NARRATING L D E m "SOUTEAFRICAN IMMIGRANTS" IN GREATER VANCOUVER Lon Barkley B.A., University of Cdgary, 1992 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Deparûnent of Sociology and Anthropology O Lori Barkley 1998 SIMON FRASER UN1[VERSITY September 1998 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means without permission of the author. iii ABSTRACT This thesis has two putposes. First, to explore the ways in which a group of "South African immigrants" to Greater Vancouver talked about their racial, ethnic and national identities, and how these may shïft depending on social context Secondly, to examine how the participants differentiaily experienced the immigration process (i.e., deciding to ernigrate, immigrating, and adjustiog to life in Canada) dependhg on their identities and skin colour. Through narratives, participants fkom varied backgrounds construct undexstandings about what it means to be fiom South Affica, to be racialized, and to immigrate to Canada Excerpts fiom these narratives provide the basis for an ethnographie analysis of how the experiences of the group of participants are differentidy shaped according to notions of self-identity and ascriptionsof "othemess". Drawing on the b e w o r k of relational positionality, 1 explore what the participants communicated about self and other and how these may shift depending on social context. By supplementing agonistic, s e l f d e r binaries with relational positionality, one is able to see how power circulates through relationships in complicated ways, as social actors seek to re-direct the flow of power in comrnunicating who they are, and just as importantly, who they are not. As contexts shifl, so to do the rneanings participants attach to identities and ascriptions of othemess (i.e., categorizations). The meanings associateci with self and other are also influenceci by the immigration process as difkent sets of difference-producing relationships are encountered. Available iv identity options and associated meanîngs are also shaped by public perceptions of political changes in the "new" South f i c a , which serve to both constrain and enable available identity options as some possibilities were restricted while others were opened up (as with "White"South Aficans re-claiming their South Afiicanness). The research also shows that skin colour differentially affected the experiences of the participants not only in South AjXca, but also when "starting over" in Greater Vancouver. Although Canada provided more "fieedom"to choose identity options than in South Afiica, this was accompanied by more arnbiguous "otheringV1 and racializing processes which also servd to constrain and enable available identity options. DEDICATION To Tom ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ûver the years many people have helped me along the way. The first thanks go to the participants who gave generously of their t h e . Their candidness and willingness to share their Stones not only surprised me, but also made the thesis possible. Heribert Adam showed the confidence in me to supervise me in the graduate program and get me to this point. Your confidence and candidness were inspiring. Stacy Pigg's carefd guidance and extensive comments through-out the early stages of the process were invaluable. Noel Dyck,who joined the wmmittee later, had the ability to make it al1 seem so simple. As well, Parin Dossa and Karl Froschauer made themsdves available and offered insightfiil comments on the research questions even though they were not on the cornmittee. Susan Dehnel's comments on parts of the thesis helped move it along. Susan Frohlick's astute coments saved me fiom despair durhg the darkest h o m of revisionsth&. A h , thanks to my CO-workers(Tonio Sadik, Jude Momison, and Mamie Thorp) at the Teaching Support Sta£CUnion(TSSv) who were always accommodating and supportive during difficdt times that always seerned to involve much more than the îhesis. Mickey Naisby, Karen Payne, and Gladys Durksen in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology always fomd the answers to my many questions. The Department was unfailing in providing financial assistance to attend coderences where 1 was able to test many of the ideas 1 have included here. 1 was also provided with what support they could through Teaching Assistantships and a Graduate Fellowship-unfortunately fùndhg cuts have made it increasingly difficult for the department to fund its graduate students. Arts degrees are important! To make up the shortfall, scholarships fiom the British Columbia Govemment and Service Employees' Union (BCGEU) and the International Brotherhmd of Electrical Workers (IBEW) helped. As well, Research Assistantships fkom Heribert Adam, EUen Gee, and Stacy Pigg helped pay the bills. During various stages the support, fkiendships and thought-provoking comments of my peers in the department were also insûumental, especially: Richard Day, Tonio S d i k , Susan Frohlick, Klara Hribkova, Am Vanddijl, Cristina Moretti, Richard Toews, Karen Kobayishi, Marie-Therese Reinan, and Amir Mirfakhraie. The greatest thanks go to Tom,without your support none of this wodd have been possible. You put up with a lot without cornplaint Your unwavering support was truiy remarkable. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS APPROVAL .............................................................................................................................. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... VI INTRODUCTION:OIUENTING IDE= .. .............................................................. f CHAPTER ONE: THEORIZING "USttAND lTTHEMt'................................................ -7 CONSTRUCTING CATEGORIES ............................ .... .................................................................... 8 "US"AND "THEM" :THENOT-SO-GREAT DNIDE ................................................................... 1 0 1 4 RELATIONALPOSITIONALITY: BRIDGING "USAND THEM"............................................... THERACIAL BIND:WHATDOES WHITENESS HAVE TO DO WITH IT?.......................................20 CHAPTER TWO: THE "PUSH" TO LEAVE AND t'STARTOVER" . CONTEXTUALIZINGSOUTH AFRTCAN EMiGRATION ........................................25 ....................................................................................... 26 THERISEAND FALLOFAPARTHEID ................................................................... 28 LEAVING SOUTH &RICA AND " S T A R ~OVER" G ................................................................................................................ THE PAR~CIPANTS 34 David......................, ....-..................................................................................................... 34 Craig..................................................................................................................................... 35 ......................................................................................................35 Gord ........................ . . Ken ....................................................................................................................................... 36 Aster..................................................................................................................................... 36 Lily ....................................................................................................................................... 37 Rose and Stan....................................................................................................................... 37 CHAPTER THREE: ASKING STRANGERS PERSONAL QUESTIONS .................39 WKY MIGRATION AND SOUTH FRIC ANS? ......................................................................... 39 CONTACTING PARTICIPANTS ................................... ............................................................. 40 ...................................................................................................................... -42 METHODOLOGY REFELECTIONSON THE RESEARCHPROCESS ..........................................................................-45 CRAPTER FOUIR: NARRATING IDENTITY ................................................................ 50 ........S..~..A...T..I.N..G..THE .....NARRATIVES ................. COMMUNCATING IDE..................................................................................................... CONSTRUCTING SELF: WHOARE YOU?.................................................................................. 50 54 56 viii L m :BEING "CHINESE" AND "SOUTH AFRICAN" .................................................................... 57 Being Cantonese. Being Chinese ............................. . . . .............*.........................*.*......... -62 "BackHome"....................................................................................................................... 64 Strangers and Immigrants .................................................................................................... 66 mRD: SOUTH &REAN, CHINESE, CANADIAN: "WHICHEVER ONE YOU wANT" .................. 69 Becoming Politicized: "aniUegitimate govemmentl'........................................................ 70 ASTER: BEING"SOUTH WCAN THROUGH AND THROUGH" ..................... ...-. ................... 73 "Immigrant,where do you corne fiom?" ............................................................................ 75 Racism: "Adevil in the pocket"......................................................................................... -79 Maturllig: 'Seeing diEerentlyvt.................................. ........ ................................................ 8 2 KEN: BEING" S o mAFFUCANICANADIAN~': "TORN LOYALTY"............................................. 85 Stereotypes: Shaka Zuly godlas, and starvation ............................................................... 87 Discrimination: "NewCanadians, last hired, and ever suspected"..................................... 90 DAVID: BEING A SOUTH AFEUCAN-BORN CANADIAN........................................................... -95 Canadians: "Standon guard for theet'.................................................................................. 98 C M G : SOUTH&RICAN-CANADIAN: "1sm~RIGHT?" ...................................................... 99 Immigrants and Accents ................................................................................................... -102 Discrimination: The threat of money ............................................................................... 103 .............................................................................. 1 0 5 MLICITLY "W m S o m AF'FUCANS" CHAPTER FlIVE: CHANGING CONTEXTS. SHIFTING IDENTITIES ................. 110 "MULTI-RACIAL" VOICES ..................................................................................................... 1 0 .................................................. 119 ............................................................... 1 2 5 REVISITINGWHITFNESS ......................................................................................................... 128 APPENDIX: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS.................................................................... 130 ~ E ? ~ T I TAS Es RELATIONAL. PROCESSUAL. AND MULTIPLE WEARE ALL "IMMIGRANTS" FROM SOMEWHERE REFERENCES CITED ..................................................................................................... 134 INTRODUCTION It is only by mggeeuting the dzrerence between wWLthin and without... with and against, that a semblance of order is created Mary Douglas Purity and Danger (I 966:4) This thesis is an ethnography of identity. It is about how a small ethnically and "raciallyff'diverse group of South Afkican "immigrants" to Greater Vancouver identified themsehes and how their experiences in both South A e c a and Canada mediated their identities. Through n m t i v e interviews, the participants constmct situationally fîxed undentandine based on their experiences. Their narratives are "discursiveproductions"of lcnowledge about self and others (Scott 1992a; see also Personal Narratives Group 1989, Rosaldo 1993), which are mediated by public discourses about South Afica, Canada, Greater Vancouver, immigration, ethnicity, "race", place, and so on. Because the participants have immigrated, they have rather distinct sets of experiences to compareSouth Afiica and Canada As a result, conceptions of self and other are called into question as they encounter different sets of difference-producingrelationships. The narratives are analyzed primarily according to participant, rather than between There are many meanings of "Chient",1 use it in the sense of "to adjust or adapt to a particdar situation" Webster's New World Dictionary (Third College Edition 1988). The use of "race" an2 "racial" categories is not intended to reproduce, uncritically, these arbitmy distinctions. "Race" is used hem because it is a "diffmnce"thaî m& in tenns of consequences in both South Africa and Canada As Dei (1998) asserts, "our society is racially stratifieci". (This idea is further deveioped later in the thesis.) 1aiso acknowledge Dei's insighdiil comment that there are many categories that are social constnicts, but race is the only one placed between quotation marks. 'Immigrantfr appears in quotes becauseeit is a contes& mm in that not d l who immigrate consider participants, to draw out identity themes. This approach gives a better sense of how they communicated their identities and how these may shifi depending on geographical andfor social conte% than would an inter-narrative analysis. Further, intra-interview themes lave the participants as "whole" as possible-aven the focus on ethnic, 'tacial" and national identities. 1 used the following questions to elicit fkom the narratives what the participants communicated about their identities. How, and in what ways, did the participants identi* themselves? What did they cummunicate about self and other: and how did this shift depending on social context? How did they respond to being categorized mcording to essential difference5 and how did they use this "difference" to defhe themselves and others? What effect did the immigration process6 have on their identities? Finally, if and how did political changes in the "new" South AfÎica and popda. understandings of those changes differentially affect how the participants were categorized and what identity options were available to them in Canada? The underlying h e w o r k of the thesis is social construction theory. 1 draw on work fiom ethnic and racial studies, post-colonial studies, feminist theory? and cultural studies to analyze processes of identity and categorization. The analysis seeks to put in to practice a theoretical approach to identity 1 find especially compelling: relational themselves "immigrants". Self (who/whaî I m)and other (wholwhat the/ are) can be equated with notions of "we and they" and "us and them". These are bound distinctions rooted in asymmetrjcal power relations that obfuscate interconnections between "us" and "them". On a m a m Ievel self is "hdamentaily assumed" (Le. n d i z e d ) and identified with "history'svictm", while others exist on the margins of self (Coronil 1992). These processes are reproduced on the micro level, however, the power relations in defining centre and margins (i.e. us and them) can be ternpoxady r e d k e d d by the actions of the individuals and their ability to hamess the fiow of power. By "essentialdifference"I mean variations between peoples which are socidly wnsmcted as mattering and used to mark the boundaries of a group of people as "essentially different" fiam "us" (ie. those doing the positionality. Accurding to Friedman's (1995) conception of relational positionality, the ways in which social actors position themselves in relation to one another must be used to supplement agonistic white-other binaries. To look only at the binary is to ignore how identities may shift and how power c m circulate (however fleetùig) in complicated ways, re-directing the flow of power ftom victimizer to victiniized (eg. fiom 'White" to bbOther"). Further, I argue that to more M y understand identities they shodd be considered relationally since they are constructed Ui relation to others, not in isolation as "islands on to themselves" (Barth 1969). Thus, the scripts by which one defines "us" says a lot about "them"and vice versa Necessarily, how social boundaries between us and them are marked and how they shift in social interaction must be considered in the analysis. It is not only what occurs within the boundasf, but also what happens across it that is important in envisioning oneself Examining how the participants cornmunicatedtheir identities and how these identities shift, leads to a more complex undentandhg of how the boundaries between us and them shift, dependent upon the point of reference. The relational approach also lends itself weli to analyzing namiives of a v&ed group of participants in that identity groups do not exist in isolation f?om one another so neither does the group of research participants. I chose to conduct research with a "racially varied" group of participants for two reasons. First, to facilitate cornparisons of immigration experiences across "racial boundaries" to ascertain if and how the colour of one's s k i . and identities matter in the immigration process. Second, to faifitate discussion of how identity options were either opened up or restricted for participants through the immigration process. defining). Skin colour is one example of "essentialdifference". 1 include in the "immigrationpmcess" deciding to emigrate, irnmigratlg, and adjustingto a new locale. Although a group of nine participants is too small to allow any generalizing claims to be made beyond this group, cornparisons within the research group are possible. 1chose this approach as one of the main purposes of the thesis was to examine how participants may differentially experience the immigration process because of their identities and the colour of their skin. This allowed me to move the analysis beyond more prevalent "immigrant integration" studies of 'ethnic group X in location Y (ie. the Chinese in Vancouver); studies which often served to neutralize intra-group variation and put forward generalizing claims about the e W c group as a whole.' A varied group of participants facilitates comparisons of experîences within the reseatch group to assess which experiences may be related to country of origin, which may be related to categorical ascriptions of othemess, or which may be some combination thereof. For example, moving beyond 'ethnic group X in location Y enables me to comment on how experiences may be sirnilar among participants because they imrnigrated 6om South Africa, rather than attribute ssvnilarities to -- 7 - - These studies often relied on researchers defining participants rather than participants defïning themseIves, and may also have ignored "racial diasporas". Aithougfi somewhat usefiil at a general level, the macro focus ignored intemal variation within the research category. Although generalizing within an ethnic group underscores the wmmonalities, the analysis is accurate but hcomplete (Rosaldo 19%: 128). Further, groups were uncritically defmed and reproduced accordmg to "essential difference" without addressing the construction of "clifferences that maiter" that makes this separation possible in the fmt place. There is a wide range of studies that I include in biis category, not al1 of which ~ l ony ethnicity. For example, Buchignani's (1980) "The Social and Self-Identities of Fijian Indians in Vancouver" addresseci self-identity only at a group level, ignoring variation within the group and the intenial power relationships in defining mernbership (Icorne back to this point later in the thesis when discussing definitions of "Chinesmess" in Vancouver's Chinatown). Rarncharanfs(1976) study of "West Indians in Torontotfaccounted for "heterogeneous skin colours", but asserted thai categorization of respondents into "light skinned" and "da& skifineci""was done objectively by the researcher". (This is a tmly rernarkable feat given the infinite possible gradations. See dso fminote 10 in the following Chapter.) Unforbnately there is no indication as to how "light skinned"and "dark skinned" was operaîiodized. Yet another study differentiated between "visiblel'and "not visible" immigrants "by virrue of racial difference" (Le. "non-white"), determined by country of origin (Schissel Wamer, and Frideres 1989). Those originating fiom Afnca were assumed to be visible, which, by extension, means that "White" South Africans would be defîned as "visible by Wtue of racial difference". It is important note that over tune studies such as these are becoming less fiequenf as work in îhe field of anti-racism impinges on "immigration studies" (e.g. Hemy 1994). their membenhip in a specific ethnic or "racial" group. There are a number of necessary considerations that aise h m conducting research on identity with people who immigrated h m South f i c a . First, there is the effect of apartheid Because South f i c a under apartheid was a deeply dwided society, there are deep divisions between peoples, marked by "racial boundaries". Although apariheid has been officially dismantled these boundaries persist, even in the diaspora Further the participantsfff&scursiveproductions" of identity are also affècted by political changes in the "new" South Afiica Also to be considered are public discourses in Canada about what it means to be "fiom South ~fiica"'(some of the more prevalent ones encountered by the participants focused on starvation, oppression, and racialization). Discourses about South Aficanness (e.g. "ra~ialist'~)~ and Canadimess (e.g. "rnulticultural haven") may bump up against the participants' experiences which can affect how they see themselves, as well as how they define themelves in opposition to u n f d i a r categorical constructions (and assumptions) of otherness. For example, although the Canadian government promotes itself intemationally as a defender of human nghts, participants contrasteci this against the state's treatment of aboriginal peoples and some of the participantst experienca of being racialized and/or racism in Greater Vancouver. Canada provided more identity options to choose fiom, which are less clearly- defined because of the state's (professecl) emphasis on self-definitiodascription of identity 1 place " h m South Afncal'inquotes because the question "where are you h m " was somewhat problematic for some of the participants because they found it marginalking. 1corne back to this point later in the thesis. 1use the s u f b "ness" (e.g. South Afiimess) to denote a catgorical identity thai is detemiined by much more than state borders. It includes a consciousness and awareness about what it means to be South Afiican in boundary processes. Notions of "ness" are ambiguous and context-dependent because of the shifting rather than Iegislaied racial categorization to determine life chances. On the one hand, the ' "divmityttO of Greater Vancouver makes it easier to "fit in" (Lily) because there are so many people h m so many places. While on the other hand, participants encountered various stereotypes linking "race"to place based on comrnon sense knowledge that could be othering or marginalizing. In sum, the relative "fieedom" of Canada senes both to constrain and enable identity options. In the next chapter, I elaborate on processes of identity, boundary marking, and relational positioning. In Chapter Two,1 discuss some of the reasons why "SouthAficans" emigxated and offer brief descriptions of the participants. In Chapter niree I discuss my motivations for conducting research with "South Afican immigrants", how the narratives were collected, and some of the methodological consideraiions that arose while conducting the research. The narratives are presented in Ch- Four, followed by reflections on the research fïndings in Chapter Five. boundaries between us and them in social practice. ' O "Diversity" appears in quotes, be*uise it is a loaded terni used to refer to "iacia1"and ethnic others who are defined in opposition to neutralized, hegemonic notions of "White", British and French "non-ethnic" Canadians. For a more detaiIed discussion of the "problem of diversity" than can be offered here see Day (1998). CHAfTER ONE TEEORIZING "US"AND "THEM" Men hnve always divided the world up into regions having either red or imagined distinctionj-omeach other. .... It is enuugh for "us" to set up these boun&>ies in and their our own min&; "they"become they accordingly, and both their tmewltory rnentality are designated c2s dtferent fiom To a certain extent... societia seem thus to derive a sense of thek identities negatively. A Afh-centwy Athenian wcis very likelj to feel himself to be nonbarbanan as much as he positive& felt himeIfto be Athenian. Edward W. Said Orientalism (1978:39,54) Identity is something that becornes salient in interaction, for identity is significant only in relation to (an)other. For example, ethnic, "racial", or national identity is significant only if people believe there are other ethnies, "races", or nations to be differentiated fiom. People define themselves and others through socially constructed categones that rely on "differences" that are communicated as "matteringttbetween "us and them", which in tum are used to delineate and communicate a sense of self Therefore the boundanes that serve to differentiate between us and them are significant in defîning not only who is to be excluded, but also who will be included These considerations are key in analyzing the possible scripts and ways in which people communicate who they are and, just as significantly, who they are not by rnarking boundaries according to "differences that matter". Notions of "essential difference" are sigdïcant because they provide scripts that simdtaneousiy corîi-nunicate notions of otherness (Le. who they are) as weli as usness (i.e. who we are not). Conversely, these "differences" serve to rnis-categorize peoples according to essentialized notions of "the Otherfl. Implicit in this relaîiomhip is a struggle for power. Power in determinùig whose definition is salient in which contexts, power in redefining notions of self and other, power in h&g a particular distinction between "us and them" transformecl into common sense hwledge. Because identities are relational, my analysis of identity includes not only the markers used to define self, but also the markers used to define others. In this chapter, 1 elaborate on how and why distinctions between us and them "matter" in communicating identity. This is followed by an outlule of the strengths and wealaiesses of selected theoretical approaches on identity and the merits of a relational positionality framework in analyzing identity narratives. ... what we comider to be "mtural" can and does change with comesponding transitions in human thought. .... All consîructions of "reality"must be seen as a product of the hwnan capacityfor thought and, comequently. are subject to change and variability. Peter Jackson and Jan Penrose "Placing 'Race' and Nation" (1993:2-3) The underlying fiamework of this thais is social consiruction theory, which critiques the role social categories play in s t ~ ~ c t u r i nour g experiences and analysis of the world (Jackson and Penrose 1993:2). Although categories provide a h e w o r k to make "sense" out of continuous variation (ibid.; Somers and Gibson 1994:79) they are problernatic when "naturalized" and, as a result, so too are the relationships of power that lend legitimacy to securing advantages to some over, or at the expense of, others (Jackson and Penrose 1993:2).11 By bringing the power relationships ont0 "theoretical centre-stage" (Jenkins 1986), "a whole range of 'givens'" (Jackson and Penrose 1993:2) and "false certainties imposed by categorical approaches to identity" (Somers and Gibson 1994:40) cm be reevaluated. There is a subtle yet critical distinction to be made here in that the point is not about exposing social constructs as "false", but rather to focus the critique on "the falseness of our imquestioning acceptance of these constructs fiom which their legitimacy derives" (Jackson and Penrose 1993:3, anphasis added). It is important to state that this thesis is not about finding some "pre-existingl' andlor "real" categories which c m be found by decomtructing social categones, nor how categories c m be empowered in "the pursuit of equalitytl." Nor is it about proposing "new" or "better" categories for social analysis. My purpose is to examine the effects of these categorizations on the identities of the research participants and the ways in which "power circulates in complicaîed ways" (Friedman 1995) in negotiating identities within contested categories. It is also important to state that I do not regard power as an object of exclusive possession, but rather as a social process that becornes salient through interaction. In other words, power is " For example, arguing that "South Afiican Blacks'' are not as intelligent as "South Afncan Whites" neuiralùes and legitimizes the strucairal inequalities which advantaged "White9 without critically examining the hiquitous structure used to divide "races" and enîrench "White intel1ectua.Isuperiority". Now that (some) "Blacks" are king more hlly incorporated into Souîh African society, some "non-Blacks" cornplain that "the standards are declining" because they are king "down-graded for the Blacks". A criticid analysis of the tàlse certahties about "Black intelIigenceW,the systemic discrimination under apartheid that gave rise to this situation, and the neutrality of "White"as the unspoken determiner of "the standards" are strategically absent in discussionsabout "declinhg standards". IL This is noc however, to say that 1 do not agree with these ideas. The re-casting and literal empowerment of the category "Black" in the United States by Stokely Camichael and the Black Power movement, which power" (Deloria 1988:179- l82), are prime examples of the deconstruction and reconstruction later inspird "d of "racial" categories. DeIoria identifies how some aspects of power associated with a category cm, however, be overh k e d when focushg on empowerment. "Black power, as many Indian people began to understand it, was not so much an affinnation of black people as it was an anti-white reaction. BIacks... obviously had power in many respects. In some instances, publicity for example, blacks had much more power than anyone dreamed possible" (ibid:182). 10 not something that one possesses in isolation k m one's ability to assert it over someone else. "UsT'and "Themw:The iiot-so-great divide Culture is what rnakes the boundaties of &mnins seem natural, what gives ideologiespower, and what makes hegemonies appectr seamless. Sylvia Yanagisako and Carol Delaney NaturaIizing Power (1995: 19). Barth's (1969) Ethnic Groups and Boundanes is the root of the analyîical h e w o r k . His "seminal work" (Jenkins 1986) argue-against isolationist approaches that treated an ethnic group "as an island to itselff (Barth 1969: 11). Instead, he offered an interactionist approach, viewing ethnicity as situationally defined through practices of production and reproduction. Barth shifted the analysis fiom the "cultural s t u P enclosed by the boundaries, to boundary processes. However, as Anthias and Yuval-Davis point out, it is impractical to look at one and not the other, because in practice it is the culturai stuff that is used to detennine whether one cari cross the boundary or will be excluded (1993:4). In other words, boundaries serve to exclude, but it is the cultural stuff, enclosed by the boundary, that provides the bais for determining inclusion or exclusion. Although the bomdaries are ideological they involve material practices, and therefore material origins and effects. The boundary is a space for struggle and negotiation. Ethnic resources (such as language, culture, religion, gender relations) c m be used in intexplay with the class and poïltcal resources and positionings of die group. Ethnic processes are often irnplicated therefore in the pursuit of diverse political ends. These rnay involve exclusionary and inclusionary practices for maintaining the pnvileges dong a number of different dimensions, or for comtering those of other groups. Ethnicity can therefore be a medium for class, nation or state formaton. -...Class projects may use a variety of means, which may include mist formulations of an immutable essential difference to the group for pursuing exploitation. Racial projects may be a mode for presening eilinic excIusivity and privileges within the nation state of the dominant ethnic group. (ibid:4-5) 1include this lengthy quote for its relevance to South Afiica In 1948 the National Party argued that in order for the "White race" to "survive", sepration between "races" was necessary (Christopher 1994:4); however, apartheid's "racial boundaries" were as much about political and matexial gains as survival.13 Pro-apartheidists posited economic equality as a stepping stone to political equality and, by extension, a threat to the very existence of the "White race". For example, in 1954, B.J. Schoeman, the South A£Ïican Minister of Labour, stated: "if we reach the stage where the Native can climb to the highest m g in our economic ladder and be appointeci in a supervisory capacity over Europeans, then the other equaiity; narnely political equality, must inevitably follow and that will mean the end of the European race" (in ibid:2).14 The "myth of racial p ~ t y 1 t and ' 5 "immutable essential difference" were used to exclude "non-Whitehion-European others" fkom civil society, thereby facilitating their political and econornic domination by "Whites". "Racial" boundaries became "a space for struggle and negotiation" because moving up the "racial" hierarchy improved one's life chances. Although the pinnacle of the hierarchy was reserved for "Whites Only", it was " Apartheid can be seen as a solution to the "public problem" (Gusfield 1981) of poor whiteism (Barkley 1991) and conflicts between "the English"and "the m e r " (Adam, personal communication). l4 "European" signified "White", thereby conflating "European" and "White". l5 The "myth of racial purity" not only perpetuates the idea of "races1*, but dm e-races the realiry of centuries of "miscegenation" between socially constructed "racial" categories. For example, van den Berghe has argued that "One can safely estimate that anywhere h m one-tenth to one-quarter of the p a o n s classified as "White" in the Cape Province are of mixed descent, and that every "old fàmily" h m White Cape Society haç genealogid connections with Coloured families" (1965:42; see also Sirnons 1970:viii). Van Amersfoort maka an interesthg observation in that "the British always considered themselves so weak that the siightest drop of foreign blood couId de-classi@ their offspring", whereas the Dutch "folIowed the opposite d e . They considered themselves so irnporîant that any trace of Dutch ancestry @mvided it was legai!) was sufficient to classifi a child as Dutch" (in Stone I985:19). In apartheid South Afnca, social perceptions were a significant k t o r in determinhg "race" (see Watson 1970). possible for some to cross the bomdary by "passing for White". f'Pass-Whites", people officidy classified as "Coloured", were able to change their racial classification to "White" by building up a "White profile1'and being socially accepteci as "Whitef'(Watson 1970). To do so,those on the rnargins of the racial category "Whitet', relied on the "gamut of Nred notions" (Minh-ha 199S[lWl]) associated with Whiteness to re-situate themselves in the racial hierarchy. 