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I am canadian...I think: Cultural Identity in Multicultural Societies

Every time I hurry along St-Catherine street downtown, often late for an appointment or English class at Concordia University and maneuvering my way hastily through traffic, I can’t avoid taking a second to stop at the corner of Bishop in a moment of acknowledgement. There stands a puzzling establishment that seems to trigger my curiosity every time. The shop is called Taj Mahal Souvenirs and one would think from the name that the items on sale would be miniature replicas of Aladdin-esque castles. However, the wares being promoted are uniformly red and white, maple-leaf stamped and unmistakably Canadianized.

Canada boasts 34 ethnic groups with at least one hundred thousand members per and 10 of these groups comprise over 1,000,000 people. Our sizable immigrant population brings with it ties to many homelands, and second and third generation citizens of Canada also identify strongly with their ethnic roots. While this adds texture and depth to the fabric of our nation, it also problematizes any straightforward effort at defining a cohesive Canadian identity.

In 1986, less than 1% of Canadian census-takers identified themselves as Canadian. By 2001, this portion rose to 40% of Canadians. Derrick Thomas of Statistics Canada believes these figures suggest Canadians are viewing ethnicity differently, as something to be safeguarded but not entirely decisive of one’s cultural status. I am finding it hard, however, to pick up on this trend in my surroundings. It’s not that I think my peers are ethnocentric, but the bulk of my friends, family and loved ones identify more readily with the ethnicity determined by the birthplace of their parents or even grandparents than with any identity they would call Canadian.

During an unproductive break at school I began wrestling with the subject of this article and decided finally to just ask my good friend what he thought about Canadian identity. My friend, let’s call him D, is a twenty-one-year-old Canadian-born university student whose grandparents immigrated to Canada following the Second World War. Here’s how my conversation with D went down.

Me: D, what does Canadian identity mean to you?
D: (Silence)
Me: Ok, how about telling me where Canada fits into your perception of your identity?
D: You’re just re-wording the question.
Me: What do you say when people ask what your nationality is?
D: I’m Canadian.
Me: Are you proud to be Canadian?
D: No!
Me: Why not?
D: I don’t identify with the rest of the population.
Me: The rest? What part of the population do you belong to?
D: Italian…I guess.
Me: Are you proud to be Italian?
D: Yes.
Me: What’s the difference between Italian and Canadian?
D: Canada’s a boring country.

My ‘social experiment’ seems to suggest that even a segment of the 40% of Canadians who identified themselves as Canadian in the census were merely being logical, admitting that they were either born in Canada or have become citizens, and perhaps not necessarily attaching any sense of pride to this admittance. It is socially implied that simply ‘Canadian’ is an unacceptable answer when others are inquiring about your background. Due to my tan skin and black, curly hair I am often approached with, “What are you?” My answers generally range from “a person” to “Canadian” to “annoyed.”

Growing up, no one ever thought I was Italian. They still don’t. Meetings with new classmates, extended relatives, and any random stranger on the street always turn into a guessing fiasco concerning my “nationality.” The easy answer here would be Canadian, but I’ve learned that when people ask about nationality they mean to ask for the reasons you look the way you do. Given my puzzle piece features, I have received guesses that span the globe. They can even be divided into categories. Some more perceptive people will resort to every other Mediterranean country, so I’ve often been called Greek, Portuguese and Spanish. Then we have the Middle Eastern guesses: Lebanese, Iranian, Afghan, Turkish, Saudi, Syrian and Iraqi. Next we must take a little trip to North Africa for the Moroccan and Egyptian guesses. The South Asian guesses include mainly Indian and Pakistani. The Caribbean always provides a host of exotic guesses: Cuban, Dominican, Trinidadian, Jamaican. The next category, South American, can be divided into many subcategories. First you have the people who guess ‘Spanish’ and by that they mean any Spanish-speaking country south of the border; they really don’t care. Then you have the slightly more educated guessers who will politely choose “South American” in general. Finally there are the people who will not rest until they have selected the right lineage and go off listing Colombian, Venezuelan, Argentinean, Ecuadorian, Brazilian, Chilean, Bolivian and Peruvian.

I have to admit that as annoyed as I profess to be with these ethnic guessing games, I also take pleasure in them. As a child growing up in a predominantly Italian community, I enjoyed being different. Sometimes when someone guessed at my ethnicity and no one I knew was around, I’d play along with the guess. That’s why for the first two weeks of the third grade I was know as Little Pink Feather, Princess of a native tribe, to my amazed classmates. That lasted until parent-teacher night when my parents wandered the classroom looking for my name on a desk and I had to confess to the ruse. I ask: in what other country could I have had so much fun with ethnicity?

I don’t think the trick to figuring out the elusive Canadian identity is to come up with any sort of idea we can all agree upon. I think the Canadian identity is precisely the fact that we are allowed to be so ambivalent. We can wake up one morning and be ashamed, self-hating Canadians and think our country is ‘boring.’ However, we must thank every single god at once that we can wake up the next day and the day after that in a peaceful, tolerant country where we are free to be like that black-haired, olive oil complexioned little girl and cross all barriers to forge any identity we wish without fear. This is the Canadian Dream. {w}

profiling: volume i, issue ii

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