Canadas and US's Approaches to Immigration - Coursework Example

Canada’s approach to immigration and integrating immigrants is often described as multiculturalism (or the cultural mosaic). The US approach is oftendescribed as the melting pot? What are the differences between the two? Are these differences real or imagined? Is one approach better than the other? Introduction Multicultural societies such as those of Canada and the US have been the results of an evolutionary process of state aided immigration. The obvious commonalties in policy paradigm apart these two countries have invariably been engaged in a positive and constructive ideologically predicated policy of encouraging multiculturalism (viz. the common meaning) though the respective approaches adopted by them vary in some very important nuances. Canada has adopted a policy of multiculturalism based on encouraging the retention of individual ethnic identities to the extent that they don’t disturb the societal cohesion and peace. This ethnic heterogeneity in Canada was reflected in the 2001 Census which recorded almost 200 odd ethnic groups. The term “cultural mosaic” is often used to describe this phenomenon though many scholars have of late questioned the epithet because Canada’s society is more than a cultural mosaic. On the other hand the US approach is based on the premise that the immigrants have to integrate into the US society with little or nothing of their individual ethnic identities being retained. It’s described as the “melting pot”. Again the term conjures up an image that is often associated with veiled compulsion to abandon one’s past and integrate into the US society with steadfast commitment. However the recent developments in the both the countries have taken the debate of multicultural societies and integration one step further. Despite a plethora of literature on the subject there is still a considerable gap between these unfolding developments and the subsequent explanations of phenomena. The connotations and denotations of these developments have to be understood well in order to be fully knowledgeable of the underlying nuances. Analysis The Canadian society is described in terms of a cultural mosaic that has virtually been known for a huge shift away from the American melting pot experience while there has been a considerable amount of controversy over the nature and the shape of the mosaic. The US experience has been different though as Hirschman (1983) suggests the melting pot has been subject to some of the greatest jolts received in the form of what he and many others call “the emergent ethnicity” – a more radical form of ethnic identities and bonds that have been crystallizing the US societal fabric in hitherto unassailable directions. It’s just as much the impact of highly dense ethnic neighborhoods populated by immigrants as is the class-specificity in employment on an otherwise unsuspecting analyst. This complexity has been the result of a number of causes that have received much less attention and analysis in the rush for ethnic attributes alone. The raison d’être behind this societal transformation cannot be attributed only to the immediate and primary causes. In fact the factors that have brought on these changes persist at every level of integration and acculturation despite the government policy of encouraging the immigrant to integrate on equanimity basis. In other words cultural heterogeneity with individual ethnic identities and bonds that Hirschman attributes to a level of significant attachment to the roots of the individual is essentially the inevitable result of a transformation impact in the US society. His references to sociological theories of societal evolution and the real life experiences of conflict, assimilation, prejudices, inequalities, intermarriages and segregation are all part and parcel of the holistic framework of analysis. There is virtually a mammoth amount of literature on the subject though its relevance to a critical analysis of convergences and divergences between the two systems is much less. Canadian immigration laws are liberally designed and have much to do with the express constitutional clauses that treat citizenship as essentially a contractual obligation but with corresponding rights that pertain to maximum liberties in retaining one’s ethnic and cultural identity. On the other hand the US constitutional rights were intended originally for a more or less homogeneous society that was predominantly white. Blacks weren’t regarded as a composite population with rights. However the paradox that the modern US immigration laws are designed to absorb immigrants into the society on one-to-one basis owes much to the quirky evolutionary process of historical developments including the economic dimension. Canadian experience has been marked by a much more varied ethnocultural ancestry that percolates down to the very essence of the societal fabric. A more recent study identifies a social anthropological dimension in the evolutionary process of historical immigration patterns and subsequent acculturation in the Canadian society. Indeed till the late 1960’s Canada too did not tolerate the efforts of immigrants to retain their cultural identities. It was after the work of Porter (1965) on multiculturalism that the Trudeau Government in Canada in the 1970’s happened to reconsider the whole issue of immigration and cultural assimilation. Canadian experience in welcoming immigrants after this historic change was completely transformed into a multicultural approach. The US experience wasn’t so marked by catalytic changes though the past century tended to be equally deterministic for the US as it was for Canadian immigration experience. But nonetheless the larger societal outcomes for the US were underscored by a more compulsive attempt by the political leadership to maintain greater vigilance than it was the case in Canada. Above all the US society wasn’t founded on the same norms or tenets as that of Canada’s. The principal ethical factors that underlie societal transformation with immigrant communities increasing in size and diversity are essentially the same pre-deterministic causations that require much wider analysis in both the societies. Despite this convergence there are very broad differences between the two in almost every other sphere. The subsequent process of acculturation or cultural assimilation in the US is marked by a parallel dimension of compulsion. It’s this aspect of its melting pot approach that