1 employ this example to demonstrate that, in practice, as Anthias and Yuval-Davis (1993) assert, both the bomdanes a d the c u l W shiff were important, because the "cultural stuff' associated with Whiteness "provided the credentials" not only to determine Whiteness, but also to cross the "racial boundaq" and be Wzite". Jenkins' (1986) distinction between categories and identities picks up where Barth's boundary analysis lefi off by using more precise t e m to differentiate between intemal and extemal boundary processes. Jenkuis argued that "categories" are other-irnposed- (re)produced outside or across an ethnic boundary-whereas "identity" is self-ascribed(re)produced within the bomdary. Categorisation, in particular, is intimately bound up with power relations and relates to the ability of one group successfblly to impose its categories of ascription upon another set of people and to the resources which the categorised collectivity cm draw upon to resist, if need be, that imposition. To achowledge the significance of the distinction between [group identification and categohtion] is, therefore, to place relatiomhips of domination and subordination on the theoretical centre-stage. (ibid) Jenkins, citing Banton, goes on to differentiate between ethnicity and "race" in sixnilar terms, whereby "ethnicity is generally more concemed with the identification of 'us' while racism is more oriented to the categorisation of 'them"' (ibid:177).I6 However, the 16 See footnote 12 for an example of resisiing the imposition of categories of ascription while at the same t h e identiijhg with the ''racial" categorization 13 existence of racist attitudes alone does not constitute racism, as racism necessarily entails stniggles for power and the desire of a group/s to marginalize and dominate others. Further, although ftram"'lis pbarily defined by reference to [a] purported inherent and immutable ciifference h m , andlor inferiority to, the dominant group", this does not preclude identification with "racial" categories (ibid: 178). Bell hooks' essay "Revolutionary Black Women: Making Ourselves Subject" provides just such an example. She mites that growÎrig up in a segregated black communîty-a result of the determination of "racial" inferiority by dominant "Whites"-"gave me a grounding in a positive experience of 'blackness' that sustained me when 1 left the c o m m u n i ~to enter racially segregated settings, where racism informed most social interactions" (1992:44). Marable's (1992) distinction between "black" and "blackness" is useful in M e r analyzing hooks' "positive sense of blachess" (as well as other racialized identities). He argues that "Black" is a "race", whereas "Blackness" is about "much more than race". Blackness denotes culhue, tradition, r i a s , values, beliefs, social experiences, etcetera. It includes processes of awareness and consciousness constructed fiom within, and serves ar a "cultural umbilical cord" connecting those in the diaspora to Afiica (Marable 1992). By contras4 "Black" is a distinction forced upon "others" by their oppressors (Cambridge 1996). Relating this back to Jenkins' (1986) distinction between categories and identities, "Black" is a category, whereas "Blackness" is an identity. However, being racialized precedes Blachess as a foxm of consciousness because "Black", as a socially meaningful category, mediates experiences of Blackness (i.e. one does not experience Blaclmess without the category "Black"). Mthough Jenkinst distinction between categories and identities made sense at a theoretical level, this static h e w o r k , on its own, proved inefféctive when participants wodd position themselves within a category in one context, yet in opposition to it in the next.17 Further, as bell hooks' experienct dernonstraîes, categorization cm be i n t d i z e d as a form of identity because Blackness is preceded by one's identification with the category "~lack"!~ Relational Positionality: Bridging "Us and Them" ... the concepts of nulrative i&ntity and relational setting allow us to reconceptwlue the subject-object GfVnamic of modem social theory. Margaret R. Somers and Gloria D. Gibson "Reclaiming the Epistemological 'Other': Namative and the Social Constitution of Identiîy" (1 994:79). Friedman's fiamework of relational positionality helps to circumvent the conundnun of identifjing with categories. Friedman argued that agonistic whitdother binaries should be supplemented with relational positionality. Because identities are relational, so too must be the analytical approach. Thus, it is useful to distinguish othering processes in agonistic binaries, but this does not preclude identifying with a category in relation to some other position. Her relational positionality fbmework allows for categories of "White" and "Other" to be fixed in public nmtives, at the same time as multiple and fluid identities shift in social interaction. So although South Afican "race relations" are ofien situated within b i m y White-ûther categories at macro levels, this does not mean that in inter-personal " For example, one of the participants said T m a Black South Afn'can", and then later said, "Bl& 1don't even use that word, 1 prefer to cal1 rnyself African". He first positioned himself within the category "Bhck" (i.e., he identifid with it), and then outside of it (i.e., it was a categorization of otherness that he did not identie with). 1corne back to this later in the thesis. nianks to Heribert Adam for h w i n g out this theoreticai limiîation interactions al1 of one's identities will necessarily be predetermined in the same way. Within a relational h e w o r k , identities shift with a changing context, dependent always upon the point of reference. Not essences or absolutes, identities are fluid sites that can be understooà differently depending on the vantage point of their formation and h c t i o n .... Scripts of relational positionality construct a multiplicity of fluid identities defined and acting sihiationally. (Friedman 1995:17) Because identities are fluid, so too is the flow of power, which means that "victims can also be victimizers" (Friedman 1995:19). As a result of this fluidity, the struggle for power becomes a central ingredient in positioning self and other (ibid:38; Somers and Gibson 199455). Identities are situated in particular times, spaces, and relationships of power. By using narratives to ejicit identities, the fluidity of identity and how identities shif? can be used to decentre categorical stability. [Tjhe narrative identity approach ernbeds the actor within relatiomhips and stories that shift over time and space and thus precludes categoricai stability in action. These temporally and spatially shiftuig configurations fom the relational coordinates of ontological, public, and cultural narratives. It is within these temporal and multi-layered narratives that identities are formed; hence narrative identity is processual and relational. (Somers and Gibson 1994:65)' Subjects are constituted through a multiplicity of possible identifications, some of which become salient in certain contexts"(Scott 1992:19; see &O Maré 1993[1992]; Williams 1989):O History then, is an ongoing process of repetitive differentiation, "subject l9 Somm and Gibson identify four dimensions of narratives: ontological, public, conceptu& and "meta" narrativity (1994:60). Ontological nanatives are the "sbries social actors use to rnake sense of their lives" and "are used to define who we are", m a b g "identity and self something that one becomes" (ibid:61, emphasis in original). hblic narratives are "attached to culairal and institutional formations larger than the single individual" (ibid:62). Conceptual narratives are the concepts and explanaiions constmcted by social mearchers (ibid). Metanarrativesare "master-ndves" (199463). According to this approach, the stories the participants told me are ontological narratives. Public narratives (such as "me") limit the possibility and potential of the ontological narratives. This chapter is part of the conceptual narrative used to interpret the ontological and public n d v e s . For the most part, 1 leave aside metanamîives. For example, "[tlhe same individual of mixed ancesq may be considered 'white' in Bxazil (provided that they are reasonably weaithy), 'coloured' in Barbados, and 'black' in Birmingham, Alabama (Hoeniik 1967; PittRivers 1973)" (Stone 1985:19). " to redefïnition, resistance and change1'(Scott 1992) in the meanhgs associateci with social categories. Oscillating identity options are multiple and fluctuating processes, but identity expression is limted by broader political and social contexts, as well as by the social actors thernselves As the meanings of categories change, so too do the possibilities for thinking about oneself (Scott 1992~35)and harnessing the flow of power. Accordingly, the question of identity must be contextualized (ibid.; Somers and Gibson 1994), because identity expression is boîh consrrainecl and enabled by changing notions of differences that matter. Although constnictions of "diRerencel' fluctuate, this shifüng and repetitive differentiation according to problemaîic categories, such as "race", can be neutralized through "diversity" Meworks. Thus, adopting a diversity h e w o r k to analyze identity is also problematic in that although it accommodates a "plurality of differences", the production, history, and politics of the "difference" and identity itself remain intact (Scott 1992:14). Mead, "difference" must be conceiveci of as part of the process through which power is constituted, not as a "sociological fact", or as evidence of some preexisthg category (Scott in October 1992:38). For example, the "fact" of "diversity" in Greater Vancouver neutralizes the power relations in the (re)production of "differences" that are perceived of as mattering, and the ways in which those "differences" are recognized." A diversity hnework serves to naturalize taxonomies of essential difference, creating "fdse certainties" about "us and them" which further cloud relationships of power implicit in the construction of differences that matter. What is needed, suggest Gupta and Ferguson, is a critique of "the apparent 'given'" of a world divided into "ourselves and 21 Ken taiked of how in Vancouver's Punjabitown and Chinatom îhe street names are i n Punjabi and Chinese characters respectively. 'Wow would the authorities grant these two communities permission to do that 17 others" in the f k tplace (199216). 'Pifference-producing sets of relations" perpehiate "differences that matter" out of cornmon, shareû, and inter-connected spaces (ibid). For example, how, out of the shared and inter-connected spaces containeci w i t b the border of South Afica was such a radical separaîion between "us" and "them" in thought, if not in practice, possible? Again, this is not to Say that taxonomies of essential difference are not entrenched social practices. Just as one may ideni@ positively with a "mial" category, one may also rely on "essential difference" to comrnunicate who one is and, conversely, who one is not. The likelihood of cornmlmicating one's identity through "essential difference" increases in interactions with those perceived to be non-members (Le. "them"),for identity depends on "the other" for meaning? Because notions of self-identity are conhually (re)defined relative to ascriptions of othemess, identity must be analyzed as a social and political (and arguably econornic) construct in the same way that social categories are. In inter-grouplpersonal interactions, identities and categories may be overcommmicated through essentialized categories serving to nahiralize the particular-or as is more often the case, the peculiar-as the general. The more the particularities of othemess can be essentialized and communicated as different (and distant) fiom notions of "us-ness", the more likely these defining characteristics are to be elevated to the level of definitive markers of otherness. Because there are two-sides to any boundaq, a key aspect of boundary maintenance invo1ves "the manipulation of perceived significant differences" beîween us and them (Jenkins 1986:175). It is not only whaî occurs within the boundary, if th,qdid not wield eoonomic power? It cornes d o m to the mighty dollar bringing favom." "Thereare no m u W y exclusive subjectdobjects"(Dei 1998). - but also how the mmgins can be manipulated that is significant. By tugging at the margins one can alter the flow of power and thus alter the "fundamental experience" of being marginalized @ouglas 1966:12 1). Therefore, the analytical approach must "problernatize the unity of 'us' and the othemess of the 'other'" by questionhg "the radical separation" that makes this agonistic opposition possible in the first place (Guptaand Ferguson 1992: 14). In other words, the question as to how "different" are the "differences" that separate us, is important in over-coming othering processes by re-wmecting the linkages between us and tl~em.'~ Multiple and contradictory identities of the social actor are "always contingent and precarious" (Mouffe 1992), and comequently not ficed, yet at the same t h e , the fluctuating identities of the signifiecl are limited to some extent by the signifier. Although Scott and Mouffe are carefid not to fix identity as an object, the difficulties in applying this approach are not addressed. In practice, as soon as an identity is clairneci it becornes fixe4 if only fûr the particular context in which it is being described and claimed." In tum, the "fwngVof identity h u g h categories iimits the potential identities one can claim and, as a resuk the potential for expression.25 For example, being iked as "Black" lirnits one to racialized representations of Also essentiai in solidarity w o k In the research, the pdcipants' identities are futed according to what they comrnunicated during the interview and what I have included in the thesis. Nine reiated a stoty that iiiustrates this point. A guy phoned me and says to me, "Aline 1don? want to be a South Afiican". 1 said to him "It's not a maûer of wanting. It's not up to you to decide, you are what you are. You may want to be Swiss, you can never be my boy, take it fiom me. You are not what you want, you are what you are, and whaiever else you try to be you will always be a failure because ifs going to be imitation and not the real thing. So betîer stick to your mots, because if you cut your mots you die. So stick to your roots and forget this nonsense." Aline's stmy demonstrates îhe prevalence of categories, and the perception of their immuîability. Her "root" analogy also serves ta "natuI;iiizeVnational "difference". The "guy" could, of course, choose to become a '4 Blachess. However, this " m g of essential difference" in categories of "us" and "them" allows social actors to determine which role each is expected to play. The social dance is played out as each tries to "fix" the other and self in relation to one another and, in the process, deheate the ambiguous and shifkîng boundary between them. Because "the Othertt has been predefïned, one lmows how to interact wiîh "thern"based on common sense knowledge of the "essential differences" between them. "Essential difference allows those who rely on it to rest reassuringly on its gamut of nxed notions. Any mutation in identity, in essence, in regularity, and even in physical place poses a problem, if not a threat in terms of classification and control If you can't locate the other, how are you to locate yourself?" (Minh-ha W95[1991]:2 17). What is interesting to note is that neither "differenca"nor social categories can be fixeci for long in practice. Despite protracteci efforts, even the apartheid regime could not definitively fi "racial difference". For example, in March 1987 T h e reported that "nine whites becarne coloured, 506 coloureds became white, two whites became Malay, 14 Malay became white... 40 coloweds became black, 666 blacks became coloured" and so on (in Minh-ha l995[1991]:217; see also Lamb 1987). There is an inherent contradiction whenever an identity is clairned in that the "differmces" being challenged are concomitantly being reafkned (Scott 1992:38). Deloria takes this idea a step M e r , arguing that as long as one rebels against categories, one continues to be imprisoned by them (1988:169).'~ In the example above, categories of "differencev'were, on the one han4 challenged by racial reclassification, yet, on the other Swiss citizen and be Swiss. 16 See aiso footnote 12. 20 hand, serveci to reaffinn the notion of "racial difference". The "cultural stuff" enclosed by the boundaries was challenged, not the existence and necessity of the categories themselves. So even though one could "rebel" against one's classification, reclassification perpetuated one's imprisonment in apartheid's racial hierarchy. Scotî posits that "difference" does not precede discrimini?tion, but rather "diffierence" is "produced by discrimination, a process that establishes thz supenority or the typicality or the universality of some in terrns of the infeBonty or atypicality or particularity of ouiers" (1992:14-15; see also Dei 1998). In other words, "racial difference" is produced through the practice of discrimination, and not the 0 t h way around As a result, "the autonomy and stability" of any identity (including White") must be cailed into question (Scott 1992: 16). The Racial Bind: m a t does Whïteness have to do with it? The irony [of the %ne drop d e " ] was that the very people or groups who deliberately created racial clmsif;cations in the first place o f t n could not even i d e n t i correctly those individuals they wanted ro classzb; obviously skin colour was now a poor indicator of race. Margaret R S o m a and Gloria D. Gibson "Reclaiming the Epistemological "Other": Narrative and the Social Constitution of Identity" (1994:68). m i t e solutionsfail becawe white itselfis an abstraction of an attitude of mind. nor a racial or group realiv. .... But the tempation h m always been present to &$ne groups according to their most supe~cialaspect. .... m i t e hm been abstracted into a magical n e b u l m mythology that dominates all inhabitants of our country in toward one another. We are, comeguently, all prisoners of that their am'& mythology as far as we rebel agaimt it. It is our misfoortwte that our economic system refectr uncrirical acceptance of the mythology and that economic rnovements tend to reinforce the myth. Vine Deloria, Jr. Custer Died for Your Sins: An uidian Manifesta (1988: 189, ernphasis in original) Mthough I have already rnentioned "race" as an ascription of "othemess", it is necessary to provide further comment given its significance in apartheid South Africa n i e boundary processes are similar to those I have described above, but the key marker of these boundaries is s b c o l o ~ making f ~ ~ it more difficult to cross boundaries-though not impossible.28 As Heribert Adam has so succinctly characterized if "race" is a "figment of the pigment".'9 By this 1am not asserting that there is a biological basis to "race", but rather follow Yanagisako and Delaney who argue that rather than conceiving of "race" as biological difference, it should be regarded as "a system of social caîegories consmcted in tenns of biwcuZ dzyerence" (1995:20, emphasis in original). To put it another way, "race relations have iittie to do with any objective characteristics of "racetper se and much to do with relationships between socially defined groups" (Stone 1985: 19). Although some authors have argued that to talk about "race" as a concept perpetuates the idea of ontologically real "races" (e.g. Miles and Tones 1996), it is difficult to speak of the effects of uistitutionalized racism in other than "racial" tems (Barkley 1998). Further, as Dei (1998) argues against Miles and Torres, if "race" "was merely a concept, we could abandon it". 1 follow Anthias and Yuval-Davis, who argue that "'race' denotes a particular way in which communal differences corne to be constmcted and therefore it cannot be erased fiom the analytical map" (1992:2). Further, as Dei (1998) states: "Rather thm deny race, it is worthwhile to work to dismantle fixed and stratifieci constructions of race, and, to disassociate conventional meanings fiom race". It is also important to ernphasize that "White" too is a "race" and therefore a social "Dei (1998) writes "thepermanence of skin colour as marker ofdifference cannot be overemphasised. " As demonstrated by "Passingfor Whiteq'(Watson 1970). " 1prefer this characterizationto Stone's (1985) more ambiguou characterization of race as a "figment of the imagination". 22 construction that cannot be separated fiom "racial" dominance (Frankenberg 1997:9,21). In apartheid South Afica, this is more evident than in the North American context where, until recently, "White" was often "e-raced" fiom the analytical rnap30 Although "White" is the referent for "racial others", it is often neuîralized and naturalized as a non-racial category. BY -lI . . g "White" as the "racial" referent, the reality of continuous variation in the human race is " e - r a d " fiom the imagination It is impossible; however, to ignore the ambiguity producecl by this continuity in practice. The neuû-dityof the category "Whitet'is jwtaposed against the significance attached to "racial others". To put it another way, while "White"serves as the referent for "racial othemes~'~, it is at the same time often neutralized an4 therefore, "e-raced" as a problematic ''racial" category (Barkiey 1998). 'White" is "the unmarked category against which difference is constructecl" (Lipsik 1995:369)-difference "produced by discrimination" (Scott 1992: 14). Frankenberg argues that "white people often view themselves as nonracial or racialiy neutral" (1993:l). "In examining whiteness, in s e e h g to account for its variable visibility, one m u t recognize how continual processes of slippage, condensation, and displacement among the constructs of "race," "nation," and "culture," continue to "unrnark"white people ' while consistently marking and racializing others" (Frankenberg 1997:6).~ Whiteness is differentiated fkom Blackness by more than colour (i.e. the difference between Whiteness and Blaclmess is more than pigment), in that it is unmarked privilege. Further, Whiteness is the "nom" against which "racial. others" are defined, and in tum, "Whites" define themselves against. 1 rely on Frankenbergfsdefinition of "whiteness" as a 'O 31 See Frankenberg (1997) for a histoiy of the analysis ofWhiteness. For example, "White" is unmarked in deteminhg South Afica's "standards",now believed to be in set of three linked dimensions. "First, whiteness is a location of structural advantage, of race privilege. Second, it is a "standpoint", a place h m which white people look at ourselves, a. others, and at society. Third, whiteness refers to a set of cultural practices that are usually unmarked and unnamed" (Frankenberg 1993:1). South M c a n whiteness diffm f b m Frankenbergfs third dimension in that whiteness as a set of cultural practices was publicly marked, named, and rigidly enforced by apartheid laws, yet still rmained somewhat neutral. The first and second dimensions-a location of privilege and a standpoint-were arguably more pronounced in South Afiica under apartheid than in the Amencan context in which Frankenberg's work is situated (Baddey 1998); however, "racelessness" remains an exclusive privilege of whiteness (see also Dei 1998). It is important to link the notion of Whitmess back to my earlier discussion of "passing for white" (Watson 1970). Although "White" was an elaborately dehed and everprevalent category that goaranteed "racial" privilege in apartheid South Afiica (Barkley 1998a), in practice the dividing line between "White" and "non-White" was arnbiguous not only because of the arbitrary divisions based on "the figment of the pigment", but also because "White" too is a social construction. "Passing" was possible not only because of the ambiguity inherent in determinhg "race" on the basis of social characteristics--"commcted in terms of biological clifferences" (Yanagisako and Delaney 1935)-but also because "races" exist only because they are "imaginedtfto? dedine. " 1bonow loosely from Anderson's idea of the nation as an "irnaginedcommunity"to argue that "races" are "imagineci". He states that "Communities [races] are to be disringuished... by the style in which they are imagined" (Anderson 1991:6). Because "race" exists only in the imagination,there is no way to consistently differentiate between the "imagined races". As the imagining of "racial d i f f i c e " changes, so to does the 24 In sum, ideas of "race" and othemess, including "Whiteness", are fiuctuating constnictions that are dependent on the ways in which they are imagined, and the salience and/or powerfiilness of a particular imagining. The centres shift as the rnargins are puiied or pushed in a particular direction, causing the bomdaries between ''us" and "thems" to slide dong the continuum of human variation The arbitrary divisions on the continuum result in anomalous spaces between categories (Douglas 1966) which can be used to challenge the boundary between "us" and "them", while perceptions of ontological boundanes between "racial categories" remain relatively intact. Wallmanls analogy of shifüng ethnic boundaries applies equally well to shifting "racial boundaries". She writes: "An alteration of one shifts the boundary and impinges on its other side-like the change in air pressure in a balloon" (1986:231). "Political and cultural stniggles over power shape the contom and dimensions of [race and] racism in any era" (Lipsitz 1995:37l), just as differential air pressure alters the shape of a balloon. consiruction upon which "race" relies (Barkley 1998), and therefore so too does the way in which racialized "others" are irnagined to existas a category in opposition to "us". For a history of the ways in which "race" and "racial difference" have been imagined over tirne, see Hodgen (1964) and Smedley (1993). C-R TWO THE "PUSH''TO LEAVE AND "START OVER" CONTEXTUALIZING SOUTH AFRICAN EMIGRATION I feel llik l a s of a person than Z did when I was in South Afnca. 1 think every immigrant probably feels the same way-that you 'vegot to establish yoursevall over again-because nobodj knows you. whereas back home, you've aire* hadso mnny years ofconnections with everybo@. .... Here you just have to starf aZZ over again, but the on& good thing is we have the South Afican @ m e ) group ofpeople. (My) The above was the response of one of the research participants when 1asked her if immigrating to Greater Vancouver had any effect on her identity or how she sees herself Although immigration means haviag to "establish yourself ali over again", Lily found support fkom "the South f i c m group of people" who also decided to "start over" in Greater Vancouver. So what push factors prompted South Aficans to leave established lives? In this chapter, 1 very briefly outline the effects of the rise and fa11 of apartheid in sûucturing peoples' lives, and thus dfiecting how they see themselves. This is followed by an outline of the three largest periods of out-migrations starting in 1976 and ending with the migration thaî coincided with the political changes in the "new"South Afkica in the 1990's.~' I then discuss South Afican immigration to Greater Vancouver, followed by bnef descriptions of the research participants. 53 These periods are also signifiant in the m t i v e s . Although none of the participants came during the second paiod, the experiences of "White South Afiicansl' who left pnor to 1994 are contrasted with the experiences of those leaving in 1994 by Craig and Aline-primarily in their ability to "be South Afncan''. I The Rise and Fall of Apartheid In South Afiica in 1948, the National Party was elected on the apartheid platform to ensure the continuation of the "White/European race". From that point on, racial categories were used to detennine access to differential political, econornic and social resomces that further entrenched the ernerging overlap between "race1'and class (Adam and Moodley 1986, 1993; Commonwealth Group 1986). Eventually, Canada and other states joined in condemning apartheid tbrough cultural and economic sanctions. The Canadian government conveniently ignored however, *ut the South Afncan BantustadHomeland systern was based on Canada's reservation system, and the many other parallels between the treatment of First Nations in Canada and "Blacks" in South Afica (e.g., pass laws). Nonetheles, the hypocrisy of Canada's international stand in relation to its intemal policies was not lost on the more politicized research participants. State administration of apartheid became increasingly expensive over the years as complex legislation resulted in multiple jurisdictions and overlapping authorities (Chnstopher 1994:49; Commonwealth Group 1998; Lamb 1987) to maintain the ideology however, "Whites" were dependent on the of separate "racial" d e ~ e l o ~ m e n th. ~practice ~ labour of the "Black" majority (Adam and Moodley 1993:12). So although the economic system relied on "racial" inter-dependence, the ideology of segregation persisted for over four de cade^.^' r e m to this point later in the thesis. j4 For example, close to 20% of South Afnca's national budget went to defense (Lamb 1987:317), while approximately two-thirds of budget expenditures were allocated to civil service salaries (Commonwealth Gmup 1986:35). 35 The reasons for dismantling apartheid cannot be summatited hem To over-simpliq, the apartheid state In 1990 Nelson Mandela was released from prison, b m e d organizations were legalized and the repealing of apartheid laws began (ibid:39). In a 1992 refmendum, over skty-eight percent of "Whites" agreed to a power sharing agreement (ibid:2). In 1994, South f i c a had its historic "al1 race elections" whereby Nelson Mandela and the Afiican National Congres, a formerly banned poiitical organization, ended the reign of the National Party. However, because of the overlap between "racet1and class, deeply entrenched through apartheid, to undo apariheid is to undo the effects of decades of legalized and overt class waxfare (signified by "race1')under the guise of separate development (Barkley 1998). As Adam and Moodley predicted, although political power is hcreasingly vested in the han& of the formerly disenfhchised majority, the transference of economic and bureaucratie power lags behind (1993:3-4;see also Meares 1997). Even though ten percent of companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange are now nm by "B1acks"-up fiorn zero in 1990-the overlap beîween "race" and class continues "to an extraordinary degree", despite the rapid emergence of a small "B1ack1'bourgeoisie (Adam 1998; also Meares 1997). Along with the unprecedented political changes in the 1990's, there was an accompanying fear-factor among non-Afiicans about the effect the political changes (i.e. "African de") would have on their lives. Political instabili~and nationalizing of "nonAfican-owned properties" in the rest of neo-colonial Aikica, especially the fiont-line states, provided fodder for these fears. In both apartheid and post-apartheid years, there were a variety of push factors to leme South f i c a The "racial" compositions of these migrations - - - - - became inmasingly unworkable. For more thoughthl and detailed explanations, see Adam and Moodley 28 wme inversely shaped by which "race" was seen to have, or about to seize, political power. Leavhg South Africa and "Starhg Over" Over the past few decades there were three numericaiiy significant periods of emigraîion fiorn South Afica The first was in 1976 (see also Cohen 1996), when several thousand "Blacks" ffed as exiles d e r what has been variously describecl as an upnsing, nothg, or massacre, depending on which aspect is emphasised. On June 16, 1976, South Anican police opened f i e on school children in Soweto who were protesting against the use of Afiaans as the compulsory language of instruction. The violent actions of the state on that day leaâ to "disturbances" in other parts of South Afiica and an international out-cry (Christopher 1994: 163-165; see also Adam and Moodley 1993; IDAFSA 1983; S.A. Institute of Race Relations 1W8)? One of the research participants, Ken, was a part of this exodus. For Gord, another participant who had aîready left South Afiica, the event was a catalyst in his politicization and public c o n d d o n of the apartheid regime. The next emigration wave began in 1986) when South Afiica experienced a net immigration loss (Polonslq, Scott and Suchard 1988; 1989),j8 losing migrants who, as a (1986;1993). 