NEW POP LIT’S EDITORS grew up in the Detroit area and have lived in and around the city– usually close to the Detroit River– much of our lives. Our current residence-headquarters is in Wyandotte, Michigan, which rests on the river, directly across from Canada. We were and are influenced by Canadian radio and television– we still listen regularly to CBC Radio– in the same way many Canadians are influenced by American culture. And of course, many of those who live and work in Detroit and throughout Michigan are from Canada.

Which is our way of introducing our new feature, creative non-fiction by essayist David Wayne Stewart, “New to Class”— which tells his own story as a kind of vagabond moving back and forth throughout Canada but never completely belonging, before ending up in the United States. California, specifically. A story of adjusting, trying to fit in, as all of us continually are adjusting and fitting in, finding roots, identities– or at least experiences– along the way.

Charlie and I stepped out of an underground parking garage and into the bright urban sunshine. After a five-hour drive from Montreal, we had arrived at the final stop on our father-son tour of Central Canada: the sprawling city of Toronto. As a steel door clanged behind us, I squinted up to read the street sign: Yonge Street. Locals call it “the longest street in the world”. Even now it was pulsing with neon lights, fancy cars, and loud music. 

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