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Good post BK, thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts. Having a sister who is an immigrant to Germany and living there for the past decade, it seems like your views match up with hers pretty closely. Berlin must have been an interesting place to grow up.
Now you are making me positively jealous with your sister living in Berlin Is she also an ethnic minority in Germany? Does she see herself settling down in Berlin permanently?
Lol yes, growing up in Berlin in the post-reunification years can be interesting, to say the least. I remember my favorite activity was to take the S-Bahn from west to east Berlin, get off at Alexanderplatz and meet my friend at the base of the Weltzeituhr (the world clock installation), and explore the former cold war streets and neighborhoods in the east. It was like traveling on a time machine.
Do you find that new immigrants assimilate into "Canadian" society faster or slower in Quebec vs the ROC?
In Québec language is more important than colour/appearance like it is in anglo Canada. People from francophone African and Caribbean assimilate into Québec fast. Amir Kadir leads a major Québec politic party and is from Persia (I think).
Do you find that new immigrants assimilate into "Canadian" society faster or slower in Quebec vs the ROC?
I was afraid you in particular would ask something like that!
Here is a modified version of something I wrote a few years ago on this topic.
Francophones in Canada make a lot of assumptions about the perceived “unity” of English-speaking Canada and base these assumptions on the sole question of language. (I must confess that I am often guilty of this.) Because getting immigrants to speak French in Quebec has been such a tedious, drawn out process (now paying off modest dividends), francophones are often envious of how a diverse place like Toronto can retain English, above it all, as a lingua franca. Remember René Lévesque’s comment about making “Quebec every bit as French as Ontario is English”…
So we tend to make the mistake of interpreting the adherence to English as a common language as being a sign of flawless societal integration.
In the old days, Anglo-Canada was largely English, Scottish and Irish. Today, I would venture to say that the religious and “Olde Country” cultural differences between these groups have faded away to the point where these groups now form the nucleus of a fairly united “English Canada”. But there is a new cleavage out there of course, and just because most of the hundreds of thousands of newcomers to the ROC learn English very quickly (or know some English even before arriving) doesn’t mean they automatically join the ranks of Don Cherry and Pierre Berton. I think francophones overlook this; I know I often do.
And this brings me to another point, which is the fact that, ironically, when Quebec *does* succeed in fully integrating non-francophones into the francophone fold, they can actually be more “nous” than most immigrants in the ROC can be part of the English-Canadian “us”.
For example, when I watch the Canada Day show on July 1, all I see are diverse peoples in their own cultural silos. Ukrainian dancers from Saskatchewan, Susan Aglukark singing in Inuktitut, Tom Cochrane singing about hockey, etc. You’d never see Maestro Fresh Wes singing a Gordon Lightfoot song, or Susan Aglukark singing a duet with Stompin’ Tom Connors.
Contrast that with the shows in Quebec on June 24, where you can have a Rwandan-born soul singer like Corneille singing a 1920s folk song by La Bolduc, an Innu (Montagnais) singer like Florent Vollant singing an adaptation in his own native language of a song by mythical 1970s Quebec group Beau Dommage, or a hip-hop version of ultra-traditional Gilles Vigneault or Félix Leclerc songs sung by Montrealers of Algerian, Senegalese and Haitian descent.
Somehow I don’t see Toronto rapper Kardinal Offishall putting his personal touch on the Newfoundland classic “I’se The Bye”, for example.
I have used patriotic, nationalistic once-a-year shows as examples, but it goes far beyond this. On a recent tribute album to Quebec 70s psychedelic band Harmonium, Italian Montrealer Marco Calliari (most known for singing covers of Italian standards like Caruso and O Sole Mio) contributed an Italian version of one of the band’s most popular songs that got quite a bit of airplay on commercial radio across Quebec. Calliari had so much fun doing that one song that he recorded an entire album of Québécois standards in Italian, and singles from that album also got radio airplay. The title of the album? Mi Ricordo (Je me souviens)!
I mean, can anyone imagine Deesha, Swollen Members or even Keshia Chanté doing an R&B-flavoured cover of Ian and Sylvia Tyson’s “Four Strong Winds”? Let alone translating it into a foreign language and having it on the play list of radio stations in Red Deer and Brantford?
I guess this is what people mean when they talk about interculturalism (a popular buzzword in Quebec BTW) versus multiculturalism. The prefix “inter” suggests mixing, mingling, interaction, a notion which is absent from the prefix “multi” which actually comes from the Latin word for “many” or “numerous”.
Believe what you want, but I have no agenda. I am not the one seeking to trying to pass myself as a German. I don't care one way or another way. I am not gaining anything either way, so that is something to consider. Who has an agenda here? So ok, if you want to believe that someone from China is considered German after they pass through for some years, ok then I am German too. There is such a thing as German culture and ethnicity it is a very strict country in it's identity of who is really German. Usually someone will say "I am Algerian but I live in Germany" or they say "I am Turkish but I live in Germany". The term of German means an ethnic German context in Germany. That is just true.