36 Of the 575 deaths reported during "the disîurbances", nearly half were in Soweto (Christopher 1994:165). 37 Canadian immigration literaîure abounds with water metaphors (e-g., streams, pools, floods, waves). 38 Exact emigration numbers are hard to come by "because of the incomplete reporting of emigration statistics by the South Afiican government" (Polonsky, Scott and Suchard 1988:1300). Further, official emigration numbers would be even higher if the number of those who Ieft permanently but did not declare ihemselves as doing so were to be included (Heribert Adam, personal communication). These factors combine to make it extremely difficdt to provide exact numbers. Thmefore, numbers provided here are "official numbets" d e r ùian actuals, but never-the-les provide indicators as to significant periods of collective, were more highly skilled than the general emigrant population. For example, South fican immigrants to Australia in the mid-eighties, on average, had higher eaming capacities than the general population of "Whites" in South Afiica (Folonsky, Scott and Suchard l989:94l). Polonsky et al argue that these emigmts were not leaving because of crime and violence, which were believed to affect predominantly city dwellers and "Blackstl-not the "White1', "Coloured'', and "Asian" populations like themselves who lived in the suburbs. More of a push factor to emigrate was the fear of a possible decrease in the standard of living caused by changes in govemment, as with the transition to "Afiican" (ie. majority) d e in the fiont-lhe s t a t a (e.g. Zimbabwe) (ibidA307). A M e r "push" factor was the significant decrease in the "White" share of inwme in South Afiica during the 1980's (Christopher 1994:1).j9 The tide of ernigration appeared to tum in 1992 and 1993 when South Aftica experienced a net immigration gain (Chimere-Dan 1995). In 1994, the year of the "dl-race elections", South Afiica expenenced another dramatic increase in out-migration, as 3 837 more people officially emigrated than imrnigrated (ibid; Buthelezi 1996; Cohen 1~ 6 ) . ~ ' However, it is important to take into accomt that "there is a large deficit in the number of economicuZZy active people émiving [in South Afkica] compared to the number leaving' - - - emigration. 39 Between 1975 and 1991 the income of South Atnca's richest "Whites" remained constant, whiIe the income ofthe richest "Blacks"increased by forty percent (K. Adam 1997). 4 0 in 1992 out-migration was 4 289, and immigration was 9 824. In 1993 it was 8 078, and 9 824 respectively. In 1994, the number of emigmnts jumped to 10 235, while inmigration dropped to 6 398 (Chimere-Dan 1995). The South Afican Communication Service estimates that between Janwy 1 and October 3l,l994,9 072 people emigcated and 5 430 irnmigrated to South Afnca (McBIain 1995). (Cohen 1996, emphasis in original)? For example, between 1994 and 1 996 the emigration of skilled professionals increased by 800% (Business Day as cite. by van Jaarsveld 1996). This is m e r compounded by the large nurnber of economically active andlor educated people le-g who do not declare their intention to emigrate (Cohen 1996). Emigration and the "drainage of experts" continuecl into 1995 and 1996, with a slight decline in the net emigration loss (Buthelezi 1996; Cohen 1996). The majonty of South Afican emigrants, in descendhg order, went to Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand, and Canada (Knkonan 1996; Poalses 1996). As the preferred destination of South Afiican immigrants to Canada, 1994 -- -- Nearly two-third of immigrants to South Afiica are "declared not to be economicdly active" (Cohen 1996). Ken said: ...what's happening is, people h m ail over Africa heard how pmsperous South Afnca is and so they believe that if they are to make it, theytve got a. hope there. .... It's almost like here in Canada back in the eighties when everybody was moving back east you know. .... Now, ttiat's also causing resentment towards, towards other Aficans. .... MandeIa is in a difficult position Lori, in that it's payback tirne now, okay. By that 1 mean, ifs time for the Mandela administration to return the favours that were accorded us during our years of exile because we are talking of people who, who sheltered, clothed and fed us for about, for more than (pause) thirty years. So the fmt batch of BIack South Africans to flee South Afnca was around, 1don? know, 1962 and we al1 pledged to, to the newly independent Afican counnies and these people harboured us as late as what, 1991, or '92 when Mandela was released. So ifs rime for us as Black South Africans to say "thank-yod', and unfortunately you cannot @ause) ah, only Say that verijaHy. You've got to do that, say that by action too, Iike letting them corne into the country and compete for, for work, or job opporhrnities. Now the other thing, the other thing that Black South Africans tend to miss is h t most of those guys, are highly educated and highly qualifie&okay. Ah (pause) we were denied some oppomities by apartheid, okay. Yes, we do have some highly educated Black South Africans, but not like countries like say Ghana or Nigeria So these people are occupying high positions simply because of their qualifications, and to me it would be wrong, it would be w n g , of say [the] MandeIa governent to deny Lori a position simply because Lori is not a South Afncan, even though they have al1 the qualifications as compared to a native South Afnwi. I mean if we claim to be an open society, then we've got to put that in practice and not just yap about it, you see. Stan and Lily expressai a similar view to Ken in that South Afnca is now in a position where it cannot r e h e to help or re-pay those who helped the ANC in exile. 42 A significant pull factor to immigrate to Canada is the offer of acceI& immigration stahis to foreign doctors who will work in nuai areas (Cohen 1996). "A newly-founded organization for South Afican doctors in BC has over 300 members" (Bell 1996). Further, Aiberta recently recruited twenty doctors from South Afnca to address the shortage in rurai areas (Kenny 1998; see also Canadian Press 1998: Saunders 1998). 41 immigration levels to British Columbia (BC)Uxcreased by four tima those of the early 1990's. During the early part of the decade, fewer than 300 South Afr-icans a year emigrated to BC. In 1993 the number doubled, and in 1994 (the year of the election), 1 300 South Afncans imrnigrated to British Columbia (Bell 1996). According to a 1996 Vancouver Sun article titled "Vancouver city of choice for South Aficans", unlike previous years? the vast majority of this latest wave of South Afncan immigrants were "non-Black". The article went on to argue that this drarnatic change was because "blacks c d afEord to l a v e and dontt share the same concerns as whita about the end of apartheid" (ibid.)? South African emigration lawyers cited "rising crime and fears among some whites that black d e means a descent into chaos" as the most significant factors in deciding to emigrate (Krikonan 1996; see also Metelerkarnp 1997). In newspaper editorials the debate about the "descent into chaos" in the "new" South f i c a went back and forth. "Yes, crime is a fEghtening reality of post apartheid South Afnca", stated one letter to the editor, "it was also a reality of apartheid South AWcq only whites made sure they were insulatecl" (The Globe and Mail May 24, 1997:D7). "Blacks will tell you that crime is the same as it ever was, perhaps a little better. The difference they see is that the fomerly protected white community is being exposed to the temble violence blacks have always lived with" (Drohan 1998). "If you take a million whites and you subject them to the same process of uninterrupted povem, the same poor schooling facilities, the same school dropout rate, the lack of occupational skills and the unemployment rate, you will certainly have a murder rate just as high", stated a black social 43 When Ken and 1were discussing his perceptions of current (i.e. 1996) immigration trends, he said "no ' worker in Soweto (in Lamb l987:319). There is a stikhg similarity in the reamns given by "non-Whites" who left under apartheid and n o n - f i c m who left in the pst-apartheid era: that the colour of their skin (i.e. "racial" category) detemineci their Life chances. In the 19901s, non-Africs are concemed that their future will be determined on the basis of their skin colour rather than any objective chamcteristics. They are concemed about being "victimized" by violence, and ciifferdial access to educational and employment opporhmities because of their skin colour-often referred to as "declining standards". In other words, they will no longer receive disproportionate advantages over Africans, and "the ("White") standards" will have to be "dom-graded" to enable "Aficans"to competeP5 So unlike the emigrants in the mid-eighties who Polonsky et al (1988, 1989) descrîbed as not being afraid of crime, those emigrating in the pst-apartheid era are. Like t h e who left in the mid-198û's, they are also fearful of a decline in their standard of living-so much so that they are willing to risk a decline by emigrating in order to prevent the risk of a decline by staying? Primarily this is out of concem for their children (Bell 1996; South Africans [are coming] because South Afiica is now regarded as stable". 44 A 1996 survey reported thaî forty-five percent of "White" respondents felt they lived better under apartheid. Over twenty-five percent claimed to iive "a lot betîer", while almost forty percent felt their situation had not changed significantly under rnajority rule (Gibson and Gouws 1997: 186-187). 45 However, the ciifference is that privilege now cornes at a cost to the individual, d e r than the state (Henbert Adam, personal communication). In a 1997 speech, South Afncan President Nelson Mandela chided "Whites" for consistently expecting continued "privileged positions in the economic sphere" for relinquishing political powm, yet not working to eradicate the inequalities caused by apartheid rule (Meares 1997). Zn his 1998 State of the Nation speech, Mandela urged "White" South Afiicans to feel a moral obligation to recognize their debt to the country and pay it off, "especially those whose past privileges had afforded them skills that were in hi& dernand in public service" @dey 1998). 46 For example, potential South Afi-ican immigrants are warned that "Canada does not suffer the same skills shortages that were c o m o n in S.4. Don't despair if n w n e is particularly impressed by your qualifications and experience. In most cases scores of people-mainly Canadians-with equally irnpressive resumés are also in line for the job you want" (Soft Landings Network 1996:3). Polomky, Scott and Suchard I989:943). I wiU not stay there for any amount of wealth and any arnount of money, and you lmow whaî our motto is here? Better poor in Vancouver than nch in Johannesburg! 1stiU dont know how people stay there. Ifs the number "At1worry of everybody that their cfiildren will be raped, that their old parents will be raped, they will be raped and killed. .... I man these stories, you dontread in the newspaper, you don't hear on televisions. You hear it one-to-one. You go to work and then you get the telephone c d that says: "you know who has been kiW? Do you h o w who has been raped?" I mean ifs nerve-mking. 1promise you ifs nerve-racking. Education, the standard of education is vey, very low. Look most probably t&is is (pause) temporaxy, most probably one or two generations the gap will close, but Itm not going to sit there and wait for the third generation. 1mean my children and my grandchildren suffer. 1 IO^ plan for my grandchildren's grandchildren to have an equal education. You h o w , why m u t 1wait there for two generati~ns?7 Four of the nine people 1 interviewed in the spring and summer of 1996 left South Afkica during this latest emigration wave (Lily, Aline, Rose and Stan) and cited "dechhg standards" and crime, among others, as reasons for leavhg. Three (Craig, David and Gord) came during the late 60's and early 7Vs, two of whom (David and Gord) lefi because they could no longer live as racialized subjects under apartheid As previously mentioned, Ken left after the "Soweto uprishg", and one participant (Aster) left in the early 90's because her parents feared political change would never corne. In sum, the reasons for ernigrating were 47 Aline's account is strong on raîionalizations for leaving. It is ironic that she cannot wait "for my grandchildren's grandchildren to have an equd education", when the root of the problem is that educaîion is now more "equal"than under apartheid Aster said: "a man who is fifty years old...that man has no c h c e of his life irnproving without an education, or with an inferior education that he got from the apartheid regime.... Of course white people have better qudifications. .... We will still be at the back, it w i l take many years." David said: South Afiica has got a long, tough time ahead of them, but you know it's very easy for these, Whites coming out of South Africa now, they decry the crime. They're responsible for the crime as far as I'm concerned, maybe not them personally, you know what 1 mean, but the regime in which they lived with, which met their needs, which they were vary happy with and they'd love to have continue, is no longer there, and so now al1 of the sudden..."Corne rd beüer take my h i l y and m, get out of here". as diverse as the group of participants, but cannot be considered in isolation fiom political ckumstances in South f i c a that they feel "pushed"them to leave. Below 1 provide bief descriptions of the participants and their reasons for Ieawig. The participants4% The participants are listed according to when they immigrated to Canada I include how long they have been in Canada and the date and location of the interview in order to situate them within a temporal as well as spatial context. As much as possible, 1use the participants' own words in the descriptions in order to more accurately represent them. This is not always possible; however, because of confidentiality as well as the need for brevity. Names have been changed to protect anonymityP9 David (immigrated 1967, i n t e ~ e w e dAugust 1996 at his home) David refers to hirnself as "dark-shedt' and was officially classified as "Coloured'' in South Afiica He and his family left South Afkica "very bittert' because of their experiences as "Coloureds" under apartheid They anived in Montréal by ship, then drove 4e It is important to note thai the research participants are not statistically representative of the South African population as a whole. No "Afrikaners", who are politically dominant, are included. "Chinese" had "no clear status in the aparîheid system" (IDAFSA 1983:16) and are a minority in every sense (numbers, and political and economic power). No "Indians" are included, and Africans are under-represented. Therefore, the data is representaîive only of the group of research participants. In addition to those described in this section, I also spoke with the South Afiican High Consul to Greater Vancouver and the publisher of the South Afican Canadian Business Directory. 49 Participamts were given the opportunity to pick a pseudonym for themselves, but as al1 decfhed I have done so myself. Other ident*ing features, such as occupation or location, have also been gendized or omitted to protect anonymity. across Canada to settle in Greater Vancouver. David is a self-employed business owner in the same field he was in when in South Aitica. David and his wife had visited South AfEca once about ten years after they ernigratd David would be somewhere in his fifies. 1 was put in contact with him by another research participant. Craig (imrrugrated 1967, interviewed August 1996 at his office) Craig "grew up in white-only areas" as the son of "Dutch immigrants" to South Afr-icca His fauier wanted him to leave South Afkica, so he bought hirn a one-way ticket to Europe as a graduation present He lived there for a year and a half before coming to Montréal for Expo '67 and deciding to stay in Canada He then lived in Central Canada for a number of years before moving to Greater Vancouver. He pursued a professional education in Canada and is now employed in thaî capacity. He has been back to South Afkica to visit several times. 1would estimate Craig to also be in his rnid-fifties. I contacted him through a fiend of mine. Gord (hnmigrated 197 1, inte~ewedAugust 1996 in his home) Gord identifies hirnself as a "Canadian-Chinese-South African". He too left South AGrica because of lis limitecl opportunities under apartheid, and lived in Asia before immigrating to Greater Vancouver. He became a "self-imposed exile" as a result of his involvement in the anti-apartheid shniggIe in Greater Vancouver. Gord had been back to South a c a a couple of times in the 1990's and was planning another extended trip. We did not discuss his occupation, but he owns his own home, which in the context of Greater Vanmuver red estate indicates that he is not Iikely to be under-employed. Gord is somewhere in his forties. 1 was put in contact with him by another participant Ken (immigrated 1986, interviewed July 1996 at his home) Ken variously identifies himself as "Afkican", "South Af?ican/Canadianw,"South AfXcan", and tlCanadian". He left South f i c a as an exile after the student "upnsings" in Soweto in 1976, and came to Canada via a refugee camp in east Afi-ica Ken had returned to South Afiica in the mid-nineties for a visit, his first since irnmigrating to Greater Vancouver. He is somewhere in his late thirties or early forties. Ken is self-employed in the service sector, stating that he now feels much more control over his life after many years of fhstration at being "the last hired and the first to be laid-off'. I contacted Ken through one of the associations. Aster (immigratecl 1991, interviewed May 1996 at my home) Like Ken, Aster's identifications are also multi-stranded, describing herself as "Afican","South Afi-ican", "Masotho-Tswana"and "Sowetan". She is in her late twenties. Her parents sent her, their only unmamied child, to Greater Vancouver in an attempt to keep her exiled brother fiom retuming and endangering his life. In addition, they hoped it would provide her with opportunities unavailable to her in South Afnca She worked in several retaiI stores in Greater Vancouver, but was fhtrated with the difficulties she faced in ikding meafllllgful employment at a living wage. She left a couple of weeks d e r our interview to vkit South e c a , hoping to f h d a job and stay. 1was put in contact with Aster through an Association 1contacted. LiIy (immigrated 1993, interviewed May 1996 in her home) Lily also relied on nurnerous identifiers: "Chinese", "Cantonese", "South Afican", and "Canadiad'. Lily emigrated with her teen-aged daughter d e r her husband died, to join her parents in Greater Vancouver who had previously irnmigrated fiom South Afnca Lily was living in an area h o w n for its "large Asian population" and working in the same profession she had in South Afiica. She has been "back home" for a visit once since immigrating. Lay is somewhere in her mid-to-late forties. 1contacted Lily through a fiend of mine. Rose and Stan (i-grated 1994, interviewed ApnllW6 at a cafe) Stan and Rose are "South Aficans with Lithwnian-Jewish heritage"? They wanted to immigrate somewhere where "there was a large number of Jews in the community because part of both families had been eliminated in the last [world] war" (Stan). They were also looking for something '"moreEuropean". Stan looks to be in his mid-fifües, while Rose appears to be about ten years his junior. At the time of the interview, both were underThere was a large-scale immigration of Lithuanian Jews to South Afnca between 1880 and 1914 (Maré 1993[1992]: 16). empIoyed yet optimistic. Contact was initiateci through Stan, and this is p-s why he dominated the interview. 1contacted Stan through one of the Associations. Aline (immigrated 1994, intewiewed July 1996 in her home) Aline is a "White"South Afican, who is originally from Southem Europe. She and her f b l y lefi South Afiica because they were not willing to "wait generations for things to be different" after the 1994 elections. She owns her own business and is a grandmother. Aline retumed to South Afica once since immigrating. 1 contacted her through someone whom I was refend to by an Association. CEAPTERTHREE ASKING STRANGERS PERSONAL QUESTIONS ... intervimhg requires one to go out and askpersonal questions of strangers and, men before t h , to approach unknown people, ... by telephone, and ask themfor an enonnous favaa-tu give time7 and to share personal history, for the most part taking entire& on tnrst that their time an4 more importantly. their words will be treated with respect. Ruth Frankenberg White women, race matters (1993:Z). In this chapter I set out methodological h e w o r k to address the following research questions: How and in what ways did a group of "South Agcan immigrants" communicate their ethnic, "racial", and national identities? What did they communicate about themselves and in what ways was this affectai by immigration? How did their identities shift and in which contexts? How did they differentially experience the immigration process depending on their identities and how they were categorized? 1 begin by outlining why I chose to conduct research with "South Africans who immigratecl to Greater Vancouver", and how 1contacted the participants and collected their narratives. I end the chapter with some reflections on the research process. Why Immigration and South Afncans? My research grew out of a desire for an analysis of immigration that went beyond a particular ethnic group in a specific location (i-e. ethnic group X in location Y)? *' 1 wanted The idea acrually began much eariiet, in another contexc when 1 returned to the once small, agricultudbased prairie town near where 1 grew up and realized how much it had changeci There were now cappuccino bars next to the decades-old ranch supply store. 1felt different parts of my multiple identities being invoked in to explore if and how, a multi-ethni~/'~racial" group of "immigrants" to Greater Vancouver differentially experienced the immigration process and what effect, if any, this had on their national, ethnic and/or "racialt'identities. As the research was not limitecl by ethnicity, it was limited by geography. In part 1 chose South Afiica and in part it chose me. By this 1 mean that 1 started looking for participants who were h m Southern M c a , and the fmt couple were South Aficans. The task simplified as 1 narrowed the geographical field to South Afkica Contacthg Participants My fkst point of contact for participants was the Bumaby Multicultural Society (BMS)?* followed by other relevant immigrant and cultural service organizatioI1S/asçociations. In dl, 1 contacted twenty-three associations/organizations~'and order to "fit in", a strategy 1 had unwittingly perfected when 1 was sent h m the rural school (literally in the midde of a field with fàrming all around) to schooI in the small t o m 1 attended the rural school up until grade nine when we were sent to the smdI town for high school. At that tirne, the "fann kids" wete somewhat stigmatized as we were "integrated'' with the "town people" and the "acreage people" (i.e. relatively wealthy professiods who lived on small parcels of land and worked in the near-by big city). " F m kids" were o h teased because they "smelled fûnny", didn't have the same fashion sense, and were "different"because of their isolated experiences. 1was accepted because "my peers"believed 1 had corne h m the city (i.e. moved to the town or an acreage), and when the "tnith" later came out, 1 had already estabIished a network of fiends. This al1 came back a decade later as 1walked mund tom. My multiple selves had never been so clearIy demarcated as when 1walked fiom the cappuccino store to the western store. 1 noticed how by opening a door and walking inside, a symbolic door also opened as I tried to communicate "who 1 am" h m store to store. I couId relate to dl,yet not entirely to anyone. If this is what 1 felt like in familiar, yet unfamiliar, surroundings what would it be like to txy and communicate one's identity in unfâmiliar surroundings, where the "turf" and markers of identity are l e s well known? Immigration provided the context to M e r explore how one curnrnunicates who one is. 52 I had previously done research with Bumaby's "Afncan community" for the BMS Centennial History Pro'ect (see Rich 1992). In addition to the BMS, these orgimizations/associations included: The Vmcower Multiculturai Society, the Vancouver and Lower Mainland Multicultval Family Support Service Society, the African Women's Ou-h Program (nui through the Multiculturai Family Centre), the Afiican Canadian Association of BC, talked to many more people in locating the participants." Contacting these organizations/associatio11~ îiîuminated some of the difficulties "newcomers" may face in Greater Vancouver. Some organizations were very helpfûl, while some never retumed my calls. Others 1was in contact with for months, only to hit a dead-ends5 In t a k g to these organizatons, 1 found that popular perceptions linking "race" to place were often reinforcd When 1 stated that 1 was looking for "people who had unmigratecl fiom South ~ f i c a " ?this ~ was most ofien interpreted as "Black", occasionally "White", and only once were "Chinese"Uicluded One "Chinese" cultural organization 1 contacted, asked why I was calling them, stating thai "we dont know much more about this group than you would". Another was not aware of a South Afican-Chinese presence in Greater Vancouver (Barkley 1997). Eventually, I contacted one participant through the BMS, one through the Vancouver Multiculturai Society, one through the Association for South Aficans in BC, two through fiends, another through a contact at the Jewish Comunity Centre, and two MOSAIC, the Association of South AfÎicans ui BC, the Immigrant Services Society of BC, the Inland Refbgee Society of BC, the Pacific Immigrant Resowces Society, Citizenship and Inmigrrition (Vancouver office), Multiculturalism BC, the Immigrant Settlernent Office, the Chinese Cultural Centre, û x h , the Afiica-Canada Developrnent and Mormation Services Association, the A f b J a a Drum and Dance Ensemble, the Centre for International Students at Simon Fraser University, the Association for Saidents of Afiican Descent at Simon Fraser University, Immigrant and Visible Minority Women of BC, the Jewish Cornmunity Centre, the Protea Club, and SUCCESS. Over 140 phone calls, fasimiles, and E-mails @oth made and retumed) resulted in intexviews wiîh nine individuals. 5qbelieve this is the result of c h h c under-funding to immigrant and mu~ticulniralservice organizations, rather than a lack of desire to provide services. 56 When looking for participants 1asked for "people who had immigrared h m Southem Aficat'(later South Mica) radier than "Southem Afncan immigrants", because, as previously stated, "immigrant" is a loaded temi and not al1 who immigrate consider themselves to be "immigrants". Some also find the term meaningless in the context of Greater Vancouver. One participant said: "The whole of Vancouver except for two per cent are immigrants. A Iot of people here are h m somewhere else, whether another country or another part of Canada" (Stan). This is aiso a usehl strategy to neuîraiize the implicit outsider s t a h i ~of "immigrantt'. 1pick up on this theme later in the thesis. " more h m one of the participants. Methodology The method of data collection included interviews as well as articles fiom The Vancouver Sun and The Globe and Mail. The interviews were conducted using a combination of standardized open-mded and infinna1 conversational interview methods. Participants were asked questions based on a standardized set of questions:7 but rather than following a stnct order, questions emerged fiom the context and the natural course of the interview (Green-Powell MW:198). Often my questions were anticipated and addressed through the course of the interview without me having to ask them dlrectly. Thus the interviews were conducted in an informal manner, allowing participants greater fieedom to discuss broader issues than in a structured, close-ended interview questionnaire. Questions were grouped around a number of themes: identity, ethnicltlrace" relations, and the immigration process. Questions about "coming to Canada" were purposely left until the later part of the inteniew. This was to avoid "othering" the participants as "immigrantst1(i.e. "not Canadian") so as to find out more fully what they had to Say about their identities in general, rather than setting it within the context of immigration for the entire inte~ew.5' 1 also did not want to structure the interviews or questions in a way that participants would be forced to either confirni or deny pre-conceived research assumptions. 1wanted to The interview questions can be found in the Appendix. 58 See also foot note 56. hear what they had to say and allow them room to elaborate on their responses (see also Chase 1995). For example, because the interview was held more as an informal conversation than responding to a list of questions on a five-point rating scale, the participants could identiQ as an immigrant in one context and not in another. In other words, they could shift identifications depending on context This approach meant that the i n t e ~ e w were s quite long, but 1 also f o n d that the participants were prompted to speak to the issues that1was interested in through different questions. As one of the motivations for conducting narratives was to include voices of immigration experiences rather than producing another study where the researcher writes "about them", devoid of their voices, the narrative approach is also usefil. 1 becarne even more comrnitted to this somewhat contentions approach of including voices when 1 was having a conversation with another presenter at the ''National Symposium on Immigration and Integration" in Winnipeg (see Barkley 1996a). 1 asked hirn how one could understand what it was like to be an "immigrant" without tallcing and listening to "immigrants". The response: "as long as the numbers are large enough, I dont have to talk to anyone". What 1 found most disconcerthg about this experience was that the papers presented by those who had the ear of the state, and thus the power to influence policy, invariably excluded the voices of those they professed to k110w.~~Although narrative b a form of lmowledge (see also Rosaldo 1993), it is often marginalized as such. 59 This was a stark example of the disciplinaiy chasrn that can result at an inter-disciplinaiy conference especially an ethnographer presenting narratives in the midst of demographers! Tfie papers and the "thevoices" were, however, weIl received, even though the papa was included in a session titled "DemographicImpact" with three papas h m Statistics Canada. Ironically one of the papers discussed "immigrant integration" by country of ongin (Ram and Shin 1996), wiîhout acknowledging "racial"diasporas in those couniries. In short, 1 presented Lily and Aster's narratives and de-centred notions of "race"and place while the other presenters in the The narratives ranged fiom forty minutes to tbree hours, depending on the amount of time and information each participant was willing to share. N i e people were interviewe and all but one interview (with two participants) was recorded? All of the recorded interviews were transcribed in their entireîy, yieldhg between twenty and sixty-five pages per interview. It is important to state at the outset that 1 do not intend for nine people to be statistically representative of forty million "South Afkicans". Nor are their accounts complete stories of their Lives. AU that c m be included here are excerpts h m stones told to me at a particular t h e , place, and space. Following Krygsveld, "this thesis is a partial account of particular ["South Afican immigrants"] speaking in particular ternis about îheir identities and experimces" (1996:3). Some material will resonate with others who have had similar experiences (e.g., experiencing racism in employment), while some may not (e.g., living a life of leisure). When presenting the research at conferences, for exarnple, I have heard people Say "1know several South Afi-icans who do not W d o that!", as weii as "You know, that is so tme" and the speaker WUgo on to teli me of a similar expenence. As with any research there are points of departure and points of convergence again dependent on the receivefs knowledge base. Therefore the conclusions apply to the participants in the research (see also Green-Powell 1997:214), but this is not to Say that there may not be similarities to other "immigrants"to British Columbia-South Afican or otherwise. -- session went on, u n a f f w reproducing "races" rooted in other places (see &O Ng and Nault 1996). Thirteen people agreed to share their simies with me, but for nurnerous reasons four people mcelled their scheduled interviews. I left it to them to contact me in case there were other, unstated reasons for not wanting to participate. None of the four called to rescheduIe so they were not pursud The interview was not taped at the request of the participants. This was the fnst interview and it was conducted in a South African owned and operated cafe in Vancouver. Both husband and wife participami, and Refelections on the Research Process The methodologid approach was both conshaining and enabling.62 It was constraining in that there was no neatly demarcated group of participants, other than by having lived in South f i c a However, certain possibilities for analysis were "opened up" by not focusing on a particular ethnic or "racial" group, which also "c~nstrahed'~ my abiliîy to speak of "groups". This was, in part, the intention, to move away fiom groupness to explore individual experiences and how these may be similar or diverge dependhg on one's identities and how one is categorized The research was enabling in that it allowed for experiences to be compared across "racial" and ethnic boundaries, which was the major motivation for this approach. Cornparisons across the "White-ûther"divide necessarily lead to an analysis of Whiteness as well as Othemas, which further opened up possibilities for interpreting the data (Barkley 1998, 1998a for example). 