The Invisible Community: Being South Asian in Quebec 9780228005414, 9780228005421, 9780228006053, 9780228006060

Table of contents :
Cover
Copyright
Contents
Tables and Figure
Introduction The South Asian Population in Quebec: Immigration, Integration, and Participation
PART ONE South Asians in Quebec: An Overview
1 The Context of Reception
Toolbox 1 The Demographic Portrait
2 Ethnoreligious Diversity within the Community
3 South Asian Associative Network in Quebec
PART TWO Integration Challenges and Achievements
4 Reflections on the Cultural Axis for Mental Health Care
5 Bhutanese Refugees and Learning French: A Path Strewn with Obstacles
6 The Schooling Experience of Youth in the French Sector
Toolbox 2 South Asian Public Figures: Models for the Community
PART THREE Identity and Cultural Transformations
7 The Hindu Temple as a Site for the Transmission of Traditional Values
8 Dual Socialization between Religion and School: The Case of “Nepalese” Girls
Conclusion South Asians in Quebec: A Specific Experience?
Contributors
Index

Citation preview

T h e In v is ib l e C ommuni ty

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m c gi l l - qu een ’ s s tu di es i n ethn i c history s e r i e s o n e  don ald harm an akenson, editor 1 Irish Migrants in the Canadas A New Approach Bruce S. Elliott (Second edition, 2004) 2 Critical Years in Immigration Canada and Australia Compared Freda Hawkins (Second edition, 1991) 3 Italians in Toronto Development of a National Identity, 1875–1935 John E. Zucchi 4 Linguistics and Poetics of Latvian Folk Songs Essays in Honour of the Sesquicentennial of the Birth of Kr. Barons Vaira Vikis-Freibergs 5 Johan Schroder’s Travels in Canada, 1863 Orm Overland 6 Class, Ethnicity, and Social Inequality Christopher McAll 7 The Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict The Maori, the British, and the New Zealand Wars James Belich 8 White Canada Forever Popular Attitudes and Public Policy toward Orientals in British Columbia W. Peter Ward (Third edition, 2002) 9 The People of Glengarry Highlanders in Transition, 1745–1820 Marianne McLean 10 Vancouver’s Chinatown Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875– 1980 Kay J. Anderson 11 Best Left as Indians Native-White Relations in the Yukon Territory, 1840–1973 Ken Coates 12 Such Hardworking People Italian Immigrants in Postwar Toronto Franca Iacovetta

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13 The Little Slaves of the Harp Italian Child Street Musicians in Nineteenth-Century Paris, London, and New York John E. Zucchi 14 The Light of Nature and the Law of God Antislavery in Ontario, 1833–1877 Allen P. Stouffer 15 Drum Songs Glimpses of Dene History Kerry Abel 16 Canada’s Jews (Reprint of 1939 original) Louis Rosenberg Edited by Morton Weinfeld 17 A New Lease on Life Landlords, Tenants, and Immigrants in Ireland and Canada Catharine Anne Wilson 18 In Search of Paradise The Odyssey of an Italian Family Susan Gabori 19 Ethnicity in the Mainstream Three Studies of English Canadian Culture in Ontario Pauline Greenhill 20 Patriots and Proletarians The Politicization of Hungarian Immigrants in Canada, 1923–1939 Carmela Patrias 21 The Four Quarters of the Night The Life-Journey of an Emigrant Sikh Tara Singh Bains and Hugh Johnston 22 Cultural Power, Resistance, and Pluralism Colonial Guyana, 1838–1900 Brian L. Moore 23 Search Out the Land The Jews and the Growth of Equality in British Colonial America, 1740–1867 Sheldon J. Godfrey and Judith C. Godfrey 24 The Development of Elites in Acadian New Brunswick, 1861–1881 Sheila M. Andrew 25 Journey to Vaja Reconstructing the World of a Hungarian-Jewish Family Elaine Kalman Naves

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m c gi l l -qu een ’ s s tu di es i n ethnic history s e r i e s two  john zu cchi , edi tor 1 Inside Ethnic Families Three Generations of PortugueseCanadians Edite Noivo 2 A House of Words Jewish Writing, Identity, and Memory Norman Ravvin 3 Oatmeal and the Catechism Scottish Gaelic Settlers in Quebec Margaret Bennett 4 With Scarcely a Ripple Anglo-Canadian Migration into the United States and Western Canada, 1880–1920 Randy William Widdis 5 Creating Societies Immigrant Lives in Canada Dirk Hoerder 6 Social Discredit Anti-Semitism, Social Credit, and the Jewish Response Janine Stingel 7 Coalescence of Styles The Ethnic Heritage of St John River Valley Regional Furniture, 1763–1851 Jane L. Cook 8 Brigh an Orain / A Story in Every Song The Songs and Tales of Lauchie MacLellan Translated and edited by John Shaw 9 Demography, State and Society Irish Migration to Britain, 1921–1971 Enda Delaney 10 The West Indians of Costa Rica Race, Class, and the Integration of an Ethnic Minority Ronald N. Harpelle 11 Canada and the Ukrainian Question, 1939–1945 Bohdan S. Kordan 12 Tortillas and Tomatoes Transmigrant Mexican Harvesters in  Canada Tanya Basok 13 Old and New World Highland Bagpiping John G. Gibson

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14 Nationalism from the Margins The Negotiation of Nationalism and Ethnic Identities among Italian Immigrants in Alberta and British Columbia Patricia Wood 15 Colonization and Community The Vancouver Island Coalfield and the Making of the British Columbia Working Class John Douglas Belshaw 16 Enemy Aliens, Prisoners of War Internment in Canada during the Great War Bohdan S. Kordan 17 Like Our Mountains A History of Armenians in Canada Isabel Kaprielian-Churchill 18 Exiles and Islanders The Irish Settlers of Prince Edward Island Brendan O’Grady 19 Ethnic Relations in Canada Institutional Dynamics Raymond Breton Edited by Jeffrey G. Reitz 20 A Kingdom of the Mind The Scots’ Impact on the Development of Canada Edited by Peter Rider and Heather McNabb 21 Vikings to U-Boats The German Experience in Newfoundland and Labrador Gerhard P. Bassler 22 Being Arab Ethnic and Religious Identity Building among Second Generation Youth in Montreal Paul Eid 23 From Peasants to Labourers Ukrainian and Belarusan Immigration from the Russian Empire to Canada Vadim Kukushkin 24 Emigrant Worlds and Transatlantic Communities Migration to Upper Canada in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century Elizabeth Jane Errington

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25 Jerusalem on the Amur Birobidzhan and the Canadian Jewish Communist Movement, 1924–1951 Henry Felix Srebrnik 26 Irish Nationalism in Canada Edited by David A. Wilson 27 Managing the Canadian Mosaic in Wartime Shaping Citizenship Policy, 1939–1945 Ivana Caccia 28 Jewish Roots, Canadian Soil Yiddish Culture in Montreal, 1905–1945 Rebecca Margolis 29 Imposing Their Will An Organizational History of Jewish Toronto, 1933–1948 Jack Lipinsky 30 Ireland, Sweden, and the Great European Migration, 1815–1914 Donald H. Akenson 31 The Punjabis in British Columbia Location, Labour, First Nations, and Multiculturalism Kamala Elizabeth Nayar 32 Growing Up Canadian Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists Edited by Peter Beyer and Rubina Ramji 33 Between Raid and Rebellion The Irish in Buffalo and Toronto, 1867–1916 William Jenkins 34 Unpacking the Kists The Scots in New Zealand Brad Patterson, Tom Brooking, and Jim McAloon 35 Building Nations from Diversity Canadian and American Experience Compared Garth Stevenson 36 Hurrah Revolutionaries The Polish Canadian Communist Movement, 1918–1948 Patryk Polec 37 Alice in Shandehland Scandal and Scorn in the Edelson / Horwitz Murder Case Monda Halpern 38 Creating Kashubia History, Memory, and Identity in Canada’s First Polish Community Joshua C. Blank

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39 No Free Man Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience Bohdan S. Kordan 40 Between Dispersion and Belonging Global Approaches to Diaspora in Practice Edited by Amitava Chowdhury and Donald Harman Akenson 41 Running on Empty Canada and the Indochinese Refugees, 1975–1980 Michael J. Molloy, Peter Duschinsky, Kurt F. Jensen, and Robert J. Shalka 42 Twenty-First-Century Immigration to North America Newcomers in Turbulent Times Edited by Victoria M. Esses and Donald E. Abelson 43 Gaelic Cape Breton Step-Dancing An Historical and Ethnographic Perspective John G. Gibson 44 Witness to Loss Race, Culpability, and Memory in the Dispossession of Japanese Canadians Edited by Jordan Stanger-Ross and Pamela Sugiman 45 Mad Flight? The Quebec Emigration to the Coffee Plantations of Brazil John Zucchi 46 A Land of Dreams Ethnicity, Nationalism, and the Irish in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Maine, 1880–1923 Patrick Mannion 47 Strategic Friends Canada-Ukraine Relations from Independence to the Euromaidan Bohdan S. Kordan 48 From Righteousness to Far Right An Anthropological Rethinking of Critical Security Studies Emma Mc Cluskey 49 North American Gaels Speech, Story, and Song in the Diaspora Edited by Natasha Sumner and Aidan Doyle 50 The Invisible Community Being South Asian in Quebec Edited by Mahsa Bakhshaei, Marie Mc Andrew, Ratna Ghosh, and Priti Singh

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The Invisible Community Being South Asian in Quebec

Edited by

Mahsa Bakhshaei, Marie M c   Andrew, Ratna Ghosh, and Priti Singh

McGill-­Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

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©  McGill-Queen’s University Press 2021 ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN

978-0-2280-0541-4 (cloth) 978-0-2280-0542-1 (paper) 978-0-2280-0605-3 (eP DF ) 978-0-2280-0606-0 (eP UB)

Legal deposit first quarter 2021 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: The invisible community: being South Asian in Quebec / edited by Mahsa Bakhshaei, Marie Mc Andrew, Ratna Ghosh, and Priti Singh. Names: Bakhshaei, Mahsa, 1983– editor. | Mc Andrew, Marie, editor. | Ghosh, Ratna, ­editor. | Singh, Priti, editor. Series: McGill-Queen’s studies in ethnic history. Series two; 50. Description: Series statement: McGill-Queen’s studies in ethnic history. Series two; 50 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200347039 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200347187 | IS BN 9780228005414 (cloth) | I SB N  9780228005421 (paper) | IS BN 9780228006053 (eP DF ) | IS BN 9780228006060 (eP U B ) Subjects: L CS H: South Asians—Québec (Province)—Social conditions. | LC SH: South Asians—Québec (Province)—Economic conditions. Classification: L CC F C2950.S66 I58 2021 | DD C 305.89140714—dc23

This book was typeset by Marquis Interscript in 10.5 / 13 Sabon.

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Contents

Tables and Figure  ix Introduction – The South Asian Population in Quebec: Immigration, Integration, and Participation  3 Mahsa Bakhshaei, Marie Mc Andrew, and Ratna Ghosh

PART ONE  SOUTH ASIANS IN QUEBEC: AN OVERVIEW   1 The Context of Reception  15 Ratna Ghosh, Marie Mc Andrew, and Mehdi Babaei

Toolbox 1 – The Demographic Portrait  40 Ratna Ghosh, Mehdi Babaei, and Marie Mc Andrew

  2 Ethnoreligious Diversity within the Community  49 Mathieu Boisvert   3 South Asian Associative Network in Quebec  68 Anna Maria Fiore

P ART T W O   IN T E G R A T IO N C H ALLENGES AN D AC H IE V E M E N T S   4 Reflections on the Cultural Axis for Mental Health Care  93 Jaswant Guzder   5 Bhutanese Refugees and Learning French: A Path Strewn with Obstacles 115 Claudia Prévost

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viii Contents

  6 The Schooling Experience of Youth in the French Sector  135 Mahsa Bakhshaei

Toolbox 2 – South Asian Public Figures: Models for the Community 161 Laurence Normand

P ART T H R E E   ID E N T IT Y A N D CULTURAL T RAN S F O R M A T IO N S   7 The Hindu Temple as a Site for the Transmission of Traditional Values 171 Anne-Laure Betbeder Lauque   8 Dual Socialization between Religion and School: The Case of “Nepalese” Girls  191 Béatrice Halsouet

Conclusion – South Asians in Quebec: A Specific Experience?  213 Priti Singh and Ratna Ghosh Contributors 223 Index 229

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Tables and Figure

Tables T1.1 South Asian origins in Quebec, 2016  41 T1.2 Immigration status of people of South Asian background in Quebec 42 T1.3 Marital status of people with South Asian background in Quebec, 2016  43 T1.4 Religious affiliation of people of South Asian background in Quebec, 2011  43 T1.5 Knowledge of official languages among people of South Asian background in Quebec, 2011 and 2016  44 T1.6 Level of education among people of South Asian ­background over fifteen years of age in Quebec, 2011 and 2016, compared with entire Quebec population, 2016  45 T1.7 Labour market characteristics of people of South Asian background in Quebec, 2011 and 2016, compared with entire Quebec population, 2016  47 T1.8 Sectors of employment of people of South Asian ­background in Quebec, 2011 and 2016  47 3.1

South Asian immigration to Quebec, to 2011  74

3.2

South Asian associative network by category, Montreal, 2006–07 80

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x

Tables and Figure

3.3

Strength of South Asian organizations’ links with ­mainstream Networks, Montreal, 2007  81

3.4

South Asian organizations: case studies profile  82

6.1

Secondary school graduation ranking order by ethnic group, French sector, Quebec  137

6.2

Secondary school graduation times and dropout rates, French sector, Quebec  138

6.3

Selected characteristics of students, their families, and their schools 140

6.4

Distribution according to family socioeconomic status 144

6.5

Level of entry into Quebec school system, and when entering secondary school  144

6.6

Characteristics of schools attended  145

6.7

Graduation seven years after entry into secondary 1: impact of some characteristics  146

F ig u r e 8.1

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The socialization of young women refugees in the ­postmigratory context  207

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In t ro du cti on

The South Asian Population in Quebec: Immigration, Integration, and Participation Mahsa Bakhshaei, Marie Mc Andrew, and Ratna Ghosh South Asian countries are becoming major players on the world scene, and their diasporas are gaining political and cultural visibility in many Western immigration countries. A number of recent academic works study the successes and obstacles linked to the integration of South Indians immigrants and their descendants in each of these contexts as well as their significant contributions to the new society (Acharya 2017; Ali, Kalra, and Sayyid 2006; Bhattacharjee 2018; Das 2007; I C S 2014; Khatun 2019; Leonard 1999; Ranasinha et al. 2013; Sarwal 2017; Skop 2016). Canada is no exception to this trend. Since 2006, the South Asian population has become its largest visible minority, surpassing Chinese and Black communities. The 2016 census counted an estimated 1,924,635 individuals who identified as South Asian, a growth rate of 48 per cent from the 917,100 individuals counted in 2001. This population accounted for one-quarter of the total visible minority population and nearly 5.6  per cent of Canada’s total population (Statistics Canada 2017a). Although collectively referred to as South Asian, this population includes a wide range of peoples coming from several countries (mainly from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka) with diverse ethnicities and religions. As the South Asian community grows, it has achieved success in many areas. A look at issues of the Power List published by India Abroad shows that South Asians have made remarkable contributions in many walks of life, including federal and provincial politics

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in a number of provinces, in science, medicine, and engineering, as professors and teachers, as writers and lawyers, and as businesspeople, as well as in arts and culture. The community has also encountered challenges related to settlement, integration, and development. Some of these challenges are shared with other immigrant groups, while others are distinct to the community. In English Canada, the experience of the South Asian community has been increasingly documented and explored (Bannerji 1999; British Columbia, Office of the Premier 2015; Buchignani, Indra, and Srivastava 1985; Gee 2018; Ghosh 1981; Handa 2003; Israel 1994; Kanungo 1984; Sayani 2010). Although Statistics Canada (2017b) predicts that the South Asian population will be the main visible minority group in 2036, in Quebec it has remained a relatively “invisible” group. For example, analysis of public discourse during various controversies regarding the taking into account of religious diversity showed that Hindus and Sikhs from India were often confused with Arab Muslims (Jedwab and Potvin 2013; Potvin 2008). Other studies note that, until the turn of the new century, awareness of the presence of an Indian diaspora in Quebec and of the role it could play in developing contacts with the subcontinent was low (Bates 2008). Although some research on South Asian experiences in the province has been carried out in Anglophone universities (Ghosh 1981; Kanungo 1984), such research has been rather limited in Francophone institutions, even those with relatively extensive programs on the South Asian subcontinent itself (Granger et al. 2013; Harvey 2010). Many factors likely account for the lack of knowledge and paucity of research regarding the experience of South Asians in Quebec. First, only 6 per cent of South Asian Canadians live in the province (Statistics Canada 2017a), where they account for a little more than 1 per cent of the total population. They are also more likely to have English rather than French as their language of public use and exhibit one of the highest rates of concentration in Montreal of all immigrant groups. Thus, their presence is much less obvious in the public sphere and in various institutions than that of more numerous, more geographically dispersed, and mostly Francophone immigrant groups, such as Haitians and North Africans. South Asian migration to Quebec is also, on the whole, more recent than in other Canadian provinces (MI C C 2005). Nevertheless, there are many significant arguments for filling this gap of knowledge. The first is clearly the academic interest of

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Introduction 5

understanding the specific dynamics that South Asians face when integrating into the only French-speaking province in Canada and the only French-speaking society in North America, when both the historical and current contexts in their countries of origin have better prepared them to participate in English-speaking societies. Because of these unique characteristics of Quebec, it is doubtful one could rely on Canada-wide studies to understand that experience. Nor will research in France be applicable, because although academic interest in South Asian diaspora studies is growing there (Madavan 2014; Vuddamalay 2009), the differences in immigration policies and sociolinguistic dynamics are significant. A second, more ethical or sociopolitical motive is that the specific profile of South Asians could be linked to increased marginalization processes more so than other immigrant groups. This question of potential marginalization has to be explored and should be of concern to policy makers, actors in the field, and readers interested in social justice, in a context where immigration from South Asia to Quebec is growing. This book, the very first edited volume on the South Asian population in Quebec, aims to showcase the contributions of eleven experts from twelve national and international universities and governmental and community agencies. It uses the most recent insights and data from a variety of fields to explore and ascertain who these immigrants are and what they and their children may need to become healthy and productive members of an inclusive society. While some chapters consider South Asians as a whole group, others focus on a particular subgroup, reflecting the ethnic heterogeneity that exists within the community. The eight chapters in the book were included because they offer a variety of methodological and disciplinary approaches to the South Asian experience and a complementary perspective on various issues. Given the fact that research in the field is both groundbreaking and scarce, it would not have been realistic to aim for a common theoretical framework between chapters. Nevertheless, all authors share a commitment to a nonessentialist and dynamic approach to the study of ethnicity and ethnic relations. The first part of the book, “South Asians in Quebec: An Overview,” offers a historical review of South Asian migration to Canada and Quebec and provides a profile of the demographic, socioeconomic, ethnoreligious, and organizational characteristics of the community. In chapter 1, Ratna Ghosh, Marie Mc Andrew, and Mehdi Babaei analyze the interplay between the diverse characteristics of South

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Asian immigrants to Quebec and the complex dynamic of ethnic relations in the province in the context of both a nation-building competition with Canada and globalization at the international level. The chapter first outlines trends and tensions in Quebec’s linguistic and immigration policies, as well as in various policies and interventions linked to the management of cultural and religious diversity. Then, after providing an overview of the history of South Asian migration and settlement in the province, the authors discuss some of the challenges linked to the integration of South Asians given this specific context of reception. This information is complemented by Toolbox 1, which provides the reader with basic census data on the community. In chapter 2, Mathieu Boisvert stresses that the identity of people of South Asian origin on Canadian soil is expressed in various ways, calling up referents that can differ greatly from one group to another. Even though the national, ethnic, and religious referents may be important, other elements, such as language and history, have a profound impact on the identity of different South Asian groups. Also important are the reasons that motivated people’s departure from their country of origin – reasons that profoundly inform the migratory history of a given group and that cannot be separated from the collective and individual identity of each member. Boisvert explains that for some individuals, religious identity is just one point of reference, while for others the membership in their religion is the most deeply defining element of their identity. Finally, in chapter 3, Anna Maria Fiore presents the South Asian associative network in Quebec that constitutes a very important tool for a community that, despite its historical presence, was still little known in the 1990s. After recalling some of the landmarks of the history of South Asian migration to the province, Fiore discusses the results of a survey on collective social capital; the survey, conducted in 2006 and 2007, involved thirty-nine interviews with community leaders from Greater Montreal. The chapter especially highlights the potential asset of this associative network for South Asians’ integration and participation in Quebec.

The theme of the second part, “Integration Challenges and Achievements,” is explored mainly through case studies in various social fields.

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Introduction 7

In chapter 4, Jaswant Guzder recalls that South Asians, upon their arrival, are faced with integrating into Quebec’s evolving sociopolitical reality, particularly the fact that it is a Francophone cultural space where they may be subjected to a process of “Othering.” Based on the study of hundreds of South Asian families seen in the French and English sectors in a Montreal hospital, the chapter examines some complexities of individuals’ and families’ experiences with their particular social, systemic, ethnic, religious, political, and intrapsychic agendas, as variables of identity. It also shows that agencies that serve minorities encounter challenges stemming from the cultural heterogeneity of South Asian populations and the fact that they often arrive with postcolonial backgrounds, languages, and acculturation experiences that differ from those of immigrants with French postcolonial roots. In chapter 5, using an ethnological approach and an interactionism perspective, Claudia Prévost examines the social process of learning French by adult Bhutanese refugees who spent more than twenty years in Nepal before settling in a largely homogenous Quebec City. Based on interviews with both the learners and their “significant others” in that process, the author concludes that Bhutanese refugees follow similar French-language learning processes during their first two years in Quebec City but that they take different directions afterward as a result of their own learning strategies and challenges in their personal lives.1 They also encounter difficulties integrating into the job market owing to their level of mastery of the French language and the reluctance of employers to accept their level of language proficiency. In chapter 6, Mahsa Bakhshaei examines the educational trajectories of youth with a South Asian background in French-language secondary schools in Quebec. The vast majority of these youth attend French-language schools – at which their dropout rates are the highest of all immigrant groups. Initial disadvantages can be linked to their parents’ financial challenges, lack of education, limited French skills, and ignorance of the Quebec school system. But, as Bakhshaei shows, as adolescents move forward in the school system, their educational development is affected by unsuitable institutional practices, insufficient instructional resources, and weak partnerships between their parents and their teachers. Furthermore, a lack of ethnic community services directed at integration in the province, and specifically at supporting school achievement, hinders students’ integration.

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Laurence Normand concludes on a more optimistic perspective in Toolbox 2, highlighting the contribution of four Quebecers of South Asian origin to provincial and municipal politics, arts, and community development.

The final part of the book, “Identity and Cultural Transformation,” looks at various ways and strategies through which South Asian immigrants and second-generation youth try to adapt to the new society while preserving important community values. In chapter 7, based on a five-year participant observation in a Montreal Hindu temple and forty semistructured interviews, AnneLaure Betbeder Lauque describes how first-generation Hindu women have been passing on their cultural/religious heritage to their daughters. The general issue raised in the chapter is whether, in doing so, women reproduce patriarchal norms and pass them on to their daughters or endorse a more egalitarian conception of women’s role. The author assesses the extent to which the presence of both generations of women in the organizational structure of this temple may have impacted the choice of rituals officiated, the degree of women’s participation, and the importance assigned to the role of the priest. She then evaluates how some variables, such as the region of origin and the sectarian affiliations, related to the mothers may have led to cultural retention or adaptation by the daughters. In chapter 8, drawing from a three-year participant observation and interviews with a variety of stakeholders, Béatrice Halsouet describes the complex socialization pattern among Nepalese teenage refugees who were born in camps but now live in homogenous outlying regions of Quebec. The chapter particularly examines the role of mothers in the transmission of feminine Hindu rituals, such as regular vrata and specific practices around menstruation, to their daughters. Girls also share a common conception of ideal marriage, where the two spouses belong to the same ethnoconfessional group. In parallel, as their social insertion at school makes them aware of the ways of life in Quebec, they come to adhere strongly to values of equality between men and women. Thus, the chapter explores the extent to which, and the ways in which, these young Hindu girls cope with the differences in social behaviours and values between home and school.

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Introduction 9

Finally, in the conclusion, “South Asians in Quebec: A Specific Experience?,” Priti Singh and Ratna Ghosh critically examine the ideas of nationalism and identity and various issues specific to the Quebec context that run through several chapters in a comparative perspective with trends encountered elsewhere in Canada as well as in countries of origin, with a special focus on India. Our hope is that this book will be read not only by those interested in immigration and integration from a scholarly perspective but also by those whose decisions and practices play critical roles in the lives of immigrants and their children. Addressing the challenges facing immigrants requires an adequate knowledge of their various premigration and postmigration experiences. Given the growing importance of South Asians in Quebec, and the significant obstacles they encounter on the way to achieving meaningful participation in a French yet pluralist society, this book represents a first step toward a discussion that should be followed up by further work.

No t e   1 The term “significant others” refers to volunteers, intercultural and community workers, language teachers, and others who play an important role in the refugees’ French learning trajectory. See chapter 5.

R e f e r e n ce s Acharya, Mosiqi. 2017. “Census Shows Indian Population and Languages Have Exponentially Grown in Australia.” SBS Hindi, June 28. https:// www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/hindi/en/article/2017/06/28/census-showsindian-population-and-languages-have-exponentially-grown-australia. Ali, Nasreen, Virinder S. Kalra, and Salman Sayyid. 2006. A Postcolonial People: South Asians in Britain. London: Wm. B. Eerdmans. Bannerji, Himani. 1999. “A Question of Silence: Reflections on Violence against Women in Communities of Colour.” In Scratching the Surface: Canadian Anti-Racist Feminist Thought, edited by Enakshi Dua and Angela Robertson, 261–77. Toronto: Women’s Press. Bates, Karine. 2008. Perspectives sur les relations entre le Québec et l’Inde. Rapport présenté au Ministère des Relations Internationales du Québec. Bhattacharjee, Yudhjit. 2018. “How South Asian Americans Are Building a New American Dream.” National Geographic, September. https://www.

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nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/09/south-asian-americanstereotype-kondabolu-simpsons/. British Columbia. Office of the Premier. 2015. “Celebrating South Asian Contributions to BC’s Shared History.” News release. 28 October. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2015PREM0079-001786. Buchignani, Norman, Doreen Marie Indra, and Ram Srivastava. 1985. Continuous Journey: A Social History of South Asians in Canada. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. Das, Diya. 2007. The Evolution of an Identity: Indian American Immigrants from the Early 20th Century to the Present: A Fictional Family History. Eynon, PA: Tribute Books. Gee, Marcus. 2018. “South Asian Immigrants Are Transforming Toronto.” Globe and Mail, 29 April. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/ toronto/south-asian-immigrants-are-transforming-toronto/article 625650/. Ghosh, Ratna. 1981. “Minority within a Minority: On Being South Asian and Female in Canada.” In Women in the Family and the Economy, edited by George Kurian, and Ratna Ghosh, 413–26. Westport, C T: Greenwood. Granger, Serge, Karine Bates, Mathieu Boisvert, and Christophe Jaffrelot, eds. 2013. L’Inde et ses avatars: Pluralités d’une puissance. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Handa, Amita. 2003. Of Silk Saris and Mini Skirts: South Asian Girls Walk the Tightrope of Culture. Toronto: Women’s Press. Harvey, Fernand. 2010. “Le Québec et l’Inde: Jalons historiques et contemporains d’une relation en construction.” Études québécoises et ­canadiennes. Chaire Fernand Dumont sur la culture, INR S, Montreal. Israel, Milton. 1994. In the Further Soil: A Social History of IndoCanadians in Ontario. Toronto: Toronto Organization for the Promotion of Indian Culture. Jedwab, Jack, and Maryse Potvin. 2013. “Public Opinion and Media Treatment of the ‘Reasonable Accommodation’ Crisis in Québec.” In “Rethinking Equity in Quebec and India: Towards Inclusive Societies,” edited by Marie Mc Andrew, Priti Singh, and Émilie Parent. Special issue, Canadian Diversity 10, no. 1 (Spring): 96–101. Kanungo, Rabindra Nath. 1984. South Asians in the Canadian Mosaic. Montreal: Kala Bharati. Khatun, Samia. 2019. Australianama: The South Asian Odyssey in Australia. Auckland: Oxford University Press.

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Introduction 11

Leonard, Karen Isaksen. 1999. The South Asian Americans. Westport, C T: Greenwood. Madavan, Delon. 2014. “Populations d’origine sud-asiatique à Paris et en Île de France: Distribution et visibilité.” Revue Hommes et Migrations, no. 1308, 33–43. MI C C (Ministère de l’Immigration et des Communautés culturelles). 2005. Portrait statistique de la population d’origine ethnique sud-asiatique, recensée au Québec 2001. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec. Potvin, Maryse. 2008. Crise des accommodements raisonnables: Une ­fiction médiatique? Montreal: Athéna Éditions. Ranasinha, Ruvani, Rehana Ahmed, Sumita Mukherjee, and Florian Stadtler, eds. 2013. South Asians and the Shaping of Britain, 1870– 1950: A Sourcebook. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Sarwal, Amit. 2017. “South Asian Diaspora in Australia: History, Research, and Literature.” In South Asian Diaspora Narratives: Roots and Routes, 39–69. Singapore: Springer. Sayani, Anish. 2010. “Pathologies and Complicities: High School and the Identities of Disaffected South Asian ‘Brown Boys.’” PhD diss., University of British Columbia. Skop, Emily. 2016. “Asian Indians and the Construction of Community and Identity.” In Contemporary Ethnic Geographies in America, edited by Ines Miyares and Christopher A. Airriess. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Statistics Canada. 2017a. “Immigration and Ethnocultural Diversity: Key Results from the 2016 Census.” The Daily, 25 October. http://www.​ statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/171025/dq171025b-eng.htm. – 2017b. “Immigration and Diversity: Population Projections for Canada and Its Regions, 2011 to 2036.” Report prepared by Jean-Dominique Morency, Éric Caron Malenfant, and Samuel MacIsaac. https:// www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/91-551-x/91-551-x2017001-eng.htm. Vuddamalay, Vasoodeven. 2009. “Le cas des diasporas indiennes en France.” Revue Accueillir, no. 252, 46–48.

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P ART O N E South Asians in Quebec: An Overview

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1 The Context of Reception Ratna Ghosh, Marie Mc Andrew, and Mehdi Babaei The acceleration of migratory movements and their effect on nationalism is one of the major tensions linked to globalization. Quebec’s policies to maintain its specific identity are being challenged with globalization, itself involving migration-driven diversity that entails a multiplicity of factors. Immigration across physical space is a dynamic process imbued with meaning in shaping identities and social relations so that negotiations produce cultural mixing that unsettles the cultural boundaries of the host society. Migration brings different cultures together, and these cultures negotiate with one another and the host society such that meaning-making becomes an “ambivalent and contradictory” process where “the hierarchical claims to the inherent originality or ‘purity’ of cultures are untenable” (Bhabha 2006, 208; Rao 2013, 2). While the federal government manages the diversity of people in Canada through its Multiculturalism Policy (1971) and the Canadian Multiculturalism Act (1988), the government of Quebec has a policy of “interculturalism” but no specific legislation. The policy was largely developed in reaction to the federal multiculturalism policy and act, which are often accused of fostering ghettos and not recognizing Quebec societal culture (Bouchard and Taylor 2008). Although both policies converge more than they diverge in their dealing with diversity, as this article will show, one significant difference exists in the area of language: multiculturalism is set “within a bilingual framework,” while interculturalism stresses the need to share French as the common language of public life. Thus, migration to Quebec is very different than migration to other Canadian provinces for groups of people who not only have no knowledge of the French language,

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as is the case for many immigrants to the province, but may already know English and would therefore be inclined to integrate into English-speaking institutions. South Asians are one such group. As the largest group of immigrants to Canada today, it is time to look at their experience in Quebec, which is unique within Canada in its approach to both the selection of immigrants and their integration into its Francophone society. Collectively referred to as South Asians, people from the subcontinent of India can be identified by subgroups according to nation of origin (i.e., India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal) or by ethnicity (e.g., Bengali, Punjabi). As such, the term “South Asian” denotes a geographical identity rather than a homogenous ethnic or linguistic group. In Canada, South Asians are defined as belonging to a “visible minority,” a term that is largely used by the federal government, and to a lesser extent by the Quebec government, to refer to nonwhites (Statistics Canada 2015). The term “visible minority” denotes darker skin colour, although the ethnicities and skin colours of South Asians span a wide range that includes Caucasoid and Mongoloid categories and very light to very dark skin. The focus of this chapter is the interplay of the diverse characteristics that define South Asian immigrants and the complex dynamic of ethnic relations in Quebec. In the first section, we describe the Quebec context with regard to linguistic and immigration policies and their various results and tensions. We then present an overview of the history of South Asian migration and settlement in the province before, in the last section, analyzing some of the challenges linked to the integration of the cultural flows of South Asians in Quebec.

