In 2004, the Gallery of Human Migration became the proud repository of the final drafts of Where Is Here?, a two–volume anthology of radio plays on migration themes produced by CBC Radio and edited by Damiano Pietropaolo, then Executive Director of CBC Radio Drama.

Born from a nationwide proposal call by CBC Radio’s Sunday Showcase, the collection brings together twelve plays that explore the complexities of immigration in Canada: questions of belonging, family, memory, and identity.

Volume I features six plays:

• Raj Kumari’s Lullaby by Rishma Dunlop — a Punjabi–Canadian woman’s coming of age between British Columbia and Quebec.
• Crossing Gibraltar by Ehab Lotayef — the parallel lives of a man in Montreal and the life he might have lived had he stayed in Egypt.
• Wanderers by Marco Micone (tr. Sheila Fischman) — a teenage boy’s visit to his ancestral Italian village sparks troubling family memories.
• Joy Geen (See You Again) by John Ng — a Canadian family faces the risk of sheltering their Chinese God-sister who entered illegally.
• Entry Denied by Sugith Varughese — a period drama about the Komagata Maru incident in Vancouver, 1914.
• Couscous by Guillaume Vigneault (tr. Jon Van Burek) — a single mother weighs love and family while starting a new relationship.

Volume II includes another six plays:

• Novena by Marie-Beath Badian — a daughter returns from Canada to the Philippines to pray for her sick father.
• The Clothesline by Donna Caruso — three generations of Canadian women recount their lives far from their homeland.
• Spring Arrival by Marjorie Chan — a mother revisits the misunderstandings of her first days in Toronto to comfort her daughter in hospital.
• The Gift by Marty Chan — a mother who fled China during the Cultural Revolution struggles to pass down a family dumpling recipe.
• Say Ginger Ale by Marcia Johnson — a Jamaican Canadian woman returns home to rediscover what she left behind.
• One Officer’s Experiences by Arthur J. Vaughan — the warm and humorous memoir of an immigration officer who welcomed newcomers to Halifax’s Ocean Terminal for two decades.

Together, these volumes offer a vivid mosaic of the immigrant experience in Canada, preserving voices, struggles, and dreams that continue to resonate today.

Both volumes are available here.