Editor's Note

We recently conducted a survey among our SAN readers with the question, “What do you miss most in Canada?” There were some very interesting and diverse answers. We miss the spontaneity in interpersonal relations and planning—that is, the un-planning of life, the possibility of running into a childhood friend on the street, or for someone to knock at our door without calling ahead. We miss warm weather. We miss bakeries, apples from the trees, ice cream on the street, and markets with fresh vegetables, fruit, and dairy products. We miss mountains, two long vacations a year, trips around Europe, business trips to conferences, and meeting up with colleagues from university. We miss bookstores that smell like freshly printed books in Serbian. We miss the history that was constantly around us everywhere. But almost every answer said that we miss our parents, sisters, brothers, cousins, and our dear old friends. We miss the ambiance in the centre of town, the promenades, the people on the streets, restaurants and café with garden patios. We miss the rich and diverse programing and the affordable prices of the theatre, opera, ballet, and concerts. We miss the feeling that the language we use in life and at work is completely ours.

For this spring issue of SAN, we have tried once again to compensate for what our readers most miss from back home. Our magazine and our many collocutors are always spontaneous. You can stumble upon SAN like a friend, and you can pop into all of our stores and cultural manifestations in Toronto, Oakville, and Hamilton. We cannot bring your cousins and friends from Serbia to Canada for you, but we can introduce you to our fellow citizens in Canada and the United States through interviews and reports on events in the Serbian community. SAN cannot bring you warm weather, but it writes about warm destinations you can visit. SAN cannot give you two long vacations a year, but articles about work, careers, and finances might help you realize that dream as well. SAN writes about the histories of Serbia and Canada, it writes about the homeland and about traditions. SAN writes about the theatre and other cultural events, both in English in Toronto as well as visiting artists from Serbia. SAN recommends books and presents new books by Serbian authors in Canada. Above all, SAN uses and promotes our mother tongue. We strive to write as correctly as possible, without using foreign words, and we write our articles in both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets.

I can only hope that the topics and permanent rubrics of SAN can, at least to some extent, fulfill the spiritual needs and interests of its readers, and make up for a little of what they miss most living in the diaspora.

Toronto, April 2016                                                                         Vesna Nedić