Search

Not being read or identified by others as "Canadian" was a common thread in semi-structured in-depth interviews I conducted with 19 young adults of mixed race in a Western Canadian urban context. In this paper, I address moments of (in)ability for people of mixed race to claim "Canadian." Mixed race people have a complex relationship with identifying and narrating their identities as "Canadian" through the operation of race and ethnicity in the Canadian context, and because of ambivalent and contradictory readings of their bodies. I found that they deploy the term in three ways: by expressing a sense of being "Canadian-first," by stating that there exists an understanding that "Canadian means white," and by strategically using the term "Canadian" in their interactions with others, signaling an active appropriation of the term. However, none of these deployments are mutually exclusive: they overlap and bleed into each other, playing off and impacting one another. This paper adds to nascent Canadian Critical Mixed Race studies and also redresses a gap in the literature on "Canadian identity" by examining how the ability to claim "Canadian" is racialized through a consideration of the experiences of mixed race people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiculturalism is a contested concept and policy in the current context. Many European leaders have declared its failure, and scholars have traced a global backlash against multicultural policies, especially in Europe. Canadians, on the other hand, are more likely to view it positively, as a badge of citizenship or belonging. Being multicultural has become closely intertwined with what it means to be Canadian, especially for immigrants and their children. The focus of this paper is to unpack these meanings of multiculturalism among one immigrant group, most of whom are now Canadians, and their children: Sri Lankan Tamils in the Greater Toronto Area. Our aim is to better understand how members of this group view the relationship between their Canadian and Tamil identities in the context of multiculturalism. In particular, we are interested in the 'uptake' of the concept, practice, and policy of multiculturalism among Sri Lankan Tamil newcomers to Canada. Drawing on interviews and focus groups with both immigrants (first generation) and Sri Lankan Tamils born in Canada (second generation), we illustrate some of the ways in which multiculturalism operates as frontstage behaviour and as a more tacit backstage concept among those in the Greater Toronto Tamil diaspora. We argue that Canadian multiculturalism functions as 'banal nationalism' in Canada, as daily practices of tacit nation-building are produced and repeated on a daily basis among Sri Lankan Tamil Canadians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irregular migration is a growing, global issue that is still undertheorized in the Canadian context. While economic globalization and capitalist expansion displace growing numbers of migrants, advanced nations including Canada are tightening their borders and increasing their immigration laws. With fewer legal migration channels available, a growing number of migrants are choosing irregular ways of life, whereby they reside, work, and raise their families underground. This paper critically assesses how irregular migration is produced and perpetuated in Canada. Following other critical migration scholars (Andrijasevic 2009; De Genova 2002; Goldring et al. 2009), I begin from the premise that not only laws, but nation-state rulers and agents, employers, and a diversity of social actors who may appear unconnected to the government engage in practices that contribute to the production of irregular migration. From this view, irregularity is seen less as a legal status and more as a sociopolitical condition generated and maintained by a range of structural and psychosocial determinants. Henceforth, I discuss several key geopolitical, juridicial, and sociopsychological determinants of irregularity in Canada. Further, I highlight the challenging conditions that constitute irregular life in the Canadian context in order to make imperative the need for social change as well as propose some directions for political action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]