Moving Beyond a "Samosa and Sari" View of Multiculturalism: Whiteness and Canadian Identity

By Auvniet K. Tehara

“The changing face of Canada: As minority population booms, a visible majority emerges.” This was the headline gracing the cover of last week’s Globe and Mail. The recently released Statistics Canada report outlines that by 2031, one in three Canadians will be a “visible minority” (I prefer the term people of colour). The City of Toronto census metropolitan area will see a rise of people of colour from 47% to almost 67% in the next two decades. This article and study piqued my interest for a few different reasons but mainly what this will mean for Canadian identity.

From what I gather there has been growing attention focused on this study. Many are speculating that this rapid change in demographics could have harmful ramifications such as increasing divisiveness and cultural clashes while others believe that this will be great in really transforming Canada into a truly global nation. I am curious to see what this has to say about the current state of race relations in Canada. Dissecting the title, “changing face of Canada,” got me thinking a little bit more about what impact this demographic shift will have on Canadian identity.

Canadian identity has long been a topic of mockery among the media and resulted in interesting beer commercials. In fact I am sure that a whole semester of high school was dedicated to this very subject.  Although I can’t definitively answer what that identity is, I think that whiteness is a defying factor of Canadianess. Almost every person of colour has been asked the infamous and loaded question, “Where are you from?” To which the answer Calgary, Ajax or Thunder Bay is not the right answer, leading them to their second question, “Where are you REALLY from?”

I have lived this experience and it has really made me conscious of who I am and my identity. There are two defining experiences that have really helped me operationalize how whiteness and Canadian identity go hand in hand. As an undergraduate student working at the International Student Centre at the University of Calgary, I was responsible for staffing the help desk along with my friend Tanya, a white South African girl who moved to Canada when she was 14 (Tanya’s accent had become very much “Canadian” over the years). Numerous times students and staff would always assume I was the non-Canadian international student and that my friend Tanya was a full fledged Canadian, born and raised, but in fact it was the opposite.

The second moment in time that I really questioned my identity was when I was representing Canada at a conference for the International Federation of Liberal Youth in Montenegro. As soon as I walked into the proceedings one of the other conference attendees came straight up to me with a confused look stating, “I didn’t know that India was going to be represented at this conference.” Although an innocent comment it left me disheartened as I was so proud to be representing Canada aboard but wasn’t fully accepted as a Canadian. Although I still consider myself a hyphenated Canadian (South Asian-Canadian) in many ways I don’t feel accepted as a full Canadian.

What really interests me about this demographic shift will be its impact on Canadian identity. When a city such as Toronto is represented by over two-thirds people of colour will others always inquire as to one’s true identity, or will people of colour finally been seen as “real” Canadians? Granted, many people identify themselves as hyphenated Canadians because they identify strongly with two or more identities however many people like me are hyphenated Canadians by the mere fact that it can get old explaining where you're REALLY from. 

The paradoxical issue is that the hyphenation of Canadian identity prevents people from full citizenship in Canada, but at the same time allows them to retain their heritage. I, like many of my peers, have found it difficult to accept that we are not viewed to be “full Canadians”. In many ways people of colour are contained within Canadian society, but they’re never quite a part of it, they are seen as the “other”, as harsh as it may seem.

However as this “other” becomes more and more dominant there will be major changes that occur within Canada and Canadian multiculturalism. Canadian multiculturalism is very much rooted in Canadians holding British Anglo-Saxon values and customs while allowing people of colour an institutionalized medium to celebrate their cultures. This is what I like to call “sari and samosa” multiculturalism, a term coined by one of my mentors. It is meant to be a symbolic measure at the most surface level that is frequently seen in the form of ethnic cuisine and festivals. This is definitely the type of multiculturalism that is being celebrated by a local Fredricton filmmaker  Bronwen Mosher, who is producing a film on a South Asian family transforming the city's farmers' market with the introduction of the samosa. "The fact that everybody in Fredericton is crazy about samosas is a testament to multiculturalism working. And that's what I want to show," Mosher said in an interview with CBC.

Many times I have heard Torontonians describe what they enjoy most about the City. “I love Toronto, it’s so diverse, and you can get any type of ethnic food you want!” This is all great but as soon as someone or a group wants to express other more invasive forms of cultural practice that go against the British Anglo-Saxon values there is great discomfort and outright outrage at times. This resistance was exhibited when the first Sikh fought to wear a turban within the RCMP and also when a young girl was not allowed to play soccer because she chose to wear a hijab. The problem with Canadian multiculturalism is, although it makes everyone equal, it also establishes the idea that white Canadians are the norm because they see themselves as “culture neutral”.  

Although multiculturalism policy is noble in its goals it was never created to address the structural racism within Canada. Using Ontario as an example, poverty among people of colour is growing. A United Way report uncovered that poverty among people of colour in Toronto rose by 361% between 1980 and 2000 while decreasing by 28% for white Torontonians. This trend has continued over the last decade and is a growing issue in the province. What is important to realize is that racism creates poverty; these numbers are a testament to this fact. As we move into the future these questions, paradoxes and issues will become ever more present and how we deal with them as a nation will define our future success and legacy. I think this is an opportunity to move deeper beyond samosas and chutney and towards some real change.