Asia immigration churns Canada's cultural makeup

[GOTFIVEONIT]

Asia immigration churns Canada's cultural makeup

by Deborah Jones
Sat Dec 8, 3:09 PM ET

VANCOUVER, Canada (AFP) - When Tung Chan immigrated here from Hong Kong in 1974 most people spoke English, there was one Chinese-language newspaper, and historic "Chinatown" was considered exotic.

Waves of immigration from Asia have since turned this West Coast metropolis into an Asian-flavored, multicultural entrepot, with newcomers -- including growing numbers of mixed-race couples -- resident on virtually every street.

English and French are Canada's official languages. But Chinese and other languages have made steep gains in recent years, according to the latest census, released this week.

News here is now delivered in 22 different languages through more than 144 different media outlets.

Shops and bank machines post signs in English, Chinese, Punjabi and Farsi.

Former "ethnic" goods are rarely differentiated, with grocery stores selling Bok Choy next to spinach, lemon grass alongside parsley, and Indian chutneys in the ketchup and mustard aisle.

Even Vancouver's city hall provides basic information about municipal services in Mandarin, Cantonese, Punjabi, Spanish and Vietnamese.

"Vancouver has changed dramatically," said Chan. "We're really very lucky -- this is a microcosm of the world."

In 150 short years Vancouver shot from being a largely aboriginal community, to becoming a resource-extraction outpost for mostly Britons and other Europeans, to one of the world's most multicultural destinations today for immigrants who speak a dizzying variety of languages.

Chan came here at age 22, and eventually became a successful banker, member of the city council, and now a philanthropist and the head of an agency to help new immigrants.

He said old and new residents here mostly get along well, and Canadians, especially in Vancouver, "should be very, very proud of ourselves in terms of how we integrate people."

"The mentality here is integration rather than confrontation," said Eleanor Yuen, a Hong Kong native who now heads the Asian Library at the University of British Columbia.

"Most of the people who come here don't come with a strong ideology that they want to fight and die for."

Yuen said accommodation and integration in Canada differs from Western Europe, where her research shows immigrants, including those from China, tend to stay in "a ghetto of their own, in secluded areas, and speak little English."

Nationally, Canada has one of the world's highest immigration levels compared to its population. A federal report this week showed the mother tongue of fully one in five Canadians is no longer English or French, especially in major cities like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

Overall, nearly 18 million Canadians still cite English as their first language, and nearly seven million call French their mother tongue, Statistics Canada reported.

But newcomers from Asia have made Chinese the third most common language now, with about one million speakers (324,000 in Vancouver), and up 18.5 percent between 2001 and 2006, compared to an increase of just 3.1 percent for English speakers and 1.7 percent for Francophones.

Punjabi speakers increased by 35.5 per cent in the same period, and immigrants from India now number about 350,000 nationwide (117,000 in Vancouver).

The rise of ethnic media especially is a sign of how rapidly the West Coast culture is changing, said Catherine Murray, a professor at Simon Fraser University here. Murray and a team of researchers recently released a report on local news media outlets in 22 languages.

One potential problem, said both Chan and Murray, is the gap between new media outlets, which focus mostly on overseas and cultural news, and mainstream media that reports on local and national issues.

"The big stories in English media are not followed in Asian media," said Murray, citing a dearth of ethnic media reports about Canada's military in Afghanistan.

"Overlooking Canada's war effort in Afghanistan is setting up an important dynamic in the next election," she said.

Chinese newspapers "have to do a much better job in providing coverage for local issues," said Chan. "Most reporters are from China or Hong Kong, and many of them do not have the necessary understanding of the nuances of Canadian issues. That, to me, is an area that could be improved."

[Variable]

I was in Van this summer, definitely a cool city. (although I missed the aquarium dammit). It was great, I was missing Latin America, so I went shopping on some international street where I found cheese I could only find in Honduras (not even in Mexico), we went salsa dancing in a square right down town with about 300 people mixing it up, and then went for pupusas and orchata at this Latin American film festival. And it's one of two major Canadian cities I know of that actually sports palm trees.

It's interesting, I was just looking at the census data on Canada's ethnic makeup - British Isles origin 28%, French origin 23%, other European 15%, Amerindian 2%, other, mostly Asian, African, Arab 6%, mixed background 26%

- 26% mixed background!?! You know what that means, we've got some of the hottest girls around. (and guys I guess... if you're into guys)

Anyway, Canada's diversity is one of the few things I really like a lot about this country. But it really is concentrated in some areas like big cities - and even then sometimes, parts of big cities. There are still redneck holdouts here.

[psychoteddybear]

I Love Canada!!!!