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Ethnic Assimilation and Differentiation in Canada*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Frank G. Vallee ,
Mildred Schwartz  and
Frank Darknell
Frank G. Vallee
Affiliation:
McMaster University
Mildred Schwartz
Affiliation:
New York
Frank Darknell
Affiliation:
Ottawa
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Extract

Despite the fact that ethnicity is an important principle of social organization in Canada, there are very few studies that attempt to describe and analyse how it operates at different levels and in different parts of the social system. In this paper we suggest ways that might lead to a clearer understanding of the significance of ethnicity in the country and its communities. In its relevance to research, this paper is both methodological and programmatic. We hope that it will provide fruitful suggestions for research and for the clearer formulation of problems for study.

Students in the field of ethnic studies seldom consider more than one ethnic group or category at a time. Where the group selected for study forms an autonomous community, we get an exhaustive account of the group and its relations with the “outside world,” rather like the account of an individual's life history. Even where the people who are being studied make up a large element in our population and are dispersed both geographically and socially, there is a tendency to follow the same procedure and to deal with what is really a category as though it were an autonomous, discrete group; the picture we get is of individuals of such and such an ethnic group (as though their only identity were an ethnic one) and their relations with outsiders. This procedure is comparable to making an analysis of a small group by taking each individual in turn and describing him exhaustively without taking into account the structure of the group itself.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , February 1959 , pp. 540 - 549
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1959

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Footnotes

*

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Ottawa, June 13, 1957.

References

1 See, e.g., Hawthorn, H. B., ed., The Doukhobours of British Columbia (Vancouver, 1955)Google Scholar; Kosa, John, “Hungarian Immigrants in North America,” this Journal, XXII, no. 3, 08, 1956, 358–70.Google Scholar See also the following unpublished manuscripts in the possession of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration: Asen Balikci, “Remarques sur la structure du groupe ethnique bulgare et macédonien de Toronto”; Philip Garigue, “Associations among Persons of Italian Descent in Montreal”; John Kosa, “Immigration and Adjustment of the Hungarians in Canada.”

2 A recent attempt to delineate the economic, particularly the occupational, bases of the ethnic structure in Canada is reported in Potter, Harold, “The Ethnic Structure of the Canadian Coinmunity,” Information and Comment, no. 19, 10, 1956 (bulletin published by Canadian Jewish Congress).Google Scholar

3 This approach to ethnicity and its relation to the process of assimilation is paralleled in Parsons' discussion of sex roles and their assimilation-segregation in American society. Parsons, Talcott, Essays in Sociological Theory (revised ed., Glencoe, Ill., 1954), 190.Google Scholar

4 This trend is discussed in terms of differences among generations in Hansen, Marcus Lee, The Problem of the Third Generation Immigrant (Rock Island, Ill., 1938), 24.Google Scholar

5 See for instance, New Canadian (Toronto), 04 13, 1957.Google Scholar

6 In passing it might be noted that the formation and actions of ethnic associations in promoting the interests of an ethnic group or category are analogous in many ways to the formation and actions of professional associations in promoting the interests of their group. For instance, both are concerned with establishing the legitimacy of the group; with enhancing and protecting its status and autonomy; with gaining, to some extent, control over the selection and socialization of its members. A comparative study of the similarities and differences between ethnic and professional associations should prove rewarding.

7 Evidence for the increasing differentiation of this group from others with which it has been traditionally fused can be found in Balikci, “Remarques sur la structure du groupe ethnique bulgare et macédonien de Toronto.” The examples given here are of the differentiation of sub-groups, for this is our primary concern. Our society also features the opposite process, in which there is a loss of identification by the sub-group and a concomitant assumption of a larger ethnic identification. Thus, the early Sicilian immigrants learned here that they were more Italian than Sicilian; the Okinawans tend to get lumped with the Japanese and have had to leam that they are Japanese. This phenomenon does not apply only to immigrants. Such indigenous ethnic groups as the Iroquois, Haida, and Cree have had to learn that they are all “Indians,” a category of reference which has been imposed on them from outside. For an interesting discussion of this process see Glazer, Nathan, “Ethnic Groups in America: From National Culture to Ideology” in Berger, Morroe et al., Freedom and Control in Modem Society (New York, 1954), 166–8.Google Scholar

8 On the importance of this distinction see Gordon, Milton M., “Social Structure and Goals in Group Relations” in Berger, et al., Freedom and Control in Modem Society, 151.Google Scholar

9 Cf. Brady, Alexander, Democracy in the Dominions: A Comparative Study in Institutions (Toronto, 1947), 69, 72, 76, 82 Google Scholar; Dawson, R. MacGregor, The Government of Canada (Toronto, 1952), 213, 337–8, 466.Google Scholar

10 For example, see the Ottawa Journal, May 21, 1957, for quotations from an article in Evangeline and from a speech by Léon Balcer, president of the National Conservative Association.

11 It need hardly be pointed out that a simple count, or a calculation of ratios of officeholders at different levels based on the total number of people in each group, does not tell us how ethnic origin defines the situation. To discover this requires the study of actual practices of recruiting and selection.

12 Evidence of opinions on this and other matters to be discussed later have been drawn mainly from the pages of the “ethnic” press in Canada for the past year. The papers consulted are so numerous that it would be pointless to list their names and dates of issue.

13 Lubell, S., The Future of American Politics (New York, 1952), 69, 78–9, 212–13Google Scholar; Lipset, S. M., Agrarian Socialism: The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1950), 168–73, 183–6, 191–4.Google Scholar

14 V. J. Kaye, “Political Integration of Ethnic Groups: The Ukrainians” (in preparation for publication).

15 Corbett, David C., Canada's Immigration Policy (Toronto, 1957), 64.Google Scholar

16 This brings up the interesting question of the likelihood of the emergence of a “third force” in which groups of non-British, non-French origin combine for political action, thus altering the political structure of the country. We do not pursue this question in the present paper because we believe it would be more fittingly analysed in the context of integration, a matter with which we are not concerned here.