Angelica Babiera | Arts Editor
Featured image: Many immigrants struggle to conform to Canadian norms without losing their own cultural heritage. | Rowan Campbell
There are multiple challenges that people face when migrating from their home country to another.
From starting their lives over, to language and cultural barriers, immigrants may find it hard to try to fit into a new culture.
Some are perfectly fine with sticking to their own cultures and minding their own business, while others struggle. Many first- and second-generation Canadians struggle to find a balance between conforming to Canadian norms and adhering to their own cultural traditions.
Canadian societal norms and beliefs are perceived as “modern and liberal beliefs of the Western world” by many immigrants and York international students.
These are evident in the way Canadians are free to dress, speak, and act however they please; believe in any kind of religion; love whoever they want; and seek whatever kind of education and work they wish.
Ultimately, living a life they choose, because Canadians have accepted many types of living situations, unlike other countries that are more traditional.
People in other countries may have been raised to follow a certain kind of guideline due to their race, gender, and religion, especially those with stricter parents and cultural beliefs.
Medina Torlak, a third-year Criminology undergraduate, explains her struggle being a Bosnian and Muslim woman: “It’s difficult to fit in the Canadian and Bosnian cultures, because I was simultaneously raised by Bosnian Muslim parents who refused to let go of the memory of their old home and traditions, and integrated into the Canadian culture through the public school system and my peers.”
“However, I don’t feel like I belong in either culture. In Canadian culture, I will always be the foreigner, the Bosnian Muslim left out because of culture and religion. In Bosnian culture, I’m the Canadian—the foreigner—meaning I’m also left out. However, most days, I feel more Bosnian than Canadian. As much as I want to fit into Canadian culture and be like everyone else, I feel guilty about leaving behind my own culture.”
Ultimately, the children of immigrant parents can find it a massive hurdle when trying to find their own identities within their own culture, as well as Canadian culture.
This exclusion in both societies may affect these individual’s actions, because they don’t know what defines “Canadian-ness” and what defines who they are in their own respective culture. They also don’t find a middle ground to meet both standards.
Dr. Audrey Kobayashi, a Cultural Geography professor at Queen’s, described how many children of immigrants “feel torn” about their identity.
Kobayashi said: “Sometimes, they express their conflict by asserting their Canadian-ness, other times, they express it by talking about how they feel excluded.
“Those are two sides of the same coin.”
At the same time, many claim they often receive racist remarks from peers or strangers about their fluency in English and not appearing more like what they believe an Arab, Spanish, Filipino, Muslim, or a person from any other background, looks like.
An Associate Professor of Business and Society at York, Dr. Caroline Shenaz Hossein, explicitly shares her own experience with stereotypes:
“When will questions like ‘where are you really from?’ end? I am 47 years old, and white people constantly ask me that question. I am as Canadian as they are, and I am also part of the diaspora—Indo and African Caribbean, which is also part of my Canadian identity.”
“In my teaching evaluations, I always get a comment like “the professor’s English is very good.’ We need to step back and think about what it means to be a Canadian.
“I guess what I am saying, is that it is up to the students to redefine what Canadian-ness means. Racialized students can define how they identify as Canadian, and push back against others who try to pigeonhole us into one box.”
These stereotypes often come from prejudice and ignorance of others’ varying cultural and religious beliefs. In this sense, intersectionality comes into play, as immigrants and their children, who often have an “identity crisis” suffer not only with aspects of race, but with gender and religion as well.
Intersectionality is a theory that considers the aspects of class, race, sexual orientation, disability, and gender do not exist separately from each other, but are complexly interwoven. This connection plays a key role in understanding systemic injustice and social inequality in a number of ways.
Anne-Marie Núñez further explained in Employing Multilevel Intersectionality in Educational Research: Latino Identities, Contexts, and College Access that an intersectional perspective recognizes individuals that could simultaneously hold marginal and privileged identities.
To further convey the importance of intersectionality on social identity amongst immigrants, Núñez explored how intersectionality works for Latino-Americans and their access to proper education in American societies. She examined how the stereotypes and names they often get referred to such as Hispanics—an inaccurate and marginalizing term that raises connotations of a history of Spanish colonization—affects their psyche and how they are treated.
