Dr. Evangelia Tastsoglou
Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology and Criminology, Saint Mary’s
University; Domain Leader, Atlantic Metropolis Centre
“Immigrant Women in Atlantic Canada: A Research Symposium” in celebration
of International Women’s Day, co-sponsored by the Canadian Museum of
Immigration at Pier 21; Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women,
and the “Gender, Migration and Diversity/Immigrant Women” Domain of the
Atlantic Metropolis Centre (March 7, 2012)
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Ongoing story and foundation of modern nationbuilding
Led by economics and politics
First Immigration Act (1869)
1867-1895: laissez-faire period
1867-1913: effort to settle the Western part of
Canada
Racial selectivity (US, Britain, Eastern Europe)
More restrictive Immigration Acts (1906, 1910):
controls on volume, ethnic origin, occupational
composition, and political and moral instability
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Chinese Immigration Act (1885)
“Gentleman’s Agreement” with Japan (1908)
“Continuous Journey” rule (1908)
WWI and Great Depression result in opposition to
immigration
Immigration Act was revised (1919): “preferred” and
“non-preferred” countries
Refusing sanctuary to Jewish refugees in 1930s and
1940s
Post-WWII economic expansion / liberalization of
immigration policies (labour demands intertwined
with rights considerations result in accepting
“displaced persons” through “bulk labour” schemes)
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New Immigration Act (1952) widens power of
Minister regarding selection, admission and
deportation
British, French, Irish, American immigrants
admissible “Asiatics” category was enlarged to
include spouses and children;
Blacks were inadmissible unless spouses or
minor children of Canadian residents;
migrant women from the Caribbean who were
single and between 21-35;
National security considerations (e.g. those who
left Communist countries were high security
risks)
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1962-1967: restrictions based on ethnicity were
abolished, giving way to education and skill
Changing nature of Canadian economy required
skilled workers
1967 “Points” system: abolished discrimination
based on nationality or race
1976 Immigration Act: racially but not
ideologically blind (“undesirables” based on
“reasonable grounds” for suspicion of
subversion)
4 categories: independent immigrants; family;
assisted relatives; refugees (idea of family
reunification was explicitly articulated)
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Rising numbers of non-European immigrants in 1970s and
1980s
Gradual shift toward business immigration (“investors”
category)
Bill C-86 (1992): neo-liberal ideas and practices in
immigration, favouring independent immigrants with
education, skills, language, and adaptability to New
Economy
Increased wage and employment gaps; “vertical mosaic”
becoming a “coloured mosaic”; systemic racism
Neo-liberal spending cuts; expanding role of provinces;
new immigration programs
IRPA (2002): interconnections between immigration and
security concerns; legitimating new forms of racialization
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Within the parameters of the economic debate, the question as
to whether the country needs to maintain or even to increase its
annual immigrant intake for demographic and economic reasons
or whether it has reached its “absorptive capacity”, is an old one.
Research findings point to somewhat conflicting conclusions,
though, admittedly, in the context of negative population growth
rates and increasingly ageing populations, it would be difficult
even for an information society to maintain its standard of living
without immigration (Li, 2003).
According to Canada’s medium growth forecasts (whereby
fertility stays the same, immigration rests at about 250,000 a
year, and life expectancy improves somewhat), the natural
increase will stop in about 2030 and the Canadian people will
begin, as it were, to die out (Foster, 1998).
In addition, complex cost-benefit calculations of immigrant
contributions point in the direction of substantial benefits to
Canada, despite the current underutilization of immigrant
education and work experience (Li, 2003).
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Atlantic Canada originally drew its immigrant
population from Europe, with initial settlement by the
French Acadians in the early 17th century, followed
by immigration from the British Isles, but also, in the
18th and 19th centuries in Nova Scotia specifically, by
“foreign protestants,” New England “planters,” and
Loyalists, including Blacks, in the aftermath of the
American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812
(Withrow, 2002; Walker, 1980).
The English and Acadians however, comprised the
majority of the population and new migration flows
till the late 20th century (Carrigan, 1988; Jabbra &
Jabbra, 1987, 1988; Jabbra, 1992, 1997).
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Since 1945, population growth rates have declined
continuously and even became negative in the early
years of the 21st century. Declining fertility rates and
net out-migration have been the major causes of low
population growth rates. Immigrants make up 3.4
percent of the Atlantic population, compared with
about one-fifth for Canada as a whole.
