- Keywords: Filipino-Canadian, immigrant experience, labour, community building.
- Timeline: 2000s.
- Summary: This paper examines inequities faced by Filipino-Canadians: “As with other minority groups, Filipinos are also more concentrated than the European groups. In contrast to ethnic groups such as Germans, Scandinavians or Dutch, Asian immigrants in North America retain strong ties with family and friends living in their native lands for a long time. They regularly visit their homelands and send remittances to support close family members or relatives, thus giving significant foreign-exchange revenue to these countries. The main point is that cultural ties are relatively strong in the Filipino community, and this is exhibited in a higher spatial concentration as well. Despite their comparatively higher education, faculty with the English language … Filipinos continue to earn less in the labour market, and are resident in poor sections of the city” (p. 75).
Bangarth, S. (2005). The long, wet summer of 1942: The Ontario farm service force, small-town Ontario and the Nisei. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 37, 1, 40-62.
- Keywords: Japanese-Canadian, internment, exclusion, labour.
- Timeline: 1940s-1950s.
- Summary: Bangarth chronicles the experiences of Japanese-Canadians in Ontario during WWII: “While studies focusing on the internment issue are numerous, there has been little research about the Japanese Canadians who relocated to other parts of Canada” (p. 40).
Bangarth identifies the aim of his paper as follows: “The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new chapter into the wartime internment and dispersal of thousands of Japanese Canadians by examining the role of the Ontario Farm Service Force in the employment of male, Japanese Canadian labour in the wartime sugar beet economy in southwestern Ontario, and the impact that this infusion of “aliens” had on small-town Ontario populations” (p. 40).
Bassoondath, N. (1994). I am a Canadian. Saturday Night, October 1994, 11-22.
- Keywords: Multiculturalism, anti-racism, African-Canadian, education.
- Timeline: Early 1990s.
- Summary: On the subject of Afrocentric schools, Bassoondath states: “An “Afrocentric” or “black-focused” school system, radically segregated, racially staffed, would simply be a return to the past: to the racial separations of the American south; to the separate but (un)equal approaches of apartheid. It might produce higher grades – and even that is debatable – but would it prepare students for the wider world? It may facilitate the acquisition of knowledge, but would it facilitate the socialization necessary to life beyond the comforting confines of its walls?” (p. 14).
Behiels, M.D. (1988). Neo-Canadians and the schools in Montreal, 1900-1970. Journal of Canadian Geography, 8, 5-16.
- Keywords: Jewish, education, Montreal.
- Timeline: 1900-1970.
- Summary: Early in the paper, Behiels notes that the Jewish community in Montreal, “unlike many of the other ethnic groups, has a complete institutional network of hospitals, schools and synagogues” (p. 6). Considering Jewish education, Behiels observes: “A special curriculum was designed and approved by the Catholic Committee of the Council of Public Instruction in 1961 … Principals and administrators in the English language sector flatly refused to implement the new curriculum” (p. 13).
Bramadat, P. (2005). Toward a new politics of authenticity: Ethno-cultural representation in theory and practice. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 37, 1, 1-20.
- Keywords: Ethnicity, identity, cultural change.
- Timeline: 2000s.
- Summary: Bramadat stresses the need to delve into tensions within ethno-cultural identities: “One of the central tasks of the contemporary post-colonial observer is to perceive and articulate the heterogeneity within supposedly unified cultures, and to resist the elitist tendency to quickly and categorically define what is and is not an authentic depiction of a particular culture” (p. 15-16). Bramadat recommends: “For researchers, the effort to determine how closely a given ethnic representation approximates an often essentialized conception of that community’s authentic nature may, one hopes, give way to analysis of the specific tensions within Canada’s sub-communities: between, for example, gay and straight Greeks, White and Black South Africans, rich and poor Belgians, male and female Portuguese, young and old Salvadorians, first- and second-generation Koreans” (p. 16).
Breton, Ray. (1964). Institutional Completeness of Ethnic Communities and the Personal Relations of Immigrants. American Journal of Sociology, 70, 193-205.
- Keywords: Ethnicity, immigrant experience, community building.
- Timeline: Early 1960s.
- Summary: Regarding community building, Breton notes: “In other words, the existence of an institution in the group would tend to have the observed effect on the cohesiveness of the ethnic group” (p. 197). Breton goes on to state: “The degree of institutional completeness of an immigrant’s ethnic community is one of the main factors determining the direction of the change in the composition of his personal relations” (p. 202).
Brotz, H. (1986). Multiculturalism in Canada: A muddle. Canadian Public Policy, 6, 41-46.
- Keywords: Multiculturalism.
- Timeline: 1970s-1980s.
- Summary: Brotz critiques multiculturalism policy in Canada: “Culture is a term which originated in German thought in the eighteenth century as something to be contrasted with and opposed to civilization … Then, towards the end of the nineteenth century, the term culture became taken over by English-speaking anthropologists who began to use it under the impress of an empiricist methodology on the one hand cultural relativism on the other. Everyone had a culture – empiricism. Every culture was equal – relativism” (p. 42).
Brouwer, R.C. (1998). A disgrace to ‘Christian Canada’: Protestant foreign missionary concerns about the treatment of South Asians in Canada, 1907-1940. In F. Iacovetta (Ed.), A Nation of Immigrants. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (361-383)
- Keywords: South Asian, racism, exclusion, community building.
- Timeline: 1907-1940.
- Summary: Brouwer chronicles the challenges faced by South Asian immigrants to Canada between 1907 and 1940: “In the face of the hostility they encountered in Canada, the South Asians did not adopt the role of ‘passive Orientals.’ Nor did they abandon their religious and national identity. Instead, they closed ranks and they learned to do what many another missonized group inside and outside Canada had long since learned to do: gain strength from the services and friendships provided by Christian missionaries without necessarily yielding to their ultimate religious and cultural goals” (p. 378).
Burnet, J. (1979). Myths and multiculturalism. Canadian Journal of Education, 4, 43-58.
- Keywords: Multiculturalism, education, Bi-Bi Commission.
- Timeline: 1970s.
- Summary: Burnet identifies the Bi-Bi commission as a key moment of ethno-cultural awareness in Canada: “In the end the Commission [Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism] devoted Book 4 of its Report to the other ethnic groups, presenting an account based on a small amount of research devoted to them” (p. 46). Burnet goes on to note: “An ethnic group is made up of those who share a feeling of peoplehood” (p. 50).