There is a difference between spending some time there and growing up in a society with your family and having your entire world view shaped by that society. No you are not seeking to pass as German, but you are making racist accusations of what others should and should not be. Strange in an internet forum considering you and I are complete strangers.
My best friend in Berlin is Turkish. He never said "I'm Turkish but I live in Germany". If people do ask, he would say that he is German and his family came from Turkey.
Now you are making me positively jealous with your sister living in Berlin Is she also an ethnic minority in Germany? Does she see herself settling down in Berlin permanently?
She loves Berlin. Sees it as her home and has no plans to leave. She is also married to a German fella, has a great job and handle on German life and culture. Plus is pregnant with their first child and wants to raise (her) in Germany.
With all that said, she still does not self identify as German. She is Jamaican (self identifies as black, but of mixed race heritage that you can see in all of us feature wise) and has mentioned that she is not sure if she will ever truly see herself as "German". Now this is not strictly a result of German society, even though it plays a part, but also something personal in herself that does not allow her to easily connect fully with her adopted culture. I get it though, because I share alot of those same traits.
Quote:
Lol yes, growing up in Berlin in the post-reunification years can be interesting, to say the least. I remember my favorite activity was to take the S-Bahn from west to east Berlin, get off at Alexanderplatz and meet my friend at the base of the Weltzeituhr (the world clock installation), and explore the former cold war streets and neighborhoods in the east. It was like traveling on a time machine.
Its stuff like this that makes me love places like Berlin. You guys who got a chance to spend some good years there have alot to share I am sure. I would not blame you if you ended up there again in the future.
She loves Berlin. Sees it as her home and has no plans to leave. She is also married to a German fella, has a great job and handle on German life and culture. Plus is pregnant with their first child and wants to raise (her) in Germany.
With all that said, she still does not self identify as German. She is Jamaican (self identifies as black, but of mixed race heritage that you can see in all of us feature wise) and has mentioned that she is not sure if she will ever truly see herself as "German". Now this is not strictly a result of German society, even though it plays a part, but also something personal in herself that does not allow her to easily connect fully with her adopted culture. I get it though, because I share alot of those same traits.
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Being "'in-between" isn't always a bad place to be either. For some people it's kind of a comfort zone that they are happiest in.
I was afraid you in particular would ask something like that!.......
You know I cant help myself!
I really enjoyed reading what you wrote, it gives a perspective I never would have approached assimilation/multiculturalism from. I guess thats why you ask the questions, you always learn something in the process. As an outsider though, I can see exactly what you mean.
To just generally answer the questions that popped up in the reply (IE: Could you see XYZ doing this and that?) My answer would be "No" and that says alot. Thank you ViveLeQuebecLibre for your response as well.
There is a difference between spending some time there and growing up in a society with your family and having your entire world view shaped by that society. No you are not seeking to pass as German, but you are making racist accusations of what others should and should not be. Strange in an internet forum considering you and I are complete strangers.
My best friend in Berlin is Turkish. He never said "I'm Turkish but I live in Germany". If people do ask, he would say that he is German and his family came from Turkey.
Berlin isn't representative of Germany, it is like going to New York City and pretending it is representative of the average U.S. Please tell me where I made a racist accusation? Like I said, I don't care if you are or are not German, but the society you are describing is way too rosy than the reality.
Look at the American soccer national team, there are many players from Germany. Like 7 or 8 and 10 on the U.S. national junior team. Why do so many they play for the U.S. instead of Germany? Because they are mixed in appearance and they have said that even though they are born and raised at Germany they are never accepted as real Germans but in the U.S. they are accepted as real Americans even with big German accents. Not one player or two said this, but a large number who make a big part of the U.S. national team. Hmmm...
I really enjoyed reading what you wrote, it gives a perspective I never would have approached assimilation/multiculturalism from. I guess thats why you ask the questions, you always learn something in the process. As an outsider though, I can see exactly what you mean.
To just generally answer the questions that popped up in the reply (IE: Could you see XYZ doing this and that?) My answer would be "No" and that says alot. Thank you ViveLeQuebecLibre for your response as well.
Sorry it was so long!
One thing I forgot to mention is that the Anglo-Canadian model does have it's advantages too. It's a very user-friendly identity (one of the most open in the world, I'd say), and it's certainly far easier for a newcomer to get accepted as a "Canadian" than it is as a "Québécois". Though in the latter case that's changing as well.
Though it is somewhat more restrictive it is not all impenetrable and personally I do find the Québécois way a lot more fulfilling on a cultural level (and to some degree on a human level as well).
For example.
In the 1960s this Québécois francophone singer had a chart hit with her version of an old Iroquian chant:
A few years ago, a Montreal DJ by the name of Ramasutra (guess where his parents were from!) did a version of the same song for a Quebec movie called Camping Sauvage:
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Is she also an ethnic minority in Germany? Does she see herself settling down in Berlin permanently?
I would not blame you if you ended up there again in the future.
