1 Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Vol. 4 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1969), 5, 7.

2 Bell, David V. J., The Roots of Disunity: A Study of Canadian Political Culture (2nd ed.; Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Bibby, Reginald W., Mosaic Madness: The Poverty and Potential of Life in Canada (Toronto: Stoddart, 1990)Google Scholar; Bercuson, David Jay and Cooper, Barry, Deconfederation: Canada without Quebec (Toronto: Key Porter, 1991)Google Scholar; Chodos, Robert, Murray, Rae and Hamovitch, Eric, The Unmaking of Canada: The Hidden Theme in Canadian History since 1945 (Toronto: J. Lorimer, 1991)Google Scholar; Doern, G. Bruce and Purchase, Byrne B., eds., Canada at Risk: Canadian Public Policy in the 1990s (Toronto: C. D. Howe Institute, 1991)Google Scholar; Webber, Jeremy, Reimagining Canada: Language, Community and the Canadian Constitution (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; and Weaver, R. Kent, ed., The Collapse of Canada? (Washington: The Brookings Institute, 1992).Google Scholar

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8 Canada, House of Commons, Standing Committee on Multiculturalism, Multiculturalism: Building the Canadian Mosaic (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1987), 47.Google Scholar

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11 See, for example, Bashevkin, Sylvia, True Patriot Love: The Politics of Canadian Nationalism (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1991), 1–28.Google Scholar

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13 Ibid., 111.

14 See, for example, Young, Crawford, “The Dialectics of Cultural Pluralism: Concept and Reality,” in Young, Crawford, ed., The Rising Tide of Cultural Pluralism: The Nation-State at Bay? (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), 3–35.Google Scholar

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17 Fleras, Augie and Elliot, Jean Leonard, Multiculturalism in Canada: The Challenge of Diversity (Scarborough: Nelson Canada, 1992), 125Google Scholar (emphasis in original).

18 For instance, Pal, Leslie A., Interests of State: The Politics of Language, Multiculturalism and Feminism in Canada (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

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20 See, for example, Smith, Anthony D., The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 150–54Google Scholar; Weiner, Myron, “Political Integration and Political Development,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 358 (1965), 55–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hartz, Louis, The Founding of New Societies (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1964), 14.Google Scholar For the American perspective, see Harles, John C., Politics in the Lifeboat: Immigrants and the American Democratic Order (Boulder: Westview, 1993), 51–63.Google Scholar

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23 On qualitative methodology in general and on the intensive interview approach in particular, see John, and Lofland, Lyn H., Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Analysis (2nd ed.; Belmont: Wadsworth, 1984)Google Scholar; also Zisk, Betty H., Political Research: A Methodological Sampler (Lexington, D.C.: Heath, 1981).Google Scholar The interview sessions took place in southern Ontario during the summer of 1992. Respondents were selected by means of a snowball sample. In an effort to keep the testimony more representative than exhaustive, only 27 of the 30 interviewees are cited in the present essay.

24 According to statistics compiled by Employment and Immigration Canada, between 1979 and 1990, 16,297 immigrants from Laos were resettled in Canada, over 5,800 of those in Ontario alone ( Employment and Immigration Canada, Immigration Statistics [Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1989], 20Google Scholar; and Employment and Immigration Canada, Annual Report, 1990–1991 [Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1991], 50).Google Scholar These figures do not strictly distinguish individuals on the basis of ethnicity—rather, all individuals whose origins are somewhere in Laos are regarded for statistical purposes as Lao. Neither do they differentiate “highland” Lao—most prominently Hmong and Mien tribespeople—from “lowland,” or ethnic, Lao. It is the political orientations of this latter contingent, historically the politically and culturally dominant group in Laos, that the present study explores.

25 Durkheim, Emile, The Division of Labor in Society (1893; rpt.; New York: The Free Press, 1984), 60–61.Google Scholar

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27 On the affective potential of Canadian citizenship, see Kaplan, “Who Belongs?”; and also Frideres, James S. et al., “Becoming Canadian: Citizen Acquisition and National Identity,” Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism 14 (1987), 105–21.Google Scholar

28 See Deutsch, Karl, The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control (New York: The Free Press, 1966), 126Google Scholar; and Shils, Edward, Center and Periphery: Essays in Macrosociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), 4–5, 66ff.Google Scholar

29 The fact that the support of the Lao for the national political community might be more complete than for the Canadian government or for specific occupants of political office is consistent with findings on the political support of the Canadian citizenry at large. See Kornberg, Alan and Clarke, Harold D., Citizens and Community: Political Support in a Representative Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), esp. 107ff. and 254–55.Google Scholar

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32 Other research has noted that immigrants tend to have a special affinity for their country of adoption. In circa 1970s survey data, for example, David Elkins found that feelings of “warmth” towards Canada were the least strong among native-born Canadians, stronger among long-term immigrants (those arriving before 1945) and strongest of all among short-term immigrants (those arriving after 1945). See Elkins, David and Simeon, Richard, Small Worlds: Provinces and Parties in Canadian Political Life (Toronto: Methuen, 1980), 12–13.Google Scholar

33 “Seminar”—the name given by the LPDR to labour re-education camps.

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35 Shils, Center and Periphery, 66.

36 See, for example, Bibby, Mosaic Madness, 158ff.; Schwartz, Mildred A., Public Opinion and Canadian Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 248–52Google Scholar; and Banting, Keith, The Welfare State and Canadian Federalism (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1982), 119.Google Scholar

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39 See Inglehart, Ronald, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Societies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 56ff.Google Scholar

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