1 had intended to interview people from South Afiica's major "racial" ancilor ethnic groups (ie. Afkiker, British, Jewish, Indian, ''~oloured",6~Afncan, and Chinese). 1 wanted to include a broad range of people, but 1 did not expect that individuals would be able to "speak for" a group. Although there is great variation between groups, this variation was limited by legislation imposed on "racial groups" during apartheid. Because South siIl of these factors combineci to make this one of the least usefil interviews. " 1 bomw loosely h m Giddens' structuration theory in desaibing this approach as both constraining and enabling. He states: "Each of the various forms of constraint are uius also, in varying ways, forms of enablement. They serve to open up certain possibilities of action at the same rime as they resûict or deny othe~~." (1984:173-174) " kolouredl is used here, as in apartheid South Africq to denote "mixed heritage". This includeù priniarily people of "European heriiage" (Le. "White") who were excluded fiom the category "White", but aiso included Malays, and descendants of the KhoiKhoi or San peoples (Chnstopher I994:21-22;-SA 1983:7). Patterson &fines "Coloureds" as "those who haci failed to pas for white" (1953:361), meaning they were unable to have theirraciai classification changed to "European"~'White"(see aiso Watson 1970). f i c a r s were officially designated accordhg to "race" once apartheid was introduced in 1948, more so than in other contexts, participants couid speak in terms of their common experiences as racialized subjects. For exarnple, Lily said that South Afican Chinese "just kept to ourseIves.... We grew up together, we mamied each other and our parents always had p h e s together and we went to school together. .... In the end everybody is related to everybody else" (she laughs). In the end, 1decided it was what the participants had to say, rather than the "racial" or ethnic category fiom which they were saying it that "matîered" as fa as the variation of participants. In other words, the narratives were so rich that 1chose to focus on the data that 1 akeady had, raîher than seek out more participants in a failed attempt to "represent" South Afiica's main "group" designations. Regarding my own subject position, I cannot deny the possibility that my being "White" infiuenced what the participants shared with me. 1believe this influence was offset somewhat by my knowledge of South *cm history and politics, especially for non-White participants. In some contexts participants would endeavour to "teach me" about South f i c a during the interview. At other points they were surprised when 1responded in a way that indicated prior knowledge of events? 1 believe this is in part because of their but also because of my experiences in Canada with people who are not l~nowled~eable,6~ statu as a "White", young-looking "CanadianW7who thaefore would also not be knowledgeable. 64 For example, when Aster and I were talking about the myth of Jan van Riebeeck "discovering"South Africa and 1 was able to provide the date, she replieci " 1652, yah, oh you're g d "This point is mvisited in the section on Ken". 1also base the assertion that my "Whiteness" may have Muenced the inteniews on the findings of Moeno's (1981) research with 'TJ~n-White'~ South Afr-icans in Toronto. She This leads us to an important consideration-the extreme status-consciousness and the awkwardness experienced in inter-racial contacts when they are overlaid with culturaI and class differences and bitter mernories! This led to extreme anger when certain questions relating to race were asked. .... The situation might have been d i f f e r e ~we feel, if the researcher had not been a Black South Afican, because respondents mi@ then have felt wmfortable answering these questions. However, since they (respondents) knew that the researcher Imew 'where they corne fiom', it still hurt. They could not disguise their feeling by paîroninng someone who they felt did not h o w about or understand the real situation in the Republic of South Afiica (1 98 1 :259) It is imporiant to note that Moenofsstudy occurred during apartheid, at a t h e when the A c a n National Congress (ANC) was a banned organization. The political changes in South Afnca provided me with pater libertities than in Moeno's research with South Aficans in Canada. Unlike her participants, who were o h concemed that she was acting as a "spytf for the South African govemment (198 1:M),the participants 1 spoke with did not have to fear repercussions fiom the South Afiican govemment for "speaking out". After-dl, my research was conducted during the &val of the "new South Africa" under the "Rainbow Coalition" led by the ANC. Seemingly, less anger was directed towards me than Moeno when a s h g questions about "race", although questions about identity still generated some reaction, particularly if the participant felt 1was reinscribing "racial differencet'. For example, the staternent "this is what we were trying to get away fiom when we left South Afkica" (Moeno 1981: M),was v e q similar to David's response to my question as to how he would describe his identity. He said: "the niche in which we are has no particular niche as any racial group, it's just as a Canadian, and that's what we want it to bet'. I found that the 'White" participants made sure I knew that "there is no animosity, there is no hatred" (Mine)? "There is a lot of good will between blacks and whites" (Stan), and "Black South Afiicans are excited to see us" (Rose). During the interview with Stan and Rose in the cafe, 1 felt that they heavily censored anything îhat they felt rnight suggest they were less than liberal in their attitudes towards "Blacks". For example, when Rose started to talk about the gardener, Stan cut her off and said "that is enough". He also cut himself offwhen he started to talk about the maid. As an immutable aspect of my research, my "Whiteness" was also constraining and enabling. In my interview with Aline, 1sensed that she was telling me things because 1was "White" th& she may not have shared with a non-"White" interviewer. She went to great lengths to make me undentand why things happened the way they di4 and how they "did not know, really, what went on under apartheidt'. Alîhough 1did not personally agree with her rationalizations of apartheid, she did help me to understand why and how it lasted for as long as it did In sum, my "Whiteness", gender, age, educational status and perceived class position may have facilitated the communication of certain information in the interviews while other knowledge may not have been communicated. 1 believe this to be an unavoidable consequence of doing ethnographic rmearch because, as is often over-looked, boîh the analyst and the social actors display markers perceived as mattering while simultaneously 66 Aine went on to say: "1 don't know what your, yowYyour experience is, but did you meet the South African White who hates the Black? 1haven't, I promise you 1 haven't. .... 1mean, f haven't seen any South Afiican to speak b d y ofthe BIacks. 1 haven't, because on the evexyday level there was no animosity 1promise you." occupying a variety of social positions (see also Rosaldo 1993). Just as 1 interpreted what the participants said about who they are, the participants interpreted who 1 am and responded accordingiy through the interview process-albeit without a list of prepared questions, transcripts and time to reflect. 1 too was a social actor whom the participants position& themselves in relation to and; therefore, influencecl whaî they comrnunicated about themselves. CHAPTER FOUR Myjrst discovery [in "examining white consciousness and how it operates in my lfely was the absence of awareness of white comciousness, in spite of the endlas white fmcination with "How do you idenhfi yowsey-are you AAfcan-Canadian, black orjust Canadian? Wiiere are you from?" This confidence, this centredness, the presumption of belonging within white consciownessfascinates me. Joanne St. Lewis "Identity and Black Consciousness in North Amenca" (1996:Z) The prLnary focus of this chapter is the narration of identities by the participants. 1 begin by setting out some considerations regarchg the "telling" of the narratives. 1then draw on the h e w o r k of relational positionality to organize the narratives around notions of identityj boundaqr processes, and differential expenences of the immigration process. The narratives are presented to show what and how the participants communicated about who they are and how their identities shifted through-out the nmtives according to context. Situating the Narratives As previously stated, the interviews represent a slice of time in the participants' lives. Necessarily then, the narratives are situated withùi a particdar time, space, and place. The accounts of the participants are partial representations which have been fiozen in time through the process of telling and being recorded. Going back to Somers and Gibson (1994), the telling of a narrative account is a simultaneous process of becoming and making sense of one's life. The recording of this l'becomia.g'' fixes identity at an arbitrary moment in the process. It is also important to note thaî the narratives are limited by what S o m a and Gibson (1994) refer to as "public naf~atives"~' on immigration, "race", place, South Africanness, and so on (see also Chase 1995). The "standpoints" of the participants also influence theû interpretation of events and, as a consequence, shape how the story is told (Frankenberg 1993; Gubrium and Holstein 1998). Although "Iocal and broder cultural resources... provide farniliar or conventional guidelines for how stories unfold.. they do not detennine individual stoy lines" (Gubrium and Holstein 1998:166). In other words, these factors are mediating, but not detemiining. The narratives are a means by which participants give coherence to their lives (Chase 1995; Denzin in Gubrium and Holstein 1998:165; Rosaldo 1993). At the same time they were telling me their experiences, they were also telling themselves. Through the process of telling their stories, the participants were establishing not only coherence, but also difference (Gubrium and Holstein 1998:166). In other words, there were a number of processes occurijng at the same time. The participants were giving coherence to their lives at the same time as they differentiated thernselves fiom ascribed categories and pre- conceived notions of who they are, and what they perceived I, as recorder of their stories, wanted to hear. As Gubnum and Holstein suggest: "As texts of experience, stones are not complete pnor to theK telling but are situated to meet interpetive demands. ... Storytelling [is] an ongoing process of composition rather than a more or less coherent reporîing of experience" (ibid, emphasis in original; see also Chase 1995). 67 See footnote 19. On the later point, 1 do not agree h a î storytelling cannot be an "ongoing process of composition" and "a more or l e s coherent reporting of eqerience" (i-e. CO-implicated processes). The narratives provide an accurate representation of how the participants interpreted their experiences and regarded thernselves at a specific moment in their lives, through the rnediating discourses available to them at that tirne. On another day, with another researcher, in d e r context, the composition of the stories may have differed. Relational positionality must be considered because experience and composition are influenced by context and with whom one is interacting. The accounts of the participants and the interpreîations of their experiences were influenced by my questions, by my Whiteness, by public narratives on immigration and South Aficanness and so on, all of which are situatecl in a particular time, place and space. The fact that 1 conducted the interviews in such a loosely structurecl manner meant that the participants did not have a clear sense of "what it was that 1was getting at" (Gord). As a result, they were not always able to determine motive and tailor their responses to what they thought 1 wanted to hear. Regarding "expenence", as Scotî (1992a; 1992) points out, subjects are constituted through "expenence" (Le. the lived realities of life). So rather than experience being taken as evidence of "difference", the analysis must inchde how "difference" is established, how it operates, and how, and in what ways subjects are constituted through their experiences (see also Chase 1995). For example, being racialized is not evidence of "naturally" occuning "racial differencett,but rather a means through which "racial difference" is establkhed (i.e. socially constnicted as mattering through social, economic, political and legal processes). In other words, one is not a racial subject without racializing processes. Through the namtives, the participants connect their experiences as a means of constructing self-understanding (Gubrium and Holstein 1998:167), in addition to communicating to me, and my perceived audience, an understanding of who the participant is and is not. As Scott suggests, the narratives are "discursive productions" of knowledge about self (1992x3536). The participants lùnited their stories according to pre-conceived notions of what "kinds of stories are typically told" (Gubrium and Holstein 1998:173) in a research i n t e ~ e w as , well as the questions that I posed (Chase 1995). As a resuli, the meanings of their expenences were "both artfully constructeci and circurnstantially conditioned" (Gubrium and Holstein 1998:177) to meet these demands. Therefore, their narratives are inierpretations of experiences in need of interpretation as productions of knowledge (Chase 1995; Scott 1992a). As contexts shift, so too do the mearilngs and understandings of identities and categories. For example, in some contexts Aster refers to herself as a Sowetan, in others as a South Afiican, while in others she positions herself in opposition to the category South African. Because of this the "how" becornes as important as the "what" in analyzing the processes by which one communicates who one is. The participants constanty made decisions not only about what to tell me and what not to tell me (Chase 1995), but also how to tell me. Thmefore, contrridictions and "edithg errors" or "omissions" in the narratives are also analyzed. Gubrium and Holstein refer to these as "narrative slippage"-the "play or elaîticity" in how shared understandings shift according to context when interpreting events (1998:176). As much as the storyteller c m be the author of his or her narrative, he or she is also an d t o r who constantly monitors, manages, modifies, and revises the emergent sto~y. Invoking shifts in footing-such as ref-g to the position h m which an account is offered-is one prominent type of "narrative editing" through which storytellers attend to the perspectives of personal Stones and to the ways they will be head Editing c o n h m that storyteUes are never narraîively "fiozen" as authors of the text that they produce (Gubrium 1993). (Gubrium and Holstein 1998: 170) Although the storyteller is never fiozen, through the process of recording the narrative, the story is. To a certain extent, however, because the participants did not have the opportunity to "editt'the text they producd by telling their e ~ ~ e r i e n c rthey s , ~ ~also The general research objectives were to examine the ways in which the participants communicate their identities and how they may differentially experience the immigration process depending on their identities and the colour of thek skin. 1wanted to explore how the participants communicated who they are, sometimes while being categorized according to essential difference. What did they communicate about self and other and in what contexts? How did their identities shifk, and in what ways did they describe thernselves (i.e. become) and others according to context andlor whom they were interacting with and the story they were telling? As the "transmigrant" paradigm suggests (e.g. Glick Schiller, Basch, and Szanton Blanc 1995), the mere act of migrating does not remove one's presence fiom "there" and reinscribe it "here" as easily as moving one's body and belongings fîom there to here (Barkley " One ofthe participants quested and received a copy of the ttanscnpt, but did not "edit"i t 1996). "There" is not only the site of emigration, but also the context in which categories and identties are (re)formed and lived there as well as here (Barkley 1996a). By migrating, different sets of ciifference-producing relationships are encountered and, concomitantly, differences that matter also change. As Mythili Rajiva has suggested, in the research "different discourses of white [and other] bump up against each ~ther~~~~-discourses South Afiicans use to describe themselves, discourses in Canada about South Aficans in particular (including what it means to be "Black" or "White" in South Afkica) and immigrants in generd, notions of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, and so on. As a result of these discomes "bumpingup against each other", and the complex ambiguities that this c m create in social interaction, notions of "difference" are often produced dong a single axis ignoring complex and multi-stranded identities (see also Mouffe 1992). For example, as I stated in the previous chapter, cultural and immigrant semice organitations most often interpreted "people who immigrated fiom South AfEca" as "Black". Further, the potential for identity expression is limiteci to some degree by whom one is interacting with-in other words the signified is lirnited to varying degrees by the signifier. Identities shift, dependent upon the point of reference (Friedman 1995) and with whom one is interacting, because no-one can be all of one's identities in any particular moment." Although there is the potentid for multiple identities, some become salient in certain 69 P e ~ n acornmunicaîion l (pmmpted by Barkley 1998). 70 One of my students was conducting reseacch on identity and related the following, which illustrates this point. A participant told him about a party to which she invited people she knew, but who did not know each other. She explained the party to him using a metaphor of a pile of masks in the middle of the room,to which she was continually running to find îhe right mask for each person. Because each person at the party knew her as a "different person", her fear was that she would be "caught wearing the wrong mask" (Morgan Reid, contexts while others remah unstated in the process of becoming (see also Scott 1992). Constnicting Self: Who are you? As stated previously, the data is presented intra-participant to the extent that this is feasible and logical. Wiîhin the individual narratives, material was then selected around the main themes by which participants expressed their identities. This approach also gives the reader a better sense of identity shifts and slippages in the narratives. As much as possible when including the voices of the participants 1 employ the present tense in order to remind the reader that they are fked in a specific moment in time (Hastmp in Krygsveld 1996). This is jwcîaposed against my use of the past tense which also serves as a reminder that 1, unlike the participants, have had the time to reflect upon and alter my account many times. Although 1 endeavour to include their voices, unfortunately, fiom the incredibly rich stories the participants shared, ody small fi-agments relating to how they commmicated ethnic, "racial", and national identities cm be included here. 1 began each interview by asking the participant how he or she would describe hisher identity-who are you? AU of the responses were telling, albeit in different ways. s on, delinitions of self (i.e. identities) were m e r Not surprisingly, as the i n t e ~ e w went delineated and often shifted or "slipped" as participants manipulated the elastic parameters of their being. personal communication). B e ' i "Chinese"and "South Africanl' Lily, dong with Aster, showed the most identity shiAs during her narrative. When 1 asked Lily how she would identifj herself, she said: Actually 1 find [it] difficult to identi@ myself because being South [she co~ects hmeIfl Chinese and South Afiican and then now coming to Canada You h o w like my sister she has been, well she has the same problems as me, right, and um (pause) when you want to identify yome1f you can't say @ause) 1 think we first of al1 say we're Chinese. We always Say we're Chinese and then somehow at the back of it we fdl South African and now we are Canadian, but (pause) the longer 1think you stay here then the long (pause) it's easier to identiQ yomelf as a Canadian, but at the moment 1think of myself first as Chinese and then South Afiican. You know I still thhk of South Afiica as home. ... I think (pause) urn (pause) an identity cnsis I have (laughs). 1really don't, @ause) don't know where 1fit in. You h o w 1 mean um (pause) it's hard because... like for my daughter, she has been here only two years, she speaks Mce a Canadian, thinks like," you know, al1 her fiends do so it's very easy for them to change over," but me, 1 think um, 1 don7 know how long it is going to take. 1 think 1 will always be Chinese nrst and then South Afican second 1think it will take me a long time to find (pause) to probably confess 1am a Canadian, 1don't know. There are interesthg slippages in Lily's account as she smggles to identiS, hmelf In the first passage, she begins by describing herself as South Afincan, but before completing the phrase changes to Chinese. She then tentatively asserts that she "thinks" it is Chinese, followed by the more definitive "we always Say we're Chinese". Her South Afican identity " Bief descriptions of the panicipants are included in Chapter Two. " " Had 1done follow-up interviews, 1would have asked David and Lily what they meant by "thinkuig like a Canadian". At the tirne, it was beyond the intended scope of the interview. When I asked the publisher of the South Afnmn Canadian Business Directory if she noticed any gender difierences in adapting to Greater Vancouver, she said no, but comrnented on generational differences. She said that teenagers have the most difficulty adapting. LiIy's daughter may be the exception, or d e r it may be a matter of difficulties specific to "White" South Africans whom with the publisher has more contact Further, becomes secondary and her identification as "Canadian'*is tentative at best In the second passage, she moves even farther away h m identifying herself as a "Canadian," yet there is an underlying tension that she should, at some point, "adopt" a Canadian identity, even though she doesn't "know how long it will td~e".'~ As the interview progresse& Lily became more certain in denning herself as "Chinese". She said, "1think generally though we aiways feel thatwe are Chinese...because we have been brought up fairly Chinese by our parents. You know we always feel Chinese first you know so, ah in that way um,1am Chinese". A significant part of Lilyls Chineseness cornes fiom her identification with the category "Chfnesel', and experiences of racial segregation under apartheid. She contrasted this to Canadian society, but also commented on how these boundaries persist in Greater Vancouver. 1 think it is more difficult here to keep the culture because now it is al1 fkee, and um, you become Canadians, right 1mean you live the Canadian way of life, there is no such thing as T m hin ne se".^* 1think that is why it would be easier for my daughter to adopt a new identity than for me, because in South Aiiica 1 was always made to know îhat 1am Chinese, nght. And 1 am not Afkican because 1am not Black and we don7 actually mix with the Akicans because they have their own lifestyle which we are no&you know, used to as well. So we don? have any Afican fiends, we don? have any European f?iends, so we just kept to ourselves. So it was very easy to keep our identity. We married amongst owe1ves, 1 mean, we only saw each other! (iaughs)76 - - -- -- --- - Lily's daughter is in a community where she is no longer a minority. I elaborate on this point Iater. 74 It is difficult to attribute cause here. A couple of possi'bilities do, however, corne to minci. Lily could have been influenced by public narratives which criticize immigrants for not k i n g "Canadian first", or by what she thought she should be telling me. The irony of being "Canadian" is brought to the fore when considering that only on the 1996 Census was "Canadian"included as an identity option @ay 1998), aIthough on the previous Census one could have written "Canadian" in the space for "other", prior to that "Canadian"was not an option ( M e n Gee, personal communication). However, "Chinesel' ir an option on the Canadian Census fom. 76 Albe said, "because of apartheid, people didn't mix. So the Chinese stayzd pure Chinese. ... We did have very littie intermamage and that was, I feel, tbat was the reason of apartheid, because they wanted to keep the '' So we grew up together, we manied each other, and our parents had parties together, and we went to school together and at the sarne tirne we actually, because of the apartheid system, we coulddt even bring in other Chinese people fiom the outside world So it was always like just us. .... In a way, it was a fantastic way of keeping the Chinese people together. We never lost our culture because urn, we just stuck together. We never mixed with anybody else. We h d y , you know, rnixed with any other race.... We just keep to ourselves still here. You lmow we have such a big community that um, we don't need, in a way, we don? really need anybody else, because, weU, when we get together we talk about things back home, we feel ves, good In this passage, Lily infers that Chinese is a "race", even though "Chinese" had "no clear stanis in the apartheid system" (IDAFSA 1983:16). Further, the "we" in the passages above is used to signi6 South Afican Chinese, to be determinecl fkom context. What is particularly interesting is that when 1 asked Lily what it means to "be Chiriese", she grappled with the question. She describes it as "a strong fmily bond", with fmily and "roots" comprising a very important part of "who we are and how we relate to each other". "So um, being Chinese I suppose is keeping the Chinese customs and you know having the closeness of family and um (long pause), 1never reaily thought about it". She pauses again and then laughs. "Now you are making me think!" She laughs again and we move on to the next question. Marable's (1992) distinction between "Blackt' and "Blackness" can be applied here to distinguish between notions of Chinese and "Chineseness" whereby "Chuiûeness" denotes shared cultural and social experiences-a "cultural umbilical cord'' to China For races pure. That's why an Indian, although he's in South AfI.ica for six generaîions, he is stiI1 an indian. He's a pure Indian." example, when Liiy defines "Chineset' as an important part of "who we are and how we relate to each otherl', in essence she is taking about Chineseness M e n she refers to the attitude of the apartheid state towards "Chinese" it is as a category of otherness, which ignores "Chineseness". Lay reproduces the boundaries between "South Aiiica's raciai groups", especially Aficans, who are disthguished by "their own lifestyle". She spoke of how separating people reinforces stereotypes 'because you do not get to know themt, but at the same t h e , people separate themselves anyway "because you feel rnost comfortable with yourself'. 1think maybe ["dl people are"] (pause) ...discriminatoy... by nature I think,right 1 mean in certain ways we discriminate people by nature until we actually get to know the person. So until you actually know the person you sort of keep away fkom each other, right. 1 mean, thai is the unfortunate thing. Because lüce the Black people, we always kept away fiom them because somehow we already had this perception, our parents gave us this perception, or you know ceriain things about them and then you grow up with this perception. You never get to know thern and then you just keep this idea with you all the t h e , but I am sure that once you know thern they are very similar to al1 of us. 1mean they just want a decent living and you know that S p e of h g , be at peace with everybody (laughs). The boundary between "Black" and Chùiese is marked and maintained through ignorance of the other. Fwther, Lily naturalizes the boundary and the discrimination that (re)produces notions of "racial difierence" by stating "we discriminate by naturer'. "False certainties" (Somers and Gibson 1994) based on "immutable essentid differences" ( J e n h 1986) were perpetuated not onIy by the apartheid state, but also by Lily's parents. The Iack of contact between "racial groups" served to reuiforce these false certainties about "us and hem", rather than exposing "racial difference" as a mechanism by which the state entrenched power (Scott 1992). 