Interestingly, I don’t think this manual addressed women specifically at
all, though the title would seem to offer advice to both genders of draft-age.
When determining American women’s experience migrating to Canada during
the years of the Vietnam War, there is a small, but meaty selection of
accounts to draw from. First it needs to be stated that most American
women who migrated to Canada did so in some way because of the Vietnam War,
though there were others who moved for other reasons. When evaluating
these stories and their historical basis, it is necessary to point out that
most Americans migrated to Canada from 1965-1975, even though the war itself
was longer than one decade.
Many
of the women who immigrated to Canada during this period were between 15-29
years old (Figure 2). The role
of American women exiles in Canada is addressed in an article in AMEX, the American exile magazine.
The article acknowledges this neglected population in the exile community
(they outnumber their draft resister brothers) and looks at their diversity
from the perspective of different methods of migration. Some women
were already married, while others had just met the men they traveled with,
having based their relationship on their shared similar ‘convictions concerning
the war and how life should be lived,’ while others traveled independently
as an affront to the American government (Calhoun, 1979, 53; Hagan, 29).
John Calhoun clarifies these women’s status as exiles and its effect on
many relationships after migration. ‘She is not an exile in the sense
that she will be penalized if she returns (Calhoun, 1979, 53).’
Women were capable of freely returning to the United States whenever they
wished without punishment, as they did nothing illegal. Similarly,
John Hagan draws attention to this important distinction between exile men
and women. ‘Almost all the women knew they could return without impunity’
because they were ‘not direct targets of the draft or military law - their
decision was not forced…in this sense it was more freely made (Hagan, 18,
29).’ Interestingly, Hagan found in his sample the impact of
women on men in choosing to migrate to Canada; that is, all the women reported
they played a role in the man’s decision (Hagan, 29). Even now,
it is possible to see the tremendous impact that young draft-age women played
in their migration to Canada.
Some
of the original and acquired empirical evidence suggests a variety of reasons
for making the move north. Leigh Mann and his wife, Joan, who was
6 months pregnant when they began their slow, “relaxing” journey to Canada,
made the decision to migrate fairly easily. ‘[Leigh] would neither
go into the military nor would he go to jail. Emigration to Canada,
therefore, had to be his choice. Joan readily agreed (Killmer, 11).’
In 1969, Mary Cleemput had a similar easy time making the decision to
migrate with her husband. “There really was no questioning our decision
to leave. He had American citizenship but felt no loyalty to the
country…furthermore, I was pregnant with our first child and didn’t relish
the thought of raising a family alone at age 24 (Haig-Brown, 129).”
Mary’s situation was unusual in that her husband (who had an American father
and Irish mother) felt no loyalty to the country and was a doctor who
had a position awaiting him in Canada.
In many of these accounts, there is
a strong sense of the love and trust the women had for the men in their lives.
James Dickerson’s North to Canada: Men and Women Against the Vietnam
War shares the migration story of Diane
Francis. For Diane, ‘fate intervened in the form of a handsome
twenty-one-year-old Englishman named Frank Francis…Selective Service regulations
specified that married registrants could be given a deferment, so in the
spring of 1965, Diane withdrew from school and married Frank (Dickerson,
1).’ Unfortunately, the regulations were switched to offer deferments
only to those married couples with children. But Diane seemed to follow
her heart and her beliefs, putting aside her education and marrying a man
she loved in efforts to protect him from the draft. Similar to Mary
Cleemput’s story, Diane’s husband was not a true American and felt no obligation
to fight in a war he didn’t support. My confidential source Rosie*
recalls her reasons for migrating to Canada in January of 1969.
‘I was joining my boyfriend who had immigrated
to Canada from Florida, too, in the autumn of 1968…I had a strong sense
of the “immorality” of U.S. foreign policy…With hindsight, I see that my
decision to leave the United States was a blend of impulsiveness, youthful
defiance of conventionality, and idealism…as a woman, I could not be drafted.
By “following my man” to Canada I was witnessing my convictions.
It made me feel that I, too, was “making history" (Rosie*).’
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