T h e D y n a m ic s o f E t hni c Relati ons in Q u e b ec From an international point of view, Canada can be characterized as a settler nation where the descendants of European colonizers marginalized the established Indigenous population. Nevertheless, unlike other North and South American nations, it is also a society where the first colonizers (the French) were conquered by the second colonizers (the English), creating a dynamic of isolation between both groups as well as an unequal relationship with the French (Juteau 1996). Indeed, although French settlers were the overwhelming majority in 1763, by the end of the nineteenth century, economic

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power had shifted to the hands of an English-speaking elite, and the French population had been largely confined within the Quebec territory (Linteau, Durocher, and Robert 1983). As a result of domination of the local French-Catholic population by the Protestant English-speaking minority, French Canadian nationalism became essentially ethnic and traditional, with a strong Catholic Church influence and a tendency to reject various waves of “Others” and to identify them as “English” (Juteau 1993). Historically, given this inward-looking attitude and the dominant status of the English language and community in the Quebec economy, most immigrants who settled in Quebec (such as the Irish in 1840s, the Jews at the end of the nineteenth century, and the Italians and other southern Europeans after the Second World War) adopted English as their language of use and tended to assimilate to a large extent to the Quebec Anglophone community (Levine 2010). By the mid-1960s, though, French Canadian nationalism was undergoing major transformations. It asserted itself as a territorial nationalism – thus the change of label from “Canadiens-français” to “Québécois” – first with a modernization and secularization agenda and then, in the 1970s, with a social-transformation agenda aimed at challenging the inequalities between French speakers and English speakers in Quebec (Linteau et al. 1989). Given the move toward secularism, the resulting decline in birthrate heightened the role of immigrants in the demolinguistic balance, and attitudes toward the “Others” also began to change. Instead of fearing immigrants or ignoring them, as it had for more than a century, the new Quebec state – and many of its stakeholders – started to see immigration as necessary in the development of a pluralist and vibrant Quebec with French as its sole common language. In this process of reasserting the majority status of the Francophone community (from a mere demographic to an actual majority in the sociological sense), four policy stepping-stones had a significant impact on the South Asian population: language, immigration, interculturalism, and secularism. Promotion of French as the common language of public life The first one is a set of language laws, which culminated in the adoption of the Charte de la langue française (Charter of the French language), known as Bill 101, in 1977. This bill strengthened the status

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of French as the official language of Quebec and promoted it as the common language in business, public services, and education (Quebec 1977; Plourde, Duval, and Georgeault 2000). From the point of view of immigrants in general, and especially South Asians, the school component of Bill 101 is the most important. Although it preserved the right of the historical Anglophone community – and that of other ethnic communities it had assimilated in the past – to attend English-language schools, it meant that henceforth new immigrants would be compelled to attend French-language schools, along with the overwhelming majority of longer established Francophones (those whose parents had not attended an English school). Some forty years after the adoption of Bill 101, its schooling component can be viewed as a stepping-stone toward the unfinished project of a more pluralist Quebec; however, it is worth nothing that in the 1970s, this new “writing on the wall” was experienced as a major shock and induced a large number of Anglophone and Anglophile residents to leave Quebec for other provinces in what was the largest interprovincial migration in Canadian history (Levine 2010). A significant involvement in immigration and integration A second, and complementary, move is the significant involvement of the Quebec state in the selection and integration of immigrants – a process that falls under shared federal and provincial government jurisdiction under the Canadian Constitution. Gradually, a series of agreements culminated in the Gagnon-Tremblay-McDougall Accord of 1991, which gave Quebec exclusive jurisdiction in selecting independent immigrants (e.g. those of the economic class who accounted for 70 per cent of the total flux) and over the linguistic and economic integration of all newcomers (MC C I 1990). Quebec immigration policy follows principles fairly similar to those of its federal counterpart, which continues to oversee the family reunification class and the admission of refugees once their status has been recognized (Mc Andrew and Arcand 2013). Two characteristics of the Quebec policy are especially worth mentioning here. The first is a significant increase of the total annual flux from around 35,000 in the 1980s to a total of 259,305 immigrants between 2012 and 2016 (MI C C 2017), with the aim of ensuring that Quebec received a share of immigrants proportional to its demographic weight in

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Canada – a goal toward which it has significantly progressed but has not yet achieved. There have been animated debates about the rate of this increase, and the Coalition Avenir Québec g­ overnment, elected in 2018, has reduced the total target flux for 2019–20 to 40,000 immigrants. Nevertheless, given the current labour shortage, the government has already indicated that it will return to the higher levels of the last forty years as early as 2021, mostly for the sake of economic growth. Indeed, the second notable characteristic of Quebec immigration policy is its attempt to balance competing selection criteria, which all represent important social goals: the recruitment of French-speaking immigrants, the contribution of immigration to economic development, the promotion of family reunification, and a commitment to international solidarity. The combined complexity of these criteria has led to a highly diversified immigrant population in terms of language skills, national origin, and social capital. Within the selection grid, prior knowledge of French, although highly valued in term of points, is not mandatory: between 2012 and 2016, over 55 per cent of admitted immigrants already spoke some French, including 25 per cent who were bilingual in both official languages; 19 per cent spoke only English, and almost the same proportion spoke neither English nor French (MI D I 2017). This explains both the important weight in the total flux of Francophone or Francophile sending countries, such as Algeria, Morocco, France, and Tunisia, and the significant presence of people originating from countries where English and not French is widely spoken, such as South Asians. Immigrants to Quebec are also coming overwhelmingly from regions other than North America or Europe. Most of them are therefore visible minorities, and a significant number have a non-Judeo-Christian religious background (although the majority are still Christian). Finally, the immigrants are highly diversified in terms of education and social class (which partially reflects the immigration categories), although overall they have a more positive profile upon entry regarding these two indicators than the average Quebec population (M I D I 2017). In June 2019, the Quebec government passed immigration reform legislation introducing changes in the immigration selection process whose significance is yet to be ascertained. According to the government, Bill 9 is expected to better match the needs of employers with skills of prospective immigrants and to considerably shorten the

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waiting time for those seeking permission to work in Quebec, but many experts have voiced the concern that this reform was mostly cosmetic and was politically motivated. Interculturalism as a third avenue between Jacobinism and multiculturalism The third stepping-stone is the articulation by the Quebec state of its normative position in the management of diversity. This was done from the 1980s onward in a context of competing nation-building with Canada and largely, but not exclusively, in reaction to the federal government’s adoption in 1970 of the Multiculturalism Policy (Juteau, Mc Andrew, and Pietrantonio 1998). Multiculturalism has been critiqued for its potential for ghettoization, for its cultural relativism, and most of all, for its lack of recognition of Quebec societal culture as different from other minority cultures where its status as the only French-speaking province and its role is in the integration of immigrants into a minority Francophone culture is unique. Indeed, if the Multiculturalism within a Bilingual Framework policy stated that French and English are important symbols of Canadian identity, it also took the stand that Canada did not have any official culture.1 In contrast, interculturalism in Quebec in the 1980s (Quebec 1978, 1981) stressed the sharing of the French language as a necessary condition for the thriving of diversity in the province. Notwithstanding a significant commitment to support individuals and groups wishing to maintain and develop their own cultural heritage, the interculturalism policy stressed the importance of French Canadian heritage and the more modern version of Quebec Francophone culture as constituting the “culture of convergence” for all groups. This first version of interculturalism has been criticized (Juteau, Mc Andrew, and Pietrantonio 1998) for, among other things, its essentialist definition of majority and minority groups and its hierarchical nature (its metaphor of the tree, which in terms of equity was not that different from the then-dominant image of multiculturalism as a vertical mosaic). In 1990, the immigration and integration policy, titled Let’s Build Québec Together, proposed a new definition of interculturalism that was to dominate public discourse and various policy documents in Quebec, regardless of whether a federalist or separatist political party was in power, until the “reasonable accommodation” controversy

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of 2007 and 2008 (Bouchard and Taylor 2008). Although the definition maintains an emphasis on the sharing of French as the language of public life and intergroup exchanges, pluralism is no longer considered an external reality in opposition to a homogeneous Francophone core but a fundamental aspect of Quebec history and society that concerns both the majority and minorities (Mc Andrew 2007; MC C I 1990). This recognition of diversity is set within two important limits: the need for intergroup exchanges through the French language; and the need to respect democratic values, such as gender equality, nondiscrimination, and the rights of children. The document also insists that all identities are dynamic and that both the majority and minorities must allow themselves to be transformed to some degree by intercultural contacts. But one must also keep in mind that this second version of interculturalism was criticized from the start by many Francophone leaders and opinion makers (SarraBournet 1998) as promoting a “thin culture” – one that is not sufficient to generate a sense of belonging to the specific trajectory of Quebec. Furthermore, this longing for a more substantive definition of what links Quebecers together has gained momentum for over a decade in a context of growing religious pluralism. Nevertheless, the latest policy on immigration, titled Together, We Are Québec (M I D I 2015), did not follow this path; in the matter of interculturalism, it reiterates principles and guidelines similar to those found in the 1990 policy statement. The search for a renewed definition of secularism Indeed, in addition to the French language and a civic but substantive culture, secularism has now become a significant marker of Quebec identity (Bouchard and Taylor 2008). Some might find this ironic, given that secularization is a more recent process in Quebec society than in other Western societies. On the contrary, it could be argued that it is precisely because of harsh memories of the domination by the Catholic Church that prevailed until the 1960s (and that structured the school system until the beginning of the twenty-first century) that many Quebecers feel threatened by the apparent increase in religious expressions in the public sphere induced by new waves of immigrants. The working normative framework that has prevailed in programs and most initiatives in the field – that is, open secularism – stresses that although institutions must be neutral, religious

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pluralism should not be relegated to the private sphere as is the case with the French model of laïcité fermée often framed in Quebec as closed secularism. People who attend or work in institutions should continue to enjoy their fundamental right to express their beliefs and creeds (Maclure and Taylor 2010). Nevertheless, many recent events have shown that strict secularism is still popular in Quebec, especially but not exclusively among Francophones. Two phenomena are worth mentioning here: the “reasonable accommodation” controversy of 2007 and 2008 induced by a Supreme Court judgment in 2006 (the Multani case) allowing the wearing of a kirpan by a Sikh student – which put the South Asian community, which until then had been rather invisible, on the Francophone media’s radar – as well as the attempt in 2013 by the Parti Québécois to adopt a secularism charter (titled, in a strategic political attempt, the Charter of Quebec Values). Although that party was defeated in the subsequent election, the Liberal Party that followed also attempted to bring in secularism legislation, and it was the Coalition Avenir Québec under the leadership of Francois Legault, with the support of the Parti Quebecois, that passed Bill 21 – An Act respecting the Laicity of the State – in June 2019. This legislation, which passed with amendments giving the minister authority to implement corrective measures if the law is broken, bans public workers in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols. Bill 21 severely affects sections of the South Asian community: Sikhs from India who wear the turban and Muslims from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh who wear the hijab, for example, are restricted from teaching or becoming school administrators and cannot be police officers or judges, in addition to being barred from being lawyers or notaries who appear before the public. Analysis of public discourses in Quebec (Mc  Andrew 2011; Potvin 2008) also reveals an unwarranted confusion between two distinct issues: immigration and its impact on the redefinition of collective identity; and the extent to which religious diversity should be recognized in the public sphere. Moreover, during both controversies many xenophobic and even racist statements were uttered, mostly by private citizens but in some cases by politicians, suggesting that intolerant opinions seem to be gaining social and political legitimacy in Quebec. Nevertheless, some qualifications must be made in this regard, as important generational and regional differences clearly illustrate the positive role of intercultural contact and

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of education in fighting racism and discrimination, in Quebec as elsewhere (Côté 2012). Some current debates about immigrant integration On a more general basis, some debates have taken place over the extent to which the integration policy is actually working, usually coinciding with the public hearings about the setting of immigration levels that happen every three years in Quebec. Two issues are central in this regard. First, although research data clearly indicate that progress in the status of French and in its sharing as a common language among Quebecers of all origins is significant, concern about this issue is still prevalent in the province (Pagé and Lamarre 2010). On the one hand, the growing presence of English in Montreal and overall in Quebec largely linked to the international status of the language is often attributed exclusively to the behaviour of immigrants, even when they are largely French speakers. On the other hand, linguistic integration has been defined in government documents in terms of using French as the common language of public life, which means the government was not aiming for linguistic assimilation and in fact supported the thriving of languages of origin. But more and more analysts are using linguistic transfer (the adoption of French or English as a mother tongue or at least the language used at home) as an indicator of the success of the language policy. For those people, whose opinions receive significant support in survey results and opinion pieces in the media, immigrants (including South Asians) who use French only in the public sphere cannot be trusted to be committed to its preservation in Quebec – a position that brings us back to an essentialist definition of who is a “real Quebecer.” The second important issue, whose legitimacy is much more supported by research data (Arcand and Najari 2010; Chicha and Charest 2008), is the current problem of economic integration of immigrants. Although this is also an issue in many other provinces, it is especially intense in Quebec. On the whole, immigrants are more often unemployed, earn less with equivalent educational qualifications, and experience more skills devaluation than people born in the province. Moreover, there are some indications that this disadvantage continues with the second generation for some visible minority communities. Many explanations can be invoked in this regard, some linked with the characteristics of immigrants themselves, such as the

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mismatch between a selection policy that stresses knowledge of French and the reality of a labour market that requires bilingualism in French and English. But it is clear that systemic discrimination is also in place, as exemplified by the resistance in many sectors to offering jobs to newcomers, especially those with a “foreign” name. In 2016, the government announced (M I D I 2016) that it would tackle this problem through such measures as a better recognition of credentials, a dismantling of barriers installed by professional associations, and the development of stronger and more effective equity programs within the public and para-public sectors. Nevertheless, it is not the first time that such announcements have been made (regardless of which party is in power), and progress in the last thirty years has been rather slow in this regard.

S o u t h A s ia n s in C a n ada and Quebec: A H is to r ic a l O vervi ew South Asians are people whose roots are in the geographical region at the south of the continent of Asia bordered by the Himalayan range in the North, as distinguished from the southeastern part of Asia that is to the south of China. According to the 2016 census (Statistics Canada 2016), 1,963,330 Canadians were of South Asian origin; at a little less than 5.6 per cent of the total population, this makes them the largest visible minority group in Canada, followed by Chinese Canadians and Black Canadians, respectively. They have settled largely in the provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta and are concentrated in metropolitan Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, and Montreal. The term “South Asian” obscures the diversity that exists within this group. There are major differences among the political systems of their countries of origin, their ethnicities, religious traditions, languages, class and caste divisions, regional and local traditions, cultural values, and practices, although they share a common history and experience of colonialism. The largest country in South Asia and the largest source of immigrants to Canada is India, perhaps the most diverse country in the world in terms of culture, ethnicity, language, religion, and caste and class differences. Twenty-two languages have “official regional language” status, but the country is home to hundreds of languages and dialects. As a secular republic, it is home to all

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the religions of the world, although Hindus form the largest group. With a population of 1.353 billion, India is a federal union based on ethnolinguistic or ethnoreligious groups, and each of its states and territories has linguistic, multicultural, and multireligious minorities. Pakistan, with a population of 212 million, is an Islamic Republic, and Bangladesh (161 million) has Islam as the state religion. Both of these countries have ethnically diverse populations and class divisions. The island country of Sri Lanka, at the southern tip of the subcontinent, is home to over 21 million people. During its civil war, thousands sought refuge in Western countries; people from Sri Lanka made up the fifth-largest group of immigrants to Canada in the 1980s, making Canada home to the largest Tamil population (157,000 in 2016) in the Western world. Of these people, 53,000 live in Montreal (Statistics Canada 2017a). People from Nepal and Bhutan are recent migrants. According to the 2016 census, out of a total population of 17,140 people of Nepalese origin in Canada, only 930 reside in Quebec. Nevertheless, an association of Nepalese in Quebec was founded in 2001 to support the small community, many of whom have higher education degrees and are professionals. As Claudia Prévost describes in her chapter in this volume, in 2014 there were 6,500 Bhutanese refugees in Canada, and Quebec City was host to around 1,000 Bhutanese refugees of Nepalese ancestry when the Canadian government initially took in 5,000 and resettled them across the country. According to the 2016 census, there are only 420 Bhutanese refugees in Quebec. This population does not have much education and, because of their difficulties in learning French, have had a greater problem integrating into the labour market in Quebec than in other provinces. Literature on previous waves of South Asian migrants is scarce other than a few books and articles (Buchignani, Indra, and Srivastava 1985; Israel 1994; Kanungo 1984; Kurian and Srivastava 1983; Sugunasiri 1988) that provide information about their arrival to and position in Canada. Kamala Elizabeth Nayar’s The Sikh Diaspora in Vancouver (2004) and The Punjabis in British Columbia (2012) and Amita Handa’s Of Silk Saris and Mini Skirts (2003) do not refer to South Asians in Quebec – the need to know French, and sometimes both French and English; the policies such as interculturalism (not multiculturalism) that differ from their counterparts in the rest of Canada; differences in immigration selection; and, more recently, the

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secularization legislation that bans the wearing of religious symbols by people in authority positions. There is nothing written specifically on South Asians in Quebec. Although the first migrants to Canada from India arrived in Vancouver in 1903, by 1908 there were around five thousand Indians in Canada; most were Sikhs and all were men. Since then, the immigration trend of South Asians has shown major variation over time (Jain 1971). Being Asian and nonwhite, people from the Indian subcontinent were not initially welcome in Canada; racist Canadian immigration policies were exclusionary, targeting Asians at a time of massive European immigration.2 With the emergence of anti-Asian sentiment in British Columbia, measures were imposed to impede this group’s entry to Canada, and many of these people were given jobs that were considered socially, culturally, and racially inferior to those of whites in terms of status and prestige. This discriminatory practice tainted mainstream attitudes toward South Asians and made them appear homogenous under the umbrella of a “Hindu race” rather than as a diverse group of people with various ethnic, religious, and national and educational backgrounds (see Buchignani, Indra, and Srivastava 1985). With the end of British rule in India in 1947 and the birth of Pakistan, many South Asians became eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship but were still prevented from immigrating to Canada because new immigrants were selected on the basis of white ethnic criteria (Richmond 1967). In 1951, due to Commonwealth agreements with the governments of India, Pakistan, and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), immigrants from these countries were admitted to Canada. However, it was not until 1967 that the Immigration Act ended racial criteria for the selection of immigrants and focused on personal, social, and occupational characteristics such as health, education, and professional skills qualifications, with an emphasis on well-educated and highly skilled immigrants. Over one hundred thousand South Asian immigrants, mostly professionals, entered Canada between 1967 and 1975. During the 1970s many people of South Asian origin came to Canada from countries such as Uganda, the Caribbean, and Fiji; from the 1980s on, larger numbers of the South Asian population started coming directly from the subcontinent. Today, South Asians are the fastest growing immigrant group in Canada. As a result of their British colonial experience, South Asians are more familiar with English than French, although there were

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pockets of French colonial settlements in India. It is not surprising, therefore, that most South Asians who started coming to Canada after racial criteria were removed from the selection process in 1967 went to the English-speaking provinces. The first significant wave of migration to Quebec came after Expo 67 in Montreal, at which time Quebec repositioned its identity both locally in Canada and globally. The relatively few South Asian migrants who came to Quebec at that time were professionals, such as university professors and doctors, and students, primarily those who came to study at English-speaking universities like McGill and then stayed on in Quebec. Before 1961, Quebec was home to a total of 165 South Asians. By 1981, it was home to 16,541 (7,310 Indians, 720  Pakistanis, 75 Bangladeshis, 141 Sri Lankans, and 8,395 others who identified as South Asian) (M I C C 2005). The main drivers of immigration from South Asia are opportunities in science, technology, medical fields, and business. Economic and educational prospects are a great attraction. Canada’s generous family sponsorship law, in which people can sponsor parents for family reunification, is an important category of immigration. Religious and ethnic conflicts in many areas have also brought both immigrants and refugees to Canada over the years. A number of types of visas are offered: for visitors, students, and business travellers; work (long or short term); family reunification; and permanent residency. Traditionally, immigrants to Quebec from South Asia were closer to the Anglophone community and did not feel the need to learn French, as they could get by knowing only English. The great majority of their children attended English schools. Thus, the adoption of Bill 101 affected South Asians profoundly, and several parents were involved in class action suits challenging the language legislation. Many (especially professionals) who could not speak French, or chose not to make the effort to learn the language, chose to leave Quebec in response to their inability to deal with the new law. Yet a number of South Asians (mainly people who worked in English institutions) remained despite Bill 101. New immigrants selected after 1977, however, had to send their children to French-language schools. As can be seen in Toolbox 1, the number of people in Quebec of South Asian background had increased to 91,400 in 2011 but decreased slightly to 90,335 in 2016, and knowledge of French in the community increased significantly in those five years (see Toolbox 1). Knowledge of French is especially significant among the newer

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generations schooled in French, and they are often multilingual because they retain their heritage languages alongside knowledge of varying degrees of English and French.

T h e C u lt u r a l F l ow s of S outh As i ans an d T h e ir In t e g r at io n into the Provi nce A highly diversified group in a globalized world For South Asians who share cultural similarities and a common history, migration from a non-Western geographical area involves negotiating a new cultural terrain in the new society – an especially tough task for certain individuals depending on their social status in their country of birth, because social class is an indication of exposure to Western culture in the home country. The difficult and often drastic renegotiation of identities and cultures means leaving behind many traditions and facing new ways of doing and being. So many differences exist within the group known as South Asian – as noted earlier, many countries make up that geographical area – that it may be difficult to draw meaningful inferences. The highly educated professional South Asians, who initially came to Quebec mainly from India and Pakistan, have since been joined by more socially stratified and legally differentiated people from the subcontinent. Therefore, like many other immigrant groups, South Asians cannot be considered homogenous when they come to Quebec. They can no longer be classified only along ethnic and cultural lines, nor can their class differences be ignored. Their similarities and differences exist along multiple axes, cutting across linguistic, class, caste, economic, and religious margins that overlap and defy geographic and political boundaries. As indicated in Toolbox 1, the 90,335 people who identified themselves as South Asian in the 2016 census include Hindus, who could be from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, or Nepal; Muslims, mostly from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh; Catholics, mainly from India and Sri Lanka; and Sikhs, originating from India, but some coming to Quebec via East Africa and elsewhere. Even places of worship are not always restricted to ethnicity, meaning that the Muslim or Christian denominations in the South Asian community use mosques and churches used by other Muslims and Christians. The few Buddhists from India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka (0.9 per cent of the South Asian population) are likely to go

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to general Buddhist temples. Hindu temples, however, are divided by linguistic groups from India, and Bangladeshi Hindus have even built their own temple. Tamils from India and from Sri Lanka go to the same temples. The internet lists at least seven Hindu temples and five Sikh gurdwaras in the Montreal region. The global circulation of people, technology, images, ideas, and money causes tensions between cultural homogenization and heterogenization. Such tensions are particularly relevant in Quebec where much of the knowledge, information, and technology requires competence in English. Given today’s access to diasporic and global media and communication technology, immigrant communities “exist in a world of ‘in-betweenness,’ negotiating cultural forms and identities at the crossroads of the nation-state and global diasporas” (Srinivasan and Pyati 2007, 1735). The arrival of immigrants from their country of origin and their difference from the host society put them in a “third space” (Bhabha 1994), which is neither fully that of the host nor fully that of their countries of origin. This space is not fixed and can be appropriated differently; the new immigrant identity is thus hybridized, interweaving elements of the homeland and the new land. So, existing models of centre-periphery, or push and pull factors that have usually been applied to migration theory, cannot explain the new global cultural economy. Arjun Appadurai (1990) identifies several dimensions of cultural flows, or scapes, that make the experience of contemporary immigrants different from that of earlier immigrants: ethnoscapes, or the multidirectional movement of various types of peoples (e.g., migrants, refugees, asylum seekers); technoscapes, or the rapid flows of technology (e.g., Skype, social media); mediascapes, or flows of information through the digital world (e.g., magazines, newspapers); and financescapes, or the financial flows in the globalized market. These flows of technology, media, and communication help create imaginary worlds. Most South Asian immigrants are affected by their particular type of ethnoscape and benefit greatly from technoscapes and mediascapes that enable them to be in constant and close touch with their families in, and cultures of, South Asia, while they are also involved in financescapes through remittances and money transfers. Migration is often related to specific cultural and social networks and labour market niches, so technoscapes, mediascapes, and financescapes are uneven and reflect traditional hierarchies of ethnicity and class in the diasporic communities.

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Specific challenges in Quebec The question for South Asian immigrants is how their highly stratified groups fit into Quebec’s sociopolitical project. For the host society, the question is how to maintain the predominance of the French language in Quebec society and at the same time be inclusive in a modern liberal democracy. The immigration reform announced in 2019 by the party in power (Coalition Avenir Québec) could limit the number of immigrants in the skilled-worker class coming to Quebec from South Asia, for two reasons: because their knowledge of French is unlikely to be up to standard; and because Quebec is “particularly in need” of “less specialized workers, like truckers and construction and agricultural workers” – and, according to the provincial federation of manufacturers and exporters, many of these jobs could “be filled by the temporary foreign workers program administered by the federal government” (Bruemmer 2019, A5). However, the government suspended the reforms due to public backlash (CBC News 2019). There are indeed clear indications that, overall, Quebec’s structures and policies of linguistic integration have been disadvantageous to the economic and educational integration of South Asians, largely because of a lack of French-language skills, but also owing to other structural barriers such as nonrecognition of their qualifications. As can be seen in Toolbox 1, the labour market indicators, especially the unemployment rate and median income of the community, are indeed much less positive than the high educational credentials would warrant, although South Asians do fare better than other visible minorities who are mostly French speaking. Also, as described in chapter 5, in French-language high schools, in which almost all immigrant-origin adolescents must enroll, South Asian students are among the lowest performers; in contrast, they are at the top end of performance among ethnic groups in the English sector. These opposite patterns are linked mostly to differences in social class and social capital. (Given the requirements of Bill 101, only a small number of South Asian families – largely those with an elite background or who are second- or third-generation Canadians – can send their children to English schools.) The problematic educational integration of the vast majority of youngsters who attend French schools should thus be a matter of great concern to the South Asian community – a community that is considered a model minority in the United States (Chow 2011). Whether South Asian students who are the products of Bill

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101 are being well integrated into the Quebec economy after one generation is a matter that has yet to be examined. However, the newcomers will continue to have problems with schooling in French since their parents rarely speak the language and cannot help them with their schoolwork or tend not to participate in school activities. Recent events described above also show that difference, especially in religion, is a problem for Quebecers of all origins. As mentioned above, the resistance to diversity is especially high among the older French-speaking segment of the province’s population (largely white and Catholic, although they may not be practising the religion). Sikhs in particular have faced discrimination in North America, and Quebec is no exception. In the last two decades, a number of key incidents brought public attention to issues surrounding this group’s integration. As mentioned above, in 2006, the Supreme Court of Canada ruling that the banning of the kirpan in a Montreal school was illegal brought an end to several court battles, but another Sikh religious symbol was at the origin of a major controversy. In 2012, and a girl wearing a hijab was banned from a soccer game, but the wearing of the hijab was later approved in the sport. The Quebec Soccer Federation had banned turbans on soccer pitches but lifted that ban in 2013 – a change in policy that was long overdue, according to the World Sikh Organization (WSO), since the turban is worn on soccer pitches in other parts of Canada. Although the proposed Charter of Quebec Values ultimately did not become a reality in 2013, it threatened the integration and security of the Sikh population (as well as South Asian women who wear the hijab). But perhaps the most heated debate was over the unanimous vote (by both separatist and federalist parties for different reasons) in the National Assembly in Quebec City in 2011 to ban the kirpan from legislative buildings. The WSO did not accept the “threat to security” as a legitimate reason for the ban, pointing out that the kirpan is not banned from the Canadian Parliament or even from the Supreme Court of Canada. The organization took particular exception to the statement made by Parti Québécois member Louise Beaudoin, who had tabled the motion, that multiculturalism is a Canadian value and not a Quebec one. Ultimately, however, the secularization bill passed in 2019 bans the wearing of all religious symbols, including the Sikh turban and kirpan and the Muslim hijab, by civil servants whom the government deems to hold a “position of authority” (which includes not only judges and police officers but also school principals and teachers).

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Moreover, as in many other immigrant communities, subgroups within the South Asian community, especially women and seniors, are also facing specific challenges. As a minority within the South Asian minority, women are the last in the family to get the benefits of education and employment (Ghosh 1981a). They are very often linguistically isolated but have friends within their ethnic groups. They are less likely than the men to have facility with technology, and economic conditions make it difficult for them to have their own computers and access to the internet and other media. Tulika Agarwal-Narale (2005) investigated the postmigration experiences of South Asian immigrant women in Montreal and their mental health, help-seeking patterns, and coping strategies for distress by focusing on issues of gender and culture. Similarly, Edith Samuel (2009) explored the postmigratory experience of South Asian women in Canada’s Atlantic Provinces (Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia). The themes emerging from this study include intergenerational conflicts and coping with work, discrimination, and depression, as identified in earlier studies of South Asian women in Montreal (Ghosh 1981a, 1981b). The impact of “the resettlement process” on the mental health of South Asian women was found to be “multi-ethnic and context-specific” (Samuel 2009, 16). Nevertheless, Mahsa Bakhshaei and Rita Isabel Henderson (2016) show that South Asian female adolescents, despite restrictions on their autonomy, consistently outperform their brothers and male relatives in French-language high schools, although, as mentioned above, South Asian students have an overall negative performance profile in this sector. Elders (who represent around 30 per cent of the South Asian community in Quebec) are a vulnerable group, particularly in terms of negotiating old age, because of cultural, religious, and linguistic characteristics and social capital differences from the host culture. These disadvantages are a harsh reality in South Asian countries but are exacerbated in Western countries. Perhaps the most important is the dramatic decline in the prevalence of multigenerational living (Lamb 2012), especially when children have migrated to Canada or other countries. Respect for old age is a key component in their traditional cultures. Parents tend to visit their children or live with them in Canada, but the host society’s different values – increased individualism, consumer culture, the struggle for economic stability,

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technological demands of globalization that result in shortages of time and service or care – can make them feel unwanted there. As these elders grow older, isolation is a major problem; traditional expectations of living with their children and being cared for by them in old age is both taken for granted and desirable in the home society, but these expectations may not be appreciated in the new society, where older people are expected to be more independent. Although things are changing in countries like India, seniors are typically cared for by their children, and this is considered a positive norm in the society. In the new society, by contrast, such services are most likely provided in a language different from the seniors’ mother tongues. It is hard enough to talk about health problems, for example, in a foreign language like English with which they may have some familiarity; however, it is even harder for these seniors to do so in a language with which they have no familiarity, specifically, in French, as the dominant language in Quebec society. In middle-class families, South Asian parents are able to travel from their home countries to visit their children for a couple of months, or they arrange to immigrate to live with them or near them. However, the dissonance between parents’ and grandparents’ expectations, on one hand, and adult children’s perceptions of their role in caregiving, on the other, can result in intergenerational conflicts and unhappiness (mySahana 2011).

C o n c l u s i on The rich diversity among South Asians has greatly contributed to the multilayered nature of the city of Montreal, home to more than 120  cultural communities and 150 different languages (Statistics Canada 2017b). Within each South Asian subgroup are members with a variety of educational, linguistic, professional, and social backgrounds, immigration statuses, and ethnicities and religions. Given that the intersection of diversities makes the experiences of migrants very complex (and also transnational), interculturalism and multiculturalism – as policies concerned with diverse populations – may no longer be the best reference points for the South Asian community in Canada or, more specifically, for the rapidly changing nature of Quebec and especially Montreal. This refers to cultural diversity as a demographic object, as opposed to cultural difference, which implies identification and differentiation (Bhabha 1994). This is of vital

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importance to policy makers, who still consider communities like South Asians through their own traditional lens, originating from a traditional institutionalized discourse of a homogenous Other. Despite the Quebec government’s efforts to integrate immigrants through its various programs, results are clearly lagging in this regard, especially among groups such as South Asians who are simultaneously Anglophone (or anglophile) as well as visible and religious minorities. Moreover, the pluralist transformation of a traditionally homogenous Quebec should be considered – at best – unfinished. The intense controversy around official recognition of diversity prevents many South Asians from identifying as Quebecers. Therefore, the challenge for the current government is to create a situation for those who do come and are here to become franco-/quebeco-phile and develop a francophile repertoire in which they feel welcome despite their own complexities and diversities. Toward that objective, a counterdiscourse supported by the postmodernist emphasis on the decentring of cultures and “the collapse of cultural hierarchies” (Featherstone 1995, 13) is needed. It should consist of a more comprehensive framework that stresses the complex, multifaceted nature of communities, including South Asians, and portrays their contribution as important resources. The French language in Quebec should be valued because it is an essential element of the province’s distinct culture, and it certainly makes Canada more interesting and attractive. But there must be innovative ways to incorporate the entirety of the Quebec population into the economy and society. Students of South Asian origin have varied and nuanced academic, emotional, social, and cultural experiences in the school system. The new immigration policy and the focus on employment for immigrants are encouraging. Interculturalism must be seen as a work in progress in responding to unprecedented changes and not a static policy that is restrictive.

No t e s   1 Canadian Multiculturalism Act, RS C 1985, c 24 (4th Supp.). https://lawslois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-18.7/.   2 In May 1814, the Komagata Maru, a ship with 376 Indians on board, docked at Vancouver’s harbour, having completed the Canadian

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immigration requirement of arriving after a “continuous journey” without stopping. Most of the passengers were prevented from disembarking, and the ship was forced to turn back after a two-month stalemate during which many passengers experienced intense suffering. Upon reaching India, nineteen of the passengers were killed by gunfire by British soldiers as they disembarked, and many others were imprisoned (Johnston 1995). Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered an apology for this racist incident in Parliament in 2016.

R e f e r e n ces Agarwal-Narale, Tulika. 2005. “Mental Health of South Asian Women: Dialogues with Recent Immigrants on Post-migration, Help-Seeking and Coping Strategies.” Master’s thesis, McGill University. Appadurai, Arjun. 1990. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Theory, Culture & Society 7 (2–3): 295–310. Arcand, Sébastien, and Maher Najari. 2010. Situation des immigrants au marché du travail québécois: Bref portrait statistique. Quebec City: Emploi Québec. Bakhshaei, Mahsa, and Rita Isabel Henderson. 2016. “Gender at the Intersection with Race and Class in the Schooling and Wellbeing of Immigrant-origin Students.” British Columbia Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health 16 (47): 1–15. Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. – 2006. “Cultural Diversity and Cultural Differences.” In The PostColonial Studies Reader, edited by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, 206–9. New York: Routledge. Bouchard, Gérard, and Charles Taylor. 2008. Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation. Abridged report. Quebec City: Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d’accomodement reliées aux différences culturelles. Bruemmer, René. 2019. “New Immigration Selection System Officially Begins.” Montreal Gazette, 27 June. https://montrealgazette.com/news/ local-news/quebec-launches-new-system-to-select-immigrants. Buchignani, Norman, Doreen Marie Indra, and Ram Srivastava. 1985. Continuous Journey: A Social History of South Asians in Canada. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. C B C News. 2019. “Quebec Government Suspends Controversial Immigration Reforms.” 8 November. https://www.cbc.ca/news/­canada/ montreal/peq-restrictions-on-hold-quebec-1.5353991.

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Chicha, Marie-Thérèse, and Éric Charest. 2008. “L’intégration des immigrés sur le marché du travail à Montréal.” IRPP 14, no. 2 (March). http://irpp.org/fr/research-studies/choix-vol14-no2/. Chow, W. Giselle. 2011. “The Model Minority Myth.” Independent School Magazine, Winter. http://www.nais.org/Magazines-Newsletters/ ISMagazine/Pages/The-Model-Minority-Myth.aspx. Côté, Olivier. 2012. Analyse critique des sondages consacrés aux relations intergroupes du Québec. Research report supervised by Michel Pagé and Maryse Potvin. Montreal: Centre d’Études Ethniques de l’Université de Montréal (CEETU M ). C T V News. 2012. “Quebec Girl, 9, Banned from Soccer Game for Wearing Hijab.” 9 July. https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/quebec-girl-9-bannedfrom-soccer-game-for-wearing-hijab-1.872219. Featherstone, Mike. 1995. Undoing Culture: Globalization, Postmodernism and Identity. London: SA GE. Ghosh, Ratna. 1981a. “Minority within a Minority: On Being South Asian and Female in Canada.” In Women in the Family and the Economy, edited by George Kurian and Ratna Ghosh, 413–26. Westport, C T: Greenwood. – 1981b. “Social and Economic Integration of South Asian Women in Montreal, Canada.” In Women in the Family and the Economy, edited by George Kurian and Ratna Ghosh, 59–71. Westport, C T: Greenwood. Handa, Amita. 2003. Of Silk Saris and Mini Skirts: South Asian Girls Walk the Tightrope of Culture. Toronto: Women’s Press. Israel, Milton. 1994. In the Further Soil: A Social History of IndoCanadians in Ontario. Toronto: Toronto Organization for the Promotion of Indian Culture. Jain, Sushil Kumar. 1971. East Indians in Canada. The Hague: P.H. Klop. Juteau, Danielle. 1993. “The Production of the Québécois Nation.” Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 19 (2): 79–109. – 1996. “Theorising Ethnicity and Ethnic Communalisations at the Margins: From Quebec to the World System.” Nations and Nationalism 2, no. 1 (March): 45–66. Juteau, Danielle, Marie Mc Andrew, and Linda Pietrantonio. 1998. “Multiculturalism à la Canadian and Intégration à la Québécoise: Transcending Their Limits.” In Blurred Boundaries, edited by Rainer Baubock and John Rundell, 95–110. Avebury: The European Centre. Kanungo, Rabindra Nath. 1984. South Asians in the Canadian Mosaic. Montreal: Kala Bharati.

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Kurian, George, and Ram P. Srivastava. 1983. Overseas Indians: A Study in Adaptation. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Monograph Series. New Delhi: Vikas. Lamb, Sarah. 2012. “The Graying Indian.” India Abroad, September, M2–M3. Levine, Marc V. 2010. The Reconquest of Montreal: Language Policy and Social Change in a Bilingual City. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Linteau, Paul-André, René Durocher, and Jean-Claude Robert. 1983. Quebec: A History, 1867–1929. Translated by Robert Chodos. Toronto: James Lorimer. Linteau, Paul-André, René Durocher, Jean-Claude Robert, and François Ricard. 1989. Histoire du Québec contemporain: Le Québec depuis 1930. Montreal: Boréal. Maclure, Jocelyn, and Charles Taylor. 2010. Laïcité et liberté de conscience. Montreal: Boréal. Mc Andrew, Marie. 2007. “Quebec’s Interculturalism Policy: An Alternative Vision.” In The Art of the State, vol. 3, Belonging? Diversity, Recognition and Shared Citizenship in Canada, edited by Keith Banting, Thomas J. Courchene, and F. Leslie Seidle, 143–54. Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy. – 2011. “The Reasonable Accommodation Controversy in Quebec: Asset or Obstacle to Intercultural Rapprochement?” In The St. Louis Era: Looking Back, Moving Forward, edited by Alain Goldschlager and Ruth Klein, 60–8. Ottawa: National Task Force on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research. Mc Andrew, Marie, and Sébastien Arcand. 2013. “Quebec Immigration, Integration and Interculturalism Policy: A Critical Assessment.” Canadian Diversity 10 (1): 16–21. MC C I (Ministère des Communautés culturelles et de l’Immigration). 1990. Let’s Build Québec Together: A Policy Statement on Immigration and Integration. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec. MI C C (Ministère de l’Immigration et des Communautés culturelles). 2005. Portrait statistique de la population d’origine ethnique sud-asiatique, recensée au Québec en 2001. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec. MI D I (Ministère de l’Immigration, Diversité et Inclusion). 2014. Portraits statistiques: L’immigration permanente au Québec selon les catégories d’immigration et quelques composantes, 2010–2014. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec. – 2015. Together, We Are Québec: Quebec Policy on Immigration, Participation, and Inclusion. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec.