1 then asked Lily if she f o n d her multiple identifications as Chinese, South Afican, and Canadim difficult for others to understand. She replied Well like at work, when we talk to people, we haventt seen these people right? So 1 say I'm f?om South Afnca, like there is this manager that 1 work with and he says "oh, so are you black?" So 1 said "no, Fm Chinese". You know and 1 mean he couldn't get over it because (pause) like (pause) q b d y fiom Afiica would be like Black so it is very difficult to Say "oh, Fm Chinese", you how. h the context of being marked (ie. categorized) as "Black",Lily's identity shifts to Chinese. Although she identifies with Chinese, South Aîrican, anci, to a lesser extent, Canadian, these are constnicted by her manager as mutually exclusive categories (Barkley 1996). The example she tells of the manager illustrates the problem of "common sense Imowledge" (Maré 1993[1992]) gleaned h m bound typologies as aued notions of "them" collide when the manager attempts to categorize Lily. Her overlapping identities challenge fixed typologies based on "races" rooted in specific places, because she spans racialized categories commonly perceived as exclusive. Lily's multiple identities serve to counter perceptions of South f i c a n s as "Black" and of "Chinese immigrants" as coming fiom Asia The reaiity of Lily being both South Afncan and Chinese--being both "black" and "yel1ow"-serves to decentre both categories of "racial difference" (Barkley l996a). Further, using auaible distinctions to mark categories, My's South Afiican accent cm also be "deceptive" when she is not in For someone with "yellow skin" to speak with an Afrikaans accent M e r destabilizes pre-conceived notions of otherness. Language not only unifies, it also establishes boundaries (Maré 1993:28). The same cm be said for n South Africa is one of the few "plural societies"where "racial group membership" can be determinecl by accent; likely a product of segregation (Heribert Adam, personal communication). accents which are one of the most salient and long-king markers that one is "newl' to Canada Lily's South Afiican accent, in addition to marking her as an "immigrantt1,,78 places her on different sides of the "racial" boimdaxy depending on whether those being spoken to can see th& she is of "Asiandescent". Through Lily's alterity being compounded by bound and incongrnous notions of "race", place, and language (Barkley 1997a), the apparently contradictory relationship between these determiners makes it difficult to locate h a within a rigid fhmework rooted in essentialist c a t e g o h (Barkley l996a). Being Cantonese, Being Chinese Lily and I tallced a bit more about language, and in this context she refers to Cantonese as "ow national language", and uses "we"when discussing which languages are spoken in different parts of China, For example, she states: "once we are out of our Province,we go north, nobody can speak to you and we cm't speak to anybody, but because, I think with urfrom Hong Kong, there's many people that are all over the world" (emphasis added). Lily's identity shifts with another implicit construction of "home", this t h e marked through references to "we"and "us", situated within China. Lily htroduces a new identity to her repertoire, adding new meanings to her Chineseness. She is a Cantonese speaker who's family (at some point) came fiom Hong Kong-compatible notions of language and place. Lily ties the "cultural umbilical cord (Marable 1992) to China and Hong Kong ideologically, if not in practice. As Ng suggests, "Craig staes mat his accent thaî marks hun as an "immigrant11.1retm to this point later. the category "Chinese"is nebulous in that it signifies a wide-range of diverse heritages with little in cornmon "save a culîurettleft behind generatons ago (in K. Anderson 1991:2 14)." The m h g s of "Chineseness" are diverse in the diaspora, however, the "urnbilical cord" of Chineseness ideologically comects those in the diaspora-whether South Afkica or Canadato the "homeland". n i e strength and meanings associated with this connection wax and wane depending on context. Within the context of a discussion on Vancouver's Chinatown, Lily's identity shifts slightly as she describes herself as Cantonese-"here ail the people are Cantonese like myser (emphasis added). This represents a subtle &if€ fiom defïning herself according to place (Hong Kong) and language (Cantonese) to context-specific definitions of Chineseness detennined by language. Lily spoke of how "Chinesel' has different meanings in Chinatom To "fit in", someone who "looks Chinese" must also speak Cantonese. She said her sister-in-law, who speaks a different dialect-Hakka-doesn't even go to Chuiatown anymore because "she feels very insignificant because they ignore herl'. Lily goes on, stating that Actually that's quite a bad thing because somehow they seem (pause) they are quite (pause) mogant about it too. If you can't speak the language, they achially look down on you So I think it's worse, I think that if you are a Caucasian they c m understand that you can't speak the language righf but if you're Chinese and you don? really speak the language then they can be pretty arrogant and my sister-in-law gets quite mad. .... She says she just gets ignored and no-one takes notice of her, so she doesn't bother to go anymore (laughs). So 1 suppose um, if you're Chinese, it's still, itls a matter of like, do you fit in? Are '' "With the changes in [Canada's] immigration policy, the terni "Chinese" in Canada came to signify an ever-increasing m g e of heritages eamed in such diverse places as Bntain, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Pem, the Philippines, Singapore, South Afiica, Taiwan, the United States, Vietnam, and the West Indies" (K. Anderson 1991:214). Lily said Chinese South Africans are "so Westemized" that they have no problems "fitting in", which she conmted to Hong Kong Chinese. you the right group of Chinese? It's yah, 1never thought about it until we were just tallQng about if you know. You're Chinese, but are you Chinese? You know you're still not quite Chinese. You're a different group. Within the context of Vancouver's Chinatom, Lily adds another layer of meaning to "beingChinese". Although she lived her entire life in South Afica pior to emigrating, she is accepted in Vancouver's Chinatown because of her ability to speak Cantonese. Gohg back to Maré's point, language not only unifies, it also establishes boundaries (1993:28). So although language provides a sense of groupness for its' speakersyas with any boundary the converse is also true, it excludes non-speakers like Lily's sister-in-law in Chinatown. The example also illustrates the association between not only "race" and place, but language as well in defining "Chineseness". Within Vancouver's Chinatawn, "Chineseness" is limited to those who speak Cantonese. In other words, within the category "Chinese", the centre of Chineseness is reserved for Cantonese-speakers, with those who speak other dialects existjng on the margins of essential Chineseness. "Back Home" The idea of "home" for Lily also shifts during the interview. When 1 asked her where she considers home, she replies "well here now, 1would consider here home". 1then asked her about her use of the word "now+"'and she grappled with the notion of "home", chimg first what home meant to her before determining where home was. "Until 1 actually went home this last, ah went back to South Afiica 1 mean um, 1 calleci that home, yah (we both laugh), but 1really don7 have a home now. 1 mean 1 have a place, so 1 suppose you can't really say ifs home (pause) as such, right." When 1 pressed Lily M e r on her use of "back home", she replie.: It's just a phrase. 1think just "back home". When 1 say "back home" I suppose 1 keep thinking of South Afica, but um (pause) al1 my family is here now so (pause) 1 can't Say thai I can go-it's more just my husband's family. I still have family there, and my daughter is very close to her cousins so we will always be going to visit and everything, but home 1would think is here now because, um,all my family is here. Um,Canada is my home now. Lily is t e h g herself what home is and what it means as much as she is telling me. She attempts to give coherence to her life, composing notions of home while concomitantly telling me where home is. In the process, she equates home with famiy. Perhaps becaw of this, home for Lily is two places, having family in both South Afica and Canada. Grappling with determining where home is, she chooses Greater Vancouver because her family is here and home is where one's family is. Yet, in the course of the interview, she fiequently uses "back home" when refemng to South AfÎica For example, as stated previously, in response to how she would identi6 herself, Lily said "YOUlmow I still think of South Afiica as home". Context is important in disceming "home". Often the phrase "back home" indicates a lùik with the pa* rather than an indication of the present state of affairs.*' As stated earlier, there is an underlying tension as to the degree to which Lily identifies with Canada 1 was not sure whether this tension arose fiom feeling that she should identify with Canada This is in recognition of the fdctthat people o h refer to "going back home" when visiting a place where they lived a significant part of their lives, h i I y mides, etcetera So even though an individual has a current home, "back home" refers to linking up with one's past. because that is what she was supposed to say,or whether it was a part of her identity crisis. Perhaps it was a bit of both. Strangers and Immigrants I asked Lily if she considers herself an "immigrant", and she replied: "1 think if you are an immigrant you fee1 strange and everyhng, right. 1dont feel strange. So 1 think because we are so comfortable with al1 our support group and everything, I don? feel iike an immigrant. 1feel like 1belong." For Lily, "immigrants" are people who are not fully rooted here. "immigrants" are people like those fiom Hong Kong, who maintain a life "there" as well as "hereW-in other words, transmigrants81(Barkley 1996). Yeî, later in the interview when we were talking about whether or not immigrating had an effect on how she sees herself she said: 1 feel like less of a person than 1 did in South Afiica 1 think every immigrant probably feels the same way, that you've got to establish yourself again. It is like starting your life al1 over again because nobody h o w s you, whereas back home, you've already had so many years of connections with everybody. Here you have just got to start al1 over again, but the only good thing is we have the South Afiican (pause) group of people. What these two passages indicate is that, like identity, home is a process of becoming. Lily differentially positions herself within and outside of the categoy "immigrant" depending on the context. When she speaks of being comfortable, she does not identie as an "immigranttf.However, when she speaks of the difficulties in adjusting to life 81 1rely on Glick Schiller, Basch and Szanton Blanc's definition of transmigrants as "immigrants [who] buiId in Greater Vancouver compared to ''back home", she identifies with the category It is also interesting how, in the passage above, she employs the "South Afiican group of people" to signiQ Chinese-South Afncans. The meaning of South Afkican is implicit in the way it is used as weil as the meaning she associates with "we". Later in the interview when 1 asked Lily about her perceptions of "immigrants"in Greater Vancouver and where they come fiom, she replies "who were they? Ah, the Hong Kong people. ... 1always think of them because they don't consider ... they are not fûlly here" (emphasis added). In this context, she once again positions herself as a "South Afkican", contrasting experîences of Hong Kong transmigrants with her own. She s h i h h m identifjmg with being "fiom Hong Kong" to "South Afican". Lily's identification with "us fiom Hong Kong" in îhe context of langage, is replaced with a categoruation of "them ("the Hong Kong people") as "immigrants"as she defines herself outside of this category. In the process of excluding herself from "immigrants", she also constitutes "them" as transrnigrants, by not being "füily here", nor feeling "like they a c W y belong here" because of multiple linkages to their homeland (see also GIick Schiller, Basch, Szanton Blanc 1992; 1995). Yet, Lily also struggled with "belonging", not knowing where she "fits in", and where "home" is. 1 think to them it is a completely different way of lifestyle. As for me, I'm so Westemized 1 think it's easier for me to adapt than for them. So, um,they are tmly immigrants 1 think. ... 1 think that they don't feel like they actuaiiy belong here. .... 1think with a lot of the Hong Kong people they are, bke with the South f i c a n s we social fields that Iink together their country of origin and îheir country of settlement"(1992:1). are so um, sort of like laid back and @ause) that type of t b g . Whereas in Hong Kong it's so cornpetitive therels so many people. You just have to be so, resourceful and hard-working. So, I think with us we're a different type of immigrant group. 1 donTtthink we're that fornard going. 1 mean wetre accountants. We corne in as accountants, we stay accountants (we both laugh)? Once again, Lily uses "South Afkican" to signi@ South African-Chinese, whom she differentiates as more Westemized (and arguably more "rooted") than Hong Kong-Chinese. Although when discmsing laxlguage Lily makes reference to "us fiom Hong Kong", she now contrats Hong Kong-Chinese to South Afican-Chinese. The former signified as "resowcefûl" and "hard-working", while the later is signified as "laid back", "not that fonvard going", and accountants. There is an irony to Lily's multiple identifications when compared to categories of othemess. Outside of South Aiiica her accent marks her as "other". In both South Africa and Canada her skin pigment sets her apart as "other". Yet, at the same tirne, she feels cornfortable in the Vancouver suburb where she lives because 'there are so many Chinese' there that she 'doesn't feel like a minority' (Barkley 1996a). Further, because of the recent increases in "Asian llnmigration" to Greater Vancouver, Lily's exclusion and minonty status were much more pronounced in apartheid South Afiica where "Asian" immgration was restricted. Whereas in South A£kica she was "ves, noticed because there are so few of us", in the suburb where she now lives she said "there are so many of us that I think you have to pick out the Caucasians". "Here we just become nobody (laughs). We just blend in with " Accounantr are one of the top four secton in which Souih Afnca is experiencing a brain-drah (in descendhg ordm ducation and related, engineers, accountancy, and medical and dentd). The professionai association of Accountants in South Afnca reports that some Johannesburg fims "are having difficulty recruiting articled clerks" (Cohen 1996). everybody elsetJ3(incIuding the Hong Kong immigrants). South African, Chmese, Canadian: "which ever one you want" Gord describes himeIf as "Canadian-Chinese-South Mkican, Chinese-South Afican-Canadian, which ever one you wantl'. When I asked him what he considers more predominant, he replied "more South Afiican". This is interesting in that of the two options he gave me to choose fiom, he places South Afican la* or in the middle, but never ht, yet says he is "more South Afkican". When 1 asked hirn what these identities meant to him, he said, "WeU it meant that I'm of Chinese ancestry, but I'm South Afiican by birth, and 1 settled in Canada as my new home". Gord's experiences can be contrastecl against ~ i l ~ ' For s . ~example, ~ 1asked hirn if had sllniiar experiences to Lily regarding perceived incongruence between "race" and place-being Chinese and South African At first he replied, "No, not at dl", but then went on to Say that when he wouid speak on behalf of a predominantly Afican political organization in Greater Vancouver that 'people would be surprised that I'm Asian and not Black, but 1 always found it quite easy to fight in that 1 just explained, that's dl." In other words, Gord was able to explain the incongruence between bound notions of race and place-'it was an - 83 - In this c o n m Lily dues not differentiate between "Asians". It is difficult to know what factors (e.g. length of t h e in Canada, gender, marital statm, personal characterïstics) to atûiiute to the differences in experiences between Lily and Gord, so 1 leme the question aside raîher than attribute Mse cause. easy fight'. It became apparent vexy early in the interview that Gord had a strong sense of who he is. Becoming Politicized: "an ülegitimate government" Interestingly Gord's self-esteem and politickation increased after emigration-the former caused by the later. He said uiis had more to do with leaving South AfKca than coming to Canada To understand th& you have to understand the type of background 1came fkom when I left South f i c a People of Chinese descent were not regarded as fiee citizens of South A f k q nor were people of Indian descent. As a matter of fa& the South Afican govemrnent's policy in the early days was to repatnate Asians back where they came fiom, and (pause) that government didn't regard us as South Afrcan. We didn't have the vote, they didnftregard us as being indigenous to the place and so a lot us didn't feel that we were South ~ f ? i c a n .We ~ ~felt rather that we were Chinese. We came h m China, even though we were bom and bred in but had no real ties to it-to the country-and having come to Canada after living in [Asia] for four years, 1began to realize that I was South African and it was merely an illegitimate government that denied me my right. So my identity as a South Af5can increased when 1was in canadas7 Gord's comments offer a possible explanation for Lilyk identification with Hong Kong. For Lily and Gord, their identities were more bifûrcated in South ASRca than in This can be contrasteci against Aline's idea that "you were supposed to become South African faster and quicker îhan here". Obviously it was more difficult for "Chinese" than for "Whites" to become "South African", and alihough Lily and Gord did identify as South Afiicans, there is a tension between state recognition of belonging and identiQing on an individual level. South African identity may have also been enhanced by my research interest (i.e., 1made if a salient identity). 86 1fhink Gord meant to say South Afn'ca inRead of China here. This "slippage" is, however, telling. Gord bewne a self-imposed exile because of political choices he made after ùiunigrating to Canada. The Soweto uprising was the turning point because "so many people were killed that 1fmaily decided that I wasn't hgovernment to stop me speaking out forever". 1 come back to the Soweto uprïsing during going to dlow t Ken's narrative. See aisa footnote 113. " Greater Vancouver. Being hine ne se'"^ they were constituted and excluded in different yet similar ways. In both geopphical contexts, Chinese may be regarded as "foreigners," despite being Citizens of the country by birth right (i.e. the "umbilical cord" is given precedence over soil).sg In Greater Vancouver, however, the processes are much more subtle than those of apartheid where Chinese were denied the potentiai for civic and political belonging. I then asked Gord what he meant by "becoming better politicized". He said: Many of my generation who left South Afiica in the 60's and late 601s, had no identity of being South Afican, or being, they thought they were Chinese, but yet they were not Chinese, they did not really, but ah, having corne here 1 felt betîer politicized to understand thai 1was South Afkican and I also had been denied it and 1 set myself a goal of fighting against the South A c a n govemment of the day. That's what 1mean by politicized. Gord's politicization resulted fkom the awareness thaî being marginalized through racialization was a central ingredient in maintainhg state power. He realized that the lack of politicization and caîegorization as "Chinese"-and not South A&can--was an important part of the struggle to redirect the flow of power and thus his exclusion as a "South ~ f i c a n " ? ~ Again there are similarities and differences when comparing Lily and Gord's experiences of "being Chinese"in Greaîer Vancouver and South AWca There is a comrnon H m I use "Chinese" to denote a caîegorization based pndominantiy on skin colour. 89 One of the most public displays of the association between "race" and place as mis-marker of ciiizenship was a 1979 episode of W5 (a CTV prime-thne news magazine) which reported that "Canadianstudents" could not get into Canadian Universities because "foreigners"were taking up too many spaces. The h e s of the "foreigners" that accornpanied the commentary were "Asian"; however, their citizenship was "Canadian". "Only some months later... was the real issue-that of assuming that "Chinese" were foreigners-finally brought home to the nerwork" (K. Anderson 199 1 :242-243.) 90 ïhere is a parallel here to Gilroy (1987; 1992). He argues that in Bnîain one cannot be both "British"and "Black" because these social categones are constructed as incompatible through being ascribed different statuses according to hegemonic notions of Britishness. ambiguity expressed about whaî it means to be "Chineset' in both places-"they were Chinese but yet they were not hi ne se''?' The difference however, is that in South Afica it was "an illegitimate goverament" and the "Chinese community" that (re)produced notions of "Chineseh m Chinat', whereas in Greater Vancouver "the Chinese communityt' marked the boundary predorninantly uirough language as the "denning characteristic" of Chinesenes. Differences in politicization between Lily and Gord may also be linked to when each left South Afica Although they would be of approximately the same age, conditions for "Chinese" improved after Gord lek9' Both Lily and Gord said that "Chinese people in general dont like to meddle in politics" (Gord) because they felt they would gain more through co-operation than opposition. For example, when 1 asked LiIy if she always knew she was Chinese, she answered by describing how the apartheid state constituted Chinese subjects and related the following experience. When she was in University, her parents discouraged her fiom participating in demonstrations. They told her, "Look, you are going there by the grace of, you know like, they're doing you a favour. Do you want them to revoke your pemit?"93You know, things, things like th&. So you know all of the tirne that you have to keep quiet. Don't do things that will take away your privileges, because this is a privilege that they gave you, you know. So you do anything you go to jail or something and they will revoke d l your privileges. So, oh no, we knew we were Chinese (Iaughs). In the case of South Afiica mosr Chinese people (pauses and sighs) stay away fiom politics firstly because it was beatening and ah, they felt that if (pause), let me see how 1 will put this ah (pause). A lot of Chinese people felt that if they got ah, if îhey 91 This also relaies back to my earlier point about the diffuse meanings of Chinese in the diaspora See also footnote 79. 92 Lily said "we had a lot offreedom, so we were not subjected to what ow parents were subjected t o!' It is important to consider this "freedorn" relative to previous repression-it was a change in the degree of ression rather tfxan a c t d M o m . Lily had to "get a m i t from the govemment" in order to atîend University in South Anica ' went dong with the previous [National Party] government, that gradually they would get more rights, and they did It is also noteworthy that Gord and Lily define South Afican-Chineseness as nonpoliticized. "The Chinese experience" was shaped by the ways in which the apartheid state (re)enforced notions of "racial difference". By being othered as Chinese and not South African, South African-Chinese played the classic role of a rniddle minority. Gord, and especially Lily, saw their plight as being better than that of Afiicans, and the constant (implicit or explicit) threat fkom the state and their parents of being "treaied &e Afiicans" served to stifle challenges to "White" power, even though that power was vested in the han& of an "illegitimate government". A key difference in their accounts is that what Lily saw as a matter of protecting privîleges granted by the state, Gord cane to see, after ernigrating and becoming better politicizeù, as a denial of rights by the state. ASTER Being "South African through and through" Aster's account was the most nveting of the interviews, perhaps because of the passion with which she identifies with South Afica. When I asked Aster to describe who she i s she replied "1still see myself as a South Afiican. 1think I always will.... 1dont think 1could live anywhere else in the world and feel that I belong to that country." When 1 asked her what it meant to her to be a South African she replied with a number of things: it means roots-her people, h a culture, people who believe in the same thuigs, and her familyYWPeople are wann, fiiendly and "nevercried", and "ifone thing that 1have realizedt' Aster said, "we love music a lot. We sing everywhere. .... To us, probably a song was what kept us going." Aster vacillates between a number of "identity options" (MouRe 1992) in her narrative. As with Lily, depending on the story she is telling and whom she is interacting with, she will identiQ with a category in one context yet position herself in opposition to it in another. Another parallel to Lily's nanative was how the implied meaning of who is included as a "South Afi-ican"shiAed during Aster's narrative. For example she said: "If 1 have to die and be bom again, I don? want to be bom anything else. 1 want to be bom a South Afiican, and particularly in Soweto. In those dusty streets we liberated that country with a stone and the lid of a dustbin. I'm so proud to be a South Afi-ican." Yet, Aster locates herself outside of the category South A f & n when she talks of how racisrn is expected fiom South Africans. She told me of how, as a South AfXcan, she "hadone bad experience with another South Afican, an Afr-ikanertt. Like Lily, Aster's use of South Afican is very elastic in that she attaches different meanings to the category by privileging one interpretation over another depending on the context. At some points in Aster's narrative, her multiple identities over-lap, while at others one is emphasised and others may be 'thidden"95and, in the process, imbued with different meaning for that particular context For example, in the excerpt below, although Aster -- - - CMNote the similarity to Lilytsresponse that "Chinese"means ma, customs, and fâmily. '*1 bomw h m Siveris' (1969) notion of under-communication or over-mmunication of ethnicity. 1 choose to use terms; however, that are not as value-laden. previously identifiai herself as South &can ("Fm so proud to be a South African"), in this context she constnicts Masotho-Tswana and South Anican as incompatible categories, separated by a wide chasm of colour and language. Her South Afican identity is latent, as she emphasises her Masotho-Tswana identity (Barkley 1996a). A "White" South fric ad^ manager dernanded that Aster go to the back of the store had been to "speak her language", even though the store was closed and other d' speaking "their languages" on the phone. When Aster rebed, the manager "came and hung up the phone". Aster said to the manager, 1 am speaking my language and 1 can speak it anywhere. When 1 came to Canada, when 1 applied, they didn't tell me th& you know, make sure you don't speak, you .... don't even hear that language here, except within the four wdls of your 1 felt so insulteci because that language is not only my language, itts my father's language, it's my unclets language, it's my people's, the whole Aster's identities shift in relation to her store manager. Although in other contexts as "Black" or Afkican, in this context it signifies "Whitet'. Aster signifies "South Afi-i~an'~ Aster becomes first and forernost Masotho-Tswana when contrasting herself against the discriminating actions of the ("Whitet') South Afican manager (Barkley 1997a). "Immigrant, where do you come from?" When 1 asked Aster if she considers herself an "immigrant" she said, "1 never " Aster nferred to the manager as "South African". After she related her expeiïence, 1 asked her if the manger was "White". Aster answered "yah"in an "of course"tone. 97 The examples of "other staff"w m "Asian". 98 I heard of an interesting exception in thai those w o r h g in Federal Immigration offices are not allowed to speak languages other than French and English at work. The rationale is ihat if an employee speaks another language, people will corne to expect it and the offices are only required to provide service in the two officia1 Ianguages. 99 Aster speaks eleven languages-"al1 the South Afiican languages." thought of that up und now-like an nigxant. 1am an immigrant,oh yes. What 1mean is like, you h o w , as 1say, they make you a citizen You go there and you sing to the Queenwhich 1dontt know why. You sing Oh Canada and (pause) 1will always be an immigrant." Aster spoke of how fiutrathg it is to constantly explain "where she comes hm",a question that sexves to mark her as an "immigrant" and marginalize her as well. 1think as an immigrant you just get sick and tired of people asking you where Wou wme fiom], well if they are a s h g to be fXendly (she trails off). I mean it's tiring. Can you imagine explaining, like 1deal with like one-hundred customers a day, al1 of them they ask me where I'm fkom. It just annoys me. ....You can imagine, for the past four-and-a-half years 1 have tried to explain mat we're] not starving. 1mean South Afiicans who are here... they are not economical refugees, we are political refugees. Weli not in my case, but you know, most of them. .... Yes, we were oppressed, but I don? think there is any Black South Afiican who cm Say to you "1 went to bed with an empty stomach". Never, never. 1don? think so. .... With my accent, some people think that since 1 am bald,loOI'm supposed to be fiom Jamaica .... Now you can imagine if 1 have kids, my kids, even if they are bom here, they are still going to be askeû. 1 mean 1just don't think it's f k . Well, there are lots of Chinese here...why don't people ask them? Well they are al1 h m Asia Chinese, Japanese, they can tell that they are different Well we are different too. (Aster starts speaking very quickly.) We are Black yes, but 1think 1 am different. If you look closely, if you really want to leam, you will realize that I am different fiom Somalians. Their features are different. .... But people keep on asking, you know like they don't ask those Asian people. Well, this, it just gets into you For Christ's sake 1have a country where no one will ask me where 1am eom. Aster's account illustrates an often over-looked aspect of "immigrant integration" in that "immigrants"cm be set apart as "other" in such a multitude of ways, often so subtle and entrenched that the individual or organization doing it has no idea of the effects (Barkley 1996a). Aster is othered by being asked 'where she cornes fiom', which often serves to i k the person a s h g the question as "Canadian"in opposition to Aster's perceived "immigrant lm Aster's hair is very shott .101 She is also distanced from notions of "us" through the essential difference of starving. Perhaps even more curious is the association between hair length ("bald") and place (Jamaica). Aster was leaving shody der 1 intewiewed her for South Afnca and 1comrnented on how she would not be asked "where do you come fiom?". She replied "For once, and people who say "where have you been? We missed you!" For Christ's sake 1would love to hear thaf for once (sigh)."'02 Aster said that she was "so miserable" when she amved in Greater Vancouver. She was told that "&er two years youtll be bettert'. She said she only becarne "more desperate". She felt very mislead about what Canada had to offer, in part due to her expectations, but also because of how the state presents itself intemationally. The main points of contention were the difficulties in f'rnding meanin@ employment, experiences of discrimination, and her standard of living (a product of the f k ttwo points).103 She was also lonely, rnissing her famiy and the strong sense of community in Soweto. Later she said: "this was the worst rnistake 1have ever done in my life, by moving 'O' Wally Alexander, one of the participants 1 inteMewed for the ItAfncan Heritage" section of A Tapestty of Culaires, expresseci a similar view to Aster, though he is not an "immigrant". "As a fourth-generation Canadian, but also a member of a visible minority, 1, and others in my farnily, have had to cope with comments and questions based on skin colour. Often those comrnenting have less Canadian heritage than 1 have, but l've had to explain that my great-great-grandparents were arnong the pioneers in this province" (in Rich 1992). 102 Aster was upset that she was unable to r e m with presents for her h i l y , especidly her nieces and nephews, and that she would have to rely on hm fkther for money. "1 used to plan that when 1 go to South Africa-when I was in South Afica-1 was thinking I'11 go to Amenca, I will come back as soon as 1 have enough. 1 won? even tell them that I'm coming. I will rent a car and they wili see me coming, and like 1will be having you know, Canadian money. .... I didn't know that 1 will go home with fifty bucks. F i e dollars!" (It is interesthg to note her reference to "America".) As evidenced h m , Aster had mixed feelings about "going back home". 'O3 1 come back to this point later. here. 1j u my ~ iife just went down". "Dodt advise anyone, well Miicns, to immigrate."'" Not sufprisingly, although she is a Canadian citizen, Aster does not identiQ Canada as her home. "No matter where 1go", she said, "South f i c a will always be home". She follows this up by saying that she does not know any South Afiicans who are happy here. In this contex&South African signifies AfXcan as opposed to other cul& gmups. Aster said she often h m "how nice it m u t be to be in Canada now". When 1asked her if it was more difficult to feel a part of Greater Vancouver or Canada when people are constantly asking "where are you fi-orn?", she said "How c m you be a part of that?" She then went on to tell me of "thisJapanese lady" who said to Aster and her sister-in-law: "1 guess you are glad that now you are here [in Canada] you can eat potatoes." Aster said: I swear to God I wanted to punch her. 1 mean really, no. I dont know whether she was foreign Chinese, 1 said probably she is fiom mainland China,they have nothing else to eat, but you lmow. Now 1 have to be happy that 1eat potatoes? For Christ's sake we have potatoes. Now you lmow you h d yourself defending things like that. 1have potatoes where 1come fiom and beef too. You know? You understand? Oh, it's just so annoying. 1I o w it may sound petty, ri& to someone who is intelligent, who says "Oh come on Aster", but if you get that question [about where you come fiom] every single day, by the end of the week you are just crazy.lo5 Aster's words demonstrate the relational positionhg of identities and categones and how othering processes are not an exclusive domain of "Whites". By relating her experience with "the Japaneçe lady" in this way, Aster re-directs the flow of power by - -- 'CM Near the end of the interview Aster softened her stance somewhat and said: "rm glad that 1 came I sygpose, whether it was nice, bai, or good." Later in the interview, when Aster and 1 were discussing muIticuIturalism, she said: "Weil it's great that you meet these people, in the s e t , you know, 'whereare youfiom'. You know these people that 1 never dreamed that I can see" (emphasis added). This illustrates how difficult it is to avoid asking "where are you fiom", which is perhaps why Aster commented on how it might be less offensive if it was an "atfempt to be fnendly". There is also a differentiation to made between context in behg asked on the street, or king asked while at work where Aster felt more obligated to address (though not answer) the question in order to get them reversing the ouiering. The stniggle for power becornes a central hgredient (Friedman 1995) as Aster re-directs its flow by othering at the same time she relates how she was othered She also implies that "Asians" and "Blacks" differentially experience the immigration process-'no-one asks them where they are fkom, and then they ask me where I'm from!' In Aster's account she others "Asians", as well as someone like Lily who is "Chineset' but does not corne fiom Asia Moreover, the "Asian otherl' in her example shifts fkom Japanese to Chinese. This is especially interesthg given her previous comments about being able to tell people apart-Chinese, Japmese, "they are al1 h m Asia". Although "cornmon sense knowledge" (Maré 1993[19921) perpetuates notions of ethnic and/or "racial" groups as distinct and homogeneous, this serves to marginalize those who exist outside of these neatly bound typologies, as well as those who are mis-categorized by them (Barkley 1996a). The "Japanese lady" constitutes the category ficm according to the essential ciifference of "not eating potatoes". Aster signifies Asians as "newcomers" in the sarne way that she is signified, even though she fin& it personally offensive. Out of the shared experience of being perceived as "newcorners", Aster marks the bounday between herseif and the 'tJqanese lady" using the same t m s that she does-diet ("they have nothing eke to eat"). Racism: "A devil in the pocket" Aster and 1 discussed racism and the difficulties she faces in securing meaningful employment in Greater Vancouver. She said: 1 have a degree fiom South %ca Yes, I'm not saying, weil recognize if but for Christ's sake... 1went to school for, phif? You come here, you work in a mall. 1had to seU with people who finished grade eighf grade ten, and that person is my manager, and 1 should be happy that I'm in the so-called first world and my life is better? No it's not. No it's not. .... The employers, they don't really care [about South Afican credmtids]. Do you really think that if it is me and a Canadian girl, who is like grade twelve and me with my degree, do you really think they wiU take me? Hel1 no! They won't. They will rake her. Right? First of dl they will tell you about Canadian e ~ ~ e r i e n c eW . ' ~d ~, if they don't hire yoy how are you going to have that experience? 