Calling it like it is, when do we do it?
Living in a multi-cultural society comes with it's benefits and it's downsides. The perks are obvious and many. Great diversity in food, culture, people and ideas all mixing together. That is what I think about when I think of a "multi-cultural" society. For me the most important part of a multi-cultural society isn't the mere presence of different ethnic groups in the same geographic area, but the integration and mixing of them all to form one society.
One thing that I have been struck with for quite some time now is what I see as the reluctance of individuals from certain ethnic groups, to integrate and mix with individuals from another minority group. In Vancouver, a city of nearly 2.5 million there are numerous ethnic groups represented in the population including Chinese, Punjabi, Japanese, Phillipino, Italian, Greek and many others. Many of these groups, however don't mix a great deal. Many of the Chinese-Canadian residents live in different pockets around the city, and in Richmond, a smaller city south of Vancouver that is predominantly a Chinese-Canadian suburb. While the Indo-Canadians live in certain pockets throughout Vancouver and in larger numbers in Surrey. These cultural pockets, while enabling residents to shop and do business in their native tongue, isolate them from mixing and integrating into the fabric of Canadian society, one that is supposed to be multi-cultural.
Many of the students I interact with on a daily basis are second generation Canadians and their parents are part of one of the many "visible minority" communities present in Canada. Some of these students speak English as their second language, but many of them are completely fluent. Still however, many choose to speak in their parents' native language at school and outside of school. I strongly believe that parents should pass their traditions and languages to their children, but I also believe that in certain ways, this same attachment to certain traditions and languages breeds xenophobia and inhibits people from integrating together to form a stronger society.
One common reason I have heard for why certain people choose to associate with people from their cultural group is that they feel more comfortable around them. Having lived in a foreign country where my communication skills were inhibited, I can understand that it is sometimes comforting to speak your own language. But, when you have grown up in a country where English (I am speaking of English speaking Canada in this instance) is the dominant language, one should feel more comfortable around all those who do speak English, should they not? What I see masquerading as "feeling more comfortable around people from my cultural group" is an unwillingness to integrate into a multi-cultural society and with those whose ethnicity is different then one's own. Is that not racism?
Most people emigrate to a multi-cultural country such as Canada or the U.S, because of the openness to other culturals our society fosters. What does it say however, when one comes here under such a context, and then chooses not to uphold these same ideals once they are here? Will we eventually be just a city of cultural suburbs where we are all here, but don't interact? One area (though there are many) where I feel English Canada could learn a great deal from Quebec, is in there emphasis on the French language. While they emphasize the language for many reasons, chief among them to preserve our French-Canadian heritage, this emphasis also forces people to integrate more. Because retreating into ones cultural group is less tolerated (as seen in laws stipulating the size of French versus English or other lanuage text) everyone is forced to speak the same language and deal with things out in the open. Children of immigrant parents, be they from already francophone countries or not, speak French and must practice it to adjust and succeed in Quebec. A greater emphasis on speaking English in schools, would help young people realize that regardless of where their parents came from they are all Canadians now and need to integrate into a Canadian way of life, one that supports multi-culturalism.
While I hope this doesn't come off as a conservative rant against immigrants, I do hope that the idea of immigrants, and citizens of the country need to make more of an effort to integrate with one another. Without this effort we will all merely be leaving near each other and not with each other. One cannot be truly here if they are attempting to live exactly how they lived before emigrating here. Change is good and necessary.
