Bengali by Blood, Italian by Birth, Canadian by Love
Urmi’s Story: Episode 6
Urmi is an Italian-Bengali who lives in Canada and identifies as “Italian by birth, Bengali by blood, and Canadian by love.”
Urmi’s passion for women and children drives her to volunteer in nonprofit organizations and children’s hospitals and to help underserved women raise money. She was born in Italy to Bengali immigrants, and she always felt out of place in both worlds. She gravitated toward interests in mental health, lifestyle, and financial education, and especially how women are affected, but confessed she still, like many children of immigrants, struggles with feeling like a disappointment to her parents. This narrative is true for many children of immigrants. Urmi lived in Italy for 19 years, moving around with her parents before finally settling in Canada all by herself. How did she navigate the differences between her traditional culture and that in the west? Anyone who has experienced this can understand the constant conflict between your parents’ traditional expectations your parents and the very different life you may have imbibed in the west.
She was always surrounded by Italians in her younger years and didn’t know then how to keep explaining to friends why she…