Latino-Americans suffer most in the educational system, because of policies that continuously create systemic educational inequality. The Latino Critical Race Theory helps focus on the source for prejudice and struggles that Latinos experience in their everyday lives. As Núñez described, it comes from the intersection of multiple social identities such as ethnicity, immigration, language, and citizenship status.
Núñez touches on ill-perceived stereotypes of Latinos as either “illegal citizens” and criminals, which is one of the reasons why Latinos are struggling in completing their education. The existing misconceptions and societal expectations towards them to fail creates a challenge. It in all impacts the way they perceive themselves as well—how they need to act a certain way to conform to societal expectations—or to go against it.
Hossein adds: “The term ‘intersectionality’ is complex. When Law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw first came up with the concept, she was examining the multiple identities of Black women and how they can be oppressed against their gender, race, and class.
“I think immigrants—and racialized people in general—have shifting identities. I know for me that I can identify myself in numerous ways, and every situation is different. This can be tiring, but it can also take a toll on one’s health—especially for people who have to hold multiple forms of oppression at one time.”
In all, Núñez conveyed how stereotypes and intersectionality impact the way a person lives their life. In a sense, she demonstrates how imprisoning it is to be expected to act a certain way because a person is Latino, yet disappointing people in acting differently from what they may have expected.
Mustafa Hussain Syed, a second-year Information Technology undergraduate, describes an instance of when he first spoke English, shocking his cousin because of how formal it was:
“Language was also big deal in the beginning,” Syed recalls a time when he was ordering food with his cousin. When he told the cashier what he wanted, his cousin asked him why he did so in such a formal manner. “Just say you need two slices of pizza.”
“There are many other similar instances like that, but now I can hardly recall them. But even now, sometimes I speak in a classical way without even realizing. So now I have to pay extra attention to the way I speak, and I have to make sure that it fits with social norms.”
Syed’s experience of oppression has caused him to change the way he acted in order to fit in with Canadian society. His cousin reminded him that Canadian culture is much different compared to that of their home country, Pakistan.
“Dress was one of the biggest shocks for me. To see Western dress on T.V. was another thing, and experiencing it was totally different. Also smoking—in Canada, women smoke as frequent as men, which was shocking, because women [in Pakistan] don’t smoke,” Syed says.
Hossein explains that no one should feel the need to change who they are in order to fit in with society; that they should not be embracing a way of life that they are not comfortable with.
Much like how women are expected to follow a specific dress code due to their culture and/or religion, they should be able to wear any type of clothing they want, which means that if they feel comfortable in wearing long skirts and hijabs, then they shouldn’t be stereotyped or oppressed for it. Also, if they wish to wear more revealing clothing, like short shorts or cropped shirts, then they shouldn’t be shamed for that either.
Hossein explains: “I believe that no one should be made to embrace a way of life that they are not comfortable with. However, this is assuming we live in an ideal world. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, a well-regarded scholar, spoke about the concept of ‘double consciousness,’ which focuses on how African-Americans live in two worlds: a white dominant one and a black one.”
“We perform everyday to try and fit into an exclusionary system, and then retreat to our own worlds that are safe. As racialized people, we all have a degree of performance in the worlds we work and live in; that is how we cope. I know for me, that my cultural space is where I feel truly myself.”
In this sense, Hossein demonstrates how some racialized people and immigrants tend to put up a mask in their professional and sometimes social lives, in order to fit into their standards. If this means that they need to act a certain way, such as speaking “proper” English to be perceived as intellectual and acceptable, then they will. Then, once they return back to their comfort zones, they feel free to act however they please, and speak in their own language. This is only an example of the reality that some immigrants and racialized people face when they are experiencing some sort of “identity crisis,” which can result from stereotypes and ignorance.
Intersectionality occurs with immigrants who are constantly belittled or pigeonholed into stereotypes. Some expect them to act a certain way due to their race, gender, and/or religion, which affects the successes of their social lives, and at times, their education and professional lives. There are also cultural barriers that affect and influence someone’s actions towards another.
The only way to change this is by being open-minded to the differing situations people may experience. Not everyone is made out of the same cloth, which means that everyone will experience the same things differently. The only way for all to be able to come together and live in harmony can happen will be when people accept others for who they are; to not restrict someone for living however they please.
