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In this paper two gaps in North American immigrant homeownership research are addressed. The first concerns the lack of studies (especially in Canada) that identify changes in homeownership rates by skin color over time, and the second relates to the shortage of comparative research between Canada and the United States on this topic. In this paper the homeownership levels and attainment rates of Black, Chinese, Filipino, White, and South Asian immigrants are compared in Canada and the United States for 1970/1971–2000/2001. For the most part, greater similarities than differences are found between the two countries. Both Canadian and U.S. Chinese and White immigrants have the highest adjusted homeownership rates of all groups, at times even exceeding comparably positioned native-born households. Black immigrants, on the other hand, tend to have the lowest ownership rates of all groups, particularly in the United States, with Filipinos and South Asians situated between these extremes. Most of these differences stem from disparities that exist at arrival, however, and not from differential advancement into homeownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese migration to the province of British Columbia, Canada, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries occurred in the context of a shortage of labour. Two classes of Chinese migrated to Canada: unfree wage labourers and petit bourgeois traders, merchants and commodity producers. Both classes were the subjects of a process of racialisation to the extent that social significance was attached to patterns of phenotypical variation. But 'white' people of different class backgrounds articulated different racialised representations of the Chinese in Canada. This paper roots these differential processes of radalisation, some of which also entailed an ideology of racism, in the lived experiences and contradictions which different classes of 'white' people in British Columbia faced. It suggests that racism is not a homogeneous ideology which is imposed on the working class by a ruling class, but rather an ideology which comes 'from below' and which is an attempt on the part of class actors to make sense of and interpret the world. The paper calls for an examination of the various racisms which have accompanied the process of capitalist development both historically and cross-culturally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada's immigration system is currently undergoing significant change driven by several goals that include (1) a desire to improve the economic outcomes of entering immigrants; (2) an attempt to better respond to short-term regional labor market shortages often associated with commodity booms, and (3) a desire to shift immigration away from the three largest cities to other regions of the country. These goals reflect the implementation of new immigration programs in the 2000s. The paper discusses the recent changes to Canadian immigration policy, examines preliminary evaluations of the new programs and discusses potential future issues emanating from the changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the development of inter-ethnic friendships between immigrants and Canadians. It uses longitudinal data from three waves of the Canadian LSIC survey, in which newly arrived immigrants were followed during the first 4 years of settlement. It is found that pre-migration characteristics play an important role in the development of inter-ethnic friendships: immigrants who arrive at a younger age and for economic reasons, as well as those who are highly educated and have a cross-ethnic partner at the moment of arrival, establish more inter-ethnic friendships over time. In addition, post-migration characteristics affect the formation of inter-ethnic friendships. Such friendships are more common among immigrants who embrace Canadian traditions and acquire the host-country language, as well as among those who work in international settings and inhabit ethnically mixed neighborhoods. The effects of pre-migration characteristics are partially mediated by post-migration characteristics. Our findings point out that economic, cultural, and spatial integration are all conducive to inter-ethnic friendships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine how individual-level characteristics and national context affect attitudes toward immigration. Although many previous studies have compared attitudes toward immigration across countries, little attention has been paid to how attitudes may be affected by changes within a country over time. We take advantage of seventeen national Canadian Gallup surveys to consider how differences in national economic conditions and changing immigration flows affect attitudes and changes in attitudes between 1975 and 2000. While the state of the national economy affects attitudes this is not the case for the rate of immigration. Rather than affecting some groups more than others the state of the economy has a relatively uniform effect across groups. Our results also show that far from being a continuum, being anti-immigration and being pro-immigration are qualitatively different. Interest, ideology, and the national economy affect anti-immigration sentiments, but only ideology affects pro-immigration sentiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the links between internal migration and international immigration in Canada's three largest metropolitan areas. In particular, we use a place-specific approach to test the displacement hypothesis that the migration behaviour of the less-well-educated native-born population is sensitive to the inflows of immigrants. Based on analyses of microdata from five consecutive censuses covering the period from 1981 to 2001, we find that the migration - immigration relationships are complex, often subtle, and inconsistent across the three cities. Growth in the immigrant population is correlated with an increased out migration rate among the less-well-educated native-born population, but only in Toronto and Vancouver. This correlation, however, is not independent of changes in housing prices. We also find no consistent support for an alternative hypothesis that economic restructuring accounts for the net out-migration from immigrant gateway cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experiences and decisions of migrants frequently confound scholarly expectations. In particular, the transnational linkages maintained by migrants transcend the social scales at which they are often assumed to live, and the spaces in which their integration or assimilation is usually studied—the neighbourhood, the urban labour market, the national society. Studies of transnationalism have shown that immigrants maintain multistranded connections to their places of origin and that these continue to influence the lifeworlds both of migrants and of those they leave behind significantly. In this paper we suggest that these multistranded connections-incorporating social, cultural, and economic ties—can be usefully considered using Pierre Bourdieu's notion of the habitus as a heuristic framework for integrating the various dimensions of transmigrants' lives. Drawing on interviews in Canada and the Philippines, we demonstrate the ways in which economic, social, and cultural capital are accumulated, exchanged, converted, valued, and devalued in a transnational habitus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the principle of the right to repatriation and the Canadian dilemma in applying that principle in dealing with both refugees and the country from which they originally fled, Rwanda. It is particularly concerned with the right of individuals to be a member of a state and with the right to regain membership in a state from which they fled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]