has indisputably led to a virtual abandoning of the otherwise less coercive approach of “beneficiary-benefactor relationship”. The theoretical sociological factors,that Hirschman refers to in his delineation of sociological theories of cultural assimilation occupy a very important place in the whole literature of cultural assimilation. However it’s the theoretical constructs on immigration that occupy a still more significant place in the current literature on the subject. According to Hirschman economic perspective could have been more compelling than any other perspective for the immigrant to look at the new experience with awe. Bader (1997) holds an identical view in his treatise on the failure of the “melting pot experience”. Thus economic theoretical underpinnings of social transformation with immigrant populations trying to adjust to the host culture have received much greater attention than the sociological theories. Unlike the Canadian society, the American society with much acclaimed democratic institutions has increasingly been characterized by a virtually indomitable purpose of direction though the subsequent failures in policy and directional thrust could be attributed to the very peculiar circumstances entailed from time to time by self asserting ethnic minorities (See Bader). Self assertion or identity assertion isn’t new to the American society. It has been there for centuries, except that the African Americans were more docile than say the present day Mexicans. The Canadian cultural mosaic on the other hand presupposes the existence of a theoretically plausible “uneconomic” dimension to its cultural mosaic, a virtually typical social experience. Thus sociological theoretical aspects are more compelling in the investigation of its transformation from being a cultural homogeneity to a cultural heterogeneity. However quite a few theoretical underpinnings support the view that unlike the American society the Canadian cultural mosaic has been subject to a different set of norm predicated values. Then it’s the sociology of cognitive bias and prejudice that has to be brought into support the argument that Americanism as against a set of normative American values hasn’t failed (Ibid, Bader). On a broader perspective such normative values don’t predicate upon a set of cohesive definable principles to bring about socially desirable outcomes though. The American experience has been subject to the same validation process as the Canadian one; just the latter has been subject to less critical evaluation because there is very little to talk about its democratic institutional evolution. In fact there is a very significant level of interpretation given to the melting pot dynamics than to the Canadian cultural mosaic. Canada’s multiculturalism isn’t without its fair share of critics. For instance Roberts and Clifton (1982) refer to a lack of structural resource capabilities on the part of cultural minorities to transfer their ideological and cultural influences to the rest of the society in the host country. The authors argue that ideologies are misleading perceptions of individuals who otherwise tend to identify the commonly perceived goals as more meaningful and rewarding than these beliefs could be. Thus there is a conflict of opinion about the Canada’s cultural mosaic too though its real prevalence is undermined by a lack of critical evaluation of the ideological stance taken in advance by individuals whose priority is to see that their perceptions prevail over the rest. Thus given a particular set of ideologically determined values in the society there is still a greater possibility according to the authors that men wouldn’t necessarily agree on the cultural mosaic as an evolving paradigm. However the authors have committed a fallacy with regard to their conclusion that culture is a shared pattern of beliefs and therefore there is no room for a mosaic to exist within a given cultural domain. Though the argument seems to be logically conclusive there is not regularity of thought or coherence in it because in a priori cultural contexts patterns of thoughts or beliefs can assume a degree of variability to the extent that they ultimately become mutually exclusive but nevertheless still share the all too common thread of contiguity. In other words contiguous existence of identical beliefs cannot be ruled out. The notion that culture is a pattern of shared beliefs and therefore the degree of commonalty precludes the existence of all other differential characterizations is to commit an argumentum absurdum. On the other hand the US melting pot experience has been viewed as an ideologically neutral phenomenon for the sole reason that it seeks to sink cultural identities into a common pot. Individual perspectives on this melting pot range from the ideational to philosophical. In fact there is a surrealistic tendency on the part of the immigrant to initially assume that the outcomes would be all too rosy for the sole reason that the absence of ideologically predicated beliefs would ensure that experiences of individuals in this type of society would not be marred. Sociological theoretical perspectives apart there is a greater amount of ideological neutrality in this process of evolution. For instance as the individual happens to interact with the rest of the society he identifies a set of norms that are neither written nor defined. Mexicans, Indians, Chinese and Brazilians have known all too well that social consequences of being aloof can be too risky in certain contexts. It’s not a problem about unity but about anticipation of trouble and isolation. The inner compulsions tend to outweigh the anti-gregarious instinct of the immigrant. In this backdrop it’s essential to consider some of the common features for both Canada and the US approaches to cultural assimilation. Stevens (1985) points out that non-English languages that immigrants bring from their native lands are often forgotten when they (the immigrants) immerse with the host population. Subsequently it’s probably the instinct of the immigrant to survive that is predominant in the relationship. Thus he/she willy-nilly studies the host language. Both Canada and the US have English language as their predominant language for all purposes and intents. Indeed Canada uses French to a certain extent. The linguistic phenomenon decrees the individual’s behavioral tendencies to such an extent that social relations including employment are determined by it to the near total exclusion of all