1got fortunate that 1was hired by a person who owned a store who was a South Afîican. We then discussed racism. She said the only bad experimce she has had in Greater Vancouver was with another "South Afican-an Anikanerf'. She told me the story and then said: "Well that's kind of expected, fkom South Aficans, but it's hard h m people who claim that "oh no, no we don't do thatY Once again, Aster places herself on the other side of South Afkica's agonistic "racial divide" when she talks about ("White") South Afiican racism. 1 asked her why racisrn was expected fiom South Afiicans (thinking that she had previously identifiai with the category). Well, phft, for Christ's d e , there, racism is, it was law. It was written in Parliment You know... that's the ciifference. 1find that îhere is racism here, rig& but it's not, you know people don't Say it. That's hard They Say no, no, no you are just so-thmkuig about it all the time. .... They think it is al] in my head. Well, and it's not. 1 mean, but in South Afiica (pause) it was there. It was by law and, everybody kept his distance, you know? White folks kept, stayed where they were and 1 stayed where I am and they wouldn't come and mess with me, and, but now here, you don? know. You are probably sleeping with a snake. You have a devil in the pocket. 'O6 Stan and Rose a h spoke of their difficuities fincihg employment without "Canadian experience". This demonstrates that rquiring "Canadian experience" is not covert racisrn, as some have argued (e.g. Ralston 1996). It could, however, be xenophobia (Barkley 1998), or "simple monopolistic exclusion regarcüess of race" (Adam, personal communication). I come back to this point later in the thesis. There is a consistent pattern to Aster's narrative, in in when she speaks of discriminaory or racist actions by "South Aliicans", she signifies the category as "White1'. The 'Black-White7' agonistic biuary is use- to explain this "essential difference" within the category South African. As evidenced in the excerpts above, Aster would associate accounts of exclusion or domination with the assertion of a marginaîized identity which she empowered In some of her accounts, such as her experience with the store manager, a Black-White binary has some explanatory power. Yet in other situatiom, a binary fiamework is too simplistic to capture her "oscillating identity options" (Mouffe 1992) at the shifhg cross-roads of multiple straîifications. For Aster, categones like "Black" or "AWcan" serve not only as markers of exclusion and domination, but also foster a sense of belonging and inclusion. Although Soweto was a racially segregated township intended to exclude Aficans fiom South Afiican society, this exclusion sewed to empower those who lived there, giving Aster a positive sense of identity-as with bel1 hooks' experiences in a segregated "Black community" discussed in Chapter One. The irony lies in the fact that Soweto came to be South Afican society more so than any other part of the c o ~ n t i y . ~ ~ ~ As Adam has stated, "ethnic [and arguably "racial"] identity eequently shields the individual from a hostile environment" (1995:464). It provides a "source of self-respect against the denigration by the dominant group" and "fumishesthe psychological strength to resist and not adopt the victor's definition of reality" (ibid.). For Aster, her identities as "Black", Masotho-Tswana, Sowetan arid South M c a n provide not only a shield, but arm lm Heribert Ad- personal communication. her as well (Barkley 1997a). She felt empowered enough to quit her job when her store manager hung up the phone when she was "speacingher language". Although the manager had the structural power to prevent Aster fiom speaking her language, a few days later she sent Aster a box of chocolates and an apology asking her to corne back to work (it helped that she was the top sales person in the city). Aster refiised the aplogy and found another job-"it was not the first the". In this case, the power flowed in complicated ways (Friedman 1995). The manager had structurai power over Aster, but Aster had power over the manager as the top salesperson Out of their multiple identities, certain identities took precedence over others depending on the specific context. The identities that Aster commurzicated as "important" in the context of the manager's apology were different fkom the salient identities that gave rise to the situation in the nrst place (Le. "Black" Masotho-Tswana, versus "White" South AWcan). However, it was the positive sense of Blackness that gave Aster the strength to resist the manager's imposition in the first place. As this exarnple illustrates the flow of power is so complex and multi-strandedthat it is difficult to present in a linear fom. Maturing: "Seeing differently " Aster said she had matured as a result of immigrating, and like Gord, went on to explain this in political terms. "Pve grown up a lot since 1 came here and 1 see the world differently now. Even South Afkica, I see differently." She went on to comment on the notion of legitimate ownership of South Africa and how to reconcile the notion that "South Afiica belongs to al1 of us". Once again comparing her plight to Chinese. "It's funny that China belongs to the Chinese. Nobody says it wrong". This lead her to comment on how difficult it is to speak of "forgiveness and reconciliation" when "Whites"have "enjoyed what 1 didn't for the past 346 years". Aster said because of this "we will still be at the back-it will take many years." Aster struggles to reconcile what she feels in her heart and what h a political par@ suggests she should believe. I want to believe that South Afiica belongs to d. 1 want to believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. 1 want to, 1 want to say Pm not angqc I want to Say that because knbeing, you know, I want to be saying let's be realistic... but at the same time 1 can understand the M o n of other people. But for me, I dont, personally, 1don't believe that like, do 1 maybe, deep down I believe that? I donTtknow. 1really don't want to find out down deep in my sou1 if 1do believe that I'm afkid what 1'11get there. Earlier she said: Oh no, I think differently now. 1 see that as a Black person we will always be oppressed In South M c a 1 was oppressed, 1 came to Canada, 1 am still opprased somehow. Where is this going to stop for Christ's sake? There is nowhere where a Black person will ever be equal with a White person. Never! 1don't think it will happen for the next 1 000 years.'" Now 1 am happy thai I came to Canada and that 1 c a . see, because what y04 what they preach when you are in South Africa, oh Canada.. and everybody is equal. For Christ's sake it's not! It's not and it never will be, and now they shouldn't even dare go and push that. .... They show the Rocky Mountains. They show people waiking in Pacific Centre M d , laughing, ha, ha, ha, eating ice cream. You think "wow". Wow, what a way to h e , yes? No. They should be showing Hastings and ~ a i n . ' " .... They should '" In retrospect, 1 wonder if Aster indudes Afiica when she says there is nowhere "Biacks" will be considered equal. '09 She is referring to an area of Vancouver calleci the Downtown East Side. It is the pooreçt urban region in go to the Reserves and show those Native people. They should show immigrants who live here who are like scromging like in one mom-... They should be showing that They should be showhg reality, but they don'^"^ Here Aster uses the agonistic "White-Othe? binary to explain how non-Whites are marginalized. She sûuggles with the contradiction between what the ANCI" tells her she should believe, and her personal expenences and feelings. She grapples with the idea that she should forgive the apartheid state for its actions, but also realizes that "all race" elections and abolishing racist legislation will not erase inequality. As Marable noted of the A m e h Civil Rights Movement, a change in legislation does not serve to fùndarnentally empower the oppressed (1992:292). There is a v e y clear sense in Aster's narrative that she feels mislead by both her expectations and the promise that Canada held-lier life was not better in the 30-called First Worldttf. Aster saw Canada as presenting an altanative, but in the end offered only a more ambiguous hiemchy of "racial difference". There is an underlying tension that to forgive in South Afiica could result in a society like Canada, which is not "what we preach", as evidenced on Hastings and Main and on the Reserves. Although Canada profeses equaliity, Aster's expenences lead her to believe otherwise. Canada, with high instances of hornekssness, prostitution, substance abuse, etc. In short, it is "home" to Canada's most rnarginaiized urban dwellers, a large number of whom are First Nations. "O Aster went on to Say: "therewar someone who said, 'well why dont you get out?' You know, once you are here, tnist me, ifs hard to get out. It took me four-and-a-half years to organize money to buy a ticket" to South Afiica ANC is the Afncan M o n a l Congress. They were elected to replace the National P a - during the first "dl-race" elections in 1994. "' KEN Ken identifies himself as a "South Afiican/Cânadian" which means that rm a Black South a c a n nIst and a Canadian second. It means that my loyalty, if you will is tom between two coiintries that 1love somewhat equally. In that 1love South A f k a as my mother and as the place where 1 was bom, and 1love Canada for the fact that they gave me refuge when no-one else ah, wanted me. So I've always considered Canada as my second home. It's my home of, of sorts. As with Lily, Ken's loyalty is somewhat split between two countrïes-one of ongin and one of refuge (though the circumstances for leaving were much different). Uniike Aster, he has no plans to go back and "settlethere". When 1asked Ken if h d s it difficult to be both South Anican and Canadian, he said he can easily "juggle between the two identities". 1then asked him if other people could Well 1always encounter that I mean almost daily people expect thai since I'm fiom South Africa, um, you know I1mprepared to pack up my bags here in Canada and go back to South Afica-forgetting that i'm someone who lefi South Afnca almost twenty years ago.' l 2 This may sound a little bit bizarre, but South Afiîca is not something, like that goes through me. Yes, d l rny relatives are back there, but as someone who, who grew up in exile, ah, home is, is Canada now. 1 dodt see myself settling in South Afica anymore. 1may just go back there for a visit.,but not to settle. I don't know what it will take to make me settie there.... South Afiica is still close to my heart, 1mean, that doesn't mean 1 no longer care about whai's going on in South AfÎica 1 crne deeply. I care deeply. Within the context of talking about miscanceptions of South Afncans that he encountm, Ken said: - - - "'Aster was the ody participantwho had plans (and hers were immediate) to go back KISouth Afiica "for keeps" (Ken). Y& well ah, they [white] always seern, seem to want to pit us [Afkican~]against each other. In thaî you lmow they will tell us... how developed South Africa is, how better we are h m say, 1 dont know, Nigerians, or Mommbicans, you bow. Al1 the, ail the ah, mumbo jumbo, but still some Whites, expects us to, to be bitter, and very bitter in thaî they expect us not to, to befiiend Whites, following what the Afrikaner did to us in South Afiica They expect us, you h o w , to totally hate Whites. This is why some of them, you know, are taken aback when Say Ken has a White partner, haî surprises a lot of what you c d , of, of ah, Whites. They expect that you know, that since we were oppressed you know we will be stuck together and treating Whites as, well 1don? know. I then asked hùn if ir matters to ficm South Aficans îhat his partner is not "Afiican". In answering, as with Gord and Aster, Ken spoke of how he and "paticdarly people that 1 left the country with twenty years ago" were "bitter", but have 'mattueci politically' in Canada When we left South Afkica back in Septernber of 1976'13we were bitter, okay? We were bitter. Yah we were very bitter, but as time went on, you know (pause), you tend to leaxn that in politics things are not always what you are made to understand better. Things are not always how they are portrayed in the tube, okay here, things that were in the background. He declined to comment m e r on this point, but there are parallels to &rd, who also has a partner who is not hine ne se".' l4 While he was in Asia, Gord said "1went through a stage of un @ause) disliking White people." He became involved With the Black Power movement, but "eventually1decided that that was not the right place, that was wrong. One doesn't imitaîe an enemy one despises." My hunch is that Ken may be alluding to simila. ' 1 3 Ken is making reference to the 1976 Soweto uprising (discussed in Chapter Two) which prompted a large exodus of young Africans from South Afiica, of which Ken was a part. He "advisedly"refers to it as an "uprising"rather than a "riot". Ifs not a riot, as many people tend to cd1 it because I bdieve that when an oppressed people take the streets, or rise up in arms, they are not notuig, but ah, rising against a system that they deem is oppressive to them. So what we did as students back in 1976, is we rose up against a system that we believed was a system that will hold us back .... We did not riot. Okay? Yes, a few individuals may have ken too excitai to go about desmyhg property. .... They were destroying these institutionsthaî they deemed as oppressive to the propertyless. Il4 1would guess b t this was also a fanor in deciding to emigrate. Though he did not speçifically state this, sentiments as political maturation Stereotypes: Shaka Zulu, goriJias, and starvation We then went on to fiutber discuss the perceptions he encounters as a South Afican Again there are parallels to Aster's account, and like Lily and Aster, Ken is othered through notions linking "race" to place. When you tell someone that you are fiom South AWca, okay, someone who thinks that they know quite a bit about South Anica you h o w , theyll tell you of the Shaka Zdu thing, okay. They expect that where you live, there are always, you Imow, gonllas roaming around They tend to think that (pause) Black South Aficans, since they were oppressed, Iived in worse conditions than say, Somalis or Ethiopians. I find most people... in North America.. think they know quite a bit about Afiicahave images of what they saw on television, Say around the famine of 1984 in Ethiopia... Now for them to see a Black, 1 don? even use that word 1prefer to call a "them ~ to see an African like Ken who tells them that, you myself ~ ~ c a For h o w , Fm nom Soweto, Johannesburg, blah, blah, blah. Whenever they ask me what I did, what my parents are doing, they are taken ab& Okay? Because... my parents are both professionds.... So @ause) in as much as we were oppressed, 1 did not have it as rough as my other fiends. There was always food in the house, always clothing to Wear. I would be lying to you if I Say that 1 went to bed with an empty storna~h."~h e never cxperienced that. I've never experienced that .... Now for someone to think that, I may be fkom worse conditions due to the stereotypes that he or she may have of ~lacks,"' you lmow at fïrst it used to take me ab& but now since this is one we did discuss other difficulties with South Afncan authorities abroad regardhg the relationship. l5 Note how this contradicts Ken'sresponse haî Y h a Black South Afiican h t t t ,when 1asked him how he would describe hirnself. For a compelling account of those in the townships who did have "empty stomachs" see Mathabane ' (1994). Il7 I am unsure as to why Ken used "Blacks" here instead of "Aficans". 1 see two possibilities: one is that he is making a political statement and using "Blacks"to emphasize the stereotypes and distance "Mcans" (and the reality) h m iî, or it is an example of "nanative sIippaget'. My hunch is that it is more likely the later. H e n i Adam identifid a third possibility (personal communication). Ken's use of "Black wi be question 1 am asked aImost weekly, almost weekly. .... I corne across a lot of people who are irnpressed by the fact thaf you know, Fm k m South Afiica, but then the experience that rve had [in my work] has exposed me to how ignorant some people are. Aster and Ken touch on common themes of "essentid difference". Hunger is marked as the "cultural stuff' thaf in part, marks the bouncia~~ between us and them Donation campaigns and media images of starvation in Anica appear to have perpetuated the image of ail Afiians as starving. Aster and Ken counter this equating of f i c a n with hunger, by stating that neither they, nor other South AfÎicans here, could Say that "they went to bed wiîh an empty stomachl'. It is also important to keep in mind that Ken and Aster are of a higher economic status than "starving Aficansi1,in that both come h m serni-professional families."* This relates to another theme that both of them touched on, the variety of experiences as "Acans". Both Aster and Ken talked of how they are confionteci with the sameness of "Blackt peuple because the colour of their skin is privileged over their social and cultural experiences (see also Marable 1992). What matters is that they are "Black", not the variations of their Blackness, nor their South Aficanness (see also St.Lewis 19%). amibuted to the Black Conscioumess generation of 1976 who used "~lack"to emphasize the unity of South Afnca's "non-white groupsl' (Afncans, Coloured.., and Indians) as well as in opposition to "racial" classification as "non-White", 1 have been unable; however, to discem a consistent pattern in the narrative, and believe that it could be for any nurnber of reasons, though narrative slippage seems the most consistent Il8 Al1 participants were of a certain socio-economic statu by the fact that îhey were educated and could fiord to emigrate. Although Ken was a refuge and "landed here penniless" after ten years in a refuge camp, he still came k m a certain socio-economic background. He said he mentioned his M g penniless "because I laughed at myself when 1 was going home. 1 mean 1 mvel like anybody e h , a typical touris~with loîs of dollars in my pocket and a few thousand dollars in travellef s cheques. You know so like I'm my own person and not like a refuge I was when, when coming in." It is intereshg to note the phrase "goinghome" which supports my earlier assertion that the phrase "back home" indicaies a Iink to one's past Ken's experience also bem stark contmt to Aster's r e m "home1' "with fi@ bucks" and the hope of staying. When 1 asked Ken about how "non-South Africaus would describe South Aficans", he asked me if I meant 'White" or "~lack"."~ I said either. From the content, it is apparent that he answered for how South A£iicanBlachess is constituted arnong "Blacks". Well 1 would describe us as being a little bit anogant, in what sense 1don't really know (long pause and sigh). I don't know whether to say, maybe, let me put it this way, some ~ l a c k s , l 'as ~ much as they respect us, they resent us to a certain degree, in that, in thai, ah, yes, during the era of apartheid they helped us quite a bit They helped us. 1 mean their help is immeasurable. You can't measure it. You can't masure it. So during that era we were harboured by some of those people, by some of those countnes. Now we tend to, or rather we tended to thjnk thai, that since we're h m South Afiica-yes South Afica is more developed than other Afkican countries, but then we seem to have exaggerated South Afiica's development. Some of us, you know, thought we were somewhat better than other Afiicans. More sophisticated, more this and that, and this is why 1 lmow some people, in as much as they sympathize with us, you know hate the arrogance that, that some of us, ah displayed. But overall, overall I'l say most people, you know, respect us. Respect the resistance th& we put up to apartheid."' Although Ken did not explicitly state it as such, I believe that the account above also speaks to his "political maturation", in that things were not what they were made to seem. Aster said that Afiicans ouîside of South a c a "just don? h o w . They think that, well, you know, there was apartheid Automatically you have to beyyou lcnow sufferhg or something. 1mean compared to them, they think (pause) they had a better life, which 1 don't think so." Il9 This reinforces rny earlia assertion that "Black" represents a narrative slippage in Ken's account, in that although he prefers "African", he sornetimes "slips" and uses the tenn "Black". Ken was the o d y participant who made a "racial" distinction in answering this question. 'O Again, note the use of "Black". "' Aster and 1 also talked about how "South Afncan Aficans" were better off than "the rest of Afiicans". Sadly our conversation on this issue was in the car and therefore, was neither taped nor part of the formal interview. Lamb writes that "The irony of al1 that is sad and wrong in South Afnca is that the South Afncan black is, on the whole, the best educated, best dressed, most prosperous, most litmate black on the Afican continent" (1987:319). A Vancouver Sun editorial titled The-nexi challenge for South Afiicafls" r e f d to South Afnca as "the envy of other Afiican nations: democraîic, stable, enterprising, relatively prosperous with By this I am not suggestingthat "other Afiicam" should know about South AÇicanne~~, but more to differentiate between notions of what it means to be Afiican and the ways in which %cm South Afiicanness is constituted. Aster and Ken's accounts also demonstrate that w i t h the context of recognizing different experiences of Blackness, South Afican Blackness was used to ciifkentiate between self and others, even though both us (South African Aficans) and them (other Afiicans) were "not always what you are made to understand". Discrimmation: "New Canadians, last k e d , and ever suspected" Ken was "not bothered that much" by being asked where he cornes fiom, but more by the subtle ways in which "people of colour" are marginalized. I mean we are all from s o r n e ~ h e r e . 'You ~ know, except for the First Nations. It only bothm me when someone says, you know, "Canada is my native land" and he'll be saying th& simply because he's White, you know,he was bom here. He'll say, you know, "Canada is my native land. You h o w we did so many people a favour by bringing thern here, taking them out of poverty",123you know ... forgetting thai tbere are native Canadiaas you know like us.124This is a White guy, who told me, and that White guy tends to forget that his ancestors fiom somewhere fond people living here. It's almost like what Boers were saying about ~ l a c k South l ~ Aficans in 1652-the country hacl no people. They just found a big ernpty country and they occupied it, until sorne BIacks descended on South Afiica fiom the North. Which is a lie and unfoaunately though it's a lie, that wa somewhat worsened because some people ' r capita incorne ofabout $8 000 a year, and with a f m I y grounded iule of Iaw" (July I3,1998:A14). Note the saiking sirnilarity to Stan's Rsponse that "a lot of people here are from somewhere else, be it another country or another part ofCanada" lZ1 Again the notion that immigration to Canada "saveà" (non-"White") people h m starvation. a Iz4 AlSO llforgotkn"is îhe impoverishrnentof First Nations in Canada. Again Ken uses "Black". Perhaps it is because it is les awkwd than Afncan-SouthAfrican. Giazberg 1992; and W a k a 1985). In Henry's research as with Ken and Aster, racism in hding meaaingfid employment was one of the most significant obstacles they faced in the immigration process. Ken was able to overcome his marginaiization in the work force by becoming self-employed and knowing that "no one can f i e me".127 1 asked Ken if racism would be easier to deal with if it was Iess covert. His response was simila.to Asteis. "Oh yah, oh yah. At least, you know what to do. You lmow what to Then itfshard." 1 asked if other South Aficans do, but if, if it's underground then it's M. had similar experiences and he replied that it w d t just South Africans, but "people of colour in general". It is interesting that "people of colour", a terni intended to be inclusive, had the opposite e f f e ~ t 'In~ Aster ~ and Ken's namative, "people of colourl' functioned as another marker of exclusion. Aster said"1 b e that word, but 1 have to use it". She said she "didnt even know that word" until she came here and a Mary Kay lady told her they have started "dealingwith make-up of people of colour". "Oh, 1am a person of colour am I? 1 mean I don't get it, where does that corne fkom? Don't you have colour? 1mean 1don? get that Are the Chese, considered as people of colour t ~ o ? " ' Aster ~ ~ rnarked me as having "colour", temporarily e-racing the significance of rny "Whitettskin and her "Black skin by recomecting the interconnected and s h e d spaces of the infinite gradations in colour between us. By Qing so, she drew the arbitrary way that the "racial" separation between "us" was possible in the £irst place, ont0 centre-stage. 12' The majonty of business people interviewecl by Henry said that "escaphg workplace racism was L e prhary motivation for becoming entrepreneurs" (Henry 1994:107). Ken also used "vis-mins"(i.e., visible minorities) in a similar way. '* Ken said: We may all call ourselves Canadians, but the f z t remains that we are stil1not equd, okay? ... because of the complexion of my s k i - 1 am still regarded as a new Canadian, more so because of my distinct accent. Someone will always ask me "Where do you come hm?", simply because of the f h tword thaî I utter. The person will go "oh well, he came. You are not born here." Sorneone will never make the mistake of regarding me as (pause) a Black Nova Scotian, because as you know the first Blacks who landed in Canada landed in Nova Scotia, right. 13* .... Some people think that 1 am from Trinidad or Tobago. 1 dontt know why. 1 donlt h o w why. Dontt know why. It's hard for them to believe when 1 Say "Fm fiom South Anlca". So you know that's a question thai @ause) Afiican-Canadia will be asked time and tirne again. When I asked Ken who was most discriminateci against in Vancouver, he said Afiican-Canadians, followed by East Indians and hin ne se.'^^ I asked him why this was. Simply because, ah (pause) some people tend to associate Black with crime. Okay? Why? 1 dont know. 1 don't know whether it is because of what they see on the tube, you know, Acan-Amencans always involved in crime in one way or the 0 t h . So, itlsthe same view that some people take of, of Afican-Canadians out here. East Indians and Chinese, I tMc theytre discriminated against because of the economic power that they have in the world. Okay? I'm sure you know that (pause) in the United States as well as Canada, I'll Say both these corntries are what they are today because of, of, ah immigrants. .... Here in Canada it was the Blacks ["who did jobs that Whites wodd not even think of doing] although Blacks are not-what is the word-respected for that. They are not deerned as among the fkst immigrant groups to set foot in Canada. Whenever people think of the first immigrants, they think of the Chinese who came here to . . '" Again, Aster's referent is Chinese. 13* . ... . . -- - - . . - Ken is making reference to the 3 500 free Black Loyaiists (former slaves who eamed their freedom by joining the British in the American revolution) who settled in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia starting in 1783. Ken did not mention the other major influx of "Blacks" to Canada when 400 "Blacks" fleeing increasing persecution in California settled on Vancouver Island in the laie 1850's (Waiker 1985; Rich 1992). 13' Aster answered in a similar way "Blacks. I think, of course the Whites are safe", and then Asians. "BetweenBlack men and Black women 1know ifs (pause), 1 won't say that Black men have it better than us. No, 1wouldnltsay W" This raises another point in that none of the participants had much to say regarding gender. 1 asked several times about the differences, if any, between men and women, but answers were very brief and noncommittal. Because of this 1 have not "gendered" the thesis, which is not to say that a different group of participants would also not emphasize gender. 1corne back to gender later. constmct the rail he, or whatever, disregardhg Blacks. Black men are essentialized as criminals; not as contributors to Canada, or as a source of economic power, but as a criminal threat to society. Ken's comments about racism and the role of the media in perpetuating stereotypes appeared again when 1 asked him about sorne of the obstacles he faîed in the immigration process. He made reference to our earlier discussion about employment, and then said, It's that (pause) ad,(pause) and the (pause) sense of, of being (pause) ever suspected. (pause) By ever suspected 1 mean, you kww, being suspected by the police because Blacks here do face Mme, (pause) some hostility fiom, fiom the police. .... Although out here it's somewhat better than in Toronto or Montréal, okay. .... But you lmow a police officer will always give yoq you know, a suspicious look, you know. At times, you know, they want to h y s produce your, your identification-which they have a right to do that-but it hurts when say, there is a skirmish between say, a White person and a Black person, and the cops corne, and the fïrst person that is handled is the Black guy. Okay? Pve seen that happen, whereby the Black guy, who was not in the wrong, was put on the ground, okay, and had a boot to his neck. rve seen that several times and the White person, you know, will be asked politely as to what's going on. Even when witnesses tell the police officers who is in the wrong, they will still treat the wrong part-&& is the White guy-you know, With kid gloves if you will. You know, and then just ... apologize to the Black guy for mishandling him you know. That's it, "take care". Ken said the situation is "somewhat getting worse" with the "influx of other Afican- ' Canadians, partjcularly fiom the East" (i.e. Toronto and ontr réal). 3' Apparently, the equating of "Black man" with "crirninall'is also spreading. Ken talked a bit about crime spreading fiom East to West He concluded with: "at least out here the police officers still have the decency to anest you h t and then question or shoot you later!" ''' We both "Without exception" Frances' Cariibean participants "were able to relate stones of police harassment" (1994216). Aster did not mention police harassment, but 1did not ask her about it either. 1 a ~ ~ h e d The . l ~ ~potentid for expressing multiple identities as a Black man" are telescoped through k e d notions equating "Black" male with "police suspectf1. Like Aster,Ken's experiences were mediateci through his Blackness,which exposed h i . to racism and discrimination. However, his differential experiences of the immigration process were compounded by the categorizatîionof "BlackT'males as criminals. DAVID Being a South Afi4ca.n-bornCanadian David describes himself as " d a r k - s h e d , categorized as "Coloured" under apartheid. When I asked David to describe his identity, and whether he would identie with a particular ethnic or "racial" group, he answered by saying, When 1 came here 1 came away fiom a racialist sociew which was one of the main reasons why 1 left South f i c a 1came here prepared to meld into the cornmunity. .... I wasjust wanting to corne to a country that would accept me for who I am, what 1 am. .... Narrnally there was that percentage, which is in human nature, that sort of either feels that once you're of a different colour you are of an inferior i n t e k t or whatever. David's answer focuses primarîly on situating himself outside of apartheid categories, rather than describing 'who he is and what he isT. He defines himself outside '" 1mut comment on my laughter h m , in that some readexs may f h d it inappropriaîe. In both Ken and Aster's interviews 1 would la~1ghwhen they made a statement like the one above. I would then apologize and explain that 1 was laughing at the situation, not at them. Both responded îhat they did not find it offensive because this is how they reacted to situations like that in South Africa For exarnple, in response to my laughter and apology Ken said, "you see this is one thing people don? (pause) understand is t h e you know the South Africans, you know, some people think that, you know, we tend to laugh at senous issues. 