There are lots of "hyphenated" Canadians but, so far as I can tell, it is mostly an identity-making strategy that is adopted because of its political successes in the US. Perhaps paradoxically, although immigration levels (per capita) are now much higher in Canada than in the US (the UN declared Toronto to be the most ethnically diverse city on earth a few years ago), there is not quite the political obsession with respect to issues of race and ethnicity in Canada that there is in the US. (That is not to say that there are not political debates around these topics; they just don't have quite the same power to consistently trump most other issues here.) That may be partly because there is not one or two very large ethnic "blocks" that can consistently wield effective political clout with the ethnic/racial argument as there are in the US (except for French Quebecers, but that is a quite "distinct" historical situation). There are also obvious historical reasons for the differences in the way race is treated in Canada and the US. (Slavery was abolished in Upper Canada -- roughly present-day southern Ontario -- in the 1790s, soon after its founding as a British colony.) Again, that is not to suggest that there have not been racial injustices in Canada. To be sure, there have been. But they haven't become so entwined with the core Canadian narrative as they have in the US.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > Case in point Canadian investigators who were questionoing an > Al-Qaeda prisoner in Gitmo referred to him only as a Canadian and not > as a Canadian of Moddle East descent. The issue for them was his citizenship (which is Canadian), not an academic discourse on social implications of immigration. Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ "Part of respecting another person is taking the time to criticise his or her views." - Melissa Lane, in a /Guardian/ obituary for philosopher Peter Lipton ================================= --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