From 2001 to 2006, the Atlantic provinces accounted
for 7.2 percent of the total Canadian population, but
received only about 1.7 percent of total immigrants
coming to Canada, with about half settling in Nova
Scotia, a fact explained by the weaker economies and
a lack of a critical mass of ethnic groups capable of
attracting other immigrants to the Atlantic provinces
(Our Diverse Cities, 2008).
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Since the early 1990s the source country composition of
immigrants to Atlantic Canada has shifted from Europe to
Asia, including the Middle East. A similar shift had taken
place in the early 1970s in other parts of Canada due to
changes in Canadian immigration rules and global political
and economic developments.
Many immigrants to Atlantic Canada came from the Middle
East after the first Gulf War in 1991. The top five countries
of origin since 2003 have been China, the US, the UK,
Korea, and Egypt. Retention rates have varied in Atlantic
Canada from about 75 percent in the first half of the
1980s to less than half ten years later, to about two-thirds
of the immigrants who first settled here in 2006 (Our
Diverse Cities, 2008).
Table 1
Population by Selected
Ethnic / Regional / Religious
Origins
Nova Scotia
Total population 2006
Top 5 Origins
French
903090
New Brunswick
PEI
Newfoundland
719710
134205
500610
British Isles; Other North Other North American
British Isles; Scottish; Other British Isles; Other North
American Origins;
Origins; Canadian; British
North American Origins;
American Origins;
Canadian; Scottish; English Isles; French origins; French Canadian; English
Canadian; English; Irish
161990
190,725 (French) + 206,345 29115
(French origins)
25400
3235
30550
Acadian
14375
German
101865
33830
7050
7390
Dutch
37010
15515
4615
2115
Northern European Origins
13805
9610
1915
1,505 (Norwegian)
Scandinavian Origins
12850
9055
1830
3210
Western European Origins
131505
Eastern European Origins
25295
9030
2260
3115
Italian
13505
5900
1005
1375
Arab
10595
3810
875
1385
Lebanese
6535
East and South-East Asian
8160
48960
9720
575
4865
2380
South Asian Origins
Jewish*
1755
3900
1355
African origins
11095
3145
Southern European Origins
25265
11590
160
370
1960
4250
Figures derived from 2006 Census:
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo26b-eng.htm
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo26c-eng.htm
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo26e-eng.htm
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo26d-eng.htm
*Figures derived from 2001 Census:
http://0-estat.statcan.gc.ca.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/cgi-win/cnsmcgi.exe?Lang=E&EST-Fi=EStat\English\SC_RR-eng.htm
1. As far as the immigrant experience in Atlantic Canada is concerned, in
the context of a historically and overwhelmingly homogeneous
population, newcomers and minorities, especially visible minorities, have
encountered challenges in becoming accepted by the local populations.
2. For all Atlantic provinces, the non-European groups are very small,
usually less than one percent of the population. NB and NS are the only
provinces with an “African origins” category. The ethnic makeup of
Atlantic Canada seems similar to what it was when Canada was founded,
mostly people from the British Isles and France. However, the group
“Canadian” shows up in the top five groups of all four provinces in the
Census data, a testament to multiculturalism.
3. As immigrant and ethnic populations have remained small, they are not
perceived as posing an economic or cultural threat. However, Blacks,
Asians, and Jews, among other groups, have encountered prejudice and
discrimination in varying degrees (Carrigan, 1988; Medjuck, 1986;
Walker, 1980). As a result of the region’s cultural homogeneity and low
numbers and density of ethnic populations, ethnic studies researchers
have pinpointed to the high assimilationist pressures that ethnic and
immigrant communities have historically experienced (Medjuck, 1986;
Byers & Tastsoglou, 2008; Jabbra, 1992, 1997).
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Migration is a gendered process
Male migrants have historically outnumbered female. This
is no longer the case. “Feminization of Migration”
Women are found in all classifications of immigrants (e.g.
highly skilled; principal applicants; “tied migrants”).
Mainstream literature has not been quick in appreciating
the significance of gender
Gender differences arise from the subordinate status of
women which acts as a “filter”, gendering institutions and
shaping men’s and women’s experiences differently. This
in turn produces different outcomes in the migration and
settlement process
Gender interacts with class, race and position of state of
origin in the global economy in complex ways
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Definition of ‘immigrant women’: socially constructed by the way in which
the state defines them through the immigration legislation, with its racist,
sexist, and classist biases, and attempts to regulate their labour market entry
through sub-contractual relationships with community agencies and funding
protocols (Ng, 2009, originally published in 1988).
immigrant women’s occupational mobility is restricted by 1) the segregated
nature of the Canadian labour force; 2), the lack of recognition of education,
skills, and work experience from non-English and non-European countries;
3) lack of appropriate language and retraining programs; and 4) pressures
exerted by professional associations and labour unions (Ng, ibid).