else. Now it’s pertinent to examine how far the language dimension has influenced the cultural mosaic of Canada. If individuals tend to sink their linguistic identity in the common culture of the host country the cultural mosaic doesn’t exist. Yet culture embraces a whole set of norms and behaviors irrespective of the degree of homogeneity, real or imagined. Therefore it’s not difficult to see that Canadian experience has been more or less cahrcterized by a transformation process that is less amenable to a positive interpretation through the tunnel vision of cultural mosaic. In other words if all diverse ethnic groups tended to maintain their ethnocultural identities in the larger societal interaction process, there would be more conflict than can be solved in a day. Thus Canadian cultural mosaic fails the test of language distinction. Indeed inside the house and at the place of worship, this cultural identity can be maintained. It’s not the mosaic that has failed to materialize in its full form but the concept of realism has been applied to an otherwise difficult-to-define social experience. In furtherance of ideological interpretations given to the melting pot approach in the US and its relative homogeneity, the Hegelian dialectics would be more appropriate here to make a more realistic assessment of the phenomenon within some given limits. In the first place thesis exists in the assumption that American society’s initial dichotomy in the pre-WW II era was centered on the cosmopolitan liberal society versus nativity concept and the post-WW II antithesis in the view that the “American society is now sinking into its cultural mosaic” – native cultures of immigrants have begun to assert themselves (Spencer, 2005). Next comes the thesis – individuals have come to understand the limits of self assertion. The last sentence and the idea therein belong to this writer. Canada’s cultural mosaic has been overly subject to a similar analysis though its depth lacks any directional thrust. However, as of recently, this writer has noticed a substantial paradigm shift in the literature on the subject. In the first place cultural mosaic has been presented as a model to be followed in Europe and the rest of the world to solve their conflicts (Wayland, 1997). However there is a considerable amount of doubt expressed by others as to the success o it as a model to be followed by European countries (See above). This disagreement apart there is very little support by way of a recommendation of the Canadian Model except from the journalists of Canadian origin. In fact the model has produced some good results in respect of conflict resolution through the devolution of administrative powers and authority. However, its validity in the cultural context where individuals have problems and differences within the same social context is questionable. But nonetheless it must be noted that the Canadian experience has many positives that tend to integrate societies with divisive tendencies. Culture is one such tendency and not a paradigm when the immigrant has chosen to forego some of his/her liberties in the larger interest of the society. Despite this dichotomy in the approaches, there has been a substantial amount of literature to prove that if at all these two approaches overlap each other to some extent. In fact it has been said that both the approaches tend to identify a common thread in culture, viz. the ennobling experience of the individual citizen irrespective of the nativity or origin. It’s not to deny the fact that individuals have their own overriding identity problems. However both the melting pot of the US and the cultural mosaic of Canada have come to share more commonalities as of late than before. They include the American identity crisis in which the average American has more of a tendency to self assert but at the same time acknowledging the fact that he\she is a small cultural entity within a whole system (Lerda, 1990). For example Indians and Mexicans have sought to assert in identical ways – the former in professions and the latter in ethnic food. But both meet with the host country culture at the sharing point. Conclusion Canada’s cultural mosaic and the US melting pot are two different approaches in the sphere of cultural assimilation or multiculturalism. However the former’s identity tag as more liberal with a greater degree of freedom for the individual immigrant to adopt his native culture and the latter’s description as a less liberal society with strictures applied on cultural identity or nativity cannot be accepted. As the above literature demonstrates there is much less of a distinction between the two now than a few decades ago. American approach to cultural assimilation of its immigrant communities has been marked by a tendency to integrate them into the society but not at all costs. On the other hand the Canadian approach to cultural assimilation shows that the Canadian society tolerates cultural dissent and diversity to a certain extent but yet again not to a greater extent. Thus both approaches have some common features. REFERENCES 1. Bader, Veit. “The Cultural Conditions of Transnational Citizenship: On the Interpenetration of Political and Ethnic Cultures.” Political Theory. 25.6 (1997). pp. 771-813. URL: http://www.jstor.org/pss/191958 2. Hirschman, Charles. “Americas Melting Pot Reconsidered.” Annual Review of Sociology. 9 (1983): pp.397-423. URL: http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/ annurev.so.09.080183.002145 3. Lerda, Valeria G. From Melting Pot to Multiculturalism: The Evolution of Ethnic Relations in the United States and Canada. Rome: Bulzoni Editore, 1990. 4. Porter, J. The Vertical Mosaic: An Analysis of Social Class and Power in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965. 5. Roberts, Lance W. and Clifton, Rodney A. “Exploring the Ideology of Canadian Multiculturalism.” Canadian Public Policy. 8 (1982): pp. 88-94. URL: http://www.jstor.org/pss/3549811 6. Spencer, Martin E. Multiculturalism, "Political Correctness, and the Politics of Identity.” Sociological Forum. 9.4 (1994): pp. 547-567. URL: http://www.springerlink.com/content/w4215p7106673k11/ 7. Stevens, Gillian. “Nativity, Intermarriage, and Mother-Tongue Shift.” American Sociological Review. 50 (1985): pp.74-83. URL: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2095341 8. Wayland, Sarah V. “Immigration, Multiculturalism and National Identity in Canada.” International Journal on Group Rights. (1997): pp.33-58. Read More