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Canadian citizenship is a young official category of belonging, and the relationship of Aboriginal people to that category remains contested ground: scholars debate the legal status of First Nations people within the Canadian state while other academics and First Nations leaders note that these nations never ceded their sovereignty to a foreign colonial state. While such debates have deep historic roots, more recent post-1945 government policies and programs reveal the extent to which Aboriginal peoples continued to be seen as outsiders who need to be assimilated to the ‘mainstream.’ As a historical contribution to these ongoing debates, this paper explores efforts to create a distinct and common Canadian citizenship in the years after the Second World War when, as a follow-up to the passage of the 1947 Canadian Citizenship Act, the federal government strategically chose to combine its management of immigrant admissions, reception, and citizenship with its Indian Affairs policies under the rubric of one new federal ministry, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration (DCI). From 1950 until 1966, the Indian Affairs branch was located in the DCI, where its activities were heavily modelled after the citizenship campaigns being developed for immigrants within the DCI's Canadian Citizenship Branch. This paper reveals the ways in which ministry officials and their network of public and private groups and agencies aimed to create a one-size-fits-all category of societal Canadian citizenship. To do so they deliberately constructed Aboriginal peoples as ‘immigrants too’ and targeted both ‘Canada's original inhabitants’ and newly arrived European refugees and immigrants with similar ‘Canadianization’ programs. The analysis of the programs targeting both groups highlights the similarities (for example, both Natives and newcomers were constructed as outsiders who needed to adopt dominant middle-class Canadian social and moral codes and pro-capitalist values) and the differences (for example, the immigrant campaigns were more tolerant of cultural differences than the Aboriginal campaigns that, despite their seemingly progressive rhetoric, effectively continued earlier assimilationist policies) as well as their gendered and class features. In offering this comparative analysis between these twinned postwar campaigns, the paper brings together two histories, Aboriginal and immigrant, that have usually been studied in isolation from each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Canada as an example, we examine the extent to which immigrants take on the ethnic identity of their host country, thus displaying either an assimilated, integrated, or neither assimilated nor integrated ethnic identity. We pay particular attention to the impact of economic integration, years since migration, ethnic origin and visible minority status on ethnic identity. Surprisingly, our findings reveal that indicators of economic success such as employment status, occupation and prior earnings do not have an impact on whether immigrants will assume the identity of their host society. The statistical analysis for this paper is situated within the existing acculturation literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-ethnic friendships are at the heart of the immigration experience. We examine the incidence and change of co-ethnic friendship groups among 1.5 and second-generation immigrant youth in Canada using the nationally representative Ethnic Diversity Survey. We find that visible minority immigrant youth friendships are more co-ethic than those of non-visible minority immigrant youth. We also find visible minority individuals' friendship groups become more co-ethnic over time. In addition, we find differences in the pattern and direction of change across different visible minority immigrant youth groups. We interpret these findings in light of theories of assimilation and segmented assimilation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Findings from a 1991 sample survey of recent Chinese immigrants in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, are presented in this paper. Politics and children's education topped the list of various factors that had pushed the Chinese away from their home countries or regions. They were also the most important goals expected to he achieved through emigration. Canada's perceived multiculturalism, lower levels of racial discrimination, and good educational opportunities were reasons for more than 75% of the respondents who chose to migrate to Canada. The study also revealed the constraints and uncertainties that had been perceived by the immigrants in the process of deciding to emigrate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examines the ethnicity in Canada based on the perspective of theorist Harold B. Innis. The study uses five-point scale, comprehensive questionnaire, and descriptive and statistical comparisons to measure ethnicity or assimilation reflected in the three characteristics of ethnicity from Innis' theory including language use, media use, and mobility. Results show that media habits can be determined by the dominant culture and programming chosen by parents and children of ethnic background. Moreover, language use is considered the major discriminator of ethnicity and acculturation.