1 guess maybe thafs ah, that's another way of us, of, it sounds iike therapy, you how? .... So at any rate you know, categories of aScnption (especially those associated with apartheid), without including hirnself within any particular categoV1" His m e r also parallels Lily's assertion about the "nahiralness"of discrimination and racializaton-'a certain percentage of the population are racist by human nature'. 1then asked David to tell me about being a South e c a n in Greater Vancouver. He replied that after being here twenty-nùie years, he and his wife regard themselves as Canadians. By asking David about being South Mcan, this had the effect of placing him outside of the category "Canadian"(i.e. I othered him). "No matter where you are, your place of birth is always there and 1, as an individual, am very proud of being bom in South AfEca .... So being a South Afkican is there inside of me, you know the South Afkican bom. My mots are also in South Afica, but 1 think as a Canadian, and 1regard myself as a David avoided hyphenating his identity as a South Afiican-Canadian (or vice versa), and uistead agreed with my suggestion th& he was "a Canadian who was bom in South Af?icat'. As he privi1ege.dhis Canadianness, I asked what it meant to hùn to "be Canadian". He responded by discussing his bittemess around leaving South Africa and then came back to my onginal question by stating that: Canada offered me what my country at that time could no< or refused to offer. .... When we came here we were very gratefbl for the country offering what it di& fkeedom of choice, fieedom (pause) in so many different ways. My idea was to become a Canadian and be proud of being a Canadian and thats it South Afica, I'm proud of being a South Afiican bom and what have yoq but my allegiance is with Canada. you can laugh about i t 1 don't feel offended, not at dl, not a .dl." As stated previously, David said "theniche in which we are has no particular niche as any racial group, ifs just as a Canadian, and that's what we want it to be." '" The primary identity David communicated through-out the narrative was "Canadian". %en 1 asked him questions that he saw as a challenge to this identity, he re-affirms it each time because "that's whai he wants it to bel'. This may also be because of the reasons why he left South Afiica twenty-nine years ago. In South Afiica, all of David's identities were 'telescoped into one and filtered through his "dark s W ' (St. Lewis 1996:22). Perhaps in response to this, David repeatedly asserts himself as Canadian-also a single identiîy, but one that is not telescoped by colour to the same ' degree. 35 David's bittemess around le&g South Afica, was similar to that of Aster, Gord and Ken. I left South Afiica very bitter. .... My country rejected me. My country, being now the pational Party]governrnent and whatwt, rejected me as a citizen not because of my abilities, or lack of abilities, or my lack of intelligence. They rejected me as a citizen because 1was dark-shed, and so 1 le& I loved the country, loved the city, and ah, 1lefi very bitter. In fat 1was in tears. .... There were tears and there was anger, if you want to cal1 it that. 1came to Canada Canada said to me "welcome. .... Go where you like and do for yourself You have the opportunity. You can live you cm where you 1i.kew-1 coddn't live where 1 liked in South ~fiica-~~'"and produce and you can achieve, within the confines of your abilities", and for that Pm vexy grateful. As with Ken, David contrasis the South A c a n National Par& governrnent and his resentment regarding the political circumstances that caused him to leave to the "refuge" that Canada offered David clearly demonstrates how being "dark-skinned" mattered more in "%thou& "Canadian"is marked by the hegemony of Whiteness. He is r e f h g to the Group Areas Act (1950), the pwpose of which was to spatially segregate urban areas by "racial groups", creating "racialIy homogeneous localities" (Adam and Moociiey 1986:223). Land was set aside for specifk groups, sep& by "buffer zones". The intent, according to the Minister of the Interior, was to "preserve White South Afncal'. With limited exception, Coloured areas were "srnail and peripheral" (Christopher 1994:105- 109). 136 South f i c a than any 0 t h aspect of "who and what he is". Regardless cf his abiiiity or intelligence he was defined through colour. The thought of his children being subject to thai experience was part of his mipetus to leave. Although David initially experienced difficultiesin securing meaningfid employment, he once again owns his own company. Canadians: ''Stand on guard for thee" When 1 asked David if he considerd himself an "immigrant", he responded by I suppose I can't get away fiom it, but 1 dont think in term, as an immigrant. 1 feel 1 think as, as part of a society here in my sphere and rm Canadian. .... Ah, the fact that 1 am an immigrant, in that I came here h m another country is there, but ah, it ah, 1 donlt think like an immigrant. 1 think like ah, part of the ah, you know the community, and ah, so as far as I'm concemed anyway. Later, he expressed a similar view to Ken when he said "you know we look at Canada as a bunch of immigrants, White or whatever colour you are. The aboriginal being, the native Indian being, the only tnie Canadian." He then went on to say something that shed more light on his identity as a Canadian 1 feel as an immigrant who coma here, you come here ad.. to do well he should be assimilated into the society, but if he becomes a distinct group, he opens himself up to cnticisrn and al1 kinâs of problems, which he doesnlt need and the country doesnlt ne& And so, 1donlt know, my idea was to becorne a Canadian and be proud of being a Canadian and thatls i t South Afiica, I1mproud of being a South Afican bom and what have you, but my ailegiance is with Canada .... Tm proud to be a Canadian, and 1 feel thra many Canadians have got very far to go to be, to appreciate being Canadian. 1 sometimes admire, ofien admire, the Americans because they are the flag, and their anthem, and when you sit in the same group ofCanadians, it's sort of ho hum, comme ci, comme ça 1 feel as a Canadian group of people, whether they have been bom here many gaierations ago, they have come to a point where they become proud of being a Canadian, or thanks probably, you know. 'Canada 1 stand on guard for thee', you Imow, and mean i t 1 think I've come to th& poùif and as an immigrant, because 1 know what I have given up and what I've come to. Stan and Rose also do not identie themselves as "immigrants",descnbing the designdon as meaningless within the context of Greater Vancouver. The "whole of Vancouver, except for two per cent are immigrants" Stan said "A lot of people here are fiom somewhere else, be it another country or another part of Canada" Craig expressed a similar idea and took it a step further. He joked that his wife "should be stuffed and put in the museum of Anthropology as one of the few Canadians I've met that really cornes h m Vancouver!" When 1asked Gord if he considered himself an immigrant, he replied "not anymorett,but "ittstaken me a long, long time". In sum, David and his farnily came to Canada for the opporhinity to become sornething other than "Coloureds", namely to be "Canadians". Although "some people'' have racialized him here, Canada offered him the fieedom of opporîunity to be Canadian and "meld into the commUNtyr'of his choice. He feels he has done that CRAIG: South Anican-Canadian: "1s that right?" When 1 asked Craig how he would describe his identity he said: "If 1 was in the States 1 would probably think of myself as an American, but in Canada they seem to encourage people to think of yourself as a something-Canadian. So, um, 1 guess I always thought of myselfas a C d a n h m South AfÎicaf'. When Craig took a high profile position as a "South Afiicantt7his identity necessarily shifted sornewhat "So 1 guess right now.. . I'd say Ifm a Canadian-South f i c a n 7 or a South Afncan-Canadian, I'm sony. 1s that nght? Yah, South AfricanCanadian." Craig went through an interesting process in üying to order his identities in that it seemed to relate more to his sense of duty and what he shodd be, rather than who he actually considers himself to bemuch like Lily feeling that she should identie as a Canadian He said he put Canadian first because "the Canadian is the more important of the two. I'm a Canadian, but Fm h m South Afica". Later in the interview, Craig shed more light on his struggle with getting it "right". "1think mtil the new South Africa appeared in '94, I'm not sure that there were very many South f i c a n s who regarded themselves as South Afican-Canadians.... They just wanted to be assimilated into the population as quickly as possible, because it wasn't necessarily a great thing to be fiom South Afiica" Here, Craig uses "South Afiican" to signify "White", as implied by the contexf in the same way thaî the publisher of the South Afican-Canadian Business Directoxy does. She said that when she approached people for the first edition in 1994, "they said they felt intimidateci and they felt insecure. So a South Afican whose background is fkom Ireland, he suddenly because an Irish-Canadian and the South Afiican part [was] dropped completely!' She b l d this on "un-SouthAfEcan propaganda'' and related the following story someone told her. In the apartheid y-, people used to go to bottle stores13' and "break the South f i c m winestl. "So then they felt next in line probably, so they felt intirnidatecl (laughs). They wouldn't say they're South Aficans. Everyone just dropped back to their European country of ~ri~in."'~~ The publisher said that when she first discussed the idea of a South a c a n Canadian Business Directory, people told her to "forget it". They said: First of all we're too embarrassd.. [an4 scared to say we're South f i c a n s . Wetre not like the 0 t h [immigrant groups who have Directories]. 1said "we m u t become like the others". They said to me: "Anna,if you manage to get one person listed under the South AfXcan Directory we will take our hats off to you". And when they saw the book.. I think for the first time they realized there's nothing wrong to Say they're South Afican The people diMt get their addresses and tel hone numbers and phone them and really start intimidating and blackmailing them.% The South Anican High Consul to Vancouver also said that people are startùig to identifi more now as South AfZcans. Again, the Whiteness of South AWcan is implied through notions of being "unpopular" and one's ability to "blend id'. He said, "South Africans have always tended to blend in because South a c a wasntt necessarily the most popular c o u n e in the world, but there's been a growing consciousness of being South Afican" (in Bell 1996).'" Afier al1 these years here, I'm really meeting South Afiican-Canadians. Before, 1 137 "Bode stores" are the South African equivalent of Canadian liquor stores. She uses "South Africadt to signify predomhmtly-though not exclusively-"White". "EuropeanT1also signifies "White", even though one could be from Europe and be "non-White". Apartheid signs also equated llEuropeanlland "White". 13' In the "Message h m the Publisher" Anna writes, '4 îhank you d l for your swng encouragement and support Without it nothing could have been accomplished especially having had some resistance and Iack of enthusiasrn of some of our members who thought it would be an impossi'bility for the ex-South Afncans to produce a dllectory. Well, I managed to prove them wrong!!!!" (Zibarras 1996) (It is ironic thai the pubIisher of the South Afncan Canadian Business Directory rnakes reference to ex-South Africans.) 140 There is a striking dissonance to Gord's politicization and "consciousness of king a South Afican". 13* would meet them and we would be Canadians fiom South Afiica There1sa growing um, desire, I think amongst the South Africans to at least recognize their mots and get together and 1 like that rve made some new fiends and it's a delighâul fime to be Consul. T'en years ago I would have been scared to p u out my address because 1 would have been scared of bombs or whatever you know.'" The latency of one's South Aliican identity is, in part, what Mythili Rajiva was r e f h g to when she said that different discourses of Whiteness bump up against each other in the research. In the apartheid years, one's European country of ongin or Canadimess was ernphasised in order to "hide" one's South Afncan roots. Going back to Frankenberg's (1993) analysis of Whiteness as a set of three linked dimensions, South Afiican Whiteness in Greater Vancouver represented a location of stnichual advantage, a standpoint marked by guaranteed privilege, and set of cultural practices marked by apartheid. Given the negaîive connotatlons of South Afkican Whiteness, it was preferabIe to be "assimilated as quickly as possible1' kit0 Canadian Whiteness. Immigrants and Accents Craig does; however, consider himseIf an "immigrant". When 1 asked him why, he Well, because 1 am. 1, speak with a foreign accent. 1 have different values still. 1 h d different things exciting and interesting. I'm an Unmigrant because 1, I sometimes think that 1prize this country a Lot more than Canadians do. When I fint got here 1joined the militia, because I figured that it was such a great comky and I should try and do something. 1always had this fear that if-probably still do-that if the Amencm decided they needed Canadian, Canada's water and - 14' I offeran analysis of this situation below. decided to move up here that the average Canadian who doesn't lmow anything else but Canada would probably say "Great, 1donY have to watch the CBC. Cheap ber, cheap cars, what the hell." Craig identifies himself as an "immigrant" through markers of "Canadiandifference" that he regards as both maîîering and defining: accent, values, interests. The degree to which he values Canada is contrasted against the apathy of the "average Canadian" who dislikes the CBC, and values cheap beer and cars. Like David, he believes th& he values Canada more than most Canadians do. Yet, Craig still includes himseIf within the category "Canadian" when he later spoke of the concems he has over the potential secession of "We just don't have the rnentality to go to war to stop provinces fiom seceding. We'll never do thaî in Canada, ever. We just dont have that mentality, we'll let them go. We'li cornplain and whine, you know, do the typical Canadian t h g and try and tax the hell out of them just before they leave,'" and then we'll let them go." Discrimination: The threat of money When I asked Craig who is most disçriminated against in Vancouver, he also related this to Canadian apathy. He answered th& the Chinese are most discriminated against Part of it is probably fear, because they are successful and they have money, and '41 David also expresseci concems over the firture of Canada "What distresses me, if anything, is thai, when I came to Canada, 1came to Canada and the idea of separaiion of Québec bothers me because 1 feel ifs one COuntly...." '" A few of the participants commnited on Canada's taxation rates. Lily said: "Herein Canada they tax you to the bone!" . they work hard. Usually, 1 think the people most discnmrnated aga& are the people that the majority of the residents fear most So 1suspect, East Indians were probably in the ~O'S, and 1 suspect ifs probably Chinese in the 90's. They are coming here in large numbers, prepared to work really hard to get what they want Um,1Qn't think Canadians are prepared to do if typicai, Ihbeing very general.l" I mean they don? realize what a good country it is because they have always been here. They don't realize how important education is because they have never been without i t .... They've usually had almost eveythingthey need, you how. 1look at my son and there is no drive ùi him to succeed, and one of the reasons, I think, is because he doesn't have to, really. .... A lot of the immigration, workers who corne here, didn't think that way. The Chinese stiU don't. You know, they all want to work and make lots of m ~ n e y ' ~In ' a way that's go&.. but in another way ifs quite threatening. Gord expressed a similar view. He said that in Vancouver, "economic power is swaying towards people from Hong Kong, Chinese people, and this amuses me to no end, because you fïnd people are-white people-in Vancouver are threatened by it, and so [there is] constant ta& of monster homes and dl of this kind of stuff. It just shows an envy and a 144 Later Craig said "1like the opportunities in BC where if you want to work hard-which 1don't-of getting ahead.'' It would appear W Craig does identifL with at least some of the characteristics he d e s c r i i as 'lCanadian". There are strikingsirnilarities O Lilyls characterization of Hong Kong immigrants. It was surprising to me how often issues around Chinese and Hong Kong immigrants came up in the interviews-especially given my focus on South Afiicans. It is, of course, reasonable to expect the possibility of the m e r when ?alkingabout discriminated groups, but it came up frequentiy in other contexts as well, such as when I presented the research at conferences. If the conference was outside of Greater Vancouver, 1 would be asked what 'the participants thought about al1 of the Chinese immigrants1. My usual p r e k e to a response was to remind them that two of the participants were "Chinese". '" '" Implieitly "White South frica ans""' It was surprising how ofien "White" was the rnispoken modifier of "South Afncanl' in the narratives of the "Whitet1participants. As Frankenberg states, "White" remains the umarked category while " o k " are consistently marked (1997). However, al1 of the participants, to a lesser degree (un)marked "South A~canness"as "their identity group" (e.g. "South African" was va~iouslyused to si@@ "Afiican", "Chinese", or "White" dependent on speaker and context). For Aline, Craig, Rose and Stan, "South Anican" invaiably signified "White" except when explicitly stated otherwise. For example, in the context of a discussion about "South Afican immigration", Aline said, Itls different than immigration fiom the other countries because here the richest, the best educated, the best established are coming-not the other way mund Not people who are at a financial disadvantage in their own countrïes and they corne here for a better life, no. People that had a very good life and now... feel thaî... the standards of their lives are detenorating, are l e a ~ i n ~ So . ' ~we ~ get in people fiom the best econornic, educational, and social class fiom South Afiïca .... With al1 of these people their money goes... so the country is bleeding of currency ail the t h e . .... The very people-1 shouldn't generalize, but most of them very bitterthe very people that wanted to help South Afiica.. destroyed South a c a , and it's people and we feel very sorry for the South Atncan Black... because rnost of them are very good people, and most of them were very happy. The Black South AGricans suffered much more than the White South Afiicans di4 because the White South Afiicans a . least could lave. Every White person that leaves the country, more Black South ficans are out of work. There are a number of key indicators in Aline's account that imply Whiteness: 147 In îhis section I combine the narratives of Craig, Aline, Rose, Stan, and the publisher of the South Afncan Canadian Business Directory. Aihe spoke primarily about what she sees arnong "South Aficans" in Greater Vancouver (predorninantiy "White")d e r than her personal experiences, which does not fit into the format I have used for the other participants. 1 employ this strategy to be able to include her cornrnents. The reader wilI also notice thaî the anaiysis shifi somewhat to a discussion around groups rather than individuais because of this. richest, best educaîed, best established, best social class. The White-Black b i n q is given explamtory power-"the Whites destroyed South Afkica for the Blacksl', and the more "Whitet1South f i c a n s who lave7the less they leave behind for the lfBlacks". It is also noteworthy that the people Aline describes share David, Ken,and Aster's bittemess about îeaving.'41 For "White" South Aiiicans like Craig, and those Anna makes reference to when discussing the Directory, "South Aficanness" is somethg that was not mmmunicated during the apartheid years out of shame. South Afkican identity was o h latent, especially when compared to the post-apartheid era, because white skin was perceived as a marker of pnvilege and racism. "White" South Afkicans were constituted as beneficiaries of crimes against humanity through skin colour (even if one did not perpetrate apartheid, al1 still benefited h m it). lS0 There is an irony in that the end of apartheid created a space for "White" South Aficans to re-clah their "South Afkicanness", despite the fact that legislative changes did not result in the "fiuidamental empowerment of the oppressed (Marable 1992) and for the most part, "the ill-gotten gains of conquest [remain] The political changes, voted in by umteSv,152 enables them to be "South Afiicans" in Canada rather îhan Canadians In other words, they are subject to the standards of those below them in apartheid's "racial" hierarchy. T h m is a web site called the 'South Africa to New Zealand Support Pagei1.run by South Africans who have emigrated to New Zealand. The web page called "Reasons for staying in South Africa" is blank (Metelerkarnp 1997). The "Reasons for Leaving" page includes hijacking, "TheHoney moon is over ... (sic) what now?", and "Education (or lack of it?)" as well as a rather distinctive image of a "White"man in a balaclava (the irony is that the fixe is "White"). There is an under-current of bittemess and (racialist) resentment through-out these web pages. IMThanks to Heribert Adam for clariSing this in an earlier ci& 15' H e r i i Adam, personal comm~cation. '5""~lacks"did not yet have the vote. '41 h m South f i c a Further, Mandela's policy of reconciliation legitimized "White~" "South A f i i a ~ " . 'In~ Greater ~ Vancouver, this once simultaneously powerful and tainted identity is being publicly re-claimed under reduced fear of retaliation (Barkley 1998). This does not mean; however, thaî "White" South Afican immigrants who left in the post-apartheid era are not chided for reaping the benefits of apartheid and leaving once their pnvilege was no longer 1egaIly entrenched (ibid.). As stated previously7 during the penod 1 was conducting the interviews an article ran in The Vancouver Sun titled "Vancouver city of choice for South Afiicansrr(Bell 1996). Once again "White" served as the unspoken modifier of South f i c a n . The article contained stories of "South Aficans" who had emigrated because of diffkrential opportunities and crime in the new South Africa One person quoted in the article said "itrs apartheid in reversen-however, it was not discrimination that was at issue, but the reversal of it (Barkley 1998a). In the same way that "non-Whites" left South E c a because they wanted to be acknowledged for who they are rather than what colour they are, "WhiterrSouth Aficans emigrating because of the political and social changes in the "new South Af?ical' cite sllni1a.r reasons. Ken, David, Gord, and Asterls4 al1 expressed a very similar view when 1 remarked that their reasons for leaving South Afica were remarkably similar to those leavhg in the post-apartheid era whom I had either interviewed or who were quoted in the article (i.e. a future determined by skùi colour not abilities). For example, David said: I beg to differ. .... These individuals have enjoyed the benefits in their whole entire ln H e n h Adam, persona1 communication. '" Keeping in mind that they aii lefi South Afiica during the apartheid years. Metirne. .... They were living in a regime that catered to their needs, gave hem everything on a plate whether their abilities were good or not, whether they deserveci it or nof because of the, the, the colour of their skin. Now you have a people who have been denied just basic human rights, now are h h g a few human rights because, you h o w the change over fiom government diân't change their lives dl together?it's just given them opportunities. .... So the ones who are leaving cadt handle th& .... Now they've got to compete for what they enjoyed for years. Before, whether they were able or not, they could get jobs. They could get positions, they could get advancement, but now the Black man of course, because of being ah, held d o m for so long, hels given perks which might be ahead of them and now so to allow them to maybe just come up. So now the ones thaî are leaving are those that can't handle that. In response to the Vancouver Sun article, Gord said: Now the White people here are complaining because, they cal1 it "affmiative action", but the truth of the matter is, they have got cornpetition For the first t h e in their lives theylre living with reality, and evey Canadian here knows, you cm be out of a job. You could live poorly. You could be on skid row, and they [are] experïencing this for the first t h e , and they're having difficulties. Now they c d this "fdling standards". Cal1 it "affirmative action". To me itlsjust a bunch of nonsense. Again the agonistic ''White-ûther" binaxy has some explanatory power. It is also interesting how Whiteness is essentiaked. The apartheid regimels pre-occupation with "racial diEerenceWalso constituted a category of Whiteness (in Frankenbergls sense) even though "White" was the category against which "racial difference" was marked. The tension between "White" as a neutral "racial" category and the significance attached to "racial others" is brought to the fore. Because "difference" is produced by discrimination (Dei 1998; Scott 1992), those discrirninated against have little sympathy for those who benefited fiom apartheid and are now claiming to be " v i c t i m ~ " .With ~ ~ ~ the dismantling of apartheid, lS5 A "White" South Afncan woman was seeking politicai asylum in Ausûaiia on the grounds that it was impossible to live under "Blackt'rule because of crime and discrimination (Daily Tele-h 1998). For a fbller discussion of South Africa's afknaîive action and ciaims of "reverse apartheid" than can be offered power is now circdafing in more complicated ways. For example, "WhitettSouth Aficans are emigrating because of differential oppomuiities in the post-apartheid e r a Meanwhile "Black"managers are "arepoached and head-hunted with remarkable inducementsueven by "ultra-conservativenrms" (K. Adam l997:23 1, see also Russell 1997). In sum, reclaiming South Afiicanness relies on severing the linkages between white skin and "racial" dominance, while concomitantly viewing thernselves as n~n-~~racial" or "racially"neutral (see also Frankenberg 1993). The three linked dimensions of Wteness as pnvilege, standpoint, and cultural practices (ibid.) rernain intact though altered through the political changes in South Afica "White"South Aficans are being îmagined differently, and through this are able to present themselves differently as well. here see K. Adam (1 997). CHAPTER FnTE CBANGING CONTEXTS, SHIF'ïING IDENTITIES When I began the research 1had a number of goals in muid. F M 1wanted to add "immigrant voices" to the vast array of literature about immigrants. Although graduate studenîs often hear that no one but their cornmittee will read the thesis 1hope thai whether the thesis is read by a broder audience or not, at least those who have heard the conference presentations of the research benefited fkom hearing the voices. Second, 1 wanted to conduct research with a multi-ethnic/"racial" group (as opposed to "ethnic group X in location Y") to explore if, and how, a rnulti-ethni~/~~raciaI" group differentially experienced the immigration process. By including "Whites" in the research, there were a number of unanticipated findings. Probably the most significant unanticipated fjnding was that "White" South Aficans also face difficdties in finding meanin@ employment because of their lack of Canadian experience. For example, I was told of one South Afican woman (unmarked as "White") who resorted to selling a specidty South Afncan dessert out of the tmnk of her car at an highway exit leading to a large settlement of ("White") South A c a n s . Neither she nor her husband were able to fïnd work and, &er a couple of months, had exhausted their savings. As previously stated, some have argued that requiring "Canadian experience" is a code phrase for excluding "people of colour" h m the work force (e-g. Ralston 1996). A publication by a "group o f South Afiicans who got togethW... to assist fellow [South Afiican] immigrants", states that "some Canadian employm are almost obsessive about 'Canadian experience'" (Sofi Landings Network 1996:3).156 By cornparkg expenences among the pariîcipants, aad based on information fiom the publisher of the South Afkican Canadian Business Directory and the South Afican High C o d to Greater Vanwuver, apparently this is more likely an "immigrant phenornenon" rather than solely a matter of colour. For example, Citizenship and Immigration Canada advises "newcomers" that esnployen "may not want to hire someone without Canadian experïence or who seem unable to cope with Canadian ways" (199561, emphasis added). There is a sub-text of "immutable essential ciifference"(Jenkins 1986) in this passage, in thaî one may not be hired because of the appemnce that s/he may be "unable to cope with Canadian ways", in addition to lacking "Canadianexperience". Further, as John Lundy cornrnente~i,'~~ research focushg on the brain-drain of emigration, often overlooks the brain-gain of immigration. Canada is quiring South Aficans h m "the best economic, educational, and social class" (Aline). This allows Alberta, for example, to address its' shortage of doctors in rural areas (Kenny 1998) caused, in p a e by the exnigraiion of "Canadian" doctors drawn to the United States by research rnoney (Abraham 1998). Although "Whitet' South AfiRcans may face setbacks initially by immigrating, the 'White1'participants regarded this as part of the transition. Aiine said, "give us five to ten years and we will be a very, very strong mmmmity, and of course we assimilate '" Unfortunately messages lefi for the network were never r e b m d Although the publication has "race neutral" tex4 there are numerou indiCaton that it was intende. for predorninantly non-Africans. For example, six of the seven people listed in the network immigrcited to Canada in 1994, the year of the elecbons. immediately, because 1mean the's nothing to assimilate to", because they are Vhite" and corne fiom a European dominaîed society. For example, Stan said, "we have a Empeztn heritage so we fit in here". When he and Rose were deciding where to immigrate, they "looked to where they would fit in best" and where they would "fit in with the logic". They chose Greater Vancouver. Ali of the participants expresse- a similar view that cultural adaptation to Greater Vancouver was not too âifficdt because it was so similar to South Africa There were, of course, some difficulties, but these were considered tc, be minor by the participants. For example, Stan said it would have helped to know that you will not get a letter back when you apply for a job. Lily commented that Chinese South Aiiicans are so "Westernizedffthat they have no problems "fiteing in". However, as Aster and Ken's experiences of being othered demonstrate, they encountered problerns because they are perceived as being more "culturally differentttthan they actuaUy are. As a result, they are not as readily acceptai as "Canadians", ,esially when comparai to the other participants. Lntegration is also a relational process, as one cannot integrate if one is prevented fiom doing so. AU of the participants faced challenges in various aspects of their lives, and these challenges were somewhat compounded by the darkness of one's s h Canada's ambiguous racial hierarchy was also made visible by conducting research with a "multi-racial"group of participants. Some aspects of differential integration were confimied, as discussed above for "Whites". Aster and Ken, however, taked of covert racism and the difficulties "people of cofourl'face in finding meanin- employment For hem it was not a matter of there being "nothing to assimilate to", but rather having to overcome the bamiers to adaptation caused by the diffierentid opportunities for the "assimilation" of "Blaclcs" into Greater Vancouver (see also Henry 1994; Henry and Ginzberg 1992). Further, the thin veneer of "equality"in Canada helps to perpetuate ineqdiv becairlse the fight is against more ambiguous and seemingly innocuous racidizing processes than in South A c a Yet, participants were able to fimit the effect of skin colour on their lives because of this arnbiguity and attribute cause to individuals rather than state-legislated inequality-the former being easier to over-corne than the later. 