Oldal 144 [144]
ANUSHRAY SINGH
immigrant-receiving societies and the Official Multicultural Act in 1971 was
introduced to better accommodate the growing Canadian diversity. By the
early-21st Century, most of the the country’s population was of non-British
and French origin. The Multicultural Act was followed by an appointment
of a multicultural minister and a council in the next two years respectively.
It reinforced the idea of Canadian society as a mosaic: a national unity founded
in the coexistence of different cultures, ethnicities and religions.* Arguably it
is an abstract notion rather than a cultural/political/social prescription for
a fixed Canadian national identity.
In contrast, the American “melting pot” is defined by the American
Dream: a national ethos transcending identity category of class, culture, race,
gender and nationality towards a more capitalistic social upward mobility
which is based on ideals of liberty, democracy and freedom. It is often argued
that a melting point encourages immigrants and their descendants to give
up the old ties for “an American way of life,” while the “mosaic” encourages
ethnocultural profiles without a national identity based on some sort of
“Canadian way of life”: a “transitional” identity for its “visible minority,”
where the immigrants and their descendants traverse two different worlds. In
the South Asian diasporic context, they are the discourses of the “homeland”
in South Asia and the “hostland” in Canada.
There is no clear data to suggest the dynamic of melting pot/mosaic proves
any difference between American and Canadian immigrants in terms of
“assimilation,” “integration,” and “acculturation.” But, there is an observed
intercultural communication “lapse” amongst/between South Asian
minorities and the majoritarian culture of their Western host societies, and
this paper attempts to study “ambivalent” and “ambiguous” cross-cultural
South Asian — Canadian processes that facilitate and alleviate this. Through
the postcolonial theorist, Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of Third Space, I develop
my postulations using analogies made by sociologist Ray Oldenburg and
urbanist Edward Soja to study “third cultures,” performed/embodied through
“hybridity” and “transnationalism.” I see these as critical cross/multi/inter¬
cultural processes in constructing postcolonial and cosmopolitan identities,
which challenge: 1. Social constructions of ethnic minorities — relayed in
Western mass-media cultures through stereotypes and generalizations;
2. Social constructions of patriarchy and heteronormativity — relayed in
South Asian mass-media cultures.
3 Michael Dewing, Canadian Multiculturalism, Library of Parliament Legal and Social Affairs
Division, Parliamentary Information and Research Service, 20 E (2009), 4.
Dan Gardner, We’re often more like Americans than we’re like other Canadians, Ottawa
Citizen, http://www.ottawacitizen.com/often+more+like+americans+than+like+other+can
adians/824878/story.html (accessed 20 March 2020).
* 142 +