Jumping the 'racial' divide to citizenship

CALGARY, AB, October 10, 2008/Troy Media/ -- Mark was a well-adjusted young black student in Toronto, committed to his studies and deeply grateful to Canada for the opportunities it had afforded him since his immigration from Trinidad in 1995.

“Canada’s been great,” he told a sociologist studying how immigrants have adjusted to living in our country. “I like it here.”

Yet, fully seven years after his permanent move to Canada, Mark continued to identify himself as “definitely Trini.”

Mark was interviewed by Carl James, a professor in education, sociology and social work at York University in Toronto. To James, Mark’s story is typical of many young immigrants who have had a positive experience in Canada but who are not yet prepared to fully identify themselves as citizens of this country.

James recounted the story to the 220 participants at the Sheldon Chumir Foundation symposium on identity and polarization held on Oct. 3 and 4 in Calgary. And he used the anecdote to pose profound questions about what it means to be a citizen of this country, and – perhaps even more critical – how much we should care.

Janet Keeping Janet Keeping, President of the Calgary-based foundation, said this event is the launch of an ongoing initiative aimed at engaging citizens on diversity-related issues. Similar dialogues will be held across the country in the coming months.

What is an ethnic community? James asked attendees. Are Anglo Saxons ethnic? Or, “If I speak Italian at home, am I still Canadian?”

Morton Weinfeld, a professor at McGill University in Montreal, agreed with James that there is a “racial divide” that must be jumped over on the journey to becoming a Canadian citizen. Yet, to him, in spite of Mark’s agnostic views on citizenship, he sees the young student’s experience in Canada as a success story.

To James, Mark’s story illustrates the complexities of black identity in a country that has been historically dominated by a white culture and its associated cultural touchstones.

Because of that history, James says, many young immigrants of colour hold the view that “if you’re not white, you’re forever seen as not Canadian.”

Race, culture, ethnicity and identity were threads to a common theme through the day-and-a-half of presentations from some of North America’s most prominent social academics, including Princeton University’s Kwame Anthony Appiah, Daniel Weinstock from the University of Montreal and Janice Stein, director of the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto.

Weinstock described Canada’s immigrant experience as more positive than most other jurisdictions in the world. “The model has worked extremely well . . . We should really think long and hard before we throw (current immigration practices) over.” But other presenters also sounded warnings about trends that, if left unaddressed, could erode that progress.

Key, among those worrying trends, is the growing link between immigration and poverty.

The notorious 2005 riots in suburban Paris, for example, were driven by seething anger as immigrants realized their role in French society was essentially to provide “cheap labour from former colonies,” said Grace-Edward Galabuzi, from Ryerson University in Toronto.

While Canada’s history differs – our own country was once a colony – the goal of ethnically neutral citizenship is being threatened by “social stratification happening along cultural and ethnic lines.”

This stratification “is happening right under our noses,” Galabuzi warned -- in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto . . . and even Calgary.

And it’s not just economic; it’s also manifested in violence, an inevitable outcome of growing levels of alienation and detachment. He noted, for example, that black youths in Canada are four times as likely to be victims of homicide as other Canadians.

In the case of the young Trinidadian, Mark, it is not poverty or race that sets him apart. Rather, James said, there were cultural traditions that led him to conclude that if he became fully assimilated, the results would not be in his favour.

“He’s enjoying the best of both worlds,” said James. And, Mark feared that if he became “fully” Canadian he might eventually adopt some of the poor study habits that he sees in his Canadian peers.

McGill’s Weinfeld noted that someone does not become a Canadian overnight. In fact, it can take years to make such a deep emotional shift.

And becoming a citizen no longer means conforming to the narrow ethno-cultural definition (in Canada’s case, Judeo-Christian), said Weinstock, of the University of Montreal. Instead, “We have fumbled into a stakeholder concept of citizenship” – a more pragmatic approach to national identity.

Mark became a stakeholder when he graduated from university, and realized it was time to find a job and integrate into society. When James placed the question of Canadian identity to his subject one last time recently, Mark finally told him: “Yeah, I’m Canadian . . . at least partly.”

As Weinstock said, Canada is in its DNA a multi-national federation. And, despite some high-profile missteps and challenges, the model continues to serve us well.

Keywords: Carl James, York University, Janet Keeping, Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, Morton Weinfeld, McGill University, diversity, race, multiculturalism, citizenship

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