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– 2017. 2012–2016: Portrait de l’immigration permanente au Québec selon les catégories d’immigration. Quebec: MIDI. mySahana.org. 2011. “South Asian Seniors: Factors for Developing Depression.” Last modified 25 May. http://www.mysahana.org/2011/05/ south-asian-seniors-factors-for-developing-depression/. Nayar, Kamala Elizabeth. 2004. The Sikh Diaspora in Vancouver: Three Generations amid Tradition, Modernity, and Multiculturalism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. – 2012. The Punjabis in British Columbia: Location, Labour, First Nations, and Multiculturalism. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Pagé, Michel, and Patricia Lamarre. 2010. La diversité linguistique ­ambiante et l’intégration linguistique des immigrants. Montreal: Institut de recherche en politiques publiques. Plourde, Michel, Hélène Duval, and Pierre Georgeault, eds. 2000. Le ­français au Québec: 400 ans d’histoire et de vie. Montreal: Fides. Potvin, Maryse. 2008. Crise des accommodements raisonnable: Une ­fiction médiatique? Montreal: Athéna Éditions. Quebec. 1977. La Politique québécoise de la langue française au Québec. Éditeur official, Québec (March). http://www.spl.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/ medias/pdf/Politique_ Laurin.pdf. – 1978. A Cultural Development Policy for Quebec. Quebec City: Éditeur officiel du Québec. – 1981. Quebecers Each and Every One: The Government of Quebec’s Plan of Action for Cultural Communities. Quebec City: Éditeur officiel du Québec. – 2017. Quebecers: Our Way of Being Canadian: Policy on Québec Affirmation and Canadian Relations. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec. Rao, Nitya. 2013. “Migration, Mobility and Changing Power Relations: Aspirations and Praxis of Bangladeshi Migrants.” Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 21 (7): 872–87. Richmond, A.H. 1967. Post-war Immigrants in Canada. Toronto: Toronto University Press. Samuel, Edith. 2009. “Acculturative Stress: South Asian Immigrant Women’s Experiences in Canada’s Atlantic Provinces.” Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 7 (1): 16–34. Sarra-Bournet, Michel. 1998. Le pays de tous les Québécois. Montreal: VLB.

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Srinivasan, Ramesh, and Ajit Pyati. 2007. “Diasporic Information Environments: Reframing Immigrant-Focused Information Research.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 58, no. 12 (October): 1734–44. Statistics Canada. 2011. 2011 National Household Survey: Data Tables. https://www12.stat can.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/dt-td/Index-eng.cfm. – 2015. “Visible Minority of Person.” Departmental standard approved 19 October. https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p3Var.pl?Function= DEC&Id=45152. – 2017a. “Quebec [Province] and Canada [Country].” (table). Census Profile, 2016 Census. Catalogue no. 98-316-X2016001. Released 29 November. – 2017b. “Montréal, V [Language], Quebec and Montréal, Quebec.” (table). Census Profile, 2016 Census. Catalogue no. 98-316-X2016001. Released 29 November. https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-­recensement/​ 2016/dp-pd/prof/index.cfm?Lang=E. Sugunasiri, Suwanda H.J., ed. 1988. The Search for Meaning: The Literature of Canadians of South Asian Origin. Revised by Michael S. Batts. Canada: Department of the Secretary of State of Canada, Multiculturalism.

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T o o l b ox 1

The Demographic Portrait Ratna Ghosh, Mehdi Babaei, and Marie Mc Andrew In 2011, 91,400 individuals in Quebec declared themselves as being of South Asian origin, with 76.6% having a single origin and 23.4% with at least one other origin (MIDI 2014). In 2016, this number decreased slightly, to 90,335 South Asians. Although still limited ­compared with other main immigrant groups to Quebec, the presence of South Asians has grown significantly since 2001, when they numbered 62,585 (MICC 2005) and were also less likely to have multiple origins. It should be noted that although Canada held a census in 2016, Statistics Canada has not released data from that census in all categories. Wherever possible, we give the latest available data.

E t hn o c u lt u r a l C h a r ac t e ri s ti cs and Gender A slight majority of South Asians in Quebec originate from India (53.1%), although the presence of other countries of origin is significant (Sri Lanka, 8.8%; Pakistan, 6.1%; and Bangladesh, 3.8%). Gender distribution is also nearly balanced, men outnumbering women by only a small margin (51.9%), and no significant differences exist in gender distribution between national subgroups (MIDI 2014). In addition to their countries of origin, South Asians in Quebec also belong to a variety of ethnocultural or ethnolinguistic groups, including Goan, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Sinhalese, and Tamil. It is worth recalling here, as other chapters in this book elaborate, that ethnicity and language do not necessarily coincide with geographical boundaries in South Asia. Thus, Bengalis can be from Bangladesh or from India, Punjabis from Pakistan or India, and Tamils from India or from Sri Lanka. The 2016 census shows that out of 95,670 immigrants with South Asian origins in Quebec, 51,650

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Table T1.1 South Asian origins in Quebec, 2016 Origins

Women

Men

Total

Bangladeshi Bengali East Indian* Pakistani Punjabi Sri Lankan Tamil

3,220 1,995 19,885 5,845 1,265 7,205 1,455

3,380 1,935 21,815 6,385 1,635 7,000 1,560

6,595 3,925 41,700 12,225 2,895 14,200 3,010

* “East Indian” is the term used by Statistics Canada to refer to people from India, but we find that term problematic. Source: Statistics Canada (2016).

are people from India, 14,750 are Sri Lankan, 13,535 Pakistani, 7,075 Bangladeshi, and 4,125 Bengali (Statistics Canada 2016).

I m m ig r at io n S tat u s a nd Age Structure Table T1.2 indicates that a significant majority of the South Asian population are immigrants or nonpermanent residents and that one-third of them came to Quebec between 1991 and 2000. Nevertheless, 31% are second-generation Canadians (born in Canada, but with at least one parent born abroad) and 3.5% are third-­ generation Canadians (both parents born in Canada) (M I D I 2014). By 2016, of the 71,390 South Asians who were Canadian citizens, 63,795 had Canadian citizenship only, while 7,600 were citizens of Canada and at least one other country (Statistics Canada 2016). The 2016 census reveals that out of the 1,924,635 South Asians living in Canada, 90,335 live in the province of Quebec, of whom 46,750 are male and 43,585 are female (Statistics Canada 2016). With regard to age structure, the South Asian population has a higher proportion of young people than does the general population of Quebec, which is aging. For example, the percentage of people under the age of twenty-five in the total Quebec population is 28.9%, compared with 35.8% of Quebecers from India and 42% of those from Sri Lanka.

F a m ily S tatus As table T1.3 shows, the majority of South Asians are legally married, compared with only 30% of the Quebec population. This rate

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Table T1.2 Immigration status and period of immigration for South Asian population in Quebec Immigration status 2011 Born in Canada Immigrants Nonpermanent residents

2016

Women

Men

Total

Women

Men

Total

15,370 27,175

16,595 28,405

31,970 55,580

15,085 28,495

15,775 30,965

30,865 59,465

1,405

2,445

3,850

2,010

3,690

5,700

Period of immigration Women (%) Men (%) Total (%)

Before 1981

1981–90

1991–2000

2001–05

2006–11

14.7 15.5 15.1

12.7 15.5 14.1

34.3 33.0 33.7

16.7 15.7 16.2

21.6 20.4 21.0

Source: MICC (2014); Statistics Canada (2016).

fluctuates from 55.2% for people originating from India to 71.3% for people originating from Bangladesh, while people from Sri Lanka (62.1%) and Pakistan (58.5%) stand in the middle. More men than women are single in each community, and rates of ­common-law relationships are significantly lower than in the general population (18.5% for the full Quebec population as ­compared with 2.1% for people originating from Sri Lanka). Marital status data collected from 70,650 South Asians living in Quebec (Statistics Canada 2016) for the population aged fifteen and over in private households indicate that a total of 42,990 South Asians were either married (40,330) or living common-law (2,660); the remaining respondents declared that they had never been married (21,635), were divorced (2,260), or were widowed (2,480). Since the names of categories were not consistent in the data tables from Statistics Canada and Quebec, we have included only the data from Statistics Canada (2016) regarding the family status of South Asians.

R e l ig io n In 2010, Hinduism was the most frequently reported religion of South Asians in Quebec, although Islam was close behind, and

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Table T1.3 Marital status of people with South Asian background in Quebec, 2016 Marital status

Women

Men

Total

Married Living common-law Never married Separated Divorced Widowed

19,615 1,240 8,960 800 1,257 2,055

20,715 1,420 12,675 485 985 425

40,330 2,660 21,635 1,285 2,260 2,480

Source: Statistics Canada (2016).

Table T1.4 Religious affiliation of people of South Asian background in Quebec, 2011 Religion

(%)

Hinduism Islam Christian religions Sikhism Buddhism No religious affiliation

34.2 29.9 18.0 10.0 0.9 6.1

Source: MICC (2014).

Christianity was also significantly represented (table T1.4). This overall distribution has not changed since 2001 (M I CC 2010). Even though the relationship between national origin and religion is ­complex in South Asia, Muslims come primarily from Pakistan and Bangladesh, Hindus and Christians are largely from India and Sri Lanka, and Sikhs typically come from India or via East Africa.

L in g u is t ic C h a racteri s ti cs In 2011, the majority of South Asians (70%) reported first languages other than English and French, while 19% had English as their first language. More than half of the population (56%) spoke languages other than English and French at home, while 29% spoke English at home. With regards to the knowledge of official languages, table T1.5 shows that in 2011 almost half of South Asians had knowledge of both French and English whereas 40.4% knew only English. Although knowledge of French among the South Asian population (51.9% in total) is still much lower than the average for the

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Table T1.5 Knowledge of official languages among people of South Asian background in Quebec, 2011 and 2016 Percentage of South Asians with linguistic knowledge

Language(s) French only French and English English only Neither English nor French

2011

2016

5.4 46.9 40.4  7.2

12.3 19.0 61.0  7.0

Source: MICC (2014); Statistics Canada (2016).

immigrant population, it has steadily increased since 2001, when it was only 42% (MI C C 2005). In 2011, the overwhelming majority in each national subgroup had knowledge of English: from 85.6% of people from Pakistan to 88.9% of people from India. Knowledge of French is highest among people from India (56%), compared with those from Pakistan (50.48%) and those from Sri Lanka and from Bangladesh (both 47%). In each group, a significant percentage of people spoke both languages, and the majority of them continued to use a language other than English or French at home. A minority in each of these groups, mostly seniors and women, did not speak either English or French. By 2016, the number of South Asians who knew only French and only English were 11,200 and 55,435, respectively. There were 17,305 individuals who were bilingual (French and English), and 6,390 South Asians spoke neither English nor French (Statistics Canada 2016).

S o c io e c o n o m ic C h aracteri s ti cs Education In 2001, almost half of the province’s South Asian population (49.9%) had as their highest level of education a secondary school certificate/ diploma – almost identical to the general population of Quebec (48.8%) (MI C C 2005). This rate had increased to 51.9% for South Asians by 2006 (MICC 2010) and remained almost the same five years later in 2011 (table T1.6). However, even in 2001 (M I CC 2005) the

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Table T1.6 Level of education among people of South Asian background over fifteen years of age in Quebec, 2011 and 2016, compared with entire Quebec population, 2016 South Asian population

No certificate, diploma, or degree High school or equivalent Apprenticeship or trades College or CEGEP University (below bachelor’s degree) University degree (bachelor’s degree or higher)

Quebec population

2011 (%)

2016 (%)

2016 (%)

22.6 28.7  5.6 13.7  5.6 23.8

23.8 27.7  4.8 14.0 2.25 27.2

13.3 18.5 19.8 19.0  3.8 25.5

Source: MICC (2014); Statistics Canada (2016).

proportion of individuals with a university degree (21.3%) was considerably higher in the South Asian population than in the general Quebec population (14%). By 2006, this proportion had increased to 23.2% for South Asians and to 16.5% for the general Quebec population (MI C C 2010). As indicated in table T1.6, in 2011 the rate had risen again, to 23.8% and 18.6% respectively. More men than women had a university degree, while more women than men had an education level lower than a secondary school certificate. Substantial numbers of people in each of the national subgroups have not attained a high school diploma, and the proportion is always slightly higher than the Quebec average. The same reversed trend is observed for higher education. By 2016, there were 16,885 South Asians reported as holding no certificate, diploma, or degree. Those who had obtained a ­postsecondary degree formed 34,145 of the population. Also, 19,225 South Asians held at least a bachelor’s university degree and higher (including 5,665 with master’s degrees and 935 with doctoral degrees). Notably, people originating from India in ­particular are clearly ahead of other South Asian groups. Labour market characteristics Despite these higher levels of education, the unemployment rate for South Asians (17.3%) in 2001 was much higher than the province’s overall unemployment rate of 8.2% (M I CC 2005). By 2011, the

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South Asian population’s unemployment rate had gone down to 13.8%, compared with the general Quebec unemployment rate of 7.2% (table T1.7). The 2011 South Asian unemployment rate breaks down as follows: 11.4% for people originating from India; 16.1% for those from Pakistan; 18.3% for those from Bangladesh; and 18.6% for those from Sri Lanka. The South Asian population is also characterized by a lowerthan-average labour market participation rate (60.3% vs. 66%). This indicates a significant presence of people who are attending educational institutions, are retired, or are engaged in family duties. This trend is less pronounced among people from India than among other groups (MI D I 2014). Those who are active in the labour ­market work mostly in English, although the proportion of South Asian people working in French has increased (from 12% in 2001 to 17.7% in 2011). Other labour market characteristics are also less positive among South Asians than among the overall Quebec population. In 2001, the average income and median income of South Asians were, respectively, $19,641 and $13,436 (MICC 2005). By 2011, the ­average income had decreased to $18,356, but the median income had increased to $27,133, which indicates that more people had higher incomes (table T1.7). People from India had the highest ­average income ($31,483) – compared with those from Pakistan ($22,949), Sri Lanka ($21,415), and Bangladesh ($19,387) – but it was still lower than that of the general Quebec population ($36,352). Those from India also had the highest median income ($21,307) and people from Bangladesh the lowest ($15,004). By 2016, the employment and unemployment rates were 54.4% and 7.25%, respectively. The average income and median income were $48,015 and $35,849, respectively. Sectors of employment In 2011, the most frequently reported sector of employment for people of South Asian background was sales and services (32%), an increase by almost 10% since 2001 (M I CC 2005; M I D I 2014), which was largely due to the diminishing popularity of jobs in the manufacturing sector. Of South Asians in Quebec, 15% worked in business, finance, and administration, and around 10% in each of the following: manufacturing and public utility services; trades,

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Table T1.7 Labour market characteristics of people of South Asian background in Quebec, 2011 and 2016, compared with entire Quebec population, 2016 South Asian population 2011 Employment rate Unemployment rate Average income Median income

60.3% 13.8% $18,356 $27,133

Quebec population

2016

2016

54.4%

59.5%

7.25% $48,015 $35,849

 7.2% $42,546 $32, 975

Source: MICC (2014); Statistics Canada (2016).

Table T1.8 Sectors of employment of people of South Asian background in Quebec, 2011 and 2016 2011

Sales & services Business, finance, & administration Manufacturing & utilities Trades, transport, & ­equipment operators Management Natural & applied sciences Education, law, & social services

2016

Women (%)

Men (%)

Total (%)

Women (%)

Men (%)

Total (%)

32.1 20.8

32.0 11.1

32.0 15.1

13.4  7.2

19.7  6.1

33.1 13.3

11.7  1.9

 9.6 15.4

10.5  9.9

 5.3  0.7

 5.1 10.0

10.5 10.8

 6.6  4.3 12.8

10.8 11.7  5.4

 9.0  8.7  8.4

 2.5  1.9  4.5

 6.1  7.5  2.8

 8.7  9.5  7.3

Source: MICC (2014); Statistics Canada (2016).

transport, and equipment; and management (table T1.8). A smaller percentage was involved in the health sector as doctors and nurses; in arts, culture, sports, and recreation; and in natural resources and agriculture. As table T1.8 shows, although men and women were equally active in the sales and services sector and almost at par in the manufacturing and public utilities sectors, there was a significant genderbased occupational divide within the South Asian population. The most notable trends are the specific involvement of women in

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business, finance, and administration, and in education, law, and social services, and the overrepresentation of men in sectors linked to management, natural and applied sciences, and – most markedly – in trades, transport, and equipment. A more significant occupational difference, however, exists between subgroups of South Asians based on their countries of origin. While nearly half of people originating from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are occupied in the sales and services sector, this is the case for 35.5% of those from Pakistan and 25.2% of those from India. This latter community presents a more or less balanced presence in different sectors in comparison with other communities. By 2016, a total of 33.1% of the South Asian population in Quebec were employed in sales and services, 13.3% in business, finance, and administration, 10.8% in trades and as transport and equipment operators, and almost the same number (10.5%) in manufacturing and utilities. The number of those employed in managerial occupations increased to 8.7% of this population, while the number employed in occupations related to education, law, and government services decreased to 7.3% (Statistics Canada 2016).

R e f e r e n ces MI C C (Ministère de l’Immigration et des Communautés culturelles). 2005. “Portrait statistique de la population d’origine ethnique sud-asiatique, recensée au Québec en 2001.” Gouvernement du Québec. http://www. quebecinterculturel.gouv.qc.ca/publications/fr/diversite-ethnoculturelle/ com-sud-asiatique.pdf. – 2010. “Portrait statistique de la population d’origine ethnique sud-­ asiatique recensée au Québec en 2006.” Gouvernement du Québec. http://www.­quebecinterculturel.gouv.qc.ca/publications/fr/diversiteethno​­culturelle/com-sud-asiatique-2006.pdf. MI D I (Ministère de l’Immigration, Diversité et Inclusion). 2014. “Portrait statistique de la population d’origine ethnique sud-asiatique au Québec en 2011.” Gouvernement du Québec. http://www.quebecinterculturel. gouv.qc.ca/publications/fr/diversite-ethnoculturelle/com-sud-asiatique2011.pdf. Statistics Canada. 2016. “Data Products, 2016 Census.” Last modified 14 April 2020. https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/ dp-pd/index-eng.cfm.

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2 Ethnoreligious Diversity within the Community Mathieu Boisvert

Even though the South Asian community in Quebec comes from the same region – the Indian subcontinent – and shares a common British colonial past, it is far from monolithic. This community is composed of several collectives, and each of these maintains a distinct identity. A Bengali person, for example, sees himself or herself as distinct from a Pakistani person, even though both are Muslims. The same goes for Sri Lankan Hindus who differentiate themselves from Gujarati Hindus. Nationality is far from being the only distinguishing criterion and at times is not even considered a difference at all: Sikhs from Pakistan and Sikhs from India are generally considered a single community when it comes to immigration. The main goal of this chapter is to describe this diversity within Quebec’s South Asian population and, more particularly, to bring to light the various referents that make up identity. To do this, I will first define what I mean by identity and, more precisely, by ethnoreligious identity.1 I can then look at both of the components that inform its expression: namely, ethnic identity and religious identity. Most of the examples I use to define the concept of ethnoreligious identity are drawn from cultures directly rooted in South Asia. I apply this notion to particular cases in the Quebec region in order to concretely assess how these multiple ethnoreligious identities are enacted. Our focus will be on certain particular situations, such as the family model, that call for adaptation in the new environment. Identity is conceived in relation to the “other.” We define ourselves in opposition to the other, whether this “other” is individual or

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collective (Bastenier 2004). Identity develops, then, in a bidirectional manner: our self-perception contributes to it, but the perception that others have of us also plays a significant role. As such, a sense of identity may emerge either from within or from beyond (Juteau 1999). Quebecers of Sri Lankan origin who speak Tamil and practise Hinduism generally see themselves as Tamil, while members of the host society in Quebec tend to ignore such subtleties in the South Asian community, perceiving the whole group as “Indian” – a relatively vague term. This external conception of the Sri Lankan community affects their relationship with the host society. If a Tamil Sri Lankan, for example, meets a person he suspects is unfamiliar with Sri Lanka, he will likely present himself as “Indian.” But if he is speaking with an Indian, he will doubtless define himself not only as Tamil but probably as Sri Lankan as well. If he introduces himself to a Tamil Sri Lankan compatriot, his specific home region – Jaffna, Trincomalee – will be the main emphasis (Saint-Mézard 2013). Identity comprises numerous referents, and from one moment to the next an individual may emphasize some of these referents more than others. While at certain times nationality may be salient, at other times professional association, religious denomination, or political orientations are favoured (Beyer 2006).

R e l ig io u s Id enti ty Religious identity is based on its own system of meaning. Religion is, first of all, a system that allows the individual to make sense of her existence. Confronted with life – which inevitably leads to death – and the fundamental questions that arise from life, an individual must, whether consciously or not, address these questions. Out of this process, a world view is constructed: a system of meaning that helps to legitimize and justify the unpredictability of life and our daily actions within it. Our perception of the world we inhabit determines our relationship with that world and governs our way of being in relation to ourselves, our family, our neighbours, and our society. Religion, then, more than simply a system of meanings, becomes a system of practices. These daily and often insignificant practices come to form who we are, how we perceive ourselves. This includes not just religious practices in themselves – the different daily rituals, such as prayer or votive offerings to divinities, or rites of passage

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– but, more importantly, everyday social interactions and the relational hierarchies that they reveal (Jackson 2013). Every culture observes certain rites of passage, and these are generally determined by the prevailing religious traditions. Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Christianity are all deeply rooted in the South Asian territory and also present in Quebec, and they all have their own traditional rites of passage. Of these traditions, marriage and funeral rites are probably the most important. In the majority of South Asian religions, a wedding not only represents the formal union, and societal recognition, of a woman and a man but is also the introduction of a newcomer, the bride, into the family unit of the groom. The extended family is a central structure of traditional South Asian culture as a whole. This structure depends on a system of meaning, and a set of practices is continuously enacted to shape and inform this familial structure. Rites of passage are primarily intended to mark and facilitate a person’s transition from one status to another. For men, marriage marks a passage from the status of bachelor to that of husband. This is a highly important status in South Asia, and thus it is rare that a man chooses to remain unmarried (Fraser 2016). Funeral rites are equally rites of passage in the sense that, socially speaking, their function is to facilitate the passage of the surviving loved ones toward a new state of being in which someone they loved is now absent. Just as with marriage, funeral rites are enacted differently depending on the particular religious tradition. It is important to note that Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists generally cremate remains in open air, following the regional norms in their home countries, but it is necessary to modify this ritual on Quebec soil. Muslims and Christians, for their part, bury remains on consecrated sites. Inevitably, these rites of passage are family and community events. They may be distinct from one tradition to the next, but all are marked by a certain intensity. Such traditions directly contribute to the collective identity of the group that adheres to them. Other activities happen monthly or annually and depend on a very precise calendar. A devotee’s sense of the delimitation of time is rooted in religious practice. As a case in point, the New Year is traditionally marked at a distinct moment in time, always on the same date in the calendar of a given religion but not necessarily falling on the same date in the Gregorian calendar. For Muslims, the New Year coincides with the celebration of Muharram; for certain Hindus, with Diwali; and for Sikhs, with Vaisakhi. While Muharram may

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occur at any time of the year (summer, winter, monsoon season), Diwali and Vaisakhi occur consistently in October/November and April/May, respectively. These special times of year contribute to the collective identity of the group who recognizes them: many days of preparation and celebrations precede and follow the New Year’s date, all of which bring together family and community. In India, for instance, the period of Diwali is marked by a long break from school in the middle of the academic year; several different religious groups also celebrate the New Year at their own times and each “New Year” is characterized by family reunions and celebrations of all sorts. Inevitably, these festival times, charged with meaning and significance, are formative for the members of a given community. The same is true for Quebecers of South Asian origin and their communities. Apart from the New Year, many other recurring festivals punctuate the calendar year. The last day of the lunar month of Ramadan, which marks the end of a month-long fast, is marked by the gathering of the entire Muslim community for large public celebrations in the streets of the city or village. In countries where the majority are Buddhist, such as Sri Lanka and Myanmar, the day that marks the birth, the illumination, and the death of the Buddha sees jubilant public celebrations and the convergence of local people at monasteries to offer new robes and elaborate meals to the monks and nuns. Taken together, these events are rituals in an official sense, but they exceed the boundaries of the uniquely religious sphere; they have an acute effect on the way devotees come to understand themselves and their community. Monthly and annual festivals, the rites of passage, and the family celebrations that religion inspires – even if religion itself is often overlooked in the events themselves – come to structure the collective and individual identity (Khab 2005). Many religions carry certain dietary prescriptions, which are more or less strictly obeyed depending on one’s degree of devotion to the faith. Muslims, for example, are required to eat food that is certified ḥalāl by a recognized religious authority. Ḥalāl certification indicates meat from an animal that was slaughtered according to strict regulations and excludes all pork products. Hindus and Sikhs (at least those of the classes and castes considered superior) who define themselves as orthodox are generally vegetarians or avoid consuming beef. Buddhists and Christians have relatively flexible dietary guidelines but may elect to fast during particular periods (Lent, or ancestors’

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day [pitṛ]), whereas in Islam there is a full month (Ramadan) during which devotees must fast during daylight hours. For Hindus, individuals (and particularly women) must fast several times throughout the year to assure prosperity for their family (and longevity for their husband). Buddhism, Islam, and Sikhism prohibit alcohol. At the outset of this chapter, I stated that South Asian identity is varied; this is also true of each of the religious identities on the subcontinent. The South Asian Muslim community – or even the Bengali, Pakistani, Indian, or Sri Lankan Muslim community – is not unified but rather characterized by multiple allegiances within the groups: Sunni, Shi’ite, Isma’ili, Sufi, and so on. This is similarly the case with Hinduism, within which we find individuals with a particular devotion to one divinity over another and claiming membership in numerous sects of various ages. Nor are Buddhism and Christianity exempt from this kind of diversity. Still, above and beyond these sectarian differences, each family, and each individual member of a religious community, retains a unique way of living in that faith. Notably, for some people, their religion is no more than a single reference point of their identity. One can call oneself “Hindu” or “Muslim” without the religion necessarily having much impact on daily life, just as certain “Catholic Quebecois” are admittedly “nonpractising.” However individuals may group themselves, they remain individuals and are distinct from one another within the collective. Within a single religious community some members may be more or less devout than others, more or less adherent to the practice of the religion. Nevertheless, even if an individual lacks depth of faith, regardless of the consistency of their practice – daily, monthly, annually, or only for special occasions – religion may remain a very important referent in that person’s identity.

E t h n ic Id e nti ty Ethnic identity is acquired. As Danielle Juteau (1999) affirms, we are not born ethnic but become it, and the learning process of this ethnicity happens via the smallest acts of daily life. We learn to eat a certain way (with our hands, with a fork), to go to the toilet (sitting, crouching), to wash ourselves, to dress (in pants, dress, lungi or dhoti, sari, salwaar kameez), to move, and to relate to others in ways that conform to our culture. Other elements, too, contribute to a feeling of membership or belonging in a collective; in particular, the language;

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the history, real or imagined, of the group in question; the migratory history; the folklore (e.g., music, dance, and literature); culinary customs (e.g., the ways foods are prepared); dress customs (e.g., the way a sari is tied); the home country; and the close networks, such as the family. In sum, these elements, or certain among them, make up the internal and external sense of caste/ethnic distinction. Thus are the boundaries – often contradictory – established by the self and the outside world to differentiate the group in question. Let us consider language as an example. More than forty languages are present on the South Asian subcontinent. The states of India alone recognize twenty-two; the number rises sharply if we include the vast linguistic diversity of Nepal, the two languages of Sri Lanka (Sinhalese and Tamil), the two official languages of Pakistan (Urdu and English), the multiple local languages (such as Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Baluchi, Kashmiri, Brahui, and Shina), and the twenty or so languages present in Bhutan. All of these languages can be divided among the three following linguistic families: Indo-European, which includes the majority of languages of the North of the subcontinent, including Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, and Bengali; Dravidian, which includes the group of  languages of the South of the subcontinent, including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, and Telugu but not Sinhalese; and TibetoBurman, which includes the languages spoken in the Himalaya region and the Northeast of the subcontinent. It is interesting to note that French and English, both of which belong to the Indo-European family, share more similarity with Urdu and Hindi than these last two languages share with Tamil or other Dravidian languages. All of the above highlights the enormous linguistic diversity present within the South Asian territory. Speakers of a particular language naturally have a tendency to associate with one another on a regular basis, which reinforces a sense of membership in the linguistic group. But, as mentioned above, language is not the sole referent at play in ethnic identity (Oakes and Warren 2007; Vertovec 2007). A given group’s shared history is, of course, also highly important. Each of the different linguistic and religious communities that exist in the South Asian territory has its own history. And whether it is real or imagined, this history contributes to the forging of a sense of belonging within a given group. For example, two distinct communities present in Quebec are Nepalese-speaking Hindus and Tamil-speaking Hindus. The first group comprises people of two distinct neighbouring countries in the North of South Asia: Nepal and Bhutan. In 1992,

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the Bhutanese Hindus were chased from their country following the governmental policy of One Nation, One people and in line with the nationalist notion of Gross National Happiness.2 These people were then accepted into refugee camps in Nepal that would ultimately be overseen by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Since 2008, Canada has accepted nearly five thousand of these refugees, and one thousand of them settled in Quebec.3 The relatively few Nepalese-speaking Hindus from Nepal who came to Canada came for more positive reasons. This group’s immigration to Canada was a matter of choice, and this was possible essentially because of their favourable financial situation. Even though these two groups speak the same language and share a common religion – with certain nuances between the groups, of course – they each have a distinct history, and because of this, each has its particular identity. The refugee group were forced against their will to leave their home country of Bhutan, leaving behind their homes and ancestral territory as well as numerous family members who were either resettled elsewhere or killed in the process that led to their exile (Banki and Phillips 2014). The Tamil-speaking Hindus present in Canada, and in Quebec, share a distinction similar to that of the Nepalese-speaking Hindus. Tamils came to Canada from two different countries: India and Sri Lanka. Those from India lived in the province of Tamil Nadu, in the South of the country, for many centuries, perhaps millennia. Tamils from Sri Lanka are themselves divided into two subgroups: those established in Sri Lanka since the Common Era – the majority subgroup, established mainly along the northern and eastern coastline of the country – and those whom the colonial powers, essentially British, introduced to Sri Lanka from India in the nineteenth century to work on the tea plantations in the centre of the country, in the heart of the high mountains of Sri Lanka. Victims of a civil war that began in 1980 and lasted almost thirty years, several hundred thousand Sri Lankan Tamils were forced to flee their country. Canada accepted the highest number of these Tamil refugees. The majority of the Indian Tamils now in Canada also came to the country as refugees, following the assassination of Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and the Indian army’s violent repression in Tamil Nadu. The Indian Tamils and the Sri Lankan Tamils each have a distinct history, speak different dialects of the Tamil language, and have artistic traditions that are unique to them. The civil war that marked the recent history of Sri Lanka contributes substantially to the identity of the Sri Lankan

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Tamils in Quebec (Boisvert 2012). Many of these people have lost members of their family as a result of the ethnoreligious confrontation between Buddhists and Hindus. The South Asian Muslim community in Quebec is equally fragmented. A minority of this community comes from Sri Lanka. They generally speak Tamil and they do not consider themselves of the same Tamil identity as that of Sri Lankan Hindus. As in many Muslim countries, the process of Arabization minimizes the local culture, emphasizing a transnational culture based in Arabic influence (Naipaul 1998). Other South Asian Muslims – also a minority but more numerous than those of Sri Lankan origin – are of Indian background. The vast majority of Muslims from South Asia come from Bangladesh and Pakistan. These Muslims may all share a common component of their identity – religion – but both communities see themselves as distinct from the other given the differing referents of their national history. India and Pakistan (East and West) were created in 1947 when the British left South Asia. Pakistan was divided at this time into two distinct regions, themselves separated by almost 1,800 kilometres of Indian territory. Eastern Pakistan demanded independence. In 1971 a civil war was ignited, resulting in nearly thirty million people displaced and ten million refugees. India came to the aid of its eastern neighbour in order to diminish the power of its enemy to the west. From 1947 on, relations between India and Pakistan were extremely tense; three wars had already taken place. East Pakistan obtained independence in 1971, which resulted in the establishment of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Though the vast majority of Bangladeshis and Pakistanis are Muslims, they both have a distinct language (Bengali for the first, and Urdu for the latter). The struggle for Bangladeshi independence of 1971 still has a strong incidence in the identity construction of these two communities (Bhardwaj 2011). Identity is also produced in relation with, and in opposition to, the other. Certain contemporary events, such as the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, the explosion of Air India Flight 182 between Vancouver and New Delhi in 1985, the attacks of 11 September 2001, and the attack on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in October 2014, have contributed to the stigmatization of South Asian communities based on their religion, particularly the Muslim community. Other minority communities in North America also experience this kind of stigmatization. Because they are perceived as “different” and associated with

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Islam, many Sikhs and Hindus in Montreal were accused of being “terrorists” following the events of 11 September. This projection of a particular image onto a specific group by an outside, “other” group represents an externally imposed distinction. This external distinction then contributes directly to the identity that a given group constructs for itself. Many members of Muslim groups – and by extension, but to a lesser extent, Sikhs and Hindus – withdrew into their own ranks as they were socially rejected. The sense of being different, of being the other, was reinforced.

M o n t r e a l’ s P l ac e s of Wors hi p In Montreal’s South Asian places of worship – whether they be Hindu mandirs, gurdwaras, or mosques – one gets a true sense of the ethnoreligious identity of the practitioners and the expression of that identity in daily life as a minority population. The first Hindu temple in Quebec was installed by the ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), more commonly known as Hare Krishnas, in an old church on boulevard Pie IX in Montreal. At that time, in the early 1980s, Montreal’s South Asian Hindu community was quite small; the temple was shared by neo-Hindus, who had converted to the Hare Krishna movement, and newly arrived Hindus, who did not necessarily belong to the Hare Krishnas. A few years later, once the size of the South Asian Hindu population permitted, the Hindu Mission of Canada was built on rue de Bellechasse. This first Hindu temple erected by and for South Asian Hindus necessarily brought together different linguistic groups: Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali, Hindi, and, later, Tamil. As time went on and each of the linguistic groups increased in size and reached a critical mass, distinct temples were built that would answer to the more specific ritual, ethnic, and linguistic needs of each of the particular communities. First, the Hindu Mandir was built in Dollarddes-Ormeaux for the Hindi-speaking community in 1991, and then the Sree Ramji Mandhata temple, on rue Durocher, was built in 2006 for the Gujarati-speaking congregation. In the same way, after the civil war in Sri Lanka and the influx of Hindu refugees from that region, three Sri Lankan Hindu temples were erected in Montreal where all activities would be conducted in Tamil. Montreal’s Hindu temples gradually diversified over time as the number of individuals belonging to a particular religious group became sufficient to finance and justify the existence of a dedicated place of worship for them.

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The Hindu Mission on rue de Bellechasse in Montreal still maintains a more inclusive orientation. Most of the Nepalo-Bhutanese refugees were resettled in Quebec’s outlying areas – Joliette, Sherbrooke, Saint-Jérôme, and Quebec City – and still do not have Hindu temples in their new home cities. For this reason, the small Hindu community in Saint-Jérôme negotiated a special arrangement to attend services at the Hindu Mission in Montreal once a month. There is usually only one Brahman priest there, and he officiates in Hindi; however, when the Nepalo-Bhutanese group are there, someone from their own community delivers the service and oversees the various rituals that take place. The mosques in the Greater Montreal region, by contrast, represent a very different dynamic. They cannot be grouped according to any particular national or ethnic origin. This is probably because of the phenomenon of Arabization that V.S. Naipaul (1998) alludes to in his book Beyond Belief.4 It is important to note, however, that Muslim places of worship are divided based on religious allegiances themselves, whether Shi’ite, Sunni, Ismaili, or Sufi. Therefore, certain of these places of worship will tend to welcome, without being exclusive, a North African or South Asian population – these being generally more French speaking or more English speaking, respectively, owing to their colonial past. With this in mind, the sermon itself is usually delivered in Arabic, the language of the Qu’ran (Rousseau 1999). Numerous South Asian people are of the Christian faith, both Catholic and Protestant. Only one Christian church in Montreal serves an exclusively South Asian congregation. The Notre-Damede-la-Délivrance, a Catholic Church on boulevard Marcel-Laurin in Saint-Laurent (a borough north of Montreal), serves an exclusively Sri Lankan Tamil congregation, which numbers approximately two thousand people (see Toolbox 1). The entire liturgy is given in Tamil and the devotional intensity here is of a different order than one finds in Catholic churches frequented by Montreal’s established Quebecois population. The midnight mass held on Christmas Day, for example, is particularly interesting; the figures of the baby Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the wise men are all of a darker skin colour than one sees in traditional churches in Quebec.