1 had not considered how the large "Chinese" population in the region could provide a greater sense of belonging and comfort than being in the country where one had spent most of one's life, as it did for Lily. She said, "1am very lucky because 1 cm rnix into both worlds, so it's ideal for me here. It's v e y easy for me to associate here", with "Chinese and Caucasians". Lily and Gord had multiple identity options open to them when cornpared to South &ca: Canadian notions of Chineseness, South African-Chineseness, Chinatown Chineseness, hegemonic notions of "Canadiamess" (Le. British-dorninated), and so on. Craig referred to "White" South Açicans as "ahost like white Chinese". "We're coming over here, we want to succeed". The "unity of us" ("White") falters when compared to them (Chinese) on this point. Apathetic ("White") Canadians are contrasied with "hard- working Chinese", as the over-determination of an essentialized "Chinese work ethic" in defining common 'Icdtural stuff" impinges on the boundary between us and thern. Craig comtructs ("White") South Aficans as more like essentialized "Chinese" than ("White) C d a n s with respect to their desire to succeed. However, awiording to Lily's accomt, South Afiican Chmese are more like ("White1') "Canadians" in that they are not that "forward gouig". 'We corne in as accountants, we stay accountants". The boundary shifts as the imagining of the "cultural stuff' that is used to mark it does. Craig, Mine7 David, Lily and Gord were generally able to hit the ground running and did not expeIience significant set backs upon immigrahg. For those who amiveci durùig the boom years7"if you wanted to work, it was difficult deciding what you wanted to do because there were so many jobs" (Craig). Ken and Aster, however, like other "Blacks" in Canada (Henry and Ginzberg 1992; Henry 1994), faced difficulties securing meaningfid employment, but t'en so did Rose and Stan. Lily and Aster considered themselves "luclq+' because they were both hired for their nrst jobs by people who had alço irnmigrated to Greater Vancouver. This aliowed hem to overcome their lack of Canadian experience that may have ciisadvantaged than with a "Canadian" employer. Although "race" was a f a o r that inhibited Ken and Aster in fïnding meaningful employment, beyond that it is hard to draw conclusions. I was not surpris4 that the "White" participants were doing well. 1 had not however, considered the stigma that would face them because of the linked dimensions of South Alkican Whiteness as a location of structural advantage, a standpoint, and a set of (m)named and (un)marked cultural practices (Frankenberg 1993) under apartheid. This stigma was compounded as place-specific notions of Whiteness bumped up against each otfier. South Afiican Whiteness was distanced as fundarnentaly different fiom imginings of Canadian Whiteness as liberal and "racially tolerant". As with Blackness, there is an over-archg set of experiences that are mediated t h u g h skin colour. However, this does not mean that there is not great variation between those with &te skin. For example, although Craig, Aline, Rose and Stan ali had white skin, their political beliefk varied widely. As with any category, there is innnite variation subsumed within i t The similanties and "ciifferences" are dependent on where one looks and the questions that are asked. The political changes in South Afiica altered discourses about South A&cm Whiteness somewhat The ambiguity about what it meam to be a "White" South Afican in the post-apartheid era creates a space to (re)claim one's South Aficanness. It is also important to note that the Tndh and Reconciliation Commission hearings were in the early stages when the interviews were conducted Alinets claim that "we didn't lmow really, what went on under apartheid" would be more difficult to make now, after twenty-seven months of hearings (Marais 1998) and press reports of "the truth". This may also affect what the participants would have said had the interviews been conductd in 1998 rather than 1996. The stigma of South Afican Whiteness compared to C d a n Whiteness is also juxtaposeci against what Aster and Ken saw beneath the thin veneer of professed equaiity in Canada Aster, Ken, Gord and David al1 commented on Canada's treatment of Aboriginal peoples, and how they too are erased not only as evidence of Canada's own human rights record, but also as the original peoples. There were a n u b e r of issues regarding incorporation into Greater Vancouver that were specific to n o n - a c a n South Africans which are also part of a broder colonial legacy facilitated by a supply of cheap labour.15' 1 was rnost surprised by the fact that addts who could move h m one hemisphere to another may not know how to cook or cl-1s9 South Atncans are advised by the Soft Landings Network to "be prepared a h to take on your own domestic chores" (1996:3). Craig said that his sister-in-law could neither cook nor clan when she emigrated in the 80's. This was; however, neither limited to women, nor to 'fWhites". Lily said, "the men have to help out a lot more here. Back home everybody 6% a maid ri& so the men never did anything. So here the man has to chip in like everybody else. .... 1thuik that mostly a lot of my fiends are teaching the children rather than the men, because a lot of the men have been spoiled back home." She then told me how she is trying to teach her daughter to pick up der herself, because "back home" there was always a maid to do that for her. Lily went on to say that she misses her maid and her "life of leisure"tennisyshopping, and cormnittee meetings-th& the maid enabled. "Here you go to work, corne home, ifs late, you c l a n the house, do washing.... Back home the lifestyle was (pause) very much easier. .... I m u t be honesi, 1 mean my whole life 1 never ironed anything. I never really kept my own clothes, or, you know, the maid did al1that for me. 1 never really knew how to clean anything properly. 1had to leam." Besides "having to help out" I was told of other challenges for the men in adapting to the relative gender equality in Greater Vancouver. Craig told me of a man who had to work for a woman and "couldn't take it. Never worked for a woman in South f i c a , lS8 Thanks to Susan Frohlick for drawing this to my attention. lS9 This not only says somethmg about my own culturaI bias, but once again challenges the imaginai unity of "Whiteness"and the ûthemess ofthem. couldnt understand why he had to work for hm. That's really old-fashoned". He went on to comment on how Souîh African men are known to be chauvxnistic. Apart h m these two obsmations, however, I did not hear of any other significant differences between men and women. Immigration appeared to have some impact on how the participants saw themselves. Lily, Rose and Stan talked of a loss of self-esteem, but they remained optimistic. Lily said that she felt like less of a person than she did in South Aiiica, but ako Iess of a minority as weil. She talked of how "great"it is to stand at a bus stop and be able to talk to the "White" person in English and then turn to the Chinese person and talk to them (presumably in Cantonese). "It's reaily (laughs) wondem. It's really easy for me here, yah." Gord became politicized ad, through the process, gained a South Afican identity- though this had more to do with emigrating than Canada per se. His politicization was a compelling process. He went fiom being a member of a group in South Afnca that he describes as unpoliticised, to becoming involved in the Black Power movement while living in Asia, to advocatùg on behalf of an Afiican politicaV1iberation organization in Greater Vancouver and becoming self-exiled because of his public fight agaùist the apartheid regime. The catalyst of his politicization centred around the realization that it was the illegitimate National Party government that denied him his legitimate right to be South Afiican and Chinese, to compete in his spoIf and numerous other things. Through the process of becoming politicized he (re)cIaimed his South Afkicanness which Canada/Greater Vancouver provided him the "fieedom" to do. Like David, Canada provided Gord with the opportunity to "achieve to the best of his abilities" (David), and, most importantly, to be South Afiican and set himself "a goal of fighting against the South AiXcan government of the day" (Gord). David was able to be who and what he wanted to be, regardless of the colour of his skin Although he did speak of one incident where he felt that his skin colour did matter, he said thai had more to do with that person than anything to do with him. This view was also expressed by Gord when we were discussing racism. Ken saw that "things were not what they are made to seem", and implied that some things were kept hidden fkom him in South Africa-by Af%xm political parties as well as the govemment of the day. Aster came to the redization that perhaps the ANCs path of Reconciliationwili not be the answer to South Afiicds problems. If reconciliation leads to a society like Canada, "how will a Black person ever be qua1 with a White person?" The answer as to whether this is the right paîh for the new South Afiica and if South Afiica can and should belong to all is deep in her soul. By staîing that she is &d of what she wiil get if she searches for the answer, suggests that she already h o w s what it will be. .- In general, ernigrating enabled more identity options, but this was constrauung as well. Although the participants could choose fkom more identity options, as with Gord and Lily being South A c a n , they were also constrained by notions in Greater Vancouver of what it means to be South Afican--"BlackW."Blachess" also has different connotations in Greater Vancouver than in South Afica, in that it is signifiecl as Somalians, Ethiopians, people f h m the Caribbean, starvation, and so on. In short, there seems to be more ambiguity associated with Blackness because the diaspora as well as the irnagiriings of Blackness are more diverse, or perhaps just more ambiguous. I expected th& certain identity options would open up after emigrating, while othm would become latent. I eventually dropped the question 'did you always know that you were x,'"because apartheid meant that everyone knew how they were classifieci and what "racial" der ethnic group they sharld belong to-"we only saw each otherf'(Lily) and "the white folks stayed where they were" (Aster). It was not like immigration fiom other coutries where people never thought about themselves as "Black", for example, to any great extent mtil they emigrated (eg. Rich 1992). Aline and Lily commented on how apartheid was rnuch better at "keeping cultures" t h multiculturalism-"here everything is so fke, you just blend in with everyone else" (Lily). In short, the limitations on identity expression and the availability of identity options under apartheid bears stark contrast to the relative ambiguity and "fieedom to ~ h o o s e " in ' ~Canada. ~ Identities as relational, processual, and multiple In the thesis 1 have also dernonstrate. the importance of viewing identity as relational processes of multiplicity. Identity is something that one is continually becoming as some aspects of self are privileged over others, depending on context As well, it is evident the more complex understanding that cornes fiom analyzing identities as "fluid '" Although this question gamered an interesthg response h m Lily, for the most part it was a bit odd a ask "South f i c a n s " because of the effects ofapartheid 16' 1bomw thiS phrase somewhat cynically from the Friedman's (1980)pro-capitaiism book Free to Choose in which they argue that there is a crucial link between free enterprise and a free society. The Friedmans; however, dom-play the role of sûuctural inequaiities in differentialIy limiting one's abiIity to benefit h m free enterprise and thus "to choose". I see tbe parallef in that the "freedorn to choose" one's "culaual identity" is differentially limited by the colour of one's skin. For example, St Lewis' assertion that she has many identities, sites" which can be understood differently depending on the vmtage point of their formation and function (Friedman 1995). Identities are (re)constructed relationally and therefm it is important to d y z e not only what was said and not said, but also how it was said (see also Chase 1995; Josselson and Liebach 1995)-how one becornes (Somers and Gibson 1994). By looking at the way power flows in relationships, identities can be thought of and (re)articdated in more complicaîed ways than agonistic binanes of self and other allow. Further¶it allows for one to be and not be, by orchestratug the elastic parameters of their being, mediated through social context. In the narratives of Lily and Aster, there were numerous identity shifts as they moved back and forth between vacillating identity options (Mouffe 1992).16' As the sample size was small, it is difficult to ascertain if gender plays a role here or not. However, the men, Gord, David, and Craig, and to a lesser extent Ken, were very clear about who they were and, just as significantly, who they were not Jus. as a "fi&-cenhiry -4thenian was very likeIy to feel himself to be a non-barbarian as much as he positively felt himself to be Athenian" (Said l978:54), David communicated that he is "non-Coloured" (ie. bis "dark skin" does not matter) as much as he communicated that he is Canadian. Again, this may also be attributed to defining himself out of apartheid categories which 1 re-ernphasized through my focus on South AjÏicans. Aster's identity shifted in relation to whom she was interacting with and the story she but they are telescoped into one and filtered through her blackness (1996:22). The shifting boundaries between us and them were most apparent in these interviews as well. The research was designed in order to mate a space for identities to shift, but I do not consider it a Failing that not al1 participants' identities shifted numerous times through-out the interviews. Again, it was not about confimiing or denying research assumptions, but listening to stories, and creating the space for identities to '" was teihg. When she spoke of racism and ("White") South AfEcans, her South Alkan identity was latent. When she spoke of the struggle for liberdon, she was "proud to be a South African''. She also contrasted the expiences of Afiican "immigrants" to those of Chinese "immigrants", ernploying her understandings of whaî being Chinese means as a reference point for inequalities or being othered as "non-White" or not belonging. This was a source of frustration for her in that she could see that it was not only a matter of colour, but more significantly, of being "Blackl. m e commonaiity of the shared space of being perceived as a newcomer-"non-belonging" (St. Lewis 1996:U)-was over-shadowed by Aster's perceptions of differential experiences of Anlcans (not) being incorporated into Canadian society. Ken also touched on the idea of differential expenences of the immigration process between Chinese and Africans when he spoke of how the historical presence of Chinese in Canada is aclmowIedged, while that of "Blacks"is erased (see also St. Lewis 1996). Ken used "Black" when r e f b g to exclusion in this context, but there was no consistent pattern in his use of "Black" or "Afican" to be discemed in the narrative. Although Ken 'preferred to cal1 himself Afican' rather than "Black", he nonetheless, referred to himself and "other Afkicansf' as "Blackt' in the majonty of excerpts included here. These narrative slippages are telhg in that as a "Blackf1/Afiicanman, al1 of his identities were telescoped and filtered according to his being "Blackl' (see also St. Lewis 1996). The prevalence of public narraîives of '"racef1pexmeated Ken's ontological narrative (see also Somers and Gibson 1994)to the extent that only once did he "edit" out this "mor". Boudaries provided a space for negotiating context-dependent meanings of us and Victùns became vicGmizers, as power circulatecl in compcateed ways (Friedman Aster marginalized "Asians" using the same methods ttWhites"used to marguiaiize her. For example, Aster was fhtrated with beïng asked 'where she cornes fiom', yet ernphasised where "Asians corne fiom". Ken spoke of Afiican South Aficans expresskg some of the sarne attitudes towards other Afiicans as "Whites" held about them (e.g. being "better developed"). Lily spoke of how Chinese others were marginalized in Vancouver's Chinatown for not speaking the language, in the same way that Chinese are marginalized for not s p e a b g the (English) language. By calling into question the cultural stuff that marked the boundaries in the f h tplace, the flow of power could be redirected. The fiow of power could also be altered as the margins between us and them are pulled in different directions-Like differentiai air pressure changes the shape of a balloon (Wallman 1986). Participants identifieci with categories of ascription, but also rebelled against them. Although "differences" were reafamied through this process, this was also indicative of the ways in which "diffexence" is created out of inter-connecteci and shared spaces in public narratives (Gupta and Ferguson 1992; Somers and Gibson 1994). AU of the participants communicated their identities through familiar and readily available discourses of apartheid classifications (and arguably multiculturalism as well), even if ody by identimg against them. Because one is categorized in a particdar way, does not mean that one has to identim oneself as such, however, categories become part of one's identity to the extent that one d e h e s oneself outside of these categories. In other words, who 1 am not, also says a lot who 1am. Nonetheless, as long as one is required to define oneself outside of categories of otherness, one continues to be impnsoned by them Oeloria 1988). To varying degrees the participants had some awareness of the ways in which "diffeience" is created out of shared and inter-connected spaces (Gupta and Ferguson 1992). They saw how the notion of "immutable essential differences" (Jenkins 1986) was u s e . to justie domination and exploitation Ken, Aster, and Gord were the most aware of the social construction of "difference", as well as the most politicized. This politicization also changed when they emigrated, albeit for different reasons. A number of the participants commented on the "diversity" of Greater Vancouver- 'there are people fiom everywherel, 'we are all immigrants fiom somewhere'. None of them were particularly impressed with multicdturalism as a policy and had little knowledge about it and, as already indicated, David was against it. Aster said: "multicdturdism doesn't feed me", which was a much more ïmmediate concem for her than "keeping her culture". In other words, the "diversity" of Greater Vancouver was seen and appreciated, while ' multicdturalism was not 63 As Scott suggests, by achowledging "diversity", the "history and politics of difference and identity itself' remain intact (1992:14). Sc although there was an awareness of how "racial difference" waç an integrai part of the process through which power was constituted in South Anica, by recogninng and commenting on the "diversity" of Greater Vancouver the participants re-affirmai public narratives of "diversity" and, in the process, re-confinneci hegemonic notions of "differences" that matter in this geographical context. lci3 This view is consistent with a 1994 Angus Reid survey which reported that 57% of people polled thought that Canada should "encourage minority groups to be like most Canadians",while three quarters agreed that "Canada's multiculturaI make-up is one of the best things about this country" (in Adam and Moodley 1995:16). As I discovered in writing up the research, this is a cyclical process in that because "differences"matter in people's lives, it is difficdt not to (re)produce these "diffeiences" through writing about them. However, 1 do not share Miles and Tomes (1996) view that academics (or at Ieast a Master's thesis) have such far-reaching influence on society that academics writing about "race" are able to perpehtate "the idea or race" in public The danger lies with public narratives of "race" and otherness in the media--which is part of the reason why 1include media reports as research data David comrnented on how "the general public is guided by the media". So if the media writes something derogatory ... it means in the min& of the people, that m u t be w h t South Afiica is like, or whatever country it might be. .... Then you will have the pundits like the idiot.. on the North Shore by the name of Collins. .... He starts from a racialist point of view; he's a racist through and through. .... If they hit on the racial (pause) issue, they get a big hit, or they're going to interest a certain segment of the society-no matter where they corne £kom in the world. A certain percentage is going to agree. If they are controversial enough, they will be written about. There will be some kind of reaction and so their names become prominent. .... Misconceptions corne about by ignorance and beuig led d o m the garden path by idiots that write about th& and thaf but not knowing the circumstances there [in South e c a ] . 65 ' There is a tension here, for as Dei (1998) states, "raceand difference provide the contexts for power and domination in society". To avoid speaking or writing about "race" does not mean that there is no abuse of power nor efforts to dominate "racial othen". However, the mode of "race" discourse is crucial in measuring the effects. For example, Collins has a wide distribution (if not readership), whereas Dei has a much smaller audience '" The exception King those academicswho have the ear of the stue. Doug Collins had a colwnn in The North Shore News, the "Voice of Norih and West Vancouver since 1969" (see also Brook 1997). but presents a much more nuanced and i d o d account of "racial diffkrence". David and Craig contrasted their pride in being Canadian against that of "theaverage C d a n t ' who does not appreciate Canada because they have never experienced anything else. Further, this lack of pride is contmsted against the patriotism of the United tat tes.'^^ They are both critical of multiculturalism and encouraging people to be a "something- Canadiad' (Craig) in that lit opens one up to criticism and al1 kinds of problems which the individual doesnltneed and the country doesn't need' (David). In short, multicdturalim is regarded as a potential threat to Canadian society and Canadian identiiy, while "thethree Fs of multiculturalismtt( f i festivals, and fashion) are regarded somewhat more neutrdly. Both Craig and David looked to "the situation in Québec" for supporting evidence, of the "publicproblem"(Dyck 1991;Gusfield 1981) of bifùrcated identities. We are aii "immigrants" from somewhere As previously mentioned, al1 of the participants commenteci on how it is somewhat meaningless to talk about "immigrants"in Greater Vancouver, when the vast majority of people living here corne fkom some place else. "Immigrant"too is a relational identity that the participants turned back upon itself, by redrawing the boundary between us ("Canadian") and than ("immigrant"). They focused on the boundary of Greater Vancouver in defining "immigrantt1, rather than on the borders of the state. - - - is very impoxtant to remanber that the average Canadian is not remotely like the average American and resents any suggestion that they are simply Arnerican clones"(1 996:4). IM The Sofi Landings Network advises: "It In one sense, 1have no more claim of belonging in Greater Vancouver than any of the participants do. This raises interesting questions. Because 1 was bom in Canada, does that mean that 1 should have more of a c l a h on "belongingtfin Greater Vancouver, than s o m m e who has lived here much longer than 1 have? For example, Ken, Craig, Gord, and David have all lived here longer than 1 have, but as Ken pointed ou4 I have more rights because of my " b i . g h t f fin , addition to the colour of my skin. Conversely, do 1have more of a claim on "belongingttin the area where 1 grew up (i.e., "back home") because I was bom and rais& there than those who have "immigrated" there in the many years since 1 lefi? Do the multi-generations of my family in that area "entitlet' me to a greater clairn on belonging than those who now live there, even though 1 have lived elsewhere for a number of years? The answers to these questions depend on which interpretaîion of "immigrantftone chooses to use in practice. Furthemore, as Aster, Ken, Gord and David pointed out, "the white guy tends to forget that his ancestors fkom somewhere found people living here" (Ken). It is an intereshg play on words as well as ideologies in that Ken suggests that even though some " W h h " suggest they "found" Canada, and the idea of two "founding nations" is prevalent, the role that "otherstt (ie. Chinese, Afiicans, South Asians, etc.) played in "foundingt C a n a is do~n-~la~ed!' The myth of discovery is perpetuated here as well. Perhaps most invisible of al1 is the role First Nations, who were "found", played in the survival of - As Said (f 978) suggests, "Canadians" feel themselves as much to be non-Arnericans, as positively Canadians. '61 An interesthg Amencan example of this, compounded by gender, is Harnbrick's (1997) joumey to fuid "Black"women inventors. 1have no doubts that such ajoumey in Canada would be even more diEcult. those who "foundn thent1" The h n y and subtlety of this is not losi on Ken, Aster, David and Gord The argument 'we are ali immigrants' fiom somewhere also serves to neutralize the outsider datus implied by being categorized as an " i m m i g ~ a n t ~By ~ . ~tugging ~~ at the margins of the boundary between us and them, it becomes blurred by the anomalous spaces in between. There are so many diffèrent kuids of "immigrants" in ineater Vancouver, perliaps the hegemonic notion ne& to be critically examined (the officia1 one, of course, will remain intact). Aline said: "1 mean a South Afican whose parents anived fiom Scotland to South Afica, and a Canadian whose parents arrived fkom Scotiand to Canada, it's the same thing". When diaspora becomes the nom, what do you measure against? "If you cadt locate the otheryhow are you to locate yourself" @&&-ha 1995[199 1]:2 17)? For centuries, although skin colour and ethnicity have pemieated public discourses on immigration, cm immigration not also mean moving fiom one locale to another, even if both are contained w i t l the borders of the state? As Lily suggests, are "immigrants" synonymous with those who maintain simultaneous links between here and there, in other words transmigrants (see aiso Glick Schiller, Basch and Blanc 1992; 1995)? Again, depending on where the boundary is drawn, 1 too am a transmigrant of sorts-maintaining many sirnultaneous links between "there" or "back home" and here. The fact remainsyas Ken stated, that I have more rights than he has because 1 am "White", no matter where "back '" Champlain's sanie over-looking Parliament Hill in Ottawa cornes to mind Champlain is much Iarger than the First Nations figure, who although credited with king "hisguide" (or something to that effect) remains anonymous. 169 To leave aside the argument used b counter claims of indigenousness that First Nations are also "irnmigmnis" because they "irnmigrated" across the Bering Strait land bridge. This argument is &O used to home" is. Revisiting Whiteness 1learned a lot through the research process and becme more decentred as well. 1 have thought a lot more about my own Whiteness. This was a process that f h t began when conducting the i n t e ~ e w sand noticing how uncornfortable participants may get when taiking about "Whitest'. This uncomfortableness was also dependent on the context, for had 1 conducteci the interviews in South AfÎica, this would not have been the case.l7' For the most part, my role as researcher and listener countered ihis uncomfortableness. Luckily, "the impulse to nanate is such an integrai part of human experience that interviewees will tell stories even if we don? encourage them to do so" (Chase 1995:2). 1 also thought a lot more about Whiteness when 1decided to tum the research upside d o m and write about Whiteness rather than Othemess @arkley 1998; 1998a). Although 1 read Frankenberg (1993) well in advance of conducting the interviews, it was one thing to read about analyzing Whiteness and another to do it. It was then that 1 realized just how neutralized Whiteness as a category was; even in research among South Afi-icans, whom 1 assumed wodd be more cognizant of Whiteness than "your average White Canadian" through the prevalence of Whiteness in structuring the expenences of al1 South ~ f i c a n s .71' However, "Whiteness" was rare1y criticized as a category in the same way that other "racial" neutraiize prior claims of indigenousness and "legitimate"ownership. 'O Henben Adam, personal communication. categories were-the exception being Aster's question as to wheîher or not 1 had colour too. Yes, "Whites" wae criticized because of their privilege as "Whites", but the category itself remaineci Whially intact as a neutralized category of othemess and as a referent for "racialt1 otherness. My regret is that although the thesis allowed for multiplicity and shifts of identities, because of the limitations of the interviews, a MA. thesis and so on, the participants became somewhat essentialized by the snippets of information included here. In other words, they have "becorne" what I have written about them. No matter how many narrative slippages 1 include, they are still fixed according to my words and my selection of their words. Judith Abwanza c d s this benevolent dominance. "Benevolence because I insist their voices remah Dominance because 1interpret their voices" (in Krygsveld 1996). This is the great challenge to be met by fùture research-how to put in to practice al1 the theoretical works which challenge the essentialness of categories and identities.ln My hope is that rny work may influence someone else to push the boundaries farther than I was able to do here and burst the balloon, not just alter the shape of i t 17' H e n i Adam, personal communication '" Perhaps this is why theoretid works arejust h t , and not ethnogqhy. APPENDIX INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 1) How wodd you describe who you are-your identity? 173 2) Tell me about being . a) What does it mean to you to be ? ? 3) How do you think nonwould describe a) What are some of the misconceptions others have about ? i) Why do you think this is? (Where do these ideas corne fkom?) ii) Do these misconceptions affect how you see yourself! iii) Do they make life more difficult for you? iv) Have there been any positive results of this? 4) In your view, what are the main differences between South Afica and Greater Vancouver in how &ers see you? a) Why do you think this is? 5) Have you ever had a bad experiencelsbecause of being ? 6 ) Within ,do you notice any differences between recent immigrants and those who have been in Canada for one or more genefations? a) If so, what? 7) What Ianguages do you speak/read/write? a) Did you leam any of these languages in Canada? 8) Tell me about immigratùig to Canada (some early experiences in Canada that stick out in your mind). a) What are your thoughts on these experiences? b) Do you notice different reactions between young and old? c) Between men and women? 9) What surprisecl you most about CanadaIGreater Vancouver? '" "-" denotes mial, ethnic, cdtural, national a d o r religious groups according to the participant's response to question one. 10) Tell me about immigrants in Greater Vancouver. a) Who are they? (Where do they come h m ? ) b) Do you consider yomelf an immigrant? Why/not? i) Did you ever? When? 11) In your view, who is most discriminated against in Greater Vancouver? Why? a) Leasî discriminated againsi? Why? 12) When are you most unhappy? Most happy? a) M y ? 13) How would you descnie Canada's policy towards people of different ongins? a) What do you think of it and why? b) Does it have any affect on your life (would it make a difference if it wasn't there)? c) What does it mean to you? d) To what extent has it helped or hindered your life in Greater Vancouver/Canada? Cornine to Canada. 14) How long have you been in Canada? Greater Vancouver? a) Have you immigraîed to anywhere else (did you come to Canada after living in a country other than your country of origin~birth)? i) If yes, where? How long? b) Under what immigration category did you come (refugee, business class, entrepreneur, independent, sponsored/famiy class, investor)? 15) Where were you bom? a) Did you Iive anywhere else? 16) What made you decide to come to Canada? (What attracted you?) a) Did you have other family members andfor fkiends in CanadaGreater Vancouver before coming here? i) If yes, expand b) Do you now? 1) If yes, expand 17) Wkat (or who) most helped your adjustment to life in CanaddGreater Vancouver? 18) What are your likes and dislikes about Canada? Greater Vancouver? 19) What are some of the big@ obstacles you face here? a) Can you give an examplds? b) Why do you think this happens? 20) Has immigration changed you? Teli me about this. a) How do you cope with the difficulties that you have experienced here and what werdare îhese? 21) Where do you consider "home"to be and why? 22) What kùid of contacts &or ties do you have in South Afkica? 23) W d d you like to r e m to South e c a to live one day? a) Whyhot? 24) Some people are expresshg concems about declining standards (i.e., heaIth, educaîion, employrnent) in South Ainca What do you think about this? 25) 1s there anything else you would like to add about your expenences of immigrating to CanaddGreater Vancouver? 26) Do you have any commeats in general? Abraham, Carolyn Canadian doctors take their talents south, The Globe and Mail July 1 1:Al. 1998 Adam, Heriiert The politics of ethnic identity: cornparhg South a c a , Ethnie and Racial SNüer, 1995 1 8(3):457-475. 1998 Empowering the black fat cats, Mail and Guardian Apnl9. Adam, Hen'bert and Kogila Moodley South Afnca WithoutApartheid: DismuntZing Racial Domination. 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