Before Official Multiculturalism

For almost two decades before Canada officially adopted multiculturalism in 1971, a large network of women and their allies in Toronto were promoting pluralism as a city- and nation-building project. Before Official Multiculturalism assesses women as liberal pluralist advocates and activists, critically examining the key roles they played as community organizers, frontline social workers, and promoters of ethnic festivals. The book explores women’s community-based activism in support of a liberal pluralist vision of multiculturalism through an analysis of the International Institute of Metropolitan Toronto, a postwar agency that sought to integrate newcomers into the mainstream and promote cultural diversity. Drawing on the rich records of the Institute, as well as the massive International Institutes collection in Minnesota, the book situates Toronto within its Canadian and North American contexts and addresses the flawed mandate to integrate immigrants and refugees into an increasingly diverse city. Before Official Multiculturalism engages with national and international debates to provide a critical analysis of women’s pluralism in Canada.

Renowned author Franca Iacovetta provides a new perspective on multiculturalism by examining the hopes and challenges of women activists associated with the Toronto International Institute.

Canadian Multiculturalism @50 offers a critically-informed overview of Canada’s official multiculturalism against a half-century of successes and failures, benefits and costs, contradictions and consensus, and criticism and praise. Admittedly, not a perfect governance model, but one demonstrably better than other models.

In 1971 Canada was the first nation in the world to establish an official multiculturalism policy with an objective to assist cultural groups to overcome barriers to integrate into Canadian society while maintaining their heritage language and culture. Since then Canada s practice and policy of multiculturalism have endured and been deemed as successful by many Canadians. As well, Canada s multiculturalism policy has also enjoyed international recognition as being pioneering and effectual. Recent public opinion suggests that an increasing majority of Canadians identify multiculturalism as one of the most important symbols of Canada s national identity. On the other hand, this apparent successful record has not gone unchallenged. Debates, critiques, and challenges to Canadian multiculturalism by academics and politicians have always existed to some degree since its policy inception over four decades ago. In the current international context there has been a growing assault on, and subsequent retreat from, multiculturalism in many countries. In Canada debates about multiculturalism continue to emerge and percolate particularly over the past decade or so. In this context, we are grappling with the following questions: What is the future of multiculturalism and is it sustainable in Canada? How is multiculturalism related to egalitarianism, interculturalism, racism, national identity, belonging and loyalties? What role does multiculturalism play for youth in terms of their identities including racialization? How does multiculturalism play out in educational policy and the classroom in Canada? These central questions are addressed by contributions from some of Canada s leading scholars and researchers in philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, education, religious studies, youth studies, and Canadian studies. The authors theorize and discuss the debates and critiques surrounding multiculturalism in Canada and include some very important case studi

Global Multiculturalism offers a rich collection of case studies on ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity drawn from thirteen countries_each unique in the way it understands, negotiates, and represents its diversity. A multi-disciplinary group of authors shows how, in different nations, identity groups are included, or made invisible by forced assimilation, or reviled even to the point of genocide. Framed within a theoretical discussion of national identity, transnationalism, hybridity, and diaspora, each chapter surveys the demographics and history of its country and then analyzes the dynamics of diversity. With cases ranging from Bosnia to Chiapas, Cuba to China, and Zimbabwe to France, this volume offers a truly global perspective and scope. Its genuinely comparative methodology and range of disciplinary perspectives make it a unique resource for all those seeking to understand ethnic conflict and diversity.

Multiculturalism in Canada offers a solid introduction to the history and development of the ideology of multiculturalism in Canada. This ideology, which has become the primary designator of Canadian society, began in the early 1970s when vocal elements in the population who were neither English nor French strongly responded to the investigations of the Committee on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. Given Canada's early racist tendencies, the establishment of multiculturalism was a remarkable shift in public thinking. Many issues associated with immigration have arisen in the public debates around multiculturalism. Some people are convinced that it is a pernicious ideology that enforces the ghettoisation of those different from the mainstream. Others see dangers in the way some aspects of multiculturalism are merely tokens of an all-inclusive society. Still others contend that the voices of ethnicities aside from those of the two charter groups -- English and French -- are scarcely heard and, that worse, those marginalised voices are appropriated by mainstream writers. On the whole, however, Canadians -- especially younger Canadians -- welcome a liberal outlook that is inclusive of a wide variety of ethnicities. For them, and for many immigrants, Canada is a society that is multiple and layered, one rich in meaning. They tend to see Canada as a microcosm of the larger world, one that presents a useful model of tolerance for the world at large. Increasingly, marginalised new Canadians are excelling in the arts communities, telling all Canadians what various aspects of the culture shock of transplantation feels like. This book includes a representative sample of their works.

Multiculturalism is often thought to be defined by its commitment to diversity, inclusivity, sensitivity, and tolerance, but these established values sometimes require contrary practices of homogenization, exclusion, insensitivity, and intolerance. Multiculturalism in Canada clarifies what multiculturalism is by relating it to more basic principles of equality, freedom, recognition, authenticity, and openness. Forbes places both official Canadian multiculturalism and Quebec's semi-official interculturalism in their historical and constitutional setting, examines their relations to liberal democratic core values, and outlines a variety of practical measures that would make Canada a more open country and a better illustration of what a commitment to egalitarian cultural pluralism now means. Consisting of a series of connected essays-including careful considerations of the works of Will Kymlicka and Charles Taylor-this book provides the first comprehensive account of multiculturalism in Canada.