E x t e n d e d F ami ly The extended family unit is the most common familial model in traditional South Asian culture. In that context, an “extended family” is a

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tightly cohesive social group that unites parents, their children, wives of the children, and their offspring, as well as other sets of p ­ arents (Opler 1950). In traditional Hindu society, the family and the management of the family are structured mainly by three dictates governing the members of the varṇa class and the jāti caste: endogamy, commensalism, and professional exclusivity.5 Endogamy requires that one marry a member of the same class and caste; commensalism dictates eating only food that has been prepared by a member of the same class or of a higher class; and professional exclusivity requires that the son takes on the same profession as his father (Boisvert 2014). Nevertheless, as Louis Dumont (1966) states, each of these dictates is more flexible than one might expect. The notion of āpaddharma permits (mostly in the case of professional exclusivity, but also in a more general way for each of the regulations) contravention of one of these rules if it imperils the functionality of the extended family or other wider circles such as the class, caste, or home community of the individual (Boisvert 2013). Bearing in mind this flexibility, the degree of orthodoxy of an individual or of a group can be evaluated based on their adherence to these dictates. A more liberal interpretation of the rules of endogamy, commensalism, and professional exclusivity would predict either the application of a similarly liberal interpretation of the other norms embedded in the Hindu social structure or a conflictual situation (Boisvert 2010). As a case in point, what options are available to a family, within the orthodox Hindu structure, in the event that a man wished to marry a woman of a lower class? The parents could either renounce their son or justify the departure from the norm with a looser interpretation of the dictates. The latter option inevitably brings with it other tensions with regard to applying social dictates; in the case where the new wife joins the husband’s family household, the other members of the extended family might not agree to eat the food that she prepares. The members of the family would then be obligated to reinterpret, to question the cultural axioms which inform their construction of their identity (Boisvert 2010). The extended family may be the model generally accepted as definitive of the Indian family, yet as early as 1952 the Indian government, following an analysis of its 1951 census, found that the extended family model was as much in decline in the villages as in the cities (Derrett 1960; Säävälä 1999; Schlesinger 1961). This observation is reiterated by anthropologists and sociologists who have done more recent fieldwork in the Indian territory. For example, Chris Wilson

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and Tim Dyson (1992, 35) state that “such factors as new external cultural models, population growth, and the increasing intrusion of market forces have played major and, on balance, disruptive roles. Some aspects of traditional family forms have proven remarkably resilient … But in general the trend has been towards separating out (and making more vulnerable) individual families and households – that is, towards smaller and simpler forms.” These authors add that the power of new (essentially occidental) behaviour models should not be underestimated in leading to the decline of the extended family (37). Lita Domingo and Elizabeth King (1992, 107) point out that the societal transition is from the extended family model to a model that offers the couple more autonomy and resources for a life independent of the traditional family structure. As we can gather, these societal changes in the South Asian region directly affect the financial support available to seniors, and this is exacerbated by the fact that South Asian countries do not have staterun social programs in place to ensure the well-being of the aging population. Such social programs could replace the older model where the oldest son, or all the sons together, were responsible for the financial, physical, and moral care of their aging parents. The fact that sons no longer have to live with their parents after marriage does not necessarily mean that they are released from the moral and financial obligation to care for them. Nevertheless, as the research of Anitha Bhat and Raj Dhruvarajan (2001, 621) demonstrates, the nuclear family structure often has a concrete impact on the wellbeing of the parents following the departure of their male offspring: “The traditional sense of duty and obligation of the younger generation towards the older generation is being eroded (Sharma 1996). The older generation is caught between the decline in traditional values on the one hand and the absence of an adequate social security system, on the other.” Indian society as a whole is still quite traditional in rural areas but is remarkably transformed in a more urban and educated context. In fact, a general correlation can be found between the level of education (obtained in “modern” schools and universities, not in the confessional-type schools such as the gūrukūl and the madrasa) and the gradual decline of the degree of adherence to traditional cultural and religious values. It is not unusual to find a deep divide between the values of a highly educated person – often characterized by modernity and, in an occidental context, postmodernity – and those of their parents who did not experience education in the modern context.

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In immigrant situations, the transformations in familial structure are even more profound. Young people who were born in Canada, or who immigrated when they were very young, and have attended Francophone or Anglophone schools have for the most part integrated into Canadian society. These youth often function with two distinct value systems, without perceiving them as being in opposition to each other: one that manages behaviour at home, and the other for behaviour outside of the family sphere (Halsouet 2015). So the choice of a boyfriend or girlfriend may be influenced by parents, but sons and daughters are more and more apt to prioritize their own opinion regarding the direction of their lives (Bakhshaei 2013; Halsouet 2015). In addition, according to observations arising from our own fieldwork research under the framework of G R I M E R (Groupe de recherche interdisciplinaire sur le Montréal ethno-­ religieux, or Interdisciplinary Research Group on Ethnoreligious Montreal), young married couples of South Asian origin rarely join the household of their parents. It is true that the traditional extended family structure is still present among South Asians in Montreal (Bakhshaei 2013), but it is definitely in decline in favour of the nuclear family model. The Government of Canada recognizes this change in traditional practices in Canada, for example, in reference to the Gujarati community: Although the concept of family that many Gujaratis still hold to emotionally is the multigenerational joint family, it is generally impractical to try to set up such a family in Canada. Even in ­rapidly urbanizing India, the joint family, defined by a common residence, common property, and a common purse, is fast disappearing. In both India and Canada, however, the emotional ties and strong bonding between brothers, cousins, and grandparents keep alive the idea of the extended family in which cousins are often introduced as brothers or sisters. (Multicultural Canada 2016) As Sikata Banerjee and Harold Coward (2005, 46) assert, the Hindu identity is multifaceted in Canada, and it is expressed in various ways: “The multiple and complex expressions of lived Hindu experiences in Canada reveal the fluidity of identity.” They further state that the children of parents who immigrated must necessarily negotiate their new identity with the host society. This negotiation may engender different forms and in many cases must

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force compromises between the preferences of each of the respective cultures: “Children of first-generation Hindu Canadians have had to learn the skills of negotiating between cultures, and at times this negotiation has created conflict with their parents” (47). This negotiation inevitably redefines the expectations around marriage, the choice of a partner, the location of the couple’s home, and the care of parents as they age. It is presumptuous to speculate on the future of a member of a South Asian family born here in Canada. This person may marry a South Asian from the same religious background, from the same class and caste, and go on to take care of his or her parents; he or she may just as well marry a person from a different community, establish a household in another province or country, and not necessarily have parents come to live in the new household. I also know of some Hindu women, married and living in Quebec, who have taken in their own parents (not just those of the husband).

C o n c l u s ion We have seen that people of South Asian origin on Canadian soil express their identity in different ways, calling up referents that can be quite different from one group to another. Even though the national, ethnic, and religious referents may be important, other elements have a profound impact on the identity of different South Asian groups, including linguistic and historic referents. Also important are the reasons that motivated the departure from the country of origin, reasons that profoundly inform the migratory history of a given group and that cannot be separated from the collective and individual identity of each member. We have also described how religious identity presents itself differently depending on the individual’s adherence to tradition. For some, this identity is just one point of reference; for others, the membership in their religion is the most deeply defining element of their identity. All of the above is, of course, applicable to the identity as it was experienced in the country of origin. However, the transition and the adaptation to the new cultural context of the host country impacts on the expression of identity not only for the newcomers themselves but even more so for their children and their grandchildren. Moreover, the discussion of South Asian family models illustrates the fact that these social structures are in metamorphosis both

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in the country of origin and, to an even greater extent, in Canada and in Quebec. The same is true of the ethnoreligious identity, which presents in many different ways even within a single group, interweaving numerous referents within it. And though members of the first generation of newcomers sometimes wish that their children would acquire the values of their elders, these children born in Quebec do not always share the same values system as their parents. The second and third generations, whether or not they still selfidentify as South Asians, generally adhere more to the values system of the host society than to that of their parents or grandparents. For them, the South Asian identity is more of a reference identity than a membership identity. As seen in Toolbox 1 in 2016, 69 per cent of the population of South Asian origin living in Montreal are first-generation arrivals. If we reflect upon the waves of Greek and Italian immigration to the city between 1940 and 1960, we note that few of these newcomers spoke English or French. They established themselves in certain neighbourhoods, such as Park Extension and Little Italy. After more than two generations, the descendants of these newcomers may still speak the language of their ancestors, but they are Anglophones and Francophones more than anything else – often mastering both of the country’s official languages – and it would be difficult to distinguish them from “other” Quebecois simply by the way they speak. After all, is language not a key vehicle of cultural transmission? Moreover, the majority of these people no longer live where their parents or grandparents originally settled. They have moved on to choose their own home neighbourhoods – income permitting – which are not characterized by the predominance of any particular ethnoreligious group. We must remind ourselves that this normal process of integration takes place over a few generations and that the descendants of newcomers of South Asian origin will inevitably follow the same pattern.

Not e s   1 The notion of ethnoreligious identity, introduced by Frédéric Castel, was the cornerstone of the Research Group on Ethno-Religious Montreal, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Rousseau and Castel 2005). The research conclusions of the

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project were published under the title Le Québec après Bouchard-Taylor (2012).   2 Gross National Happiness (G N H) is a concept that promises, among other things, the preservation of a single, monolithic Bhutanese culture, even though more than twenty cultures coexist in the nation. The government adopted its G N H policy at the beginning of the 1990s though it was integrated into the constitution only in 2008. The Nepalese-speaking Hindu culture, shared by nearly 15 per cent of the Bhutanese population, was directly targeted in 1991 by this policy since it was considered threatening to Bhutan’s majority.   3 For more information about Bhutanese and Nepalese refugees, please see chapter 8.   4 Naipaul’s earlier book Among the Believers (1981) related his experiences of extensive research in four Muslim countries – Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, and Malaysia. In Beyond Belief the author returns to these countries and revisits the subjects of his previous investigation. He remarks that in these four countries, the local cultures are less present than he had initially observed; that the official history of each country, emphasized by the state, concentrates more on the periods following the establishment of Islam in the country; and that the usage of Arabic has grown to the detriment of local vernacular languages.  5 The varṇa class and the jāti caste are two social taxonomies, each of which is based on different criteria. The term varṇa refers to the four classes described by one of the cosmogonic myths of the Veda; this social division is based on the notion of pure versus impure. Categorization in the jāti is, by contrast, defined by profession; the jāti is a type of professional organization uniting the members of a trade from a given region. The members of a jāti are all of the same varṇa.

R e f e r e nce s Bakhshaei, Mahsa. 2013. “L’expérience socioscolaire d’élèves montréalais originaires de l’Asie du Sud: Dynamiques familiales, communautaires et systémiques.” PhD diss., Université de Montréal. Banerjee, Sikata, and Harold Coward. 2005. “Hindus in Canada: Negotiating Identity in a ‘Different’ Homeland.” In Religion and Ethnicity in Canada, edited by Paul Bramadat and David Seljak, 30–51. Toronto: Pearson Longman. Banki, Susan, and Nicole Phillips. 2014. “‘We Are the Victims of the Separation’: A Report on Bhutanese Refugees Remaining in Nepal.” University of Sydney, May.

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Bastenier, Albert. 2004. Qu’est-ce qu’une société ethnique? Ethnicité et racisme dans les sociétés européennes de l’immigration. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Bates, Karine, Mathieu Boisvert, Serge Granger, and Christophe Jaffrelot, eds. 2013. Les Dix avatars de l’Inde: comprendre l’Inde contemporaine sous tous ses aspects. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Beyer, Peter. 2006. Religions in Global Society. London: Routledge. Bhardwaj, Sanjay K. 2011. “Contesting Identities in Bangladesh: A Study of Secular and Religious Frontiers.” Working Paper 36, Asia Research Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science. Bhat, Anitha K., and Raj Dhruvarajan. 2001. “Ageing in India: Drifting Intergenerational Relations, Challenges and Options.” Ageing and Society 21 (5): 621–40. Boisvert, Mathieu. 2010. “Facteurs contribuant à l’identité du prêtre de pèlerinage de Prayāga.” Studies in Religion 39 (1): 57–75. – 2012. “‘Religion et culture, pour moi c’est pareil’: Le temple hindou tamoul montréalais; une institution culturelle.” In Le Québec après Bouchard-Taylor: Les identités religieuses de l’immigration, edited by Louis Rousseau, 153–95. Quebec City: Presses de l’Université du Québec. – 2013. “L’Hindouisme contemporain.” In Les Dix avatars de l’Inde: Comprendre l’Inde contemporaine sous tous ses aspects, edited by Karine Bates, Mathieu Boisvert, Serge Granger, and Christophe Jaffrelot, 307–18. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. – 2014. Comprendre l’Inde. Montreal: Ulysse. Derrett, J. Duncan M. 1960. “Law and the Predicament of the Hindu Joint Family.” Economic Weekly 12, no. 7 (February): 305–11. Domingo, Lita, and Elizabeth King. 1992. “The Role of the Family in the Process of Entry to Marriage in Asia.” In Family Systems and Cultural Change, edited by Elza Berquó and Peter Xenos, 87–108. Oxford: Clarendon. Dumont, Louis. 1966. Homo hierarchicus: Le système de castes et ses implications. Paris: Gallimard. Fraser, James W. 2016. Between Church and State: Religion and Public Education in a Multicultural America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Granger, Serge, Karine Bates, Mathieu Boisvert, and Christophe Jaffrelot, eds. 2013. L’Inde et ses avatars: Pluralités d’une puissance. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal.

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Halsouet, Béatrice. 2015. “La double socialisation des jeunes filles ‘népalaises’ entre famille hindoue et école québécoise en région.” PhD diss., Université du Québec à Montréal. India Census Commissioner. 1953. Census of India. Vol. 1. Delhi: Government of India Press. Jackson, Robert. 2013. Rethinking Religious Education and Plurality: Issues in Diversity and Pedagogy. London: Routledge. Juteau, Danielle. 1999. L’ethnicité et ses frontières. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Kakar, Sudhir. 1985. Moksha: Le Monde intérieur, enfance et société en Inde. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Khab, Dominique-Sila. 2005. Crossing the Threshold: Understanding Religious Identities in South Asia. London: I.B. Tauris/Institute of Ismaili Studies. Lobo, Lancy. 1992. “Household and Family among Thakors in a North Gujarat Village.” Sociological Bulletin 41, no. 1–2 (March–September): 49–66. Multicultural Canada. 2016. “Gujaratis.” Accessed 10 September 2016. http://www.multiculturalcanada.ca/ecp/content/gujaratis.html. UR L no longer active. Naipaul, V.S. 1981. Among the Believers. London: André Deutsch. – 1998. Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples. New York: Vintage Books. Oakes, Leigh, and Jane Warren. 2007. Language, Citizenship and Identity in Quebec. New York: Springer. Opler, Morris E. 1950. Village Life in North India. Chicago: Delphian Society. Rousseau, Louis, ed. 1999. Le Québec après Bouchard-Taylor: Les ­identités religieuses de l’immigration. Quebec City: Presses de l’Université du Québec. Rousseau, Louis, and Frédéric Castel. 2005. “Un défi de la recomposition identitaire au Québec: Le pluralisme religieux.” Cahiers de recherche du GR I M ER, no. 1, Montréal: Université du Québec à Montréal. Säävälä, Minna. 1998. “The Hindu Joint Family: Past and Present.” In International Symposium on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of India’s Independance: Changing Patterns of Family and Kinship in South Asia, edited by Finnish Oriental Society. Helsinki: Helsinki University. Schlesinger, Ben. 1961. “The Changing Patterns in Hindu Joint Family System of India.” Marriage and Family Living 23, no. 2 (May): 170–5.

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Sharma, Dinesh. 1996. “Child Care, Family and Culture: Lessons from India.” Unpublished PhD diss., Harvard University. Stork, Hélène. 1986. Enfances indiennes: Étude de psychologie transculturelle et comparée du jeune enfant. Paris: Paidos/Le Centurion. Saint-Mézard, Isabelle. 2013. “L’Inde en Asie du Sud.” In L’Inde et ses ­avatars: Pluralités d’une puissance, edited by Serge Granger, Karine Bates, Mathieu Boisvert, and Christophe Jaffrelot, 383–97. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Vertovec, Steven. 2007. “Super-Diversity and Its Implications.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6): 1024–54. Wilson, Chris, and Tim Dyson. 1992. “Family Systems and Cultural Change: Perspectives from Past and Present.” In Family Systems and Cultural Change, edited by Elza Berquó and Peter Xenos, 31–46. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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3 South Asian Associative Network in Quebec Anna Maria Fiore The general objective of this chapter is to document the formation of the South Asian community’s social capital in Quebec through the development of community-based organizations. “Social capital” refers to “the set of resources that inhere in relationships of trust and cooperation between and among people” (Warren, Thompson, and Saegert 2001, 1). In general, communities with a high level of social capital are more cohesive, vibrant, and prosperous. However, some forms of social capital can be highly exclusionary and even contrary to community well-being and public good, which is known as the “dark side” of social capital (Putnam 2007). Therefore, it is important to carefully examine its actual outcome. Researchers have defined three types of social capital: bonding, bridging, and linking (Putnam 2000; Woolcock 1998). “Bonding social capital” refers to a network that links together individuals, families, clans, ethnic groups, or communities; these attachments can be particularly useful in providing resources, influence, trust, reciprocity, and power. “Bridging social capital” refers to the creation of social links in an open network involving individuals of different social and ethnic groups or communities; this category of social capital creates bridges between individuals or groups from various backgrounds, fostering access to a wider range of social and economic resources. “Linking social capital” creates social links between individuals or community-based organizations and mainstream economic and political public institutions; these ties create a

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synergy, that is, a cooperative relationship fostering positive community development outcomes. Jean Lock Kunz (2005) and Peter S. Li (2004) underline the utility of applying the study of social capital to immigrant groups. Their comments have oriented the present research on South Asian community-based organizations. In this chapter, these organizations will be analyzed focusing on the category of social capital that they produce through time. I also illustrate how the social capital produced by such associations fosters the integration of immigrants into Quebec society. Furthermore, this chapter will examine how these organizations have coped with various challenges during their development in a French and North American context. To this end, first, I will introduce the major components of South Asian immigrants’ history and society that impact on their integration and community structuring. Then, I will present their migratory history and some results of a survey on their community-based organizations in Quebec.

P r e m ig r ato ry C h aracteri s ti cs a n d C o m m u n it y Structuri ng A basic understanding of the premigratory characteristics of immigrant groups is essential to analyze their postmigratory ethnicity (Juteau 1999; Weber [1921] 1971). In the case of the South Asian community, it is first and foremost necessary to understand its inner diversity. It is also helpful to have an overview of its major social features to deconstruct certain myths about it. Some authors have observed the impact of the premigratory context on, for example, the present social relations, marital practices, and the status of women although these can be renegotiated (Ahmad et al. 2004; Ballard 2008; Nair 1998; Walton-Roberts and Pratt 2005). One of the first myths to challenge with a historical perspective is the idea that national frontiers are fixed identity markers. Today, South Asia is composed of seven independent countries: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives. However, South Asian borders were much different in the past. They went through many changes especially with colonization and decolonization. As such, cultural diversity has always been an important component of South Asian history. Furthermore, communal identities

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in South Asia do not correspond necessarily to the past or to presentday political frontiers, nor are they constructed only around religion, as some political leaders argue nowadays (Adeney and Sàez 2005; Jaffrelot and Hansen 1998), but consist of a constellation of cultural and social traits in constant evolution. According to Christophe Jaffrelot (2005), South Asia is the result of a long historical process involving contacts among a great diversity of cultures. The origins of the first South Asian civilizations are complex and still subject to debate. The Indus civilization, the Vedic and the Dravidian cultures, and numerous Indigenous groups are among the major groups identified by specialists. In the sixth century, the arrival of various Muslim groups such as Arabs, Persians, Turks, Mughals, and Afghans in the coastal and the northern parts of the subcontinent also had a significant impact on political, cultural, and economic life (Markovits 1994). Another myth to question regards religious affiliations that are generally oversimplified – Hinduism being the religion of immigrants from India, and Islam the only religion of other South Asian immigrants – while in fact the religious profile of South Asian immigrants is diversified and rich. Several religions and philosophies have flourished on the subcontinent from precolonial times to the present. Among the most important are Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Sikhism, and Christianity – the last introduced as early as the first century C E . A frequent generalization regarding South Asian immigration is that immigrants have a low solidarity capacity because of their own different ethnic and religious backgrounds. However, many scholars argue that interactions among various cultural groups on the subcontinent have experienced both conflictual and peaceful episodes (Markovits 1994). On the one hand, oppression, invasion, cultural resistance, and wars are among the negative historical elements that might still influence contemporary social relations. On the other, population mixing has also produced fascinating and unique syncretism through various forms of social and political collaborations as well as cultural, commercial, and social interactions. Another mythic social feature that significantly impacts the South Asian immigrants’ networking process is the caste system (jāti), which is often underestimated even though it is among the most specific and ancient social categories of the subcontinent. Originally practised among Hindus, jāti is also present in other South Asian

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religious groups and continues to have a significant impact on contemporary social life. Its impact is notable in terms of family structure, economy, and politics, with some regional and national variations among countries. The system divides society on the subcontinent into thousands of hierarchical, endogamous, hereditary, and sometimes professional and religious subgroups. Discrimination based on these categories has been prohibited by the Indian constitution since 1950 (art. 15); however, the caste system still raises many questions about social equity, even if those categories have gone through great transformations (Jaffrelot 2005; Jaffrelot and Naudet 2013). Castes also persist in the diasporic context (Jayaram 2004; Metcalf and Rolfe 2010). However, they are yet not documented in the Quebec context. One of the major forces of influence on South Asian migration is colonialism (Basran and Bolaria 2003). British colonialism contributed to the linking together of the subcontinent, with its vast transport and communication networks (Jaffrelot 2005); ultimately, it connected the subcontinent with the rest of the world. It also consolidated the economic situation of certain social subgroups, paving the way for low-caste and outcaste emancipation. Further, it laid the structural and institutional foundations of modern states; elites gained access to education and the English language was disseminated throughout the subcontinent. Indigenous social reformers of the period, like Rabindranath Tagore, encouraged the education of women. Nevertheless, the negative effects of colonialism triggered the migration of large segments of the South Asian population. For example, British electoral policies, such as the Morley-Minto “reform” of 1909 and the “communal awards” of 1932, contributed to communal conflicts among various religious groups, especially Hindus and Muslims (Basran and Bolaria 2003, 36). Oppression and racialization proliferated during colonial times; the Indian colony provided a cheap, easily controllable, and exploitable workforce to meet the needs of British capital in various parts of the empire, including Canada, as we will see later. Another important historic turning point in the South Asian premigratory history was the struggle for independence and the 1947 Partition. The independence struggle marked the lives of many generations, forging a more republican national sense of identity among South Asians (Markovits 1994). The political context changed after World War II with a difficult negotiation between the Congress Party,

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the Muslim League, and the British colonial government that ended sharply with independence and the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan. This created territorial conflicts that are unresolved and still ongoing and population movements including massive migration to Europe, the United States, and Canada. Later, in the 1970s, significant waves of South Asian migration to Canada resulted from a number of crises, conflicts, and wars that repeatedly destabilized the region. New names of country sources appeared, with the creation of states such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Many South Asian immigrants also came from East Africa (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania). For example, the expulsion of South Asians from Uganda by Idi Amin’s dictatorial regime in 1972 was one of the major critical events that forced migration to Canada. Elsewhere in East Africa, decolonization and Africanization policies induced new waves of South Asian migrants to Canada. Those groups, long settled in Africa under the British Empire, have complex migration histories and experienced multiple homeland traumas (Twaddle 2010). In Quebec, some of these immigrants, welcomed as visitors or tourists, obtained citizenship status after the 1973 Canadian governmental amnesty (Aboud and Fiore 1995). Another important political episode that initiated waves of South Asian immigrants to Canada was the conflict between Sikhs, the central Indian government, and other ethnic groups that escalated in the 1970s and 1980s. The demand for recognition of Khalistan as a separate country by some groups in the Punjab region, as well as the socioeconomic problems caused by the Green revolution that negatively affected small farmers and increased unemployment, contributed to political and social upheaval and internal political tensions. Recently, South Asian migration to Canada is diversifying, with new countries of origin such as Nepal, Bhutan, and Afghanistan. While economic context, political tensions, and inner conflicts remain significant causes of South Asian migration, climatic deterioration and natural catastrophes are among the latest causes that push migrants and refugees abroad. In sum, South Asian migration history is associated to colonialism and to the several political and economic changes that have transformed the Indian subcontinent, as well as Africa.

Mi g rat io n to Q u e b e c : A S peci fi c Trajectory British Columbia was the first Canadian province to receive a large number of South Asian immigrants, at the end of the nineteenth

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century. Those immigrants were temporary manual workers, mainly single male Sikhs who originated from the Indian province of Punjab. Between 1904 and 1909, 5,183 persons of South Asian origin were admitted (Basran and Bolaria, 2003, 123) and settled mainly in rural British Columbia. They experienced very difficult work and housing conditions, segregation, discrimination, and racism. They also faced serious hostility from the Canadian-born population in “anti-­ Oriental” riots (Bolaria and Li 1988). As a result, from 1909 until World War II, Canada was virtually closed to Asian immigration as the Canadian government adopted measures to limit immigration from that region (Buchignani, Indra, and Srivastava 1985). The migration history of South Asians in Quebec is quite different. First, this immigration is more recent (table 3.1). Second, the number of South Asian immigrants admitted is much lower than in other provinces, such as Ontario or British Columbia, for the period considered. Third, the immigrant social and economic composition differs somewhat, being essentially an urban phenomenon concentrated in the Greater Montreal area. Indeed, the landing data compiled by the Quebec government (Aboud and Fiore 1995) show almost no South Asians in Quebec from the end of the nineteenth century to 1930. The category of immigrant admitted to the province is also exceptional; in contrast to British Columbia, where South Asian immigrants historically were mainly men from rural Punjab, in Quebec the countries of origins were multiple. This immigration included women as well as men and originated mainly from urban areas. Also, these groups were educated and counted numerous professionals and businesspeople. South Asian immigration to Quebec began, slowly, in the 1930s. The first immigrants were students living in Montreal, some of whom were admitted to McGill University during this period. Then, in 1951 and again in 1957, special agreements between the Canadian government and the governments of India, Pakistan, and Ceylon (today Sri Lanka) allowed extremely small numbers of individuals into Canada. The Canadian immigration regulation enacted in 1962 eliminated the discriminatory criteria based on cultural and racial characteristics and replaced them with a selection grid based on professional qualifications and knowledge of Canada’s official languages. A major shift in regions of origin occurred across Canada, with a significant increase of immigrants from non-European countries. Thereafter, the South Asian minority in Canada grew progressively, particularly in  Ontario and British Columbia, eventually becoming one of the

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74 Fiore Table 3.1 South Asian immigration to Quebec, to 2011 Immigration period Prior to 1981 1981–85 1986–90 1991–95 1996–2000 2001–06 2006–11 Total

Number of immigrants

South Asian immigrants to Quebec (%)

8,395 2,620 5,220 8,980 9,715 8,990 11,665 55,580

15.1 4.7 9.4 16.2 17.5 16.2 21.0 100.0

Source: MIDI (2014), 3.

largest in the country. Nevertheless, it remained relatively modest in Quebec for reasons that will be presented below. Historically, South Asian immigration to Quebec was related to the political and economic changes on the subcontinent and in East Africa mentioned earlier. From 1951 to 1967, these immigrants comprised a very young cohort, composed of professionals and technicians working in scientific and administration areas such as engineering, education, and medical sciences. These men and women, originating from India, Pakistan, and Ceylon, were admitted in the “independent” immigrant category. The characteristics of South Asian immigration to Quebec then changed, between 1968 and 1981 (table 3.1), to include refugees from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and East Africa. During this period, South Asian immigrants represented more various national birthplaces, ethnic groups, religions, and professional groups. Immigrants of various categories were admitted: independent, designated, and sponsored. The socioeconomic profile of immigrants originating from those various countries also changed, with a growing economic polarization. On the one hand there were very qualified professionals in such areas as natural science, mathematics, and administration; on the other hand there were workers in the areas of manufacturing and services. Nevertheless, during the period from 1968 to 1981, South Asian immigration to Quebec remained low when compared with certain English-speaking provinces. From 1981 to 1985, another shift in the trend of South Asian immigration to Quebec took place (table 3.1). The family immigrant

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category became the largest group, indicating a preference for family reunification. Most immigrants originated from India but a growing number came from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. With the internal conflicts in Sri Lanka, many refugees belonging to the Tamil minority group were forced into exile. Then, from 1986 to 1990, the refugee and family categories continued to expand, with refugees from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. For the period from 2001 to 2006, India and Pakistan were the two most significant sources of immigrants, followed by Sri Lanka and Bangladesh (M I CC 2010). The 2001 census data illustrated the marginalization and isolation of the South Asian community relative to the Quebec population, in that it is concentrated in “ethnic enclaves” and facing linguistic and economic barriers (Apparicio, Leloup, and Rivest 2006; Balaskrishnan, Maxim, and Rozzet 2005). Nevertheless, the sociodemographic profile resulting from the 2001 census also shows some positive features, with a relatively young population composed mainly of married couples with children. Regarding education, although half of the South Asian population over fifteen years of age had not completed a secondary school certificate, there were more individuals with university degrees among the South Asian community than in the overall Quebec population. An economic polarization is still observed, with segments of the active population in the manufacturing and service sectors and others in the professional and business sectors (MI C C 2010). The 2011 Statistics Canada National Household Survey statistics indicate gradual growth of the South Asian community, which at that time numbered 91,400 individuals (M I D I 2014, 3). The evolution of demographic, linguistic, and economic indicators illustrates an improved social integration; however, certain issues still seem to undermine schooling, employment, and residential patterns (see Tool Box 1). From 2001 to 2011, the South Asian community in Quebec increased by 46 per cent, fuelled by a regular but modest new immigration contribution and a good fertility rate. The inner heterogeneity of the community remains, India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh being the major countries of origin. Nevertheless, demographic indicators show a significant shift in its composition, with a higher proportion of “native” (i.e., third-plus generation) population and the growth of the multiple origin categories combined with a higher rate of second- and third-generation immigrants. Despite this new trend, some indicators remain similar. Notably, in education, half of the South Asian population over fifteen years of age have not gone

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beyond a secondary school certificate. Although knowledge of French is improving (see Tool Box 1), it seems insufficient to overcome unemployment and poverty for some subpopulations, as the indicators show. The distribution of the population in Quebec reflects the relative progress of their economic situation. If in the span of the decade the community is still relatively concentrated (95.2%) in the Montreal census metropolitan area – and particularly in the city’s central boroughs of Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension and Côtedes-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (75.1%) – it has actually begun to spread to middle-class boroughs such as Pierrefonds-Roxboro, Saint-Laurent, and Dollard-Des-Ormeaux and even other cities, such as Laval and municipalities of the South Shore (Quebec 2014, 9–10). In the last ten years, the South Asian community has evolved from a rather small and isolated immigrant group to a larger community composed of immigrants and natives. Exogamic family ties have been developed. The less concentrated residential pattern illustrates their gradual social integration. However, socioeconomic indicators document the persistence of difficulties affecting a large segment of South Asian Quebecers that deserve collective interventions. The next section will explore the community’s associative networking development and its role in fighting some aspects of social and economic marginalization.

Co m m u n it y N e t wo r k ing i n Montreal As mentioned earlier, very few specific studies are available on the South Asian integration process and on the structures of their associations in Quebec. Therefore, to collect new data, field research on South Asian nongovernmental organizations (N G O s) in the Montreal metropolitan area in 2006 and 2007 was conducted. Thirty-nine semistructured interviews with community leaders were carried out with individual first- and second-generation members of the community-based organizations (see tables 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4). The gender representation was very good, with nineteen women and twenty men. The sample was also representative of the group’s national and ethnic diversity.1 The recruitment strategy used key informants, community members, and civil servants who have worked with South Asian immigrants. It used a specialized index published by the City of Montreal, community newspapers, websites, and telephone directories to

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identify the organizations. The list of community leaders was extended using the snowball method during the fieldwork. Leaders come from various associations linked to the South Asian community: business, communication, culture, education, sports, religious, and women’s groups. Seven interviews with leaders were conducted in Vancouver and Toronto to get a comparative perspective. The participation in the research was significant. The analysis reveals that South Asian community networks have developed gradually in Quebec with little governmental support. Some factors explain this fact: first, the modest size of each national or religious subgroup, when compared with, for example, the South Asian communities in Toronto or British Columbia; second, the economic difficulties of a major proportion of this group in Quebec, as mentioned earlier; and third, the process of ethnic and racial construction and differentiation. A common postmigratory identity has certainly been the basis of community network development. For some scholars (Ledoyen 1992; Tran, Kaddatz, and Allard 2005), South Asian identity is a factor that creates a sense of community and plays a role in the construction of their associative networks in Quebec and Canada. Alberte Ledoyen (1992) also suggests that South Asian auto-identification might be linked to the discrimination they have experienced in their colonial premigratory history and during their immigration. Furthermore, Sutama Ghosh (2013) investigates the historical and relational processes of racialization of a space (South Asia), to argue that “South Asian” is a racialized and externally imposed identity. In the context of the survey, some leaders claim that the South Asian community is not well understood and is discriminated against in Quebec. According to the former president of the South Asian Women’s Community Centre, “We are not White. We were never truly accepted. One of the important problems is the lack of understanding of the so-called host society. In fact, it is racism. It became worse after September 11.” Discrimination and poverty certainly had a significant impact on the evolution and orientation of the South Asian community network in Montreal. Community associations became more active in the central and working-class boroughs of Montreal, the so-called ethnic enclaves identified by Philippe Apparicio, Xavier Leloup, and Philippe Rivest (2006) and T.R. Balaskrishnan, Paul Maxim, and Jurdi Rozzet (2005). Thus, their community life emerged within the boundaries of the segregated residential areas in which most of the

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new immigrants were living. It is only recently that the associative network has spread to middle-class Montreal boroughs such as LaSalle and Dollard-des-Ormeaux and in suburbs like Brossard. Furthermore, the research also documents that some members of the various South Asian groups joined to create umbrella organizations across ethnic and linguistic lines, forging their postmigratory identity in a pragmatic perspective. These associations often enact an advocacy role and mount projects to cope with social problems such as poverty and discrimination based on gender, ethnic origin, religion, and race, as we will see later. Indeed, sectorial considerations were crucial in their community networking process. Municipal administrations, as well as government agencies, have also been helpful in encouraging South Asian groups to work together and to share resources. South Asian community structuring began in the 1960s. One of the first NGOs was India-Canada Association. This organization had essentially sociocultural objectives adapted to the needs of young professionals, which represented the major group of South Asian immigrants at that time. In the 1970s, the network began to grow with the diversification of countries and regions of origin. For example, the Quebec Goan Association was formed for South Asian immigrants from Goa, some of whom were born in Africa. In the 1980s, the NGO network continued to grow and to fragment itself to meet the needs of refugees and marginalized groups, on the one hand, and the objectives of specialized professionals and businesspeople, on the other. New professional, cultural, religious, and social organizations appeared. This period was also significant regarding the efforts to form umbrella associations grouping members of different countries and regions. Those associations played a more political role, lobbying to obtain various resources from Quebec and Canadian governmental agencies to support community centres and specific projects; examples include the Montreal chapter of the National Association of Canadians of Origins in India, the South Asian Women’s Community Centre (SAWCC), and the Bharat Bhavan Foundation (BBF). These associations, with their different and sometimes antagonistic orientations, competed for subsidies and political recognition. From the 1990s to 2007, the South Asian association network had diversified to include more religious and elders’ organizations, reflecting the aging of the community. In the province of Quebec in 2007, forty-eight associations formed a significant service network

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(orientation, document translation, language courses, etc.) mostly located in Greater Montreal. Some associations also organize social and leisure activities and collaborate with the governmental agencies responsible for immigrant settlement services. This network is divided into nine categories (table 3.2) that fall into three subgroups: religion-based, regional, and sectorial. Table 3.2 shows that the religious sector, which represents 23 per cent of the network, is composed of diverse institutions: mandirs, gurdwaras, and Islamic associations. The second category (regions and countries) represents 25 per cent of the whole. In Montreal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka are the four major South Asian immigrant countries of origin, including various ethnic or regional groups. The most important group of associations is sectorial (52%), with the following subcategories: business, communication, culture, education, social, sports, and women. In the sectorial subgroup, we observed a diversity of members from various countries and religions working together, with, for example, the SAWCC and the BBF, as will be discussed later. This illustrates the capacity of South Asian NGOs to organize in terms of a wide range of sectorial issues. As mentioned in the introduction, I will now examine which category of collective social capital – bonding, bridging, or linking – is produced by the South Asian network. Table 3.3 shows that these associations create a diversity of collective social capital beyond the lines of family, ethnic group, and religion. It is true that, on the one hand, this network is characterized by bonding links. These links help the South Asian immigrant associations in providing basic resources to their members. They are also supportive in meeting immediate needs and they contribute to defending immigrant social and civil rights, helping immigrant integration. The bonding links favour the development of a South Asian “postmigratory identity” that, according to some authors, is more political than ethnic (Ledoyen 1992; Tran, Kaddatz, and Allard 2005). On the other hand, however, the analysis of South Asian associations’ collective social capital indicates that most of them have regular and frequent ties with other mainstream networks. Therefore, the South Asian network is not isolated. It produces an important collective social capital in the bridging as well as in the linking categories. This enables the associations to access more resources in addition to improving their social and political participation, as will be discussed later.

