The Impact of External Pressures on an Ethnic Community: The Case of Montréal's Quartier Chinois and Muslim-French Immigrants.

This article examines how a community responds to external pressures to adapt culturally to a dominant cultural/political paradigm. Interviews were conducted in Montreal, Canada in 2003 and in France in 2005. In Montreal interviews were conducted among Chinese shopkeepers residing in Montreal's Chinatown, or Quartier Chinois. In France interviews were conducted with Muslims in various ummahs, or Muslim communities in France. The results of the interviews demonstrate that when a minority group is pressured to linguistically, politically, culturally, religiously, and economically adapt to a dominant paradigm that the minority community will respond by closing itself from the dominant culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]