Research attests to the fact that this analysis is still accurate (e.g., Donkor,
2004; Slade, 2004).
As a result, when immigrant women enter the labour market, they are forced
into certain labour pools at the lower end of the occupational hierarchy.
More contemporary studies (e.g. Li, 2003) confirm that immigrant women,
irrespective of racial origin or nativity, earn below the national level, although
immigrant women, unlike men, earn more than their native-born
counterparts. Immigrant women of visible minority origin in particular suffer
the most disadvantage (Li, 2003).
Attention is drawn in particular to racial discrimination in employment in
Canada. It occurs in two forms, economic discrimination (when employers
make generalized assumptions about the worth of racialized employees),
and exclusionary discrimination (when members of a racialized group are
not hired, paid equally, or promoted regardless of their skills and
experience).
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labour market is segregated not only by race but also by gender, with
racialized groups and women being over-represented in low paying occupations
and under-represented in better paying, more secure jobs.
Racialized
and gendered institutional processes in the form of state policies and
practices, professional accreditation systems, employers’ requirement for
“Canadian experience,” and labour market conditions discriminate and
marginalize immigrant professional women who suffer de-skilling and become
underemployed and unemployed in Canada (Man, 2004).
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same racialized and gendered institutional processes point to the direction
of recent immigrant women “opting out” of the Canadian labour market if the
alternative is underemployment (Tastsoglou & Preston, 2005).
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Research has generally shown that it is important to apply
an intersectional approach in understanding the
experiences of immigrant women. South Asian women’s
experiences in Canada are best understood when they are
examined from a framework in which their race-ethnicity,
gender, and class are inextricably intertwined within the
mainstream Canadian culture and institutions (George &
Ramkissoon, 1998).
Nanavati (1998) documents the double negative effect of
gender and ethnicity on the earnings of South Asian
women residing in Vancouver and Toronto.
Tastsoglou and Miedema (2005) illustrate how immigrant
women feel marginalized and “always having to prove
themselves” in the labour markets of the Canadian
Maritimes as a result of specific systemic barriers and their
mutually reinforcing interactions they face in employment.
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Research on middle-class Taiwanese married women in Canada
has shown that women post-migration are not necessarily
liberated from traditional familial roles but may have
opportunities to build new social networks that play an
important role in their new lives (Chiang, 2008).
Creese, Dyck, and McLaren (1999) discuss the reconstitution of
the family post-migration and, in particular, (1) how families
interact in various respects with local, national, and international
networks that extend, blur, and otherwise make problematic the
boundaries and meanings of family; and (2) how immigration
unsettles family relations and may give rise to new forms of
independence, dependence, and identities.
But immigration and attendant socio-economic integration
problems may also exacerbate family tension and conflict, and
may result in violence against women in the family. This problem
is especially exacerbated where specialized and culturally
sensitive services may be lacking or inadequate (Cottrell,
Tastsoglou and Moncayo, 2009).
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McLaren and Dyck (2002) discuss the
impaired competence of immigrant mothers
and daughters in Vancouver suburbs as they
negotiate with a school system that is
“imperfectly sensitive” to cultural diversity.
The research demonstrates the
resourcefulness and agency of mothers as
they advance their daughters’ education
despite their own linguistic and economic
limitations, and the seeming inflexibility of
the school system.
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With respect to immigrant women’s identity and belonging experiences,
Creese (2005) demonstrates that “Canadian” remains a bordered space
that only partially admits immigrants of colour. Thus, for immigrant
women of colour, belonging is often ambiguous, contradictory, and, at
best, partial.
Although Tastsoglou’s study (2006) of immigrant women’s
organizational participation in the Maritimes supports such findings
about immigrant women’s sense of belonging, subsequent identity shifts
of the immigrant women in her study have been constructed on the
basis of a highly positive appreciation of the migration and settlement
experience in Canada as entailing a great amount of personal growth.
Miedema and Tastsoglou (2000) argue that volunteer community
involvement provided the Maritime immigrant women of their study with
a safe opportunity to explore, train, and get acquainted with Canadian
society, as this involvement served as a means and a vehicle to break the
isolation, make friends, enact citizenship through activism for social
change and even, sometimes, find employment.
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The present volume is an in-depth exploration of immigrant women’s experiences
in the labour force, family, and broader community in Atlantic Canada. The book
highlights feminist research on women and gender-based analyses. Moreover, it
features new and original research from a critical feminist and intersectional
perspective focusing, in particular, on the intersections of gender with
race/ethnicity and class. Finally, the diverse chapters offer broader insights on the
connections between gender and migration at the local, national, and
transnational contexts.
From a feminist perspective we problematize the private/public divide, and
although our chapters are organized into sections that appear to have as point of
departure “public” and “private” sphere experiences, the chapters constantly point
out the interconnections and continuity between the two. Moreover, our
immigrant women’s experiences are also conceptualized in this volume in terms
of:
the barriers and challenges the women experience in the settlement and
integration process in the specific cultural and socio-economic milieu of
Atlantic Canada;
cultural, gender role, parent-child role, social and economic negotiations in the
private and public space continuum in Atlantic Canada;
de/re/constructions of identities, cultural, ethnic, and social boundaries which
speak to the immigrant women’s (and immigrant families’) agency.
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Ku, Doyle and Mooney examine the
(un)settlement experience of newcomer women
in New Brunswick, in an environment of low
immigrant numbers and lack of ethno-specific
organizations and consciousness.
Jaya and Porter examine the integration
experiences of immigrant women in
Newfoundland and Labrador, the various
challenges they face, exacerbated by the cultural
homogeneity of the region, low immigrant and
ethnic community numbers and limited
resources. They also focus on the negotiations
and creative adaptations that the women adopt in
such an environment.
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Topen argues that systemic discrimination,
rooted in gendered norms and racialization –
past and present – contribute to empoyers’
devaluation of foreign educational credentials
and international work experience and to
practices that marginalize immigrant women
from Sub-Saharan Africa in the labour market.
Amaya maps out the socio-cultural, gender and
educational obstacles that immigrant and refugee
youth encounter in high schools in Metro Halifax
and the Annapolis Valley placing them in the
context of life-course, gender socialization and
transnationalization theories.
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Walsh and Brigham examine how immigrant
women teachers confront, challenge and
re/construct their own and others’
mis/representations of themselves, as they
seek work in Atlantic Canada.
Weerasinghe questions the ideal of “equal
access” in healthcare through analyzing the
experiences of ethno-racial minority women
who are relatively isolated and lacking ethnocultural support in Atlantic Canada.
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Cottrell and VanderPlaat analyze the experiences
of immigrant parents of adolescents who deal
with serious problems of isolation or blame when
the seek support in parenting in a new culture.
Yax-Fraser uses the lens of “cross-cultural
mothering” to understand the experiences and
practices of immigrant women parenting in a new
culture by trying to reconcile values and practices
of their cultures of origin with Canadian
mainstream values and practices in ways that will
both allow their children to develop strong
identities, rooted in their heritage, but also
integrate in Canadian society.
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Tirone and Sweatman focus on leisure as
experienced by immigrant women and men,
especially from non-Western or non-Northern
countries. Such immigrants find leisure as a
selfish concept that alienates family members
from one another as they pursue individual and
separate leisure goals. For these immigrants a
more enjoyable leisure activity involves
socialization with extended family and friends
and participation in activities that promote the
sustenance of their rich cultural heritage.
Future research, focusing on the themes of this book - challenges,
negotiations, re-constructions - but also on other issues arising from
immigrant women’s experiences might include a number of systematic
comparisons, such as:
 between Atlantic Canada and the rest of Canada in terms of
immigrant women’s experiences;
 Of immigrant women’s experiences in the four provinces within
Atlantic Canada, in order to tease out the unique elements in each
province;
 of immigrant women’s experiences by ethnic group, between
Atlantic Canada and other parts of Canada;
 of immigrant women’s experiences between rural and urban areas of
Atlantic Canada;
 of immigrant women’s experiences between rural areas of Atlantic
Canada with other rural communities in the country;
 of immigrant women’s experiences in Atlantic Canada with those of
immigrant women elsewhere in rural, homogeneous, economically
marginalized communities; and, finally,
 of immigrant women’s experiences with those of other AtlanticCanadian born women.