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80 Fiore Table 3.2 South Asian associative network by category, Montreal, 2006–07 Category (#) 1- Business (2) 2- Communication (6)

3- Culture (6)

4- Education (2) 5- Social (6)

6- Sport (1) 7- Regional (12)

8- Religion (11)

9- Women (2)

Organizations Quebec-India Business Council, Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce Asia Canada Leader Multicultural Newspaper, India Vision, Images du Bangladesh, Hindus Post, Nouvelles asiatiques canadiennes, Pragati, Bharat Times Kala Bharati Foundation, Nrithyala Foundation, Société de culture hindoue, Société de musique Bharatya, Société Durkai Amman Koyil, Kathakali Opus IX Hindi Quebec Association, Centre d’études et de ­ressources de l’Asie du Sud Club de l’âge d’or du peuple d’origine indienne, Himalaya Seniors du Quebec, Bharat Bhavan Foundation, Canadian Sikh Council Cricket Club Association Thamilar Olli, Association mondiale tamoule, Association Eelam du Québec, Association goanaise du Québec, India-Canada Association, IndiaCanada Organization, National Association of Canadians of Origins in India, Pakistan Association of Quebec, Association des Pakistanais Khyber du Québec, Société pakistanaise-canadienne du Québec, International Society of Bengladesh, South Asian Alliance of Quebec Association Gurudawara Guru Nanak Darbar, Association internationale pour la conscience de Krisna Canada, Association islamique Shiane Haidery, Association zoroastrienne, Centre de yoga Iyengar, Hindu Mission of Canada, Mission Saiva du Québec, Maison de Dieu Québec (Gurudawara Sahib Quebec), Shree Ramji Temple Mandhata, Hindu Temple hindou of Quebec, Temple Ramgi, Gurbani Sagar (Montreal-Sri Guru Ravidass Temple) South Asian Women’s Community Centre, Cercle des femmes d’origine indienne

Source: Fiore (2010).

Recently, an informal inquiry confirmed that the major organizations all still exist. The network remains composed primarily of nonreligious associations. With the aging of the community, the first generation of leaders is gradually being replaced by a new one. The priorities are shifting, from the cultural priorities of the first immigrant generation of the 1960s to social and economic integration for the new generation of leaders.

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Table 3.3 Strength of South Asian organizations’ links with mainstream networks, Montreal, 2007 Strength of links Organization South Asian Alliance of Quebec Quebec Goan Association National Association of Canadians of Origins in India India-Canada Association South Asian Women’s Community Centre Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce Cercle des femmes d’origine indienne Club de l’âge d’or du peuple d’origine indienne Quebec-India Business Council Canadian Sikh Council Bharat Bhavan Foundation Kala Bharati Foundation Nrithyala Foundation Bharat Times Journal Himalaya Seniors du Québec Maison de Dieu Québec (Gurudawara Sahib Quebec) Hindu Mission of Canada India-Canada Organization International Society of Bangladesh Hindu Mandir Dollard-des-Ormeaux

None

Weak

Medium

Strong

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

Source: Fiore (2010), 123.

The following part of the chapter presents five examples of associations to illustrate the social capital development process. Given the fact that the religious networks of the South Asian community have been the object of previous studies (Bradley 2015; St-Germain Lefebvre 2008), I  will focus rather on nonreligious associations. Their collective social capital will be described and its potential in immigrant social and economic integration will be explored. These associations were chosen because they have many members; they have existed for several years and produce the three types of collective social capital mentioned earlier (table 3.4).

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82 Fiore Table 3.4 South Asian organizations: Case studies profile Organization name Kala Bharati Foundation Bharat Bhavan Foundation South Asian Women’s Community Centre Canadian Sikh Council Quebec-India Business Council

Foundation date

Activities

1981 1984 1981 2001 2004

Cultural Social & recreational Women’s centre Social & civil rights Business

In the social sector, the SA WC C is an organization dedicated to the sectorial issue of women’s advancement. Its central purpose is to increase self-confidence of South Asian women from different ethnocultural backgrounds (particularly the more vulnerable) and to contribute to their empowerment through services and specific projects, including a settlement program for refugees and new immigrants, French and English classes with daycare facilities, referrals, interpretation and translation services, a support network for victims of violence, a program concentrating on the concerns of adolescents, and a quarterly newsletter. The organization is now funded by the Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration, the Agence de la santé et des services sociaux, the Canadian Women’s Foundation, and the City of Montreal; however, it survived for many years through only the volunteer work of South Asian women and support from the city. Since the beginning, the uniqueness of this N G O was its specifically feminist approach – but, because of that, it was also initially seen negatively. The group’s feminist vision was considered antagonistic by some South Asian associations who perceived in it a threat to the traditional family. At the same time, the S AW CC’s feminist perspective also differed from that of the mainstream feminist N G O s in Quebec, leading to its marginalization and underfunding. For example, men, generally relatives (sons, husbands), may become members of the centre, although they are not eligible to serve on the board of directors. Consequently, the S AW CC was not initially recognized as a women’s centre and did not receive financial support from the provincial government. Over the years, the organization eventually persuaded governmental agencies to create a number of links through collective interventions and finally integrated with the mainstream feminist association network, the Regroupement des centres

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de femmes du Quebec. Since then, the Quebec government and the City of Montreal support the SA WC C more regularly, enabling the development of more inclusive projects. Having gained recognition in civil society, as well as within the South Asian community, the centre’s collective social capital evolved from a bonding to a bridging category, increasing its capacity of integration. In the sociocultural domain, the Bharat Bhavan Foundation also favoured the integration of the most vulnerable immigrants, but from another perspective, particularly through social and leisure activities. The B B F had initially produced bonding ties between members of various national and religious South Asian groups. Then, in the 1990s, its charter was amended to include social, educative, and economic development in the local community. The organization democratized its structure and increased women’s participation. During this period, a South Asian civil servant working with the Quebec government was engaged to work full time as a coordinator with the organization. Many projects were developed that improved its bridging capacity with other networks (municipal, provincial, and federal governments). Services offered by the BBF – which operates two service points in underserved ethnic enclaves – include French and English classes, interpretation and translation, information on security and health, leisure activities, and consular service. It has collaborated with public agencies, boroughs, municipalities, and ministries, such as the Ministère du Travail, de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale, Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration, the City of Montreal, and the Sûreté du Québec. Similarly to the SA WC C , the B B F saw the evolution of social collective capital from the bonding to the linking category, with an impact on integration from a different intervention perspective, focusing more on the needs of vulnerable families and elders. In the sociopolitical category, the Conseil sikh canadien (CSC) was a Quebec-based association created in 2001 (but no longer exists). Its objective was to raise public awareness of Sikh culture. It stands against discrimination, particularly discrimination based on religion and race. As an advocacy group, it was particularly active during controversial periods. According to Valerie Stroker (2013), the CSC, along with other Sikh groups, presented briefs to the Bouchard-Taylor Commission on reasonable accommodation, demonstrating social awareness of Quebec’s cultural heritage as well as its commitment to interculturalism. The member-supported organization has also been

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active in various issues linked to the Sikh community and immigrant integration. It has some connections with the Quebec government, the City of Montreal, and other institutions regarding various issues and, for years, has been active in education and other kinds of assistance to immigrants and refugees. For example, it supports Canadian universities’ implementing of courses on Sikh history and culture, participates in conferences, and cooperates with governmental and nongovernmental agencies, notably school boards. In the sociocultural field, the CSC participated along with other South Asian organizations in an intercultural festival at Jean-Drapeau Park in Montreal in 2003, 2004, and 2005. This NGO recognized not only that education was crucial to improving public awareness regarding Sikh Quebecers but also that a lack of resources and support from the host society has been an obstacle to members of this community pursuing their activities and coping with the barriers to their integration. In the business sector, the Quebec-India Business Council (Q I BC), founded in 2004 by a group of businesspeople (a very active South Asian woman among them), promotes the business interests of its members and facilitates trade relations between Quebec and the South Asian business community. This association includes South Asian members as well as other Quebecers. It is mainly a self-supported organization; however, the QI BC occasionally has corporate sponsors, such as Desjardins, C A E , and Air Canada. It organizes various networking activities (e.g., luncheon seminars, networking over cocktails), operates a student grant program, and was part of the provincial government’s seed mission in India in 2005. Q I BC activities are clearly oriented toward bridging ties. In the cultural field, the Kala Bharati Foundation (K B F ) is a Montreal-based N G O , created in 1981, dedicated to the teaching of the Bharata Natya, an ancient Indian classical dance. This organization has carried out interesting intercultural projects with dancers of various cultural backgrounds, including French Canadian, often collaborating with other cultural and educational institutions. The founders believe that Indian dance is not an activity restricted to South Asians but rather a tool for reinforcing social ties with the host society; one of the founders has stated, “Quebec has done so much for me … it is the reason why we decide to open the centre to individuals from all origins. Our motto is: ‘Par la danse, le rapprochement.’” The K B F ’s activities have evolved over time, coming

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to include an intercultural perspective (presentations in schools, a cultural showcase with performances including fusion art). In the 1990s, a municipal cultural program – Programme de soutien à l’Interculturalisme – helped the K B F to put together cultural projects in association with mainstream dance organizations and other Canadian institutions, to reach a larger public. Through activities that merged Indian and Quebec modern dance traditions, and education projects in elementary schools, the K B F developed bridging ties with important cultural associations such as the Canada Council for the Arts and the Quebec Dance Association and has thereby produced bonding and bridging social capital. For a short period, with governmental support, the bridging ties were improved; however, with the elimination of those governmental programs and the aging of the K B F ’s founders, the N G O ’s actions and projects were undermined. Some activities continue nonetheless, owing to the members’ commitment, such as the dance school and the program Fenêtre sur le monde. This overview of the South Asian network in Montreal illustrates the diversity of categories of collective social capital that have been created. Through these associations, South Asian men and women from every walk of life have made efforts to facilitate the integration and empowerment of vulnerable categories of immigrants and have reinforced intercultural relations.

C o n c l u s i on My exploratory study on the social capital of the South Asian network in Quebec suggests that those concepts should be revisited, especially regarding immigrant organizations, which are often categorized as producers of only one category of social capital: the bonding one, the so-called “dark side” of social capital (Putnam 2007). Our research in the case of South Asian associations in Quebec sheds light on their diversified potential and skill in the production of social capital. South Asian immigrants to the province developed, between 1960s and 2006, a significant and complementary network of institutions that has produced a rich set of social links with the host society. Some of these institutions were constructed around religion or ethnicity but most were built on sectorial lines. Three factors have oriented the development of this network: first,

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the socioeconomic characteristics of the group – polarized as it is between professionals and businesspeople at one end of the spectrum and unskilled workers and various refugee groups at the other; second, linguistic barriers that have had a persistent impact on its integration; and third, gender issues that call for a specific approach for the advancement of women. These combined factors foster a sense of community and shape a complex associative network with strong sectorial orientations. We have observed that, in many of the sectorial organizations, individuals from various ethnic and religious backgrounds have worked together. Our research study confirms that the bonding links created by the South Asian network are more political than ethnic, as previous studies (Ledoyen 1992; Tran, Kaddatz, and Allard 2005) suggest. Furthermore, many South Asian NG O s in the cultural, social, and business sectors have produced social capital in more than one category, including bridging and linking social capital. For many of them, both the diversity of the social capital categories and the degree of knowledge of the host society by members have grown over time. At the first stage of implementation, these immigrant organizations concentrated on the creation of bonding social capital, tending to reinforce the links between members to counter isolation. They rapidly moved on to produce bridging links with other South Asian organizations in creating, for example, umbrella associations. Finally, these organizations produced linking social capital, creating links with mainstream organizations and institutions. Furthermore, our results have shown that the diversity of social capital categories that South Asian networks produce might be stimulated successfully by municipal or state policies at the local level. These South Asian organizations do not comprise the only immigrant associative network that has developed the capacity to produce bridging and linking social capital in Quebec. Other studies have pointed out that immigrants participate actively in local associative life, producing a wide range of social capital in the Montreal area (Germain et al. 2002). Our research findings suggest that in Quebec the South Asian network has a particularly rich and complex history, influenced to some extent by local, national, and international contexts. South Asian immigrants have developed an original associative network that has contributed in many ways to their integration into Quebec society.

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No t e   1 For more details on the methodology, see the “annexes” section in Fiore 2010.

R e f e r e nces Aboud, Brian, and Anna Maria Fiore. 1995. “Communautés sud-­ asiatiques du Québec.” Profils des communautés culturelles du Québec, 549–57. Quebec City: M AI I CC and Les Publications du Québec. Adeney, Katharine, and Lawrence Sàez, eds. 2005. Coalition Politics and Hindu Nationalism. New York: Routledge. Ahmad, Farah, Sarah Riaz, Paula Barata, and Donna Stewart. 2004. “Patriarchal Beliefs and Perceptions of Abuse among South Asian Immigrant Women.” Violence against Women 10 (3): 262–82. Apparicio, Philippe, Xavier Leloup, and Philippe Rivest. 2006. La répartition spatiale des immigrants à Montréal: Apport des indices de ségrégation résidentielle. Montreal: Immigration et métropoles. Balaskrishnan, T.R., Paul Maxim, and Jurdi Rozzet. 2005. “Social Class versus Cultural Identity as Factors in the Residential Segregation of Ethnic Groups in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver for 2001.” Canadian Studies in Population 32 (2): 203–27. Ballard, Roger. 2008. “Inside and Outside: Contrasting Perspectives on the Dynamics of Kinship and Marriage in Contemporary South Asian Transnational Networks.” In The Family in Question: Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities in Multicultural Europe, edited by Ralph Grillo, 37–70. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Basran, Gurcharn Singh, and B. Singh Bolaria. 2003. The Sikhs in Canada: Migration, Race, Class, and Gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bolaria, B. Singh, and Peter S. Li. 1988. Racial Oppression in Canada. 2nd ed. Toronto: Garamond. Bradley, Mark. 2015. “Le rituel funéraire hindou en contexte diasporique: Rite de passage et rite d’ancrage: La communauté tamoule d’origine sri-lankaise de Montréal et de Toronto.” PhD diss., Université du Québec. Buchignani, Norman, Doreen M. Indra, and Ram Srivastava. 1985. Continuous Journey: A Social History of South Asians in Canada. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

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Fiore, Anna Maria. 2010. “La communauté sud-asiatique de Montréal: Urbanité et multiplicité des formes de capital social immigrant.” PhD diss., Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Université du Québec. Germain, Annick, and Mary Sweeney, with Julie Archambault, Jaël Mongeau, and Julie Elizabeth Gagnon. 2002. “La participation des organismes s’occupant d’immigrants et/ou de communautés culturelles aux instances de concertation de quartier.” INR S Centre-Urbanisation Culture Société, Montreal, June. Ghosh, Sutama. 2013. “‘Am I a South Asian, Really?’ Constructing ‘South Asians’ in Canada and Being South Asian in Toronto.” South Asian Diaspora 5 (1): 35–55. Jaffrelot, Christophe. 2005. Inde: La démocratie par la caste. Histoire d’une mutation sociopolitique 1885–2005. Paris: Fayard. Jaffrelot, Christophe, and Thomas Blom Hansen, eds. 1998. The BJP and the Compulsions of Politics in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Jaffrelot, Christophe, and Jules Naudet. 2013. Justifier l’ordre social. Paris: Presse universitaire de France. Jayaram, Narayana, ed. 2004. The Indian Diaspora: Dynamics of Migration. Themes in Indian Sociology series, vol. 4. New Delhi: SA GE. Juteau, Danielle. 1999. L’ethnicité et ses frontières. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Kunz, Jean Lock. 2005. “Orienting Newcomers to Canadian Society: Social Capital and Settlement.” In Social Capital in Action: Thematic Policy Studies, 52–64. Ottawa: Policy Research Initiative. Ledoyen, Alberte. 1992. Montréal au pluriel: Huit communautés ethno­ culturelles de la région montréalaise. Commission des droits de la personne du Québec. Montreal: Institut québécois de la recherche sur la culture. Li, Peter S. 2004. “Social Capital and Economic Outcomes for Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities.” Journal of International Migration and Integration 5 (2): 171–90. Markovits, Claude. 1994. Histoire de l’Inde moderne, 1480–1950. Paris: Fayard. Metcalf, Hilary, and Heather Rolfe. 2010. Caste Discrimination and Harassment in Great Britain. London: National Institute of Economic and Social Research. MI C C (Ministère de l’Immigration et des Communautés Culturelles). 2010. Portrait statistique de la population d’origine ethnique sud-­ asiatique recensée au Québec en 2006. http://www.quebecinterculturel.

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gouv.qc.ca/­publications/fr/diversite-ethnoculturelle/com-sud-asiatique2006.pdf. MI D I (Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion). 2014. Portrait statistique de la population d’origine ethnique sud-asiatique recensée au Québec en 2011. Quebec City: Direction de la recherche et de l’analyse prospective. – 2015. Tableaux sur l’immigration permanente au Québec: 2010–2014. http://www.mifi.gouv.qc.ca/publications/fr/recherches-statistiques/ Immigration-Quebec-2010-2014.pdf. Nair, Roopa. 1998. “Renegotiating Home and Identity: Experiences of Gujarati Immigrant Women in Suburban Montréal.” Master’s thesis, McGill University. Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. – 2007. “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century. The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture,” Scandinavian Political Studies 30, no. 2 (June): 137–74. St-Germain Lefebvre, Catherine. 2008. “Femmes, ethnicité et religion: La communauté tamoule hindoue du Sri Lanka à Montréal.” Master’s thesis, Université du Québec. Stroker, Valerie. 2013. “Other Accommodations: Sikh Advocacy, Religious Architecture, and Cultural Preservation in Quebec.” In Sikh Diaspora: Theory, Agency and Experience, edited by Michael Hawley, 193–216. Boston: Brill. Tran, Kelly, Jennifer Kaddatz, and Paul Allard. 2005. “Les Sud-Asiatiques au Canada: L’unité dans la diversité.” Tendances sociales canadiennes, Autumn, 23–9. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2005002/ article/8455-fra.pdf. Twaddle, Michael. 2010. “East African Asians through a Hundred Years.” In South Asians Overseas: Migration and Ethnicity, edited by Colin Clarke, Ceri Peach, and Steven Vertovec, 149–66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walton-Roberts, Margaret, and Geraldine Pratt. 2005. “Mobile Modernities: A South Asian Family Negotiates Immigration, Gender and Class in Canada.” Gender, Place and Culture 12 (2): 173–95. Warren, Mark R., J. Philip Thompson, and Susan Saegert. 2001. “The Role of Social Capital in Combating Poverty.” In Social Capital and Poor Communities, edited by Susan Saegert, Philip Thompson, and Mark R. Warren, 1–28. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Weber, Max. (1921) 1971. Économie et société. Paris: Plon.

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Woolcock, Michael. 1998. “Social Capital and Economic Development: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis and Policy Framework.” Theory and Society 27, no. 2 (April): 151–208.

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part t wo Integration Challenges and Achievements

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4 Reflections on the Cultural Axis for Mental Health Care Jaswant Guzder

Any discussion of the mental health of South Asians in Quebec has to begin with acknowledgment of their heterogeneity as an ethnic grouping. They arrive as immigrants with diverse histories, migration trajectories, family models, languages and dialects, religious identities, and cultures. While it is not possible to generalize about “South Asians” as a category, this chapter presents clinical observations that emerge from consultation (conducted from 1984 to 2015) with South Asian families in a McGill University teaching hospital’s child psychiatry unit and in cultural consultation services (Kirmayer et al. 2014). Interviews were conducted in South Asian languages, English, and French. These South Asian Quebecers included refugees as well as first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants, representing various family migration pathways from the Indian subcontinent, Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, or elsewhere. Family and individual psychotherapy and mental health treatments were often complicated by embedded traditional help-seeking practices as well as generational variations in diaspora acculturation (Bhugra and Bhui 2007; Gadalla 2010; Guzder, Yolannes, and Zelkowitz 2013; Islam 2014; Kakar 1982). Minorities in Quebec tend to underutilize mental health services, though their rate of medical help-seeking is similar to that of the host Quebecois population (Kirmayer et al. 2007). Research on South Asians in Quebec is limited, but North American perceptions (Aycan and Kanungo 1998; Chou 2008; Navaratnam 2011) depict them as adapting with the resilience of “model minorities.” Tahany Gadalla

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(2010), in an investigation on treatment-seeking rates by members of different ethnic groups, found that South Asian Canadians with major depression reported the highest prevalence of perceived unmet health needs (48%) and the highest prevalence of perception of barriers to care (33%). In a large population study of Goan youth, Aravind Pillai et al. (2008) show that in this premigration context, traditional values may operate as protective factors for mental wellness. Pillai et al. suggest that low rates of mental disorder in these young people may be related to the stability of generational, collectivist identity values, cohesive family system supports, and traditional or spiritual values. The same study indicates that mental health disorders rose to North American levels within a subgroup of youth exposed to urbanization and cultural change within an Indian context. While migration creates new opportunities, it may also involve cultural dislocations, hybridization, and transformation of identity throughout the life cycle. While the majority of South Asians remain a resilient minority, the following Quebec case histories have been selected as examples of individuals or families who have experienced mental health challenges.

A n A c c u lt u r at io n Context As earlier chapters have discussed, prior to the 1970s South Asian immigrants to Quebec were largely professionals and students. Later migration waves had similar demographics but also included immigrants and refugees motivated by trauma, poverty, or political tensions in the region. As minorities, South Asians shifted from relative invisibility to a presence in the Quebec imagination (Mc Andrew and Bakhshaei 2012) owing to high-profile cases such as the Multani case of 2006 (see chapter 1). The changing dynamics of the Quebec discourse and perception of visible minorities, diversity, and Otherness have been the subjects of recent sociopolitical forums, including the 2008 Commission on Reasonable Accommodation (Bouchard and Taylor 2008) and the 2013 Charter of Quebec Values hearings. Despite significant popular support for the exclusion of turbaned Sikhs and women in headscarves from professional positions in Quebec, as proposed by the Charter of Quebec Values, the province did not endorse these proposals as law. Nonetheless, the debates further increased public awareness of South Asians. At the moment, the

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discourse on minorities in Quebec seems to have shifted as these populations have grown and as emerging tensions have come to focus more on Islamic, Jewish, and Sikh minorities in Quebec (Kirmayer and Guzder 2014). The tensions of premigratory trauma, acculturation, economic hardship, and loss are often associated with mental health issues ­ (Abouguendia and Noels 2001; Islam 2014, 2015; Kirmayer et al. 2007). Studies indicate that, given the obstacles they face, first-­ generation South Asians in the French educational sector in Quebec have a lower academic standing than their established Quebecois peers (Mc Andrew et al. 2011). Certain groups appear to be vulnerable to shifting social predicaments (Guzder 2005), such as women, adolescents, and young adults forming their identities, as well as a subgroup of the aging non-French-speaking population who sometimes migrate late in life to reunite with their children. South Asian studies of firstand second-generation immigrants (the majority in the Quebec context) show that this group faces difficulties in acculturation including intrafamilial conflict, ethnic collective in-group conflict, and social marginalization (Abouguendia and Noels 2001; Islam 2014). Several studies have indicated that female South Asian students manifest more internalizing symptoms (depression and emotional distress) than male students do (Anderson and Mayes 2010; Bhui et al. 2012; Hayward and Sanborn 2002). Other notable research on Asian immigrants to Canada identifies generational experiences of racism, difficulties communicating in a new language, problems with family members, employment barriers, and conflicts with members of their own cultural group as factors that contribute to mental health distress (Bakhshaei 2014; Islam 2014; Kirmayer et al. 2007; Lay and Nguyen 1998). In French-language public schools in Montreal during the 2011–12 school year, 58 per cent of students were first-generation immigrants and 14.2 per cent spoke neither French nor English as their mother tongue (Bakhshaei 2014). Acculturation in Quebec includes the increasing shift to French institutionally; under Bill 101 the majority of immigrant children are ineligible to attend English schools (Ghosh 2004). Other language regulations have an impact on job accessibility and professional credentials in the economic sector. The effects of employment access, prejudice, and discrimination are sometimes related to language problems in Quebec, where language assimilation has become a collective value and identity issue. In the late 1990s, when political upheavals in their home countries resulted in a large

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wave of Anglophone South Asians and Southeast Asians immigrating to Quebec, these families felt the impact of the increasingly stringent policies on English services and school access (Ghosh 2004). Studies of bicultural differences, gaps, or conflicts (Abouguendia and Noels 2001) have shown that these issues can be especially distressing for adolescent immigrant children in the process of forming their self-identity; these youth are increasingly vulnerable to behavioural or disciplinary problems (Aycan and Kanungo, 1998; Lay and Nguyen 1998). Mastery of the language can facilitate acculturation and a more rapid integration of children, youth, or working parents as compared with the elderly or women who may be homemakers, who are more at risk of social and linguistic marginalization. Children, often schooled in French, may master the language of the host culture long before their parents, who are not able to participate in supporting their child’s schooling and are not provided interpreter services in discussions with school personnel (Bakhshaei, Mc  Andrew, and Georgiou 2012). According to Claudio Toppleberg and Brian Collins (2010), language issues for dual-language minorities often generate complex acculturation variables. Their research suggests that retention of a maternal language strengthens self-esteem and second-language learning. Age of migration is also a factor in acculturation stress. A review of data from the Canadian Community Health Survey, a large-scale cross-sectional Ontario population survey, concluded that the risk of mood disorders and anxiety for immigrants varies with age of arrival to Canada (Islam 2014; Patterson, Kyu, and Georgiades 2012). A child who arrives prior to age six is at higher risk for later developing a mood disorder, anxiety disorder, or substance abuse disorder, after adjusting for covariants and duration of residence. First-generation children nonetheless have lower rates of disruptive behaviour difficulties than second-generation children (Patterson, Kyu, and Georgiades 2012). Migration paths may be complex, especially for refugees or those who escaped the war in Sri Lanka or other conflict regions (Guzder, Haider, and Ghosh 2011; Kirmayer, Guzder, and Rousseau 2014). Premigratory trauma may either contribute to strengths, resilience, precocious growth, and maturation or lead to traumatic vulnerabilities. Many refugees coming from conflict zones are able to rebuild their lives postmigration. The sociopolitical context of the host society and its regard for particular ethnic groups may be factors in

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refugees’ adjustment to Canada. Muslim, Tamil, and Sikh refugees, for example, have had to struggle with histories of conflict in their regions, including repercussions of terrorism activities within the resonances of the Air India crash in June 1985 and Sri Lankan war refugees possibly including Tamil Tiger members. A study by Ruben Rumbaut (1994) linked perceived discrimination to significantly increasing low self-esteem, decreasing perceived social competence, and increasing risk of depression. Such findings have been replicated in European and North American contexts (Verkuyten 1998). In unpublished data (Guzder, Haider, and Ghosh 2011) on Tamil and Bangladeshi adolescents in a community sample in Montreal, the rates of mental disorder – especially internalizing symptoms of depression and suicidal ideation – were often higher than those of host communities, though the Tamil and Bangladeshi families and adolescents avoided mental health services. In a UK review article (Goodman, Patel, and Leon 2008), Indian and Black African children appeared to have fewer behaviour issues than white British children, while Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Black Caribbean immigrant children had disorders at the same level as the host society. A large-scale sample (6,643 students aged eleven to thirteen) in London could not explain the superior overall functioning of minority Black Caribbean and Black African males and South Asian females as compared with other students (Bhui et al. 2012). Studies of South Asian adolescents by Bhui et al. (2012) indicate that mental health improved with increasing age in his UK samples and that males had lower distress than females. Gender-related cultural pressures are most challenging for girls and for gay youth, who experience more racism, marginalized friendships, social exclusion, and family adjustment issues. Family environment factors are important in mediating ethnicity-specific influences on friendships and autonomy for girls and for adult women living in more traditional families because of differential treatment based on gender (Bakhshaei and Henderson 2016). There is increasing interest in the gaps in our understanding of divergent gender outcomes (Bakhshaei 2014; Bhui et al. 2012; Guzder and Krishna 2005; Guzder, Santhanam-Martin, and Rousseau 2014; Palriwala and Uberoi, 2008). With their migration to Quebec, South Asian families often experience an adjustment from the framework of patriarchal or gendered hierarchies to egalitarian North American norms. Additional tensions between South Asian and

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Quebecois values include Quebec’s investment in “secular values” (or laïcité) since the Quiet Revolution. Social realities are reflected in lower marriage rates, lower birth rates, and an emphasis on the equality of women. These societal values are historically divergent from the subcontinent’s tendency toward gendered hierarchies, and at times this can lead to strains in acculturation, identity tensions, and family dysfunction. Such widely publicized incidents as the 2009 Shafia murder case (Tripp 2012), which involved an Afghan immigrant family, increased public discourse in Quebec about “honour killings” and resonated with shifting bicultural narratives in some South Asian families.1

T rans f o r m at io n s o f S o u th Asi an Fami li es: P rot e c t iv e F ac to rs a n d B i cultural Tensi ons Women and children benefit over time from the increased employment options, autonomy, egalitarianism, and legal protections that are evident in Quebec society. Nonetheless, there are transitions of identity and gender roles in the first and second generations that remain challenging. The literature and research reflect both the vulnerability and resilience of women and girls navigating the cultural adjustments that migration calls for (Guzder and Krishna 1991, 2005). The silencing of women and other less powerful members of the gender hierarchy in traditional family systems may be another relevant dimension of individual and family therapy agendas for working with South Asians (Guzder, Santhanam-Martin, and Rousseau 2014; Jack and Ali 2010). Self-silencing affects both genders and has various psychological outcomes, but such outcomes can be mitigated by family strengths, context, culture, and ethnicity factors. Anjoo Sikka, Linda Vaden-Goad, and Lisa K. Waldner (2010, 280) suggest that the traditional influences on marital partner selection and dissolution of marital partnerships view these partnerships as being a collective responsibility and duty, implicitly absolving the feminine subject of the damaging effects of failure in relationships, whereas in a Quebec or North American cultural context, individuals have the sole responsibility of choosing to maintain the relationship. The strain of acculturation within families and the redefinition of family roles evolve over time and are influenced by multiple factors, dynamically evolving with periodic intrafamilial or in-group tensions (Guzder 2011a, 2011b; Guzder and Krishna 2005).

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Quebec respects children’s rights to confidentiality and consent to treatment legally at age fourteen, while the traditional South Asian developmental life cycle is likely to shelter and guide youth and adolescents well beyond this age of consent (Pillai et al. 2008). A cultural shift that favours individualism may both empower and destabilize identity and roles. In the process of acculturating and adapting to the host culture, families and individuals experience shifts away from the traditional values of extended families where elders may have had considerable influence on problem solving and instrumental decisions. Traditionally, there is considerable systemic support during marriage and pregnancy (Palriwala and Uberoi 2008), with women often returning to their natal family for delivery of their first child as part of a culturally endorsed protection strategy during postpartum stress. Studies on immigrant women in Quebec indicate, for example, that they are more vulnerable to postpartum depression and mental health issues than non-immigrant women (Zelkowitz et al. 2004). The distances and realities of migration adjustments often disturb these rituals and customs for traditional South Asians, though travel and technology foster links where possible. Elders who are reunited with their children sometimes come to help with child-rearing or need care at the end of their life cycle. These elders are also coping with cultural change as they enter generational dialogue across cultural divides. Where elder care traditionally fell within the duties of the extended family, migration may lead to renunciation of these caretaking roles and other aspects of positive or syntonic life cycle agendas. Likewise, in the country of origin, the mentally ill, the infirm, disturbed children, and the elderly were sheltered within the private domain of family care, but migration realities present a new set of options, with nursing home placements, youth protection, and other host-society realities. Many of the clinical case examples consider the impact of some of  these predicaments upon wellness strategies, social suffering (Kirmayer, Guzder, and Rousseau 2014; Kleinman, Das, and Lock 1997), systemic tensions (Guzder 2011a, 2011b), hybridization of cultural frameworks, and individual mental health considerations. Quebec has made advancements in cultural competency training for police and mental health sectors. Nevertheless, policy and funding have somewhat marginalized those South Asian women who are more socially isolated or may have reduced French-language skills if they are not employed outside the home or attending school. This is

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especially a problem where there is limited access to interpreters in hospitals, schools and mental health care settings.

C l in ic a l E n c o u n t e rs : I nters ecti ons o f M e n ta l H e a lt h and S ys temi c a n d A c c u lt u r at io n Challenges Bicultural tensions Most of the case examples come from our research data of the Jewish General Hospital Cultural Consultation Service (Kirmayer, Guzder, and Rousseau 2014), which evolved as a psychiatric initiative to offer diagnostic and intervention planning with the patient and therapist based on understanding of systemic and cultural issues arising in the mental health needs of cultural Others (McGoldrick, Giordano, and Garcia-Preto 2005).While migration and urbanization may lead to formation of nuclear family units rather than extended family living arrangements, attachments, affiliations, and affective bonds of wider systems remain in a transitional mode during the process of acculturation. As a result, adolescent and gender-related conflicts often arise from these complex adjustments (Akhtar 1995; Winnicott 1967). Generationally, each family member may be individuating and acculturating to different degrees: from adaptation to assimilation (Guzder 2011a, 2011b), evolving progressively over the life cycle (Akhtar 1995). Many of the bicultural tensions for youth involving identity shifts, peer influences, and host-society influences tend to be invisible issues in schools (Guzder 2011a, 2011b). Mental health stigma also remains a barrier to help-seeking among first-generation immigrants. Schools, general practitioners, youth protection services, and community clinics provide primary access to services complicated by language barriers and a lack of culture brokers. Case one: Negotiating for freedom An excellent student, A is an eleven-year-old boy who had complained to his school that his South Asian family was repressive and punitive. On one occasion he came to school drunk and was suspended. His parents had never previously used corporal punishment and were usually indulgent. However, on this occasion he was slapped for his violation of a religious code and family values. He informed his school, who signalled youth protection services,

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resulting in immediate placement of A and his younger, elementary school–aged sibling. A reported that his parents were indulgent, generous, religious, and protective but he wanted the autonomy evident in his Quebecois peer milieu. Both parents attended French classes and were supporting A’s full integration into Quebec society while participating in their cultural and religious community life. He maintained that he would not return home unless he could have a cell phone and more “freedom.” The youth protection agency and school personnel had perceived A’s South Asian family as “too strict” with their children compared with Quebecois families. They had assumed abuse without meeting the family or assessing their concerns. Cultural consultation provided a space with an interpreter to review family history and open up a discourse. A clinical assessment included a more extensive evaluation of the strengths of this family and supported their negotiation of adolescent identity, sexuality, and the autonomy values of their son’s Quebec peer group and school setting. Fortunately, the consult resulted in the children’s return from placement, and constructive work with the youth protective team focused on strengthening parent-child problem solving and attunement. The school did not have access to interpreters for their largely immigrant parent population. A’s family was English speaking and spoke a subcontinent language at home. Parent-school links were absent, and this crisis offered an opportunity to promote advocacy and overcome barriers and misunderstandings. Though youth protection services was a new concept for the parents, they had been well aware of the options of placement, abuse reports, and the role of youth protection in Quebec from conversations with A’s teachers and peers. Case two: Autonomy and identity impasse The only daughter of a refugee mother, sixteen-year-old K was a South Asian girl who spoke French and Hindi. Before her migration to Canada at age five, she had spent most of her life in the Middle East after leaving a conflict region on the subcontinent. At age sixteen she reported to the police that she was a victim of child abuse by her mother, as she had been “hit with a slipper for being out all night and not coming home.” She alleged that her older brother had locked her in her bedroom, though the family denied that there were locks on any but the bathroom doors. She was immediately placed in a foster

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home on the basis of these abuse allegations, and shortly afterward she ran away from the group home placement with some other girls who were known have substance abuse issues. K self-identified as Quebecois and mocked her mother for not learning French and for being “illiterate – from a village somewhere – I don’t remember that life.” Her father was living in another country and had never been present in K’s life, though she idealized him and felt estranged from her mother. Privately, before meeting the team, her mother shared that her husband had been abusive, so she had fled with her children. The mother had been treated for severe post-traumatic stress disorder and depression as a refugee claimant for years prior to obtaining immigration status. K denied that her mother’s depression had been a source of stress in their relationship. Youth protection and the school considered the girl’s allegation of “honour killing” threats to be well founded, a judgment based solely on K’s report. They found her complete identification with Quebecois culture to be a sign of her positive acculturation and prioritized her protection from the alleged “honour killing” threats. She was placed by court order in a secret location until age eighteen. When K was seen for consultation prior to the decision, she was assertive and expressed a detached and negative feeling about her family and culture without symptoms of anxiety or depression. Her school had never met the mother and did not have access to interpreters for parent-school meetings, despite a predominance of South Asians in their student body. The consultation process identified a complex family trauma history and adolescent identity issues, unrelated to issues of “honour killing.” These attachment disorder issues might have increased K’s sense of estrangement and alienation, complicating the presentation of abuse issues. However, the youth protection assessment concluded that the family was abusive, with traditional values “inappropriate in a Quebec milieu.” Criminal charges were considered for the brother who allegedly kept K from leaving home. Unfortunately, this consultation illustrates the complexity of systemic and institutional perceptions and their impact on bicultural families. Case three: Forced or negotiated marriage? N was a sixteen-year-old high school student who had recently reunited with her father when she, her mother, and her siblings arrived

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in Canada, ten years after his arrival. She had been raised in a religious extended family household on the subcontinent and had always had a strained relationship with her mother, whom N described as a cold and narcissistic parent. She was, however, very close to her maternal grandmother and aunt, who had provided premigratory alternative close mothering and remained available by phone. N was an excellent student and wanted to continue on to university. She confided to her school counsellor that her mother favoured an arranged marriage to a second cousin and wanted her to be engaged the following summer in her natal village. The counsellor had referred her to a therapist confidentially, without her family being informed, as N had requested a psychiatric consult and was legally permitted to do as she was over fourteen years old. She was anxious and distressed by the conflicts with her parents and the prospect of forced marriage at a young age. She was aware that abuse or forced marriage would have been grounds for youth protection involvement. N was adamant that she did not want youth protection involvement, as she feared this could lead to complete estrangement from her parents. She did not want placement and did not consider herself to be abused. She was seeking counsel and a culturally safe space (Williams 1999) to explore her dilemma. She said she did not object to the marriage to her cousin, whom she knew prior to migration, and that cousin marriages were common in her cultural group; however, she wanted to negotiate the terms of her marital choice and to protect her right to stay in the West and to study. The counsellor had grave misgivings about N’s confidence that she had allies in the family but agreed to work with N should she need safety or protection. He also advised her of her rights and offered her placement if she did not want to stay with her family, agreeing not to involve youth protection unless his risk assessment warranted it. During therapy, N negotiated a right to continue her education and marriage arrangements through her father and favourite aunt using long-distance telephone and Skype. Upon follow-up several years later, she expressed her gratitude for the therapy that had allowed her space to discuss her bicultural dilemmas. She had married her cousin and moved to Europe with him to continue her studies successfully, distancing herself from her mother in the process. In this case there was no systemic consultation with the family but rather a systemic therapy approach with one family member (McGoldrick, Giordano, and Garcia-Preto 2005).

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These individual narratives illustrate the need to consider multiple factors in order to explore their cultural, systemic, and individual dimensions. The school and social service professionals shared that their understanding of cultural issues had previously been limited and that they had no training in cultural competency, although they may have experienced strong countertransference feelings and values dissonances. The risks of stereotyping may lead to institutional decisions or predicaments that have long-term implications for these youth and children, raising issues of cultural competency training and language access in Quebec institutions. Serious mental disorders While immigrants use medical services as much as the host-culture Quebecois, the underutilization of mental health services remains a complex issue of help-seeking parameters (Guzder, Yolannes, and Zelkowitz 2013), stigma, language barriers, and other factors. Most South Asian families do seek help for psychosis or acute illnesses that become apparent in crisis; however, they may minimize or deny the early symptoms of the disorders or depression. Often, depression may be reframed as somatic illness, fatigue, and laziness or be ignored as mental illness, which is usually highly stigmatized. Other types of healing interventions, including spiritual or religious practices, are often favoured or practised as an option or in tandem with mental health services (Kirmayer 1984). Marital arrangements are often decided on the basis of multiple factors (Jack and Ali 2010; Palriwala and Uberoi 2008) pertaining to families of origin, and mental health disorders are frequently hidden or considered an obstacle to marriage. In some arranged marriages, the partner is not told about any history of mental illness prior to the bride or groom migrating to Canada. The following cases illustrate some of the challenges facing South Asian families in Quebec. The role of men and sons in a patriarchy shifts within the context of North American life and parallels the progressive options for women. While girls are brought up with more protective sheltering, boys are often given more leeway for sexuality and autonomy, and this can create tensions for families across gender and generational relationships (Bakhshaei 2014). Since social roles are highly invested, the dynamics of shame and loss are particularly significant. Mythic underpinnings in the culture (Guzder and Krishna

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1991, 2005; Akhtar 1995) evolve with the process of individuation over time after migration. Case four: Religious frameworks for psychosis A thirty-eight-year-old second-generation South Asian man, S consulted the clinic about his schizophrenic mother, who had been paranoid and delusional since before his birth. She had immigrated alone to Canada and had two siblings with schizophrenia in India. Her parents had always maintained close ties with S from his early childhood, and raised him in India during his preschool years, but his grandfather was now deceased. The grandparents had advised S that his mother would be healed if he did regular prayers and pujas. They did not accept a biological origin for the illness but rather perceived the schizophrenia of their daughters as a karmic outcome. They were also highly conscious that the stigma of mental disorders was an impediment to marriage in their cultural group. As S became a young man, they had often urged him to marry in India so that his wife could look after him and his mother. Though he had acculturated to a Quebecois environment and was bilingual, he also identified strongly with his grandparents’ religious values of dharma and prayer. As the stress of living with a dependent psychotic parent continued, S felt an escalation of frustration and rage with his mother. In his late twenties, unable to carry on his “mission” to care for her full time, he began to consider arranging her placement in a care home. He felt tremendous guilt about this breaching of his childhood idealization of his grandparents’ values and their expectations of him caring for his mother. S’s psychotherapy sessions involved an exploration of his bicultural identity and transformation. He had always been able to work and had chosen a common-law relationship with a Quebecois partner, having refused a South Asian arranged marriage. He felt considerable guilt and sadness when placement of his mother occurred in his late thirties but also felt relief after the unbearable suffocation and overburdened position of his early childhood parental role. Conflict in his caretaker role had made him suicidal and potentially violent, though he had never abused his mother. He continued to visit her regularly in the group home, where he would bring her traditional foods. He had been able to use his religious and familial attachments to cope with his difficulties earlier in his formative years, with

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idealization and positive memories of his grandparents shaping his identity and values. In later young adulthood, his values shifted and he increasingly acculturated to Quebecois values, though his South Asian identity remained integral to his identity. Case five: The “dead” wife A fifty-five-year-old man, R was referred with his wife, who had stabilized after a psychotic depression, as her psychiatrist was concerned about his nonacceptance of her diagnosis and her need for maintenance medications. The couple had immigrated at the time of their marriage and had maintained strong familial and cultural ties with the Indian subcontinent. R was very unhappy with his wife: “she is not the woman I married – she is like a dead woman on these medications.” He was also increasingly estranged from his adolescent and young adult children, as they were “too Western – they don’t respect me like they would in India.” According to his wife, his verbally abusive and controlling behaviours at home further eroded the marital relationship and led to a depression in one of his adolescent children. The couple, who had kept her illness secret because their community “would not understand,” described how high levels of stigma around mental disorders might also undermine their children’s options for marriage or social affiliations in the community. In therapy, the couple explored the difficulties of R’s experience of shame and loss, as he struggled with his male roles and immigrant identity issues. R felt he had arrived at middle age with unfulfilled dreams and had not been prepared for dealing with maturing children who had more Canadian than South Asian values and a wife who had become much more autonomous than in early marriage. While his wife was able to make considerable progress in therapy addressing identity issues and self-care, R became less angry though increasingly resigned and melancholic, refusing further treatment. He felt his losses were “inconsolable – you cannot give me back the woman I married, you are asking me to accept change and I don’t know if I can accept this.” They would not consider divorce, fearing the potential loss of social face and impact on their children’s future marriages. Issues of shame and loss arise for men facing a change of roles where there is a loss of power and agency within gendered hierarchies. With migration, these strains may progress to a risk for domestic violence, substance abuse, depression, or family conflict,

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especially when families are isolated or silenced by cultural ideals. Traditionally, extended family members could often mediate conflicts and offer support, but these effects may be attenuated or lost with migration. Forming new affiliations and reconnecting with absent family or finding meaningful community engagement can mitigate these challenges. Case six: An invisible woman and her dilemmas B was a forty-eight-year-old schizophrenic first-generation immigrant who was married with five children ranging from age three to adolescence. She was referred to a psychiatrist by the social worker in her community clinic, who was aware that B’s husband intended to send her “back home to her village to live with her very elderly mother.” The clinical referring team was aware that her husband and an elder brother living in Australia had made this decision without consulting B. During her fifteen years of treatment in Canada, B had been hospitalized numerous times for psychosis. None of her evaluations were done with an interpreter from the professional bank; instead, institutions had always given her husband that role and regarded him as a supportive spouse. B had never been advised on birth control and, as with many South Asian women, she was too ashamed and reluctant to discuss any problems connected with genital, breast, or sexual health. She had several undiagnosed medical issues and was overmedicated, experiencing akathesia (a drug side effect of constant movement caused by restlessness) symptoms from her neuroleptic medication. Mental health workers had increased her dosages, relying on her husband’s misinterpretation of the side effects of her medication as agitation rather than akathesia. Though B’s social worker had never asked her directly what help she wanted, the consultant asked in her natal language and B responded immediately that she wanted a passport. She was clear that she preferred an option of autonomy. She was clear and lucid in stating that she did not want to separate from her children and did not want to be isolated in a remote village with her widowed, ill mother. She was willing to divorce but wanted her husband to allow her to remain in Canada with rights to access her children. When he responded that he would take the sons and leave B with their youngest, female child, B refused to accept his plan.

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She was aware that her husband had a mistress and other children, but the social worker had not known about his other family. The social worker, who had presumed that B’s husband was very involved instrumentally and affectively, was unaware that he was in fact rarely home and had made no inquiries about child-rearing issues. B, who was already limited by her paranoid functioning, poverty, and lack of French-language skills, was effectively rendered invisible by the absence of interpreters, the stigma of mental illness, and her profound social isolation. The clinic had failed to appreciate the vulnerability of her oldest son, who felt abandoned by his father and ashamed of his mother and who faced post-9/11 racism related to his Muslim identity. His younger siblings were afraid of him, as he had become increasingly verbally abusive to B and had joined a neighbourhood gang, although both parents and social worker were unaware of his emerging conduct disorder. Despite fifteen years of clinical and youth protection involvement with the family, intervention had been coloured by stereotypes and assumptions. Cultural consultation was helpful to the family to explore the cultural realities of B’s familial life and to look at supports for both her and her children. This case illustrates human rights and ethical issues, social suffering, and psychiatric needs that are relevant to and compounded by language barriers, as well as the need for services that strive for cultural competence in dealing with minorities.

C o n c l u s ion Many of the clinical and ethical issues elaborated in this chapter are common to families at risk in the subgroup of the South Asian diaspora within the North American and European context. Quebec has unique parameters of language identity and particular collective values that inform the institutional agendas of schools, clinics, employment, and other public services that facilitate the integration of immigrants. South Asians in Quebec are navigating bicultural adjustments and encountering barriers in accessing mental health care. Their identities are evolving over generations (Akhtar 1995) alongside sociopolitical changes, resulting in many creative, challenging, and dynamic options for cultural change in these resilient communities. There is a growing literature on systemic, cultural, and psychotherapeutic agendas related to the strengths and challenges of cultural negotiations of families across generations (Guzder 2011a, 2011b; Kirmayer, Guzder, and Rousseau 2014; McGoldrick, Giordano, and

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Garcia-Preto 2005). Cultural safety (Williams 1999) is a significant parameter of mental health treatment; it is based on careful attention and respectful acknowledgment of cultural parameters and on promoting the voice and agency of cultural Others in help-seeking situations. Given the diversity of the South Asian population and the complexity of cultural change, there is a need to respect unique individual and family narratives. Generalizations are clearly not an answer to understanding mental health challenges in the community. Mental health challenges are compounded for immigrants by differences in language, social class, and cultural situation. In the host culture, by contrast, professional development that includes cultural competency, availability of interpreters in schools and clinical settings, clinical cultural consultation for difficult cases, and acknowledgment of a dialectical process of negotiating protective and resilience assets unique to familial cultural realities would promote more helpful therapeutic outcomes (Kirmayer, Guzder, and Rousseau 2014). The interrelated pillars of security and safety support the adaptation of refugees and immigrants especially if they have survived conflict regions. Derrick Silove (2013) suggests that conflict, war, trauma, and displacement prior to migration will create complex situations for resettlement, which may lead to resilience or vulnerability. He underscores the positive roles of the integrity of interpersonal bonds and attachment networks, access to effective systems of justice, the ability to pursue roles and bonds in the new society, and the freedom to pursue activities that give people meaningful lives at spiritual, religious, cultural, and political levels. As a Francophone province within the North American expanse of English and Spanish, Quebec’s policies and processes involve protecting Quebec identity while embarking on the adventures of identity realities. Diversity agendas will be addressed regardless of the ambivalences evident in the reasonable accommodation discourse. As Quebec undertakes an acknowledgment of Otherness as experienced by minorities, including the South Asian population, it has begun to address the institutional realities of promoting mental well-being through services, school, and health care.

Note   1 In June 2009, four women from the wealthy Shafia family, who had immigrated to Quebec from Afghanistan in 2007, were murdered in Kingston,

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Ontario: three daughters of Mohammed Shafia, and his first wife. Shafia, his second wife (the mother of the murdered daughters), and their eldest son were convicted of first-degree murder. This “honour killing” was related to tensions over the patriarch’s disapproval of the victims’ acculturation and autonomy.

R e f e r e n ces Abouguendia, Mona, and Kimberly A. Noels. 2001. “General and Acculturation-Related Hassles and Psychological Adjustments in F ­ irstand Second-Generation South Asian Immigrants to Canada.” International Journal of Psychology 36 (3): 163–73. Aycan, Zeynep, and Rabindra N. Kanungo. 1998. “Impact of Acculturation on Socialization Beliefs and Behavioral Occurrences among Indo-Canadian Immigrants.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 29, no. 3 (Autumn): 451–67. Akhtar, Salman A. 1995. “A Third Individuation: Immigration, Identity, and the Psychoanalytic Process.” Journal of American Psychoanalytic Association 43, no. 4 (August): 1051–84. Anderson, Emily R., and Linda C. Mayes. 2010. “Race/Ethnicity and Internalizing Disorders in Youth: A Review.” Clinical Psychological Review 30, no. 3 (April): 338–48. Bakhshaei, Masha. 2014. La réussite scolaire des jeunes québécois issus de l’immigration: Un diagnostic. Montreal: Fondation Lucie and André Chagnon. https://fondationchagnon.org/la-fondation/publications/ diagnostic-enfants-issus-de-l-immigration/. Bakhshaei, Masha, and Rita Isabel Henderson. 2016. “Gender at the Intersection with Race and Class in the Schooling and Wellbeing of Immigrant-Origin Students.” BMC Women’s Health 16: article 47. Bakhshaei, Masha, Marie Mc Andrew, and Theophano Georgiou. 2012. “Le vécu scolaire d’élèves québécois originaires de l’Asie du Sud au ­secondaire: État de la situation et prospectives pour une intervention réussite.” Quebec Ministry of Education, Leisure and Sport. Bhugra, Dinesh, and Kamaldeep Bhui, eds. 2007. Textbook of Cultural Psychiatry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bhui, Kamaldeep, Eric Lenguerrand, Maria Maynard, Stephen A. Stansfeld, and Seeromanie Harding. 2012. “Does Cultural Integration Explain a Mental Health Advantage.” International Journal of Epidemiology 41, no. 3 (June): 791–802. Bouchard, Gérard, and Charles Taylor. 2008. Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation. Commission de consultation sur les pratiques

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d’accommodement reliées aux différences culturelles. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec. Chou, Chih Chieh. 2008. “Critique on the Notion of Model Minority: An Alternative Racism to Asian American?” Asian Ethnicity 9 (3): 219–29. Gadalla, Tahany M. 2010. “Ethnicity and Seeking Treatment for Depression: A Canadian National Study.” Canadian Ethnic Studies 41 (3): 233–45. Ghosh, Ratna. 2004. “Public Education and Multicultural Policy in Canada: The Special Case of Quebec.” International Review of Education 50, no. 5–6 (November): 543–66. Goodman, Anna, Vikram Patel, and David A. Leon. 2008. “Child Mental Health Differences among Ethnic Groups in Britain: A Systematic Review.” BMC Public Health 8: article 258. Guzder, Jaswant. 2011a. “Children as the Symptom Bearers: Supporting South Asian Families through School Interventions.” Canadian and International Education 40 (2): 110–23. – 2011b. “Second Skins: Family Therapy Agendas of Migration, Identity and Cultural Change.” Fokus Pa Familien 3: 160–79. Guzder, Jaswant, Miriam Haider, and Ratna Ghosh. 2011. “Mental Health Survey: Urban Quebec First Generation Tamil Sri Lankan and Bangadeshi Adolescents.” Poster on new research findings presented at American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Canadian Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry joint meeting, Toronto, 16–22 October. Guzder, Jaswant, and Meenakshi Krishna. 1991. “Sita-Shakti: Cultural Paradigms for Indian Women.” Transcultural Psychiatry Research Review 28 (4): 257–301. – 2005. “Mind the Gap: Diaspora Issues of Indian Origin Women in Psychotherapy.” Psychology and Developing Societies 17 (2): 121–38. Guzder, Jaswant, Radhika Santhanam-Martin, and Claire Rousseau. 2014. “Gender, Power and Ethnicity in Cultural Consultation.” In Cultural Consultation: Encountering the Other in Mental Health Care, edited by Laurence J. Kirmayer, Jaswant Guzder, and Cécile Rousseau, 223–44. New York: Springer. Guzder, Jaswant, Sennait Yolannes, and Phyllis Zelkowitz. 2013. “Helpseeking of Immigrant and Native Born Parents: A Qualitative Study of a Montreal Child Day Hospital.” Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 22, no. 4 (November): 275–81. Hayward, Chris, and Katherine Sanborn. 2002. “Puberty and the Emergence of Gender Differences in Psychopathology.” Journal of Adolescence Health 30 (4 Suppl.): 49–58.

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Islam, Farah T. 2014. “Mental Health and Mental Health Care Utilization in Canada’s Immigrant and Ethnocultural Populations.” PhD diss., York University. – 2015. “Immigrating to Canada during Early Childhood Associated with Increased Risk for Mood Disorders.” Community Mental Health Journal 51, no. 6 (August): 723–32. Jack, Dana C., and Alisha Ali, eds. 2010. Silencing the Self across Cultures: Depression and Gender in the Social World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kakar, Sudhir. 1982. Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and Its Healing Traditions. New York: Knopf. Kirmayer, Laurence J. 1984. “Culture, Affect and Somatization.” Transcultural Psychiatry Journal 21: 159–84. Kirmayer, Laurence J., and Jaswant Guzder. 2014. “The Charter of Quebec Values: A View from Cultural Psychiatry.” Canadian Diversity 10 (2): 47–51. Kirmayer, Laurence J., Jaswant Guzder, and Cécile Rousseau, eds. 2014. Cultural Consultation: Encountering the Other in Mental Health Care. New York: Springer. Kirmayer, Laurence J., Morton Weinfeld, Giovani Burgos, Guillmau G. du Fort, and Allan Young. 2007. “Use of Health Care Services for Psychological Distress by Immigrants in an Urban Multicultural Milieu.” Journal of Psychiatry 52 (5): 295–304. Kleinman, Arthur, Veena Das, and Margaret Lock, eds. 1997. Social Suffering. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lay, C., and T. Nguyen. 1998. “The Role of Acculturation-Related and Acculturation Non-Specific Hassles: Vietnamese-Canadian Students and Psychological Distress.” Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science 30 (3): 172–81. McGoldrick, Monica, Joe Giordano, and Nydia Garcia-Preto, eds. 2005. Ethnicity and Family Therapy. New York: Guilford Press. Mc Andrew, Marie, and Masha Bakhshaei. 2012. “The Difficult Integration of Muslims into Québec since 9/11: International or Local Dynamics?” In “Canada after 9/11.” Special issue, Canadian International Journal 67 (4): 931–49. Mc Andrew, Marie, Geneviève Audet, and Masha Bakhshaei. 2015. “Immigration and Diversity in Quebec’s School: An Assessment.” In Quebec Questions: Quebec Studies for the 21st Century, edited by Stéphan Gervais, Christopher Kirkey, and Jarret Rudy, 297–315. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

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Mc Andrew, Marie, Jacques Ledent, and Jake Murdoch, with Rachid Ait-Said. 2011. “La réussite scolaire des jeunes québécois issus de l’immigration au secondaire: Rapport final soumis au Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport.” September. Navaratnam, Sangeetha. 2011. “Guilt, Shame and Model Minorities: How South Asian Youth in Toronto Navigate the Canadian Educational System.” Master’s thesis, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Palriwala, Rajni, and Patricia Uberoi, eds. 2008. Marriage, Migration and Gender. New Delhi: S AG E. Patterson, Beth, Hmwe Hmwe Kyu, and Katholiki Georgiades. 2012. “Age at Immigration to Canada and the Occurrence of Mood, Anxiety and Substance Use Disorders.” Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 57, no. 4 (April): 210–17. Pillai, Aravind, Vikram Patel, Percy Cardozo, Robert Goodman, Helen A. Weiss, and Gracy Andrew. 2008. “Non-Traditional Lifestyles and Prevalence of Mental Disorders in Adolescence in Goa, India.” British Journal of Psychiatry 192, no. 1 (January): 45–51. Rumbaut, Ruben G. 1994. “The Crucible Within: Ethnic Identity, SelfEsteem, and Segmented Assimilation amongst Children of Immigrants.” International Migration Review 28, no. 4 (Winter): 748–94. Sikka, Anjoo, Linda Vaden-Goad, and Lisa K. Waldner. 2010. “Authentic Self-Expression: Gender, Ethnicity and Culture.” In Silencing the Self across Cultures, edited by Dana Jack and Ahisha Ali, 261–84. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Silove, Derrick. 2013. “The ADAPT Model: A Conceptual Framework for Mental Health and Psychosocial Programming in Post Conflict Settings.” Intervention 11 (3): 237–48. Toppleberg, Claudio O., and Brian A. Collins. 2010. “Language, Culture and Adaptation in Immigrant Children.” Child & Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America 19, no. 4 (October): 697–717. Tripp, Rob. 2012. Without Honour. Toronto: HarperCollins. Verkuyten, Maykel. 1998. “Perceived Discrimination and Self-Esteem amongst Ethnic Minority Adolescents.” Journal of Social Psychology 138 (4): 479–93. Williams, Robyn. 1999. “Cultural Safety – What Does It Mean in Our Work Practice?” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 23, no. 2 (April): 213–14. Winnicott, Donald. 1967. “The Location of Culture.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis 48: 368–72.

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Zelkowitz, Phyllis, Joy Schinazi, Lilly Katofsky, Jean-François Saucier, Marta Valenzuela, Ruta Westreich, and Joelle Dayan. 2004. “Factors Associated with Depression in Pregnant Immigrant Women.” Transcultural Psychiatry 41, no. 4 (December): 445–65.

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5 Bhutanese Refugees and Learning French: A Path Strewn with Obstacles Claudia Prévost In the early 1990s, close to ninety thousand men, women, and children were forced to leave Bhutan, their homeland, to seek asylum in Nepal, the land of their ancestors. In 2005, a small group of countries, including Canada, established a resettlement program for these refugees. It is in this context that Quebec City welcomed more than one thousand Bhutanese refugees between 2009 and 2014. Unfamiliar with the Western lifestyle, they have faced significant challenges in terms of adaptation and integration, in addition to learning the French language. Using an ethnological approach and data collected through observation, as well as interviews conducted with adult Bhutanese refugees and “significant others” in the French learning process, this chapter illustrates the different struggles these refugees face in learning French and explore how they mobilize a variety of resources at their disposal to this end.1 Accordingly, in the first section, I present the history of the Bhutanese refugees and their resettlement in Quebec City. Then, a brief literature review outlines the main challenges faced by adult Bhutanese refugees, particularly in learning French. The second section illustrates the francisation trajectory of some refugees and how they are guided by each individual’s own strategies. In the conclusion, I discuss the difficulties these refugees face, related to their linguistic competence, when integrating into the labour market.

W h o A r e t h e B h u tanes e Refugees? The Bhutanese refugees who came to Canada, known as Lhotsampas, are descendants of Nepalese migrant workers who settled in South

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Bhutan at the end of the 1890s.2 From the 1930s onwards, this group of sixty thousand individuals cultivated a large area of South Bhutan. In 1958, the Bhutanese government adopted the Bhutanese Citizenship Act, which officially granted Bhutanese citizenship to those whose ancestors were born in Nepal. During the 1980s, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck looked unfavourably upon the growing presence of this ethnic group, whose members, for the most part, remained very attached to the culture, language, and religion of their Nepalese ancestors. Perceiving their presence as a threat to national identity and unity, the government adopted its One Nation, One People policy, in 1989, which was used as a pretext to revoke Bhutanese citizenship and evict over one hundred thousand Lhotsampas (nearly one-sixth of the Bhutanese population at the time) over the next five years. Testimonies from the refugees describe the repression, physical violence, and torture that the Bhutanese authorities used in order to force them to sign voluntary emigration forms (Hutt 2005; Rizal 2004). It is in this context that the Lhotsampas crossed the borders of Bhutan and India to reach the country of their ancestors (Banki 2008). In 2005, with the objective of putting an end to the twenty-year stateless status of these refugees, a group of eight countries was formed as part of an initiative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHC R ) to find a long-term solution. Two years later, the resettlement program of Bhutanese refugees began across Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada – the countries that had committed to accepting the refugees.

Re s e t t l in g B h u ta n e s e R efugees i n Canada In May 2007, the Canadian government committed to resettling 5,000 Bhutanese refugees over the following three to five years. The first members of this community arrived in Canada in 2009. More than a decade later, the Bhutanese people remain little known among Canadians. Prior to 2007, with the exception of a few Bhutanese families living in Manitoba, the presence of Bhutanese communities was unheard of in Canada. In fact, the Government of Canada had not welcomed such a large refugee cohort from an ethnocultural community that was not already present in Canada since the massive arrival of Vietnamese refugees at the end of the 1970s (Sherrell et al.

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2011). In all, nearly 6,600 Bhutanese refugees had been welcomed in Canada by 2015.3 Along with Charlottetown, St John’s, Toronto, Lethbridge, and Vancouver, Quebec City has been a host community for these refugees, who had stayed in Nepal for twenty years after leaving Bhutan.

W e l c o m in g R e f u g e e s to Quebec Ci ty Within the framework of the immigration regionalization policies, which began to be implemented in 1993, Quebec City was designated a key destination for immigrants and refugees to Canada. From then on, the city became the host society for various waves of refugees, including those from Bosnia and Herzegovina (1993–97), Afghanistan (1997–98), Kosovo (1999), Colombia (1999–2008), Burma (2009), and more recently, Bhutanese refugees from Nepal (2009–15) (Arsenault 2010; Guilbert 2005). Since 2009, Quebec City has welcomed more than one thousand Bhutanese refugees, which is one of the biggest contingents in Canada. In 2013, the daily newspaper Le Devoir published a series of feature articles on the Bhutanese refugees in Quebec City, indicating that while they are enthusiastic and determined to integrate well, the obstacles to adaptation remain significant. Among these obstacles, difficulties related to learning French and integrating into the labour market are at the forefront. For adult refugees who are illiterate and have little schooling, learning French is a nearly insurmountable challenge. While some manage to find a job, particularly in the foodprocessing industry, many resort to the social assistance program offered by the government of Quebec. The difficulties faced by adults trying to learn French include significant repercussions within their families. The children, who learn French more quickly and easily, regularly have to serve as interpreters for their elders, and this drastically affects the traditional family hierarchy (Porter 2013a, 2013b, 2014). The obstacles facing the Bhutanese refugees in Quebec City are similar to the ones experienced by their compatriots who settled in other cities in the province, such as Saint-Jérôme. In this town in the northwestern suburbs of Montreal, members of the Bhutanese ­community are adapting to their new environment relatively well. However, members of this community would still prefer to settle in one of the English-speaking Canadian provinces (Porter 2013b). The

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presence of close relations who have succeeded in joining the labour market quickly, thanks to their knowledge of English, is an important influence on interprovincial migration for these refugees. From the refugees’ perspective, the effort required to learn French is a waste of time and delays their integration, hindering their ability to study or find a job (Halsouet 2012). For example, in the small Quebec town of Joliette, young Bhutanese refugees, who were interviewed to discuss the main challenges related to integration, identified learning French as the main difficulty. Some of them mentioned that the French courses they were offered did not always meet their needs. This observation was corroborated by a French-language teacher in the region, who underlined the fact that illiterate refugees may find themselves in the same class as more educated immigrants, thus holding back the latter in their learning (Bittar 2011). The Cégep de Sainte-Foy, recognized as a leader in the francis/ation of immigrants in the province of Quebec, has worked with many of the Bhutanese refugees who have resettled in Quebec City since 2009. In spite of its expertise in this field, the Cégep had never previously been confronted with the challenge of preparing poorly educated and illiterate refugees to enter the labour market. To address this situation, the francisation teaching staff implemented new education strategies with the aim of meeting the specific needs of this clientele and increasing their knowledge of French. Finally, the few studies conducted on the manifold aspects of the adaptation and integration of this refugee group reveal their peculiarities and raise numerous questions worthy of further study, including those pertaining to their social process of learning French (Bittar 2011; Chase and Bhattarai 2013; Dubé 2015; Ferguson 2011; Halsouet 2012, 2015; Prévost 2014, 2016, 2018; Sherrell et al. 2011).

La n g uag e L e a r n in g among Mi grants Of all the things migrants have to learn in their new environment, acquisition of the local language is unavoidable. Indeed, learning and even mastering the language of the host society is essential to ensuring social and professional integration of allophone migrants (Adami and Leclerq 2012; Alen and Manço 2012; Pagé and Lamarre 2010). For each migrant, this learning process will occur with more or less ease depending on the individual’s personality and skills, the

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educational resources available, and the various interactive opportunities with local community members. In this respect, studies have shown that migrants’ level of schooling has a major impact on their learning experience and the ways they learn, as well as their overall adaptation and integration into their host society (Adami 2009; Alen and Manço 2012; Archibald and Chiss 2007). Let us underscore that a migrant’s motivation to apply the necessary effort to learning the local language can also be influenced by personal, family, and professional efforts (Bourgeois 1998; Vatz Laaroussi et al. 2007), as well as by the various aspects of the person’s cultural knowledge, including one’s mother tongue, beliefs, and values (Becker 2006; Wlodkowski 1999). The children of these adult migrants experience language learning through their integration into the school system and the many hours they spend daily learning the local language and interacting with native speakers. By contrast, their adult migrant parents find learning the host-society language to be a long and complex process (Adami 2009). Moreover, language acquisition among adult migrants is more likely to occur in a natural environment than in one of guided learning. “Guided learning” refers to a kind of learning characterized “by a specific time and space, by the presence, virtual or physical, of a learner and a teacher or an advisor, by an educational approach and by tools,” whereas “natural learning” is based on “linguistic and communication activities not separate from social know-how” (Adami 2009, 37).4 Guided learning comprises only a short period in the long-term French learning process, but the majority of this process takes place in a natural environment (Adami 2009, 38). In fact, most migrants will experience both types of learning (Adami 2009; Adami and Leclercq 2012; Alen and Manço 2012; Archibald and Chiss 2007).

T he B h u ta n e s e R e f u g e es’ French Learni ng f ro m a n E t h n o l o g ical Pers pecti ve In this section, I will examine the social process of learning French as experienced by adult Bhutanese refugees resettled in Quebec City since 2009. More specifically, I aim to identify some of the obstacles that these refugees face and to examine how the refugees made use of various resources made available to support their French learning process.

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The data presented comes from qualitative research that corresponds to the symbolic interactionism perspective (De Queiroz 1994; Le Breton 2004) developed by proponents of the Chicago School and, more recently, put forward by sociological and ethnological research on migrants (Guilbert and Prévost 2009; Guilbert et al. 2013; Vatz Laaroussi, Guilbert, and Bezzi 2010; Vatz Laaroussi et al. 2007). The ethnologist who takes an interactionist point of view tries to observe and analyze individuals’ interpretations of their environment and the events in which they take part, as well as their resulting behaviour (Guilbert et al. 2013; Guilbert and Prévost 2009). For this research, two fieldwork methods were used for collecting data: semistructured interviews with twenty significant others (Bidart 2008; Mead 1962) in their French learning trajectory and fifteen with adult Bhutanese refugees between twenty-two and thirty-five years old, as well as five periods of observation in French-language classes. The data analysis is conducted from a qualitative perspective with a thematic analysis. The thematic analysis identifies the themes and recurring subthemes in the participants’ testimony that are related to the research objectives (Paillé and Mucchielli 2008). Parallel to this thematic analysis, a vertical analysis of the testimony, which is a procedure for analyzing the structure of the interview, was carried out. Each testimony is then analyzed in isolation in order to understand the individual’s own logic and perspective while trying to make connections between the various elements of the testimony (Bardin 1993).

A R e l at iv e ly T y p ic a l Trajectory for t h e   T wo   Y e a rs f o l l owi ng Arri val To better understand the challenges facing these refugees, it is essential to outline their typical migration and French learning trajectory. The persons I met were all born in Bhutan, and they had arrived in refugee camps in Nepal between 1990 and 1993 as young children, teenagers, or young adults. The youngest had grown up in the camps, where they had the opportunity to go to school. With the exception of Nepali-language class, all of the classes were given in English and used English-language textbooks. This explains why the youngest spoke English fairly well before arriving in Quebec City. The Bhutanese people I met are very open, welcoming, and talkative, at least to the extent that their knowledge of French allows. Even though none of them had any knowledge of French before their

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arrival, their attitude toward learning French is clear: they all wish to perfect their use of the language and seem ready to put in the effort necessary to reach that goal. In this respect, their ability to express themselves in French is quite surprising. In Quebec, the primary gateway to learning French for immigrants and refugees is the francisation program sponsored by the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration (formerly the Ministry of Immigration, Diversity and Inclusion). Currently, the francisation services offered by the provincial government are intended for immigrants and refugees with recognized status who have been living in Quebec for five years or less, are over sixteen years old, and whose knowledge of French is inadequate for everyday activities. These free-of-charge services aim to equip students to communicate in French in their daily interactions. Immigrants and refugees registered in the francisation program receive financial support in exchange for meeting certain conditions: attending classes, actively participating in classroom discussions and activities, and following the fundamental rules of Quebec society (MI D I n.d.). In Quebec City, community organizations such as the Service d’aide à l’adaptation des immigrants et immigrantes (S AAI ), Alphabeille, Mieux-Être des Immigrants, Centre Monseigneur Marcoux, and ­Lis-moi tout Limoilou are often the first places where Bhutanese refugees go to learn French. These organizations offer services tailored to migrants’ needs: literacy services or French courses, usually delivered by volunteers or community workers. While waiting for an opening in the ministry’s francisation program, the young Bhutanese I met had all attended community groups that offer literacy and French learning services. They said they had not attended these groups for very long, only the time it took to learn the traditional greetings, the alphabet, and numbers. Within two to six months after their arrival, these Bhutanese refugees were accepted into the ministry’s francisation program offered at the Cégep de Sainte-Foy, one of the biggest French-language learning centres in the province. Their time there lasted on average one year, divided into four sessions of eleven-week classes. The refugees interviewed were unanimous: they enjoyed the government-­ sponsored francisation program. However, they also underlined the fact that their adaptation has been difficult: “The first time, I entered the class for francization in Cégep, more or less a month, I have headaches. Because I didn’t understand French, the lady spoke, I didn’t understand a word” (Bhola).5 These headaches may have been

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consequences of not only all the effort required to learn a new language but also the stress of adapting to the differences presented by the Quebec classroom, the teaching style, and the relation between teachers and students. In the Nepalese camps, teachers were hierarchically superior to students; therefore, the close relationship that teachers establish with their students in French-language classes can be a source of incomprehension and unease for the refugees (Prévost 2014, 2018). The teaching staff, well aware that entry to the francisation program represents an important transition in the French learning trajectory, make conscientious efforts to provide an environment conducive to learning by establishing a climate of respect and trust, including the use of humour in the teaching strategies implemented. Following completion of their program at the Cégep de Sainte-Foy, the majority of the Bhutanese refugees I met went to the Centre Louis-Jolliet, an educational centre for adults where students can pursue their French-language learning for another year.6 At the Centre Louis-Jolliet, refugees have access to oral and written French communication classes aimed at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. For some of them, and especially for the ones who accumulated a few years of schooling before coming to Quebec, the transition to the Centre Louis-Jolliet is beneficial as it allows them to improve their French-language skills. For the refugees with a lower level of education, this additional year of schooling does not result in them making considerable progress – or, at least, this is what the “significant others” noted. In fact, the traditional learning environment of a class is not optimal for people who grew up in a context where knowledge is transmitted orally. It is also from this point that the refugees’ French learning trajectories vary. While the refugees follow individual strategies that reflect their aspirations and are influenced by prior learning in refugee camps, they also, and maybe primarily, change in accordance with the financial and family responsibilities they must assume. In this regard, three individual trajectories, representative of many testimonies collected, highlight the main obstacles the Bhutanese refugees face, as presented below. Abani: A young adult with burdensome responsibilities Abani is twenty-four years old. He lives with his three younger brothers and his parents, whom he has taken care of since their arrival in

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Quebec in July 2010. After one year at the Cégep de Sainte-Foy and another at the Centre Louis-Jolliet, Abani had the opportunity to graduate from high school. At that time, he did not see the relevance of this: “I didn’t think of studying high school, because, at some point, I thought, I don’t need high school. I need to speak French well.”7 Left on his own, he says, he spent several months looking for a job – time that, in hindsight, he considers to have been wasted. Abani wanted to work as an interpreter. He contacted the two main community groups that employ interpreters in Quebec City. His initiative failed. He was so disappointed that he stayed home, isolating himself for several days. He abandoned the idea of working as an interpreter and finally found a job at Avico, a poultry processing and packaging factory, where he was quickly promoted to team leader. He felt at ease with his new responsibilities and liked his working environment. He probably would have stayed there longer if it had not been for Madam Isabelle. Madam Isabelle is one of the “significant others” I referred to previously. She is retired and volunteers her time, presence, and a listening ear to immigrant and refugee newcomers. She spoke to Abani about the Projet Intégration Québec (PIQ), a French learning and work program that allows immigrants to acquire significant work experience, improve their knowledge of French, and develop their skills in order to integrate into the Quebec labour market. Abani said that Madam Isabelle was persistent, and he finally went to an interview. Without her insistence, he would still be working at Avico: “I will never forget that. Because of her, I got into that [program] […] I said: ‘No, no, Isabelle. I work at Avico. I’m a team leader now.’ She told me: ‘No, no, no. It’s not just about money. You have to study, learn French while working.’”8 He is very grateful to her, as it had been a long time since someone had shown such confidence in his potential. Abani very much enjoyed his participation in the P I Q . At the end of the thirty-six-week program, participants have to make their real entrance into the work world. Despite the skills acquired, the obstacles remain numerous. Like many young Bhutanese, Abani does not have his School Leaving Certificate, an employer requirement for many jobs within the province of Quebec. He would like to obtain his diploma, but he cannot afford to study; both he and his family need money. As the eldest son, Abani has responsibilities and moral obligations that he cannot shirk. These include financial responsibilities, such as

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contributing to the family’s subsistence, and moral obligations to his parents, who count on his support to navigate within their host society. His parents have very little schooling and only a smattering of French, despite having taken language classes. He regularly has to accompany his mother, who suffers from chronic diseases, to her numerous medical appointments, where he acts as an interpreter. He is also responsible for documents they receive by mail and telephone calls. He would like to be the younger child and not have all these responsibilities; they are a “burden” to him, as he put it. Moni: A leader in the Bhutanese community, a heavy responsibility to carry Moni, a twenty-four-year-old woman, shares similar concerns for her elders and community members, although she does not describe these as a burden. She arrived in Quebec City with her family in 2009, among the first groups of Bhutanese refugees to come to the city. Bright and resourceful, Moni quickly learned French by pursuing the same path as her compatriots: attending French classes in community groups, participating in the francisation program at the Cégep de Sainte-Foy, and continuing French classes at the Centre Louis-Jolliet. Furthermore, she got a contract as a youth leader in a children’s day camp through the Centre multiethnique de Québec (CM Q ), a community group whose mission is to support immigrants and refugees in adapting to and integrating into their host society. Afterward, she obtained contracts to be an interpreter for the CM Q with the Bhutanese refugees who settled more recently in Quebec City, and these contracts have been continually renewed since 2011. Moni says that it is thanks to her work as an interpreter that she now communicates with so much ease in French. In addition, her work introduced her to many Bhutanese families. She quickly became a contact person in her community, and her good command of French along with her ability to bring people together have allowed her to gain the trust of her compatriots. She was chosen as a leader by the members of her own community, a responsibility that she is proud of but that she feels is sometimes heavy to carry: “Sometimes it bothers me a little. Sometimes I have headaches because it’s too many community problems for me, it is too much.”9 She says that people do not hesitate to call her or knock on her door at any hour of the day or night, asking her to translate a

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document that came in the mail or to intervene in a conflict between the police and community members. At one point, these requests were so frequent that Moni and her family moved to another area to find some peace. Beyond her work as an interpreter and her involvement in the community, Moni wishes to resume her university studies in business, which she had to suspend when she left Nepal. Nonetheless, many administrative obstacles exist. For instance, diplomas obtained in Nepal are not recognized in Quebec and most universities do not even recognize the equivalencies for some specific courses that have already been completed. Moni was told that she would have to go back to college. She applied to a business program that would lead to a college diploma from a Francophone institution in Quebec City, but she failed the French-language test, which was a prerequisite for admission. She communicated directly with the institution’s administration to explain her unique case – “Look, I would like to study. I came to Canada to study. What can I do about it?”10 – but to no avail. Moni thus turned to an English-language college in Quebec City where she was quickly admitted to a business administration technical program. While she is enthusiastic about the idea of beginning her studies, she is slightly bitter about having to delay doing so by about two years because of the admission constraints she faced in the Francophone university and college network. She feels she wasted a lot of time: “Because I – I put so much effort into it!”11 Bhola: A natural caregiver for his mother and son Time – specifically, the feeling of wasting time – is a recurring theme among the participants. Bhola feels he has too much time in some respects, while not enough in others. He spends a lot of time at home, where he has a lot of time to think, but he also has many family responsibilities that he says limit his opportunities to learn French or find a job. Bhola is thirty-five years old, and he arrived in Quebec City in March 2010 with his parents, wife, and first son. His second son was born in Quebec, and they all live together in a housing cooperative. They had priority access to this housing cooperative because Bhola’s ten-year-old son suffers from an intellectual disability and uses a wheelchair. His elder son’s condition is one of his Bhola’s main concerns. Since the family’s arrival, Bhola’s son has had very closely monitored

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medical follow-ups, which have frequently led Bhola to miss his French-language classes. He even had to interrupt his francisation program at the Cégep de Sainte-Foy to take care of his son, who was in recovering from a major surgery. Afterward, Bhola was able to resume the program. However, a new constraint was added when his son began to attend the École Madeleine-Bergeron, a specialized school for young people with various disabilities, because school hours coincided with the francisation program schedule.12 He attended the Centre Louis-Jolliet to pursue learning French but was unable to complete the program; he was always late because he had to wait for the school bus to pick up his son before catching his own bus to go to class. At the time of the interview, Bhola’s biggest concern was not his son but rather his mother, whom he also has to look after. She has suffered from mental disorders for a long time, the first symptoms having appeared in the years after their time in the refugee camps in Nepal, in the mid-1990s. It is impossible to leave her home alone; “she is like the children,” says Bhola.13 Now that his wife is participating in the francisation program at the Cégep de Sainte-Foy, Bhola has to spend his days watching his mother. He finds himself in the role of a natural caregiver. Under these conditions, finding a job seems very difficult for him. Despite these difficulties, Bhola is not totally isolated. He goes to the Pentecostal Church, Carrefour Chrétien de la Capitale, every Sunday. He attends church because he is a believer, but also because it is an opportunity for him to learn French: “Because if I go to church in French, I listen to French, I learn something. Always listening.”14 There, he meets with Francophone friends whom he regularly hangs out with. A few weeks before I met Bhola, a new church for Pentecostal worship – the first one under the responsibility of a Bhutanese pastor in Quebec City – had been created. While Bhola is thrilled at the idea of attending sermons in his native language of Nepali, he still wants to attend the Carrefour Chrétien de la Capitale to keep listening to French. These individual trajectories reflect rather faithfully, though not exhaustively, the majority of the accounts I gathered. They demonstrate that obstacles to learning French are numerous. However, they also underline the fact that these refugees do not end up at an impasse because of these barriers; rather, they access the available resources, implement strategies, and persevere.

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Ob s tac l e s to O v e rc o me and Res ources First, it is relevant to examine Abani’s and Moni’s trajectories, since they share some interesting similarities. These two young adults, both twenty-four years old, had the opportunity to go to school while living in the refugee camps in Nepal. This initial schooling has allowed them to develop cognitive skills that facilitate language learning in a “guided learning” context, as described by Hervé Adami (2009). This is exactly the type of pedagogical approach that prevails at the Cégep de Sainte-Foy and at the Centre Louis-Jolliet – defined in a specific time and space, with the presence of a teacher and the use of pedagogical tools. In this regard, employees in francisation have adapted their teaching strategies (the use of images, repetition, role play) and educational content (adapting pedagogical activities to reflect challenges experienced on a daily basis) to meet the refugees’ needs. Guided learning seems to have been beneficial for Abani and Moni. Both of them say they are satisfied with the learning acquired in these institutions, and their language skills enabled them each to get a job afterward. Although Abani did not succeed in finding work as an interpreter, as he had wished, the fact that he was promoted to a team leader position shortly after being hired at Avico demonstrates that he had the language skills to perform his tasks, or at least the potential to develop them. For her part, Moni was recruited by the CM Q to work as an interpreter without having to submit any application, reflecting her fluency in French at that time. Even though these were very different jobs, they allowed Abani and Moni to pursue their learning of French in a natural environment, where communication is linked to genuine social interactions (Adami 2009). Moni’s knowledge of French seemed to be an asset that could enable the realization of a major project: pursuing the graduate studies in business that she had begun in Nepal. However, administrative constraints quashed her plans, at least within the French education system; she was ultimately admitted to an Anglophone college. Her case is not unique; other young Bhutanese have also chosen to continue their studies in the English system in Quebec City. Similarly, the possibility of allowing young adults to easily resume their studies greatly influences secondary migration to Anglophone Canadian provinces by Bhutanese families initially resettled in Quebec City and elsewhere in the province of Quebec (Bittar 2011; Halsouet 2012,

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2015). Closer examination of this trend would be instrumental in assessing the possibility of building bridges between the different educational institutions to admit immigrants and refugees who wish to continue their education within the Francophone network. Concerning interprovincial mobility, although specific statistical data on interprovincial secondary migration of Bhutanese refugees are not accessible, testimonies collected tend to show that a large number of these refugees settled in Ontario and Alberta. This observation corroborates the data put forward by the Institut de la statistique du Québec, according to which Ontario and Alberta stand out as the most preferred destinations for migrants and refugees who choose to leave Quebec (I SQ 2018). In addition to administrative constraints, these young adults face limitations stemming from their familial duties. Significant moral obligations and financial responsibilities to relatives and community members are sometimes hard to bear and often influence young people’s choices regarding their studies. Their testimonies speak for themselves in this regard, particularly Bhola’s. His responsibilities toward his aging father, his mother, who suffers from mental disorders, and his sons, one of whom has special needs, are the main impediments to his learning French and finding a job. Bhola finds himself in the position of a natural caregiver, but without the benefits related to the recognition of this status, such as access to respite care or tax credits. I interviewed a couple, Biswa and Karna Maya, parents of a child with disabilities who attends the same school as Bhola’s son. In their case, the situation does not appear to hinder their French learning process as much, mainly thanks to the support they were able to get from the staff at the Centre d’éducation des adultes. The centre’s staff negotiated with the granting agency of the French learning program to reach an agreement allowing Biswa and Karna Maya to participate in the program even if they could not attend every hour of class owing to their daughter’s particular school schedule. It would be suitable that such practices be shared between the granting agency and the educational institutions that offer French learning programs to immigrants and refugees, so they would be more likely to benefit. Despite various obstacles, the interviewees continue to learn French, but mainly in a natural environment, through their daily interactions with Francophones. Testimonies reveal that French learning can also be characterized by warm encounters and charming

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people who represent anchor points in the host society. The relationship between Abani and Madame Isabelle, based on trust and mutual respect, is a convincing example. The relationship between Bhola and his Francophone friends at the Carrefour Chrétien de la Capitale is another one. Such examples are numerous in the testimonies. These relationships are not to be minimized; they contribute to the refugees’ adaptation to and integration into Quebec society.

C o n c l u s i on The study of the social process of French learning as experienced by adult Bhutanese refugees in Quebec City reveals that it is influenced not only by the institutional and community language-learning services and each individual’s characteristics and family and financial responsibilities but also by the connections, especially with significant others, refugees make throughout their journey. It appears that the Bhutanese refugees share a similar French learning trajectory during the first two years following their arrival – which corresponds to the guided learning period as described by Adami (2009) – and then follow different paths afterwards. Indeed, the analysis of some of the obstacles they face in their learning trajectory highlights how different the challenges can be between individuals. On the one hand, some of these challenges concern the French learning and francisation programs offered by community organizations and educational institutions sponsored by the government, as well as the administrative constraints imposed by these institutions; on the other hand, some are related to the everyday life of the learners, who must assume various responsibilities that impact their French learning trajectory, such as family and financial responsibilities and moral obligations to elders. In response to these obstacles, the Bhutanese refugees I met displayed different strategies, demonstrating their agency. In this respect, the development of friendships with members of the host society is an interesting demonstration, especially as it allows the Bhutanese refugees to learn French in a natural environment. It is worth mentioning that various actors from the employment and education sectors, conscious of the difficulties experienced by the Bhutanese refugees and other refugees settled in Quebec City, have mobilized vigorously, setting up initiatives to address the specific needs of these newcomers. The PIQ is a promising example in this

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respect. Indeed, this francisation and work program, well anchored in the reality of the Quebec labour market, closely follows the needs of poorly educated immigrants and refugees. The diploma that participants receive, certifying their success at the end of the thirty-six-week program, seems to have little value to employers. Experience shows that graduates of this program have to invest a great amount of effort to sell their skills to potential employers, who are likely to require a high school diploma as a prerequisite for hiring. Unfortunately, most Bhutanese refugees resettled in Quebec City – as in other countries – do not have this diploma, although this does not mean they lack the capacity or skills for employment. Thus, despite advancement in the specific sector of employability, it appears that significant outreach work with employers in Quebec City is called for.

Not e s   1 In this research, the term “significant others” refers to people who play an important role in the Bhutanese refugees’ French learning trajectory, through the support and advice they provide to these refugees. The term can indicate a volunteer, an intercultural and community worker, or a French-language teacher.   2 “Lhotsampa” literally means “southerner.”   3 Canada, “Canada: A History of Refuge,” Immigration and Citizenship, n.d., accessed 29 June 2019, https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-­ refugees-citizenship/services/refugees/canada-role/timeline.html.   4 “Par un temps et un espace spécifique, par la présence, virtuelle ou ­physique, d’un apprenant et d’un enseignant ou d’un conseiller, par une démarche pédagogique et par des outils”; “activités linguistiques et communicationnelles non dissociées du faire social.” All translations in this chapter are the author’s.   5 “La première fois, j’ai entré dans la classe pour la francisation au Cégep, à peu près un mois, j’ai mal à la tête. Parce que j’ai pas compris le français, madame qui parle, j’ai pas compris un mot.”   6 See “Francisation,” Centre Louis-Jolliet, n.d., http://www.centrelouisjolliet. qc.ca/formations/francisation/.   7 “Moi, j’ai pas pensé étudier le secondaire, parce que moi, à un moment donné j’ai pensé que, moi j’ai pas besoin secondaire, moi j’ai besoin de bien parler français.”   8 “Moi, jamais, oublié ça. À cause d’elle, je suis rentré là-dedans … Moi, j’ai dit: ‘Catherine, non, non. Je travaille chez Avico. Je suis chef d’équipe

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maintenant.’ Elle m’a dit: ‘Non, non, non. Ce n’est pas juste l’argent là. Tu dois étudier, apprendre le français en travaillant.’”   9 “Des fois, ça me dérange un peu, des fois j’ai mal à la tête parce que pour moi, c’est trop de problèmes de la communauté, c’est … trop de choses.” 10 “Regarde, je voudrais étudier. Je suis venue au Canada pour étudier, qu’est-ce que je peux faire?” 11 “Parce que moi, je … J’ai mis tellement d’efforts!” 12 Bhola’s son attends l’École Madeleine-Bergeron along with other young Bhutanese people. On this school, see “Historique de l’école,” École Madeleine Bergeron website, n.d., accessed 17 June 2020, http://www. csdecou.qc.ca/madeleinebergeron /historique-de-lecole/. 13 “Elle est comme les enfants.” 14 “Parce que si … je vais à l’église en français, j’écoute le français, j’apprends quelque chose. Toujours entendre.”

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Hutt, Michael. 2005. Unbecoming Citizens: Culture, Nationhood, and the Flight of Refugees from Bhutan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. I S Q (Institut de la statistique du Québec). 2018. Le bilan démographique du Québec: Édition 2018. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec. http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/statistiques/population-demographie/ bilan2018.pdf. Le Breton, David. 2004. L’interactionnisme symbolique. Paris: Presses ­universitaires de France. Mead, George Herbert. 1962. Mind, Self and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. MI D I (Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion). n.d. “Programme d’aide financière pour l’intégration linguistique des immigrants 2016-2017.” Accessed 7 December 2016. http://www4.gouv. qc.ca/FR/Portail/Citoyens/Evenements/immigrer-au-quebec/Pages/­ programme-integration-linguistique-immigrants.aspx. Pagé, Michel, and Patricia Lamarre. 2010. L’intégration linguistique des immigrants au Québec. Montreal: Institut de recherche en politiques publiques. Paillé, Pierre, and Alex Mucchielli. 2008. L’analyse qualitative en sciences humaines et sociales. Paris: Armand Colin. Porter, Isabelle. 2013a. “Quel avenir pour les 1000 Népalais de Québec?” Le Devoir, 16 February. http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/ville-de-­ quebec/371153/quel-avenir-pour-les-1000-nepalais-de-quebec. – 2013b. “La francisation de 7 à 77 ans.” Le Devoir, 4 December. http:// www.ledevoir.com/politique/ville-de-quebec/394301/la-francisation-de7-a-77-ans. – 2014. “Des réfugiés perdus sur les bancs d’école.” Le Devoir, 30 January. https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/398597/des-refugies-perdus-sur-lesbancs-d-ecole. Prévost, Claudia. 2014. “Les services de francisation au Cégep de SainteFoy et les réfugiés peu scolarisés: Le cas des Bhoutanais et des Népalais dans la ville de Québec.” Cahiers de l’ÉDIQ 2 (1): 84–94. – 2016. “Le collectif La Rosée: Un jardin à partager, une société à découvrir.” Les Cahiers de l’ÉDIQ 3 (2): 111–21. – 2018. “Expériences de participation au programme de francisation au Cégep de Sainte-Foy, à Québec: Quels défis pour des réfugiés d’origine bhoutanaise.” In “L’accueil des migrants au Canada et en Europe,” edited by Jacqueline Breugnot, Michel Racine, and Élisabeth Regnault. Special issue, La revue française d’éducation comparée, no. 16: 77–94.

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Rizal, Dhurba. 2004. “The Unknown Refugee Crisis: Expulsion of the Ethnic Lhotsampa from Bhutan.” Asian Ethnicity 5 (4): 151–77. Sherrell, Kathy, Chris Friesen, Jennifer Hyndman, and Subrath Shrestha. 2011. “From ‘One Nation, One People’ to ‘Operation Swaagatem’: Bhutanese refugees in Coquitlam, BC.” Working Paper Series, no. 11-11. Metropolis British Columbia, Vancouver, September. Vatz Laaroussi, Michèle, Lucille Guilbert, and Gabriela Bezzi. 2010. La rétention de l’immigration dans les régions du Québec: Une étude ­longitudinale de trajectoires d’immigrants au Québec. Sherbrooke, QC : Université de Sherbrooke. Vatz Laaroussi, M., L. Guilbert, B. Vélez, and G. Bezzi. 2007. Femmes immigrantes et réfugiées dans les régions du Québec: Insertion et mobilité. Sherbrooke, QC: Observatoire canadien de l’immigration dans les zones à faible densité d’immigrants. Wlodkowski, Raymond J. 1999. Enhancing Adult Motivation to Learn: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching All Adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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6 The Schooling Experience of Youth in the French Sector Mahsa Bakhshaei

Nearly 25 per cent of Quebec’s student population from pre-kindergarten through Grade 12 is of immigrant origin (i.e., comprised of first- and second-generation Canadians: that is, students born outside Canada and those born in Canada to at least one foreign-born parent, respectively [Statistics Canada 2013, 3]). This enrolment figure has grown continuously since the beginning of the century when these students made up 14 per cent (M E L S 2014a). Quebec’s education system includes French- and English-language sectors in both public and private (but largely publicly funded) institutions. Because of its historical legacy and other factors, the English education sector is often considered to be more successful than its French counterpart. But since the introduction of Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language, all students – except Indigenous students and those whose parents and siblings were enrolled in Englishlanguage institutions before the law passed – are required to attend French-language schools until the end of secondary school.1 As a result, today more than 90 per cent of immigrant-origin children in Quebec are enrolled in the French sector, and only a small number (who meet the exceptional provisions in the law) attend Englishlanguage institutions (ME L S 2014a). In Montreal’s public Frenchlanguage schools, nearly 70 per cent of students come from immigrant families and 55 per cent do not speak French as their first language (MELS 2014a). The national and provincial objective to provide equitable educational opportunities for all should ensure that of this large and growing immigrant-origin group as many as possible graduate from

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secondary school (C ME C 2012; ME Q 1998). Yet in the French sector, on average, after five or even seven years of secondary school, immigrant-origin students graduate at a somewhat lower rate than “native” students (i.e., third-plus-generation students, or students born in Canada to Canadian-born parents). If one takes into account their higher rates of departure from the province before graduation, and their enrolment in the adult education sector, this dropout rate equalizes. And, when socioeconomic and schooling characteristics are accounted for, immigrant-origin students exhibit an even higher graduation rate than their third-plus-generation peers. However, this overall positive outcome varies significantly according to students’ ethnic group (Mc Andrew et al. 2015). According to unofficial data from Quebec’s Department of Education (Direction des services d’accueil et d’éducation inter­ culturelle), in 2016 nearly 5 per cent of the province’s immigrantorigin students (almost fourteen thousand in total) were born in or had at least one parent born in South Asia (mainly India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka), though they were more likely to be born in Quebec than outside Canada. In the wake of Bill 101, as noted above, the overwhelming majority of South Asian students attend the French-language sector in Quebec. The meta-analysis of ten years of research on the educational achievement of immigrant-origin students in Quebec (Mc Andrew et al. 2015) shows that while first- and second-generation students originating from East Asia, Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, and Southeast Asia have better graduation rates than their native peers, those originating from South Asia, the Caribbean, subSaharan Africa, and Central and South America have the lowest graduation rates (see table 6.1). These ethnic disparities persist even after controlling for certain demographic, socioeconomic, and schooling variables. Table 6.2 reveals that in the French sector, South Asian students (28.7%) have a higher net dropout rate than both native students (21.7%) and the aggregate group of immigrant-origin students (20.8%). These figures have been calculated taking into account three factors that many immigrant-origin high school students face: graduating from high school in a longer-than-average time; finishing high school after age eighteen in the adult education sector; and leaving the host society before graduation from high school. Specifically, half of South Asian students finished secondary school within four years (the standard period of study), 6.4 per cent completed secondary school in

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Table 6.1 Secondary school graduation ranking order by ethnic group, French sector, Quebec Regional subgroups (ranked from highest to lowest) East Asia Eastern Europe North Africa and Middle East Southeast Asia Native students Central and South America Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa South Asia Note: Policy researchers in Quebec use the following regional subgroups for tracking educational achievement among immigrant-origin students: East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central and South America. These regions have been selected by Statistics Canada based on the characteristics of recent immigration, as well as on the priorities of the Quebec Department of Education. Source: Bakhshaei, Georgiou, and Mc Andrew (2016).

the adult education sector, and more than 15 per cent had left the Quebec education system before graduation (Bakhshaei, Georgiou, and Mc Andrew 2016). It is worth noting that Marie Mc Andrew et al. (2011) demonstrate that among different ethnic subgroups of immigrant-origin students, South Asian students have by far the highest rate of departure from the province before graduation, far ahead of the second group, eastern Europeans. Obviously, their departure affects the graduation rate of students from the Quebec school system. However, one should also take into account that the net dropout rate is calculated here, allowing for this high departure. Following the growth of the South Asian population in Quebec (see Toolbox 1), new and urgent questions concerning youths’ academic performance and social adaptation must be addressed – especially in the French sector, where the overwhelming majority of youth are enrolled and where they face challenges linked to both sociodemographic and systemic factors. This chapter explores the following question: Why in the French-language secondary schools in Quebec are adolescents of South Asian origin underperforming their immigrant-­origin and native peers?

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138 Bakhshaei Table 6.2 Secondary school graduation times and dropout rates, French sector, Quebec

South Asians 1st and 2nd generations 3rd-plus generations

Finishing via adult education 5 years later than expected time (%)

Net dropout rate (%)

Graduation 2 years later than expected time (%)

Graduation 3–4 years later than expected time (%)

Gross dropout rate (%)

Secondary school departure before age 15 (%)

46.1 63.7

3.6 3.4

50.3 32.9

15.2 5.3

6.4 5.9

28.7 21.7

69.1

4.5

26.4

0.8

4.8

20.8

Before moving forward, we explain the methodology. The second part of the chapter will then address the proposed question. We will close the chapter with some recommendations for educational policy makers and practitioners to bolster academic outcomes of South Asian youth.

M e t h o ds We conducted two parallel quantitative and qualitative studies. Today there is a growing consensus that mixed-methods research designs, which triangulate data and provide different perspectives from inside and outside a population under study, are essential in studies concerning immigrant issues (Bloemraad 2006; Suárez-Orozco and Carhill 2008). Our quantitative study (Bakhshaei 2011b; Bakhshaei, Georgiou, and Mc  Andrew 2016; Georgiou 2011; Mc  Andrew et al. 2011) examines the influence of several demographic, linguistic, socioeconomic, and schooling factors. The complementarily qualitative study (Bakhshaei 2013; Bakhshaei, Mc Andrew, and Georgiou 2012) will shed light on the quantitative findings to elucidate the students’ day-to-day challenges. Quantitative study Sample – The quantitative study was part of a longitudinal study (Mc Andrew et al. 2011) that followed, from the first year of high school (secondary 1) to the beginning of college, two cohorts of immigrant-origin (first- and second-generation students) and native

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(third-plus-generation students) Quebec students: those entering ­secondary 1 in 1998 and those entering in 1999. The sample in the French sector consisted of 132,211 native students and 19,853 immigrant-origin students. In this sector, 995 first- and second-generation South Asian students were targeted, of whom 52.4 per cent originated from Bangladesh or Pakistan, 28.5 per cent from India, and 19.1 per cent from other South Asian countries (mainly Sri Lanka). Four mother tongues were most frequently reported among the participant students who did not declare French as their mother tongue: Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, and Tamil/Sinhalese, in descending order. Variables – The literature review posited that a variety of factors would influence the academic performance of immigrant-origin youth. Among these factors, based on the available content of databanks, we examined nine characteristics of students, their families, and their schools (see table 6.3). Data Analysis – First, descriptive statistics were used to present the tendency of South Asian students in each of these characteristics. In order to better understand the profile of South Asian students (target group), we compared their characteristics with those of the entire immigrant-origin students and those of native students (control groups). The term “South Asian” overlooks the variegated ethnic backgrounds among the members of this immigrant group and subsequently may obscure the academic performance heterogeneity that may exist therein. To create a more detailed overview in this step, we also examined the characteristics of the target group based on the most-reported home countries: India versus Pakistan/Bangladesh. To estimate the real impact of the chosen characteristics on the target group’s graduation rate, we conducted a regression analysis. We selected “graduation rate seven years after entering secondary 1” as our dependent variable. The independent variables were the same characteristics studied in the descriptive analysis, with some minor adaptations (see table 16). First, we limited the value of our independent variables to two levels. Second, we treated the additional delay accumulated after two or more years as an independent variable. Because of the small sample size, we were not able to carry on the regression analysis for home countries. Qualitative study As mentioned above, the qualitative study (Bakhshaei 2013; Bakhshaei, Mc Andrew, and Georgiou 2012) aimed to deepen our

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140 Bakhshaei Table 6.3 Selected characteristics of students, their families, and their schools Sociodemographic and linguistic characteristics 1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8

9

Gender (boy or girl) Place of birth (born in or outside Canada) Mother tongue (L1), language used at home (L2), and language of instruction (L3) (students whose L1 is the L3, students who have another L1 but who use L3 at home, or students whose L1 and L2 are different from L3) Socioeconomic characteristics Family socioeconomic status (weak, medium, or high) Characteristics related to the schooling process Level of entry into the Quebec school system (in elementary school, in ­secondary 1, or during secondary school) Age of arrival at secondary school (at a normal age, with one year of delay, or with two or more years of delay) Characteristics of schools attended Enrolment in public or private sector Distribution of students according to the proportion of immigrant-origin ­students in the schools attended (schools where the proportion of these ­students is 0%–25%, 26%–50%, 51%–75%, or more than 76%) Distribution of students according to the socioeconomic status of the public school attended (high-poverty schools or low-poverty schools)

understanding of factors that can impede the achievement of South Asian adolescents in Quebec’s French schools.2 Its main objective was to explore the impact of the multiple contexts that adolescents navigate: school, family, and community. Participants and Procedures – The data was gathered from South Asian adolescents in French high schools, their parents, their teachers and other school personnel, and community practitioners through semistructured interviews. The interview guidelines were developed around the following areas: the sociocultural profile of parents; premigratory and migratory circumstances of families; parents’ aspirations for children’s education; perceived contrasts between South Asian values and values promoted in Quebec schools; the institutional resources of the community; relationships between families, schools, and community; and social and systemic dynamics shaping school experiences. A total of thirty-five individual or paired interviews were carried out, involving forty-four participants.

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School-based data collection occurred in two Montreal public secondary schools with a high level of South Asian enrolment. These schools, located in different neighbourhoods, represent the typical, urban school in Montreal, reflecting a majority of low-income immigrant-origin students and comprising both low and high achievers. Both schools offered classes d’accueil, or welcome classes (M E L S 2014b).3 We interviewed eight teachers and nine nonteaching personnel. The teachers taught different subjects (e.g., math, history, and English), and included classes d’accueil instructors (for both normal classes and classes for students in a delayed schooling situation).4 Nonteaching personnel included principals, guidance counsellors, social workers, psychologists, community school coordinators, and counsellors in charge of dealing with delinquency. We also recruited nineteen male and female students, aged sixteen to eighteen, originating from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. All were firstand second-generation Canadians. The participants were evenly distributed based on their generation, gender, and country of origin. Community-based data collection occurred in four organizations whose mandates include contributing to youth educational and/or socio-emotional development. All of the four organizations were located in the same neighbourhoods as the partnered schools and were frequented by the South Asian students who attended these schools. Two were explicitly South Asian community institutions: a K–12 tutoring centre, where we interviewed a math tutor with extended experience working with South Asian families; and a South Asian women’s centre, where we interviewed a psychologist working on a program for girls’ empowerment. The two other organizations were mainstream centres partly committed to the development of immigrant-origin students. The director of one and a service provider from the other were interviewed. The parental view was collected through either interviews or an anonymous closed-ended questionnaire. The questionnaire was better adapted to parents who, because of linguistic barriers or a reluctance to participate in recorded interviews, were more comfortable sharing their views privately. Recruitment criteria for parents included being from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka; having arrived in Montreal sometime in the past fifteen years; and having a child who currently attends a Montreal French-language secondary school or had completed/dropped out of one within the past fifteen years. The survey questions covered the same areas as

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the interviews.5 A research assistant able to speak South Asian languages helped parents to complete the survey. In spite of our efforts over a period of ten months to recruit parents, it was only possible to complete interviews with four parents and to solicit questionnaires from thirty-six parents. Data Analysis – Interview data were analyzed using a thematic approach involving the following phases: familiarization with the data; generating codes that identify relevant features of the data; identifying themes and then collating data relevant to each theme; analyzing each theme; weaving together the analytic narrative; and contextualizing the analysis in relation to existing literature (Braun and Clarke 2006). This theoretically flexible approach was essential because ours was the first study to examine the educational achievement of students from South Asia in Quebec. Children of South Asian immigrants generally perform differently in other parts of the diaspora. For example, in the United States, research dominantly stereotypes South Asian students as “role models” (Rahman and Witenstein 2014; Shankar 2016; Verma 2008). In English Canada and Britain, these students are typically among high achievers (Ballard 2003; Mc Andrew et al. 2009; Saran 2016). As such, while we considered the literature on minority academic performance when generating our codes and themes, our study identified for the first time a thematic related to the socio-educational experiences of South Asian students in Quebec. Either cultural or structural dynamics can be very specific for each ethnic group in different contexts; while they might share some experiences, they might be different in others (Suárez-Orozco and Carhill 2008). The data from the questionnaires were analyzed descriptively. They were used to complement the interview findings and enhance the context.

F in d in g s : S t u d e nt Profi le The research revealed that South Asian adolescents’ underachievement in French schools in Quebec can be partly explained by their less positive profile when compared with that of their immigrantorigin and native peers in this sector. Sociodemographic and linguistic characteristics While there is gender parity in native students and the total population of immigrant-origin students, girls are considerably underrepresented

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within the group of South Asian students (45% girls versus 55% boys). Moreover, while 41.4 per cent of immigrant-origin students in the French sector were born in Canada, this was the case for only 11.8 per cent of the South Asian subgroup (Indian-origin students were more frequently born in Canada than those from Bangladesh or Pakistan). In addition, an average of 64.6 per cent of immigrantorigin students report that the language of instruction is also their mother tongue and/or their language spoken at home; by contrast, only 4 per cent of their South Asian peers report the same. As discussed, these factors may undermine the average graduation rate of these students. Socioeconomic characteristics As table 6.4 shows, compared with native and immigrant-origin students, the South Asian students’ families are overrepresented among those with low socioeconomic status (S E S ) and underrepresented among those with high SE S. Examining the differences according to country of origin, we observed that the families of students from India seemed to be more socioeconomically advantaged than the families of students from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Characteristics related to the schooling process Level of Entry into the Quebec School System – Because the majority of South Asian students were born outside of Canada, nearly half of them (versus one-fifth of the total population of immigrantorigin students) did not attend elementary school in Quebec (see table  6.5). A somewhat higher percentage of Indian-origin students had attended elementary school in Quebec than those from Bangladesh or Pakistan. More than half of South Asian students (55.9%) had entered secondary school with at least one year of delay (table 6.5). In contrast, this was the case for only 34.7% of the total of their immigrant-origin peers and 19.6% of their peers with Canadian-born parents. Although in all three groups the accumulated delay was mostly of a single year, one out of five students of South Asian descent had presented a delay of two years or more, which was very different from their peers in the control groups. Again, a somewhat higher percentage of Indian-origin students entered Quebec secondary school on time than those from Bangladesh or Pakistan.

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144 Bakhshaei Table 6.4 Distribution according to family socioeconomic status

South Asian students Immigrant-origin students Native students

Strong (%)

Medium (%)

Weak (%)

11.7 26.8 28.7

21.3 34.3 41.9

67.0 39.0 29.4

Table 6.5 Level of entry into Quebec school system, and when entering secondary school

South Asian students 1st and 2nd generations 3rd-plus generations

Level of entry (%)

When entering ­secondary (%)

Secondary During Primary 1 secondary

2+ On 1 year years time delay delay

49.0 77.7 99.4

30.5  9.4  0.2

20.5 12.9  0.4

44.1 65.2 80.4

35.1 27.1 18.7

20.8  7.6  0.9

As table 6.6 demonstrates, 96.9 per cent of South Asian students in Quebec have attended public schools – a rate much higher than those of the control groups. This may be due, in part, to their family S E S . Moreover, the target group had a greater tendency to enroll in highpoverty public schools (61.9%) and in public schools where the proportion of immigrant-origin children was more than half (73.2%). It is worth noting that half of the South Asian students in the French sector attended high-diversity schools where the concentration of immigrant-origin students was more than 75%. This profile suggests that these students did not have enough contact with students of Canadian-born parents, something that could hinder their social and linguistic adaptation. Indian-origin students attended private schools slightly more often than those from Bangladesh or Pakistan; they less frequently attended high-poverty and high-diversity schools. In sum, we saw that South Asian students in the French sector had a vulnerable profile when compared with native students or the total population of immigrant-origin students. That said, students from India had a more favourable profile for school performance than those from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Only 28.5 per cent of South

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Table 6.6 Characteristics of schools attended Public school (%)

High-poverty public school (%)

Proportion of immigrant students in the schools attended 75%

South Asian students 1st and 2nd generations 3rd-plus generations

96.9 76.5 82.2

61.9 35.1 25.1

26.7 56.8 97.6

24.2 25.2  2.2

49.0 18.0  0.3

Asian adolescents in the French sector were from India; this could certainly be one of the reasons for the overall underachievement of South Asian students in this sector. Our regression analysis (table 6.7) confirms that the underachievement of South Asian students in Quebec’s French-language secondary schools can be significantly influenced by the underrepresentation of girls, of students born outside Canada, and of students coming from families with a low SE S. We also observed a high rate of entry for South Asian students at the secondary level compared with elementary, a general delay in their arrival to secondary, and an additional delay accumulated by the third year of high school (secondary 3) as further factors that impeded their school performance. Interestingly, the graduation rate of South Asian adolescents was positively influenced when French was not their mother tongue or their language used at home. It seems that these students show considerable perseverance in their schooling when they speak only some French.

Q ua l itat iv e In s ig h ts i nto Academi c C h a l l e n g e s in t h e French Sector Largely owing to limitations around accessing local and provincial data, it was not easy for participant teachers, school staff, and community workers to evaluate the level of South Asian students’ school performance. However, educators commonly stated that these students do not form a homogeneous group, and while some may become valedictorians, others face different individual and family challenges as well as community and systemic obstacles that obstruct their performance.

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146 Bakhshaei Table 6.7 Graduation seven years after entry into secondary 1: Impact of some characteristics (N = 678) Characteristics Girls Born outside Canada L1 ≠ L3 L1 & L2 ≠ L3 Low family socioeconomic status Entry in secondary 1 Delay upon arrival in secondary Additional delay in secondary 3 Private school Enrolling in high-poverty schools 51%–75% of student population is immigrant >76% of student population is immigrant

OR

Sig.

2.89 0.39 7.47 8.91 0.42 0.39 0.39 0.12 3.89 0.61 3.13 5.42

*** * ** *** ** * *** *** ns ns * **

Note: OR = odds ratio; ns = nonsignificant. * p < 0.10 ** p < 0.05 *** p < 0.001 Source: Bakhshaei, Georgiou, and Mc Andrew (2016).

Individual challenges Most teachers underscored the challenges facing South Asian students in language-based courses. An assistant principal remarked, “They have more skills in science. In French and all materials where there is a sociolinguistic aspect […], language is a barrier.”6 A history teacher went on to say, “They arrive in the regular level with a dictionary in hand, and they translate all the time. It makes no sense.” Not surprisingly, these problems were reported more for first-­ generation adolescents. Participant teachers, social workers, and psychologists also spoke of psychological stresses that newly arrived immigrant students experience as a result of cultural and instructional differences across school systems. Many struggle with not only a new language but also a new school system, as well as with understanding social and peer norms among the majority population. One of the classes d’accueil teachers reported several “odd” internal and interpersonal barriers that get in the way of students’ learning: “It’s a shock for them to

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arrive here and be expected to perform in entirely different ways […] Often girls, especially Pakistani girls, at the start of the year, I ask them on purpose to pick between a blue or red pen, I ask them: ‘Choose, come and choose, choose one.’ And they are like ‘Oh, no, no!’ At the start, even choosing the colour of a pen is difficult […] ‘Make up a character, an alien. You give him a name, what’s his name?’ [And their answer is,] ‘Hmmm…’ That’s difficult!” School personnel in the study also often spoke about the difference in educational attainments between girls and boys. According to them, South Asian girls show a greater commitment to homework and relationships with teachers. One English teacher described South Asian adolescent females as “little girls […] who are extremely polite, perform well enough, and who work very hard.” A history teacher observed that South Asian girls are “always very discreet, and always ready.” That being said, several teachers and nonteaching staff reported that many of the girls experience tension with their families as they try to integrate into a mainstream culture that is at odds with women’s roles in patriarchal and collectivistic cultures. Subsequently, many of them display risky behaviours such as secrecy and self-harm, which may hinder their socio-educational development (Bakhshaei and Henderson 2016). Family challenges While the migration of South Asians to Quebec follows multiple pathways, many children from this community come to live in the province because their parents fled their home country in response to serious social, religious, ethnic, or economic insecurities. For example, Sachini’s parents fled Sri Lanka as a bloody civil war intensified.7 Ibrahim’s father sought asylum in Quebec from Pakistan owing to a well-founded fear of persecution because of his faith in Shi’a Islam. Five-year-old Nayana left Sri Lanka with his older brother to join their father, who had fled to Canada four years earlier to escape his wife’s brothers; they had promised vengeance on him and already burnt their sister alive because of her “dishonouring marriage.” The fathers of Nabeela, Taani, and Gayan also migrated to Canada to provide better living conditions for children who would later join them, and to send money to family members back in their homelands. Subsequently, for many South Asian children, it is common to become separated from their parents during childhood and to reunite

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with them at a later time. “In general, that’s the situation that we find. Often dad has come ahead a few years to find a job, do the paperwork, and then after that he has asked for the wife and children to follow,” explained a classe d’accueil teacher. Consistent with previous research (Santa-Maria and Cornille 2007; Suárez-Orazco, Bang, and Kim 2011), data in our study showed that serial migration may have psychological consequences for children and contribute to their socio-educational challenges. It particularly underscores the risk of depression and anxiety for these children. As an instructor of welcome classes reported about one of her students: “They arrived last year, she and her mother. Her father was here for seven years, the family is reunited after many years, but children have changed, it’s been a long time! The arrival was difficult, even if a parent was already there and prepared everything. The girl I have right now is recognized in the class as a student who does not speak.” Moreover, as a consequence of premigration challenges and insecurities, it seems that many parents have to leave their country without being able to carefully plan their move. Consistent with provincial census data (MIDI 2014), our interviews highlighted that a lot of South Asian parents are not fluent in French. An assistant principal estimated that many of the parents of their South Asian students are not able to communicate with school staff either in French or in English. While our data was not able to assess any oppositional attitudes or orientations among the members of the South Asian community toward immigration to Quebec, it did suggest that many of the families did not intend to stay in the province. Nearly 60 per cent of parents who answered the questionnaire said they had already thought of leaving Quebec for English-speaking provinces. It seems that, for them, Quebec is a necessary layover to get their papers or save up funds before living in an English-speaking province. As an assistant principal said, “[In my school], students do a year or two because the immigration door gets open easier in Quebec than in Toronto (…). I have many ‘leaving for Toronto’ scenarios. Many, many, many students leave each year to continue there.” This finding conforms to the quantitative data of Mc Andrew et al. (2011) indicating a high rate of departure of South Asian students from Quebec before graduation from secondary school. As such, although 75 per cent of parents who answered the questionnaire were either “favourable” or “more or less favourable” to their child’s attendance at French schools, our interviews suggest a

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certain resistance among South Asian adolescents to learn French or to be enrolled in the French schooling system. “The resistance to the language of instruction is a factor that is important […] because the majority comes from countries where English is preferable,” explained a guidance counsellor. This finding aligns with the results of Mc Andrew et al. (2011), which show that among the various ethnic groups represented by Quebec’s immigrant-origin students, South Asians have the highest enrolment rate in the English sector. Many parents eventually find a way to get around Bill 101 and register their children in English schools, which, they believe, puts their children on the path to a better future. As such, many teachers and school staff thought children would be better off not enrolling in Frenchlanguage schools: “It might be easier for them if they had integrated in an English-speaking community at the beginning; already there is a connection because it is their second language or they have studied in that language. Here, there is an additional difficulty. The language barrier is very strong,” said an assistant principal. For the families of South Asian students in the French sector, the Quebec job market’s nonrecognition of diplomas from countries of origin, low levels of education, and lack of French and English skills result in financial challenges. This is especially true for those who have recently arrived in Canada. A teacher of welcome classes for students in a delayed schooling situation observed that “90% are extremely poor. (…) We forget the story of three meals a day. That is a utopia here.” She explained that this is especially accurate for refugee students. Many South Asian students live jam-packed in apartments too small for their families. In many cases, both parents hold more than one job. This situation leads many teenagers to find parttime jobs to help support their families. As an example, Sanduni, a second-generation girl from Sri Lanka, rushed from school to a job at a retail clothing store and then home to do homework, followed by household chores. Talking of the illness and unemployment of her parents, she lamented a busy schedule that prevented her from devoting as much time to her homework as she desired. Our interviews also revealed the prevalence of chronic absenteeism among South Asian students. A lot of families take their children on holiday during the school term. Some students miss anywhere from a couple of days to entire weeks of instruction. Participant parents and community workers gave two explanations for these unauthorized absences: the heat and disease plaguing South Asian countries, and

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the high cost of airline tickets during the summer. Aadrika, a Pakistani mother and an agent at the South Asian women’s centre, explained, I’ve done it too! (…) It is very expensive to go back home for us, and (…) all the people living in Parc-Ex[tension], they bring ­suitcases full of presents to go back home. (…) it takes from six to ten thousand dollars for a family of four like us for one trip. And it doesn’t make sense to spend that much money and go there for only one week. It takes four days just to go and come! (…) Summer months are unbearable back home! You ­cannot imagine the amount of heat and no electricity these days! (…) the entire country is suffering (…) The electricity doesn’t come. (…) the majority of the electricity is sent to the factories. So the households don’t get it for four hours, and then they get electricity for one hour. (…) So summer vacation is out. This practice negatively affects the perception by teachers of the value of education among these families. “It’s funny because they care a lot about school, but oops, they can also leave for three months. [It is] like a double message,” observed a teacher. Of greater concern, the practice puts children behind in their studies. Teachers and principals said they have pleaded with parents to work their vacation plans around their children’s school schedule, but that has not been very successful: “children get back [and] they have almost forgotten all the French they had learned,” said a teacher of welcome classes for students in a delayed schooling situation. School-related challenges Our study generally documented a peaceful and supportive relationship between schools and South Asian students and their families. Most of the student participants mentioned the multicultural environment and a sense of community as two characteristics of their school that they enjoyed the most. “There are several origins. So we have the chance to meet new people from other backgrounds. I like that,” said a boy from Pakistan. Student informants also generally felt that their teachers had a positive perception of them. A girl of Indian descent stated, “The teachers […] are like our second parents. We can say anything, and be sure that they will understand.”

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However, our data highlights interesting differences with respect to teachers’ and school staff’s perceptions of hard work and future possibilities among their male and female South Asian students. While teachers generally perceive their female South Asian students to be harder working than their male counterparts, some community workers reported that orientation counsellors usually envisaged limited future possibilities for girls. One community worker commented that “a lot of counsellors, when they speak to ‘South Asian girls’ [gestures quotation marks], are not very open necessarily. And so there is this closed mind-set that ‘Well, you know what, we could give you these options but you’re probably not going to use them.’” It seems that school personnel’s ignorance of South Asian families’ sociocultural characteristics has resulted in a misinterpretation of the families’ interest in the future of the girls. This in turn has given rise to low expectations regarding the potential of girls. The important implications here are that girls may be negatively affected by the low expectations that stem from social prejudices (Bakhshaei and Henderson 2016). Educators’ ignorance of sociocultural and premigration characteristics of some immigrant groups, including South Asians, have also led to their adoption of two common approaches when they receive newly arrived students. First, they often over-identify these students as being “in a delayed schooling situation” in their learning, resulting in their overrepresentation in classes for students in a delayed schooling situation. Second, they frequently underdiagnose South Asian students’ learning difficulties (again, among some other ethnic groups). This trend emerged in interviews when professionals admitted to being apprehensive about accusations of racism should they assess certain immigrant-origin students as being “with schooling delay.” A teacher of welcome classes for students with schooling delay explained in detail: “For some countries, [educators in school districts] don’t test the students. They take for granted, for instance, that a child from Eastern Europe has been properly schooled (…) Perhaps they say ‘Oh, here, Mexico. Ah, he might not be schooled enough.’ (…) So, sometimes you have kids that get [classified] as below their grade level that in the end haven’t been evaluated [for learning difficulties].” As a result of such biased practices, students with actual learning difficulties may not receive the additional support that they need, while students without learning difficulties may

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lose their motivation by being placed in classes that are below their competency level. School staff also mentioned that the welcome classes do not always provide a framework that corresponds to the needs of newly arrived allophone students. One concern in this respect was the physical segregation of the reception sector in one of the targeted schools. According to the interviewees, the isolation of newly arrived students in a particular wing of the school encouraged those students to remain within that area, and they did not try to blend in with students in the regular classes. Other worrying findings regarding the academic performance and social integration of newly arrived students in targeted schools include limited financial resources, a lack of resource personnel who ensure the well-being of students (e.g., educational psychologists, psychologists, social workers), outdated French-language teaching materials, and a lack of programs and services targeting both students in a delayed schooling situation and those with learning difficulties. Community challenges The educational challenges facing South Asian students in Quebec French-language schools may also be attributed to the insufficient quantity and poor quality of relationships between schools and parents. According to our teacher informants, this is connected not only to linguistic challenges and work-schedule restrictions but also to the fact that schools and school boards do not feel a fundamental responsibility to provide for outreach activities and language services directed at families. Parents also believe that schools do not sufficiently encourage their involvement and convene meetings only when problems have already advanced. Further, there are few resources in the South Asian community that bridge schools and families, making up each part’s deficiencies in resources, skills, and knowledge. Apparently, the low S E S of South Asian families and their relatively recent resettlement in Quebec have hindered the development of community institutions and programs serving children and schooling. The institutions that exist within the community are predominantly religious, social, and cultural (Fiore 2010). An assistant principal lamented, “Another problem with [this neighbourhood], you can look for the organizations you will see, there are not many that are related to education. In terms of food aid,

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there are people. At the level of religion, they have. They are all there. But then? Sports, we have school, full! […] But after that, what remains? Who remains? There are not many people left!” It also seems that the differences parents see between their values and those promoted in Quebec society (e.g., collectivism vs. individualism) often discourage them from tapping into mainstream public institutions that are dedicated to social or educational development, even if these institutions are largely managed by members of the South Asian community. The coordinator of the youth program at the South Asian women’s centre said, “It’s actually really interesting because a lot of the women who come to the centre, and their families, they don’t want their kids in touch with the same people. For example, you’re going to the centre for domestic abuse. In the community, there might be this image that this centre breaks up families. So the mothers don’t necessarily want their kids in touch with the same centre.” As the coordinator suggests, some parents fear that a cultural distance will develop between themselves and their children if they participate in the activities of community organizations. As a result, these parents do not encourage their children to attend organizations in their community, especially if they do not know who is working with them or if they are of another ethnic origin. The tutor interviewed at the tutoring centre confirmed this assertion. Indeed, although he had been working at this tutoring centre for over two years, he felt that the parents (mostly of Bengali origin) did not have enough confidence in him: “I would like to have a certain level of trust with the parents. It’s easier for them to have more confidence with [the manager] than with me.” As this comment shows, parents of Bengali origin prefer to consult the director of the centre, who is of the same origin as them, rather than a Quebecois tutor of Portuguese origin. “When you are part of the same community, it helps,” said the tutor. He reiterated that this was not related to the issue of linguistic knowledge: “As far as I know, the way the [director] presented it to me is not always because of the language. Sometimes it’s really just that it’s a cultural thing. For example, most of the young people here, they call [the director] ‘my uncle.’” Concerns expressed by members of the South Asian community about the use of services offered by community organizations could also be explained by a fear of “losing the honour of the family” in the eyes of the community. The protection of family honour is of great

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value in South Asian culture, which is a collectivist culture (Bakhshaei and Henderson 2016). For community members, attending a community centre could imply the existence of problems within the family: “they don’t want anyone in the community to know that they’re attending the centre, because sometimes it has a negative connotation,” explained a stakeholder at the South Asian women’s centre.

D is c u s s io n a n d Conclus i on Our study provides insight into some of the reasons why adolescents originating from South Asia in Quebec French-language secondary schools have a negative graduation rate when compared with the entire immigrant-origin student population and non-immigrant peers (control groups). In the French sector, students originating from South Asia were more often born outside of Canada than the total population of immigrant-origin students in this sector. They were also less likely to have entered the Quebec school system in elementary school than the total population of immigrant-origin students. As well, the majority of them entered high school with a delay and, compared with the control groups, were practically absent from private schools. Moreover, only a small minority of them had French as their mother tongue or as a language used at home. Within this target group, there was also an important overrepresentation of boys and concomitant underrepresentation of girls, which, as shown in different studies (Jacob 2002; Machin and McNally 2005), could pose a disadvantage to this group’s academic success. Furthermore, South Asian families have a strongly disadvantaged socioeconomic profile with a marked overrepresentation in the weakest socioeconomic status category, a trend that other studies have found to pose a potential disadvantage to school success (Sirin 2005). These characteristics suggest that, in the French sector, students originating from South Asia exhibit a somewhat vulnerable profile in their school performance, compared with that of the entire population of immigrant-origin students or even with those of non-immigrant students. The regression analysis confirms that the overrepresentation of boys, of students born outside of Canada, and of families with an unfavourable socioeconomic status, on the one hand, and the high rates of entry at the secondary school level and of accumulated delays during secondary school, on the other, are the factors that significantly impede the school success of these students.

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Although our quantitative data clearly shows that Indian students represent a better academic profile than students from Pakistan and Bangladesh, more in-depth research attending to cross-cultural differences must be conducted to recognize ethnic distinctions among different subgroups. The political climate and the economic and social circumstances in countries of origin, the process of migration, and other specific traits (e.g., cultural values, religion, caste lifestyle) challenge any suggestion of South Asian homogeneity. Future research must also consider generational differences. I have demonstrated elsewhere (2011b) that second-generation South Asian students do much better in Quebec French-language schools than their first-generation siblings. The qualitative narratives converge with and complement the findings of our quantitative data to vividly illustrate that parental limited French and low SE S, lack of community resources, unsuitable institutional practices, insufficient instructional resources, and weak partnership between families and schools hindered the educational achievement of adolescents originating from South Asia in Quebec French-language secondary schools. Many of these problems may equally affect other groups of immigrant-origin students. However, unlike ethnic communities who immigrated to Quebec earlier (e.g., East Asians) or those who have more initial ethnic capital (e.g., North Africans), the South Asian community lacks ethnic social structures that can connect families with supplementary educational resources (Bakhshaei 2013). Educational policy leaders need to invest in ethnic groups’ own institutions and interpersonal networks. As discussed in the literature review, these have the power to reinforce the social status of an ethnic group through generations promoting upward mobility (Lee and Zhou 2015; Zhou and Kim 2006). This investment should particularly be a priority in low-income communities holding collectivist values, because they normally seek little help outside their community (Bakhshaei 2013). In this regard, investment in and support for the development of community after-school tutoring and recreational programs should be among stakeholders’ first priorities. These programs can simply be developed in community institutions that already exist and have gained the trust of parents (e.g., religious and women’s centres). It is also crucial that community stakeholders develop their schools’ knowledge not only of South Asian students and families but also of the specific problems they have to contend with. Information on the

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prevailing situation in their countries of origin, as well as on the emigration process as it is experienced by the families, could contribute to a better understanding both of the community’s strengths and weaknesses and of the problems that some of its students encounter. Moreover, school boards, schools, and community institutions should cooperate to expand initiatives aimed at the improvement of family-school communication and cultural rapprochement, such as the program of Intervenants Communautaires Scolaires (I CS ). The IC S is a school-based community program proven to have a positive impact on the academic motivation of immigrant-origin children, by establishing and maintaining trust and open channels of communication between families and schools (Bakhshaei 2013; Mc Andrew et al. 2015). To foster better cooperation between the schools and families of South Asian origin, the use of interpreters and provision of documents in South Asian languages would offset the linguistic barriers. Tools that are less text-based and more visual would also be more effective in making information accessible to parents, especially those who do not read French. Also, it would be prudent to recommend increasing the number of measures likely to help parents of South Asian origin learn French and to offer more strategies designed to convince them of the importance of learning the language. Approaches and strategies promoting the use of French among students of Anglophone communities must be developed as well. If these approaches are to be effective, they should stress the complementarity – not the opposition – of languages and involve all the school’s partners, particularly families and community organizations. Moreover, school practitioners should improve the quality of services provided to allophone students and work against any processes leading to exclusion. One recommended course of action is the development of evaluation competencies among teachers and nonteaching staff who deal with allophone and immigrant-origin students. Standardized evaluation tools should also be created based on the following considerations: first, a clear definition of the expected learning outcomes should be established and reflected in the evaluation strategies and tools; second, modern assessment techniques should be utilized; third, to the extent possible, tools should be developed in students’ mother tongues. A misclassified student may develop feelings of low self-confidence, which in turn could

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affect their academic success and social integration. This is even more true for students with an immigrant background who may have experienced difficult migration trajectories and for whom identity conflicts are more likely. Education in the context of immigration is arguably the most pressing global concern today. As we are seeing in Europe and the United States, immigration policy issues have critical repercussions (e.g., homegrown extremism and mental health problems for secondgeneration immigrants) and reveal the importance of reinvesting in the education of immigrant-origin students, especially those who belong to marginalized and underserved communities. The more we invest in our children today, the more secure our future will be. After all, immigrant children generally not only face higher expectations of academic success from their parents than native students (Child Trends 2015) but also are under greater public scrutiny because they have been granted the “privilege” of coming to a “better” society.

Notes   1 Charte de la langue française [1977], CQ LR c C-11, http://legisquebec. gouv.qc.ca/fr/ShowDoc/cs/C-11.   2 A detailed description of this quantitative analysis is beyond the scope of the present discussion and is described in Bakhshaei, Georgiou, and Mc Andrew (2016).  3 Classes d’accueil aim to promote linguistic, academic, and social integration of students who speak neither French nor English as a first language. Students commonly stay in such classes for up to ten months following their arrival before transitioning into the regular French-language ­education stream (M ELS 2014b).   4 A student “in a delayed schooling situation” is a newly arrived immigrant student who has three years or more of delay in his or her schooling ­progress (Armand, Beck, and Murphy 2009).   5 For more details about the profile of national subgroups, see Bakhshaei (2011a, 2011b).   6 Throughout this book, when participants are quoted, ellipses in brackets […] indicate a pause in speech and ellipses in parentheses (…) indicate omitted text.   7 All names are pseudonyms.

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R e f e r e n ce s Armand, Françoise, Isabelle Anne Beck, and Tresa Murphy. 2009. “Réussir l’intégration des élèves allophones immigrants nouvellement arrivés.” Vie pédagogique 152: 106–15. Bakhshaei, Mahsa. 2011a. La réussite scolaire des élèves issus de l’immigration au secondaire: Portrait des jeunes québécois originaires de l’Afrique du Nord et du Moyen-Orient, secteur français. Rapport soumis à la Direction des services aux communautés culturelles, Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport. – 2011b. La réussite scolaire des élèves issus de l’immigration au secondaire: Portrait quantitative des jeunes québécois originaires de l’Asie du Sud au secteur français. Rapport soumis à la Direction des services aux communautés culturelles, Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport. – 2013. “L’expérience socioscolaire d’élèves montréalais originaires de l’Asie du Sud: Dynamiques familiales, communautaires et systémiques.” PhD diss., Université de Montréal. – 2015. La scolarisation des jeunes québécois issus de l’immigration: Un diagnostic. Rapport de recherche de la Fondation Lucie et André Chagnon. January. Bakhshaei, Mahsa, Theophano Georgiou, and Marie Mc Andrew. 2016. “Language of Instruction and Racial Achievement Gap.” McGill Journal of Education 51, no. 2 (November). https://mje.mcgill.ca/article/view/ 9018/7138. Bakhshaei, Mahsa, and Rita Isabel Henderson. 2016. “Gender at the Intersection with Race and Class in the Schooling and Wellbeing of Immigrant-Origin Students.” BMC Women’s Health 16: article 47. Bakhshaei, Mahsa, Marie Mc Andrew, and Théophano Georgiou. 2012. Le vécu scolaire des élèves montréalais originaires de l’Asie du Sud au secondaire: État de la situation et prospectives pour une intervention en faveur de leur réussite. Rapport soumis à la Direction des services aux communautés culturelles, Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport. Ballard, Roger. 2003. “The South Asian Presence in Britain and Its Transnational Connections.” In Culture and Economy in the Indian Diaspora, edited by Bhikhu Parekh, Gurharpal Singh, and Steven Vertovec, 197–222. London: Routledge. Bloemraad, Irene. 2006. Becoming a Citizen: Incorporating Immigrants and Refugees in the United States and Canada. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke. 2006. “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 3 (2): 77–101. Child Trends. 2015. “Parental Expectations for their Children’s Academic Attainment: Indicators of Children and Youth.” Data Bank. https://www. childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/indicator_1448025709. 541.pdf. C ME C (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada). 2012. Promoting Equality of Educational Opportunity: Canada Report for the UNESCO 8th Consultation of Member States on the Implementation of the Convention and Recommendation against Discrimination in Education. Toronto: Council of Ministers of Education, Canada. Jacob, Brian A. 2002. “Where the Boys Aren’t: Non-cognitive Skills, Returns to School and the Gender Gap in Higher Education.” Economics of Education Review 21, no. 6 (December): 589–98. Lee, Jennifer, and Min Zhou. 2015. The Asian American Achievement Paradox. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Machin, Stephen, and Sandra McNally. 2005. “Gender and Student Achievement in English Schools.” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 21, no. 3 (Autumn): 357–72. Mc Andrew, Marie et al. 2015. La réussite éducative des élèves issus de l’immigration: Dix ans de recherche et d’intervention au Québec. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Mc Andrew, Marie, Jacques Ledent, and Jake Murdoch, with Rachid Ait-Said. 2011. “La réussite scolaire des jeunes québécois issus de l’immigration au secondaire: Rapport final soumis au Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport.” September. ME L S (Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport). 2014a. Cadre de référence: Accueil et intégration des élèves issus de l’immigration au Québec, Part 3, Protocole d’accueil. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec. http://www.education.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/site_web/documents/ education/­diversite/AccueilIntegration_3_ProtocoleAccueil.pdf. – 2014b. Portrait statistique 2011–2012 des élèves issus de l’immigration: Formation générale des jeunes – Édition 2013. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec. MI D I (Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion). 2014. Portrait statistique de la population d’origine ethnique sud-asiatique au Québec en 2011. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec. Rahman, Zaynah, and Matthew A. Witenstein. 2014. “A Quantitative Study of Cultural Conflict and Gender Differences in South Asian American College Students.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 37 (6): 1121–37.

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Santa-Maria, Maria L., and Thomas Cornille. 2007. “Traumatic Stress, Family Separations, and Attachment among Latin American Immigrants.” Traumatology 13 (2): 26–31. Saran, Rupam, ed. 2016. Navigating Model Minority Stereotypes: Asian Indian Youth in South Asian Diaspora. New York: Routledge. Shankar, Shalini. 2016. “Coming In First: Sound and Embodiment in Spelling Bees.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 26, no. 2 (August): 119–40. Sirin, Selcuk R. 2005. “Socioeconomic Status and Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analytic Review of Research.” Review of Educational Research 75 (3): 417–53. Statistics Canada. 2013. “Generation Status: Canadian-Born Children of Immigrants.” Catalogue no. 99-010-X2011003. https://www12.statcan. gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011003_2-eng.pdf. Suárez-Orozco, Carola, Hee Jin Bang, and Ha Yeon Kim. 2010. “I Felt like My Heart Was Staying Behind: Psychological Implications of Family Separations & Reunifications for Immigrant Youth.” Journal of Adolescent Research 26 (2): 222–57. Suárez-Orozco, Carola, and Avary Carhill. 2008. “Afterword: New Directions in Research with Immigrant Families and Their Children.” New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 121 (Fall): 87–104. Verma, Rita. 2008. Backlash: South Asian Immigrant Voices on the Margins. N.p.: Sense Publishers. Zhou, Min, and Susan Kim. 2006. “Community Forces, Social Capital, and Educational Achievement: The Case of Supplementary Education in the Chinese and Korean Immigrant Communities.” Harvard Educational Review 76, no. 1 (April): 1–29.

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T o o l b ox 2

South Asian Public Figures: Models for the Community Laurence Normand

Although significant migration from South Asia is relatively new phenomenon in Quebec, and the integration of immigrants from that region into the Francophone milieu still limited, many significant figures have emerged as evidence of the growing presence of first- and second-generation South Asians in the province’s public sphere. The four cases presented below have been chosen because of their visibility and the fact that they illustrate some of the issues raised in this book. But many other Quebecers of South Asian ­origin make an important contribution to their new society, and their experiences would also warrant further attention.

An ju D h il l o n : A n In s p iri ng Poli ti cal Path f o r S o u t h A s ia n Communi ti es Anju Dhillon was born in LaSalle in 1979 and raised there by her parents, who come from Punjab, the Indian state where Gurū Nānak founded the Sikh religion. Dhillon has never repressed her religious origins; she is proud of being Sikh and enjoys visiting the Sikh temple, or gurdwara. She is often seen enjoying a meal in the community kitchen at the LaSalle gurdwara where she goes to ­worship and visiting with members of the Sikh community. Dhillon holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Concordia University and a bachelor of laws from Université de Montréal. What makes her so special is her determination and

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c­ ourage, and the fact that she was the first Sikh woman to practise law in Quebec exemplifies these personal qualities. She is a model of success for ambitious young women of her community. Dhillon’s ability to speak French, English, and three South Asian languages (Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu) enables her to ably serve recent South Asian immigrants who may not yet have mastered French or English (see chapter 1). These newcomers likely feel more comfortable sharing their stories in their mother tongue with someone of a similar cultural background. Dhillon has a good understanding of both South Asian and Western cultures, which equips her to deal with people of various backgrounds. Her engagement in politics started when she was only thirteen years old. Volunteering for the Liberal Party, she worked with Paul Martin, who was then the member of Parliament for LaSalle-Émard. Her work eventually brought her to new heights during the federal election of 2015: she won the seat in her riding and became the Liberal MP for Justin Trudeau’s government in Dorval-LachineLaSalle, where she still lives. Also in 2015, she received the honour of being named parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Status of Women by Prime Minister Trudeau, a position she held until 2017. She firmly believes in gender equality and is certain that the responsibilities related to this parliamentary position will help in enhancing the status of Canadian women. Dhillon describes her life’s purpose as helping other human beings. One important teaching of Sikhism is sevā, which is voluntary service that can be done inside the temple as well as outside, in the community. Sikhs are strongly encouraged to practise sevā as much as possible, as service to others cultivates a better connection to God (Matringe 2008; see chapter 2). Dhillon grew up with this value and has always enjoyed helping others; for example, in the past, she has ­volunteered at the Old Brewery Mission and given pro bono advice to people in need of it. Dhillon is a multiskilled individual with deep-rooted values. She is a positive model for younger generations and shows members of her community that it is possible to follow their dreams. In her work, she is dedicated to the well-being of women. Dhillon was ­re-elected as MP in 2019, and her parents hope that her position in Parliament contributes to increasing community awareness and acceptance of the Sikh religion (see chapter 1).

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S u ga r S a m m y: A V e rsat i le Arti st between T wo   C u ltures Samir Khullar, better known by the stage name of Sugar Sammy, is a humourist who was born in Montreal in 1976. He has a close relationship with his parents, who are originally from India; indeed, he only moved out of their house at the age of thirty-eight, buying his own home five minutes away. He is part of the Quebec cohort considered the “children of Bill 101,” referring to the law first applied in 1977 to promote French as the official language of the province and the tribunals of Quebec (see chapter 1). As a result, Sugar Sammy speaks both French and English fluently. He plays with both languages in his shows, ­making fun of their respective expressions and idioms. The richness of Sugar Sammy’s humour is that it is accessible to everyone. In fact, his cultural background makes it possible for him to address social issues like racism in a comical way. He effectively incorporates different cultures and languages – particularly in his TV show Ces gars-là – making it easy for the public to relate to him. The comedy show’s episodes are largely built on the real-life experiences of Sugar Sammy and his costar, Simon Olivier Fecteau. Sugar Sammy takes inspiration from both his family’s traditional values and Western ones, notably when the story revolves around relationships between men and women. During his shows, he discusses ­subjects, including sexuality, that are still taboo in traditional Indian contexts. He also highlights subjects that concern second-generation immigrants who live at the confluence of two cultures just like him (see chapters 4 and 8). His work covers diverse topics, linking ­people of varied cultural backgrounds. He is able to find humour in societal contradictions, and he is self-deprecating about being a Quebecer with an Indian background. He has achieved success worldwide, as people around the globe can relate to the stories he presents in Ces gars-là. In 2013, Comedy Central India chose to produce a comedy tour of India showcasing Sugar Sammy, sparking what is now an international career. His linguistic versatility enables him to perform in four different languages: French, English, Punjabi, and Hindi. He has performed more than 1,400 comedy concerts in twenty-eight countries, and his show “You’re Gonna Rire” sold more tickets than any other debut one-man show in Quebec history.

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Instead of emphasizing differences between people, Sugar Sammy’s work highlights preoccupations that are common across cultural lines. Quebecers of all cultural and linguistic backgrounds are proud of this successful comedian. In particular, he is a model of success for second-generation immigrants, and he shows them how to be proud of their cultural background and life experiences.

K h o ko n M a n iruzzaman: T he Im p o rta n c e o f   E ducati on i n Soci ety In 1996, Khokon Maniruzzaman emigrated with his family from Bangladesh to Montreal. His first contact with the Quebec school system occurred when he enrolled his kids in welcome classes (see chapter 6). Wishing to participate in their education, Maniruzzaman became a member of the parents’ committee at his children’s school, eventually becoming a member of the school board. In this capacity, he developed programs and activities with a limited budget for the purpose of helping children succeed at school. Before coming to Quebec, Maniruzzaman had completed a ­master’s degree in political science and worked for international organizations based in the United States and some Asian countries. After his arrival in Quebec, he became acutely aware of a major problem in schools: a lack of communication between the school’s professionals and non-Francophone parents (see chapters 6 and 8). This communication failure meant parents were often unaware of their role in the success of their children. This concern for the welfare of students led Maniruzzaman to engage with the school system and to work toward improving conditions for learning and the development of potential. One of Maniruzzaman’s strongest beliefs is that education is ­fundamental for the development of society. He leverages the traditional values of education and family in service to the community, adapting them with modern initiatives. This was the impetus behind his involvement with the Mouvement pour une école moderne et ouverte (M É MO ). Maniruzzaman is well known in Côte-des-Neiges as being someone who works with and for people. Because he and his family experienced the school system as new immigrants, he is well aware of the difficulties that immigrants may face. He is also a model of success for the South Asian community and for immigrants of

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different backgrounds. Maniruzzaman’s engagement with his ­community makes him an accessible person. Furthermore, he tries to contribute to the transfer of knowledge. For example, he presented at the 2009 conference “La réussite scolaire des élèves issus de l’immigration” held in Sherbrooke, where his goal was to share solutions for improving interventions with immigrant children and their families. Maniruzzaman’s work in community organizations shows that he cares about all members of society (see chapter 3). He has worked on many important issues, such as the reduction of poverty and improvement of working conditions, and been involved with a number of organizations concentrated on the Bangladeshi community, immigrants in general, and members of the local community: namely, Projet Genèse/Project Genesis, the Centre des travailleurs et travailleuses immigrants/Immigrant Workers Centre, the Centre des organismes communautaires/Centre for Community Organizations (C OC o), and Société internationale du Bangladesh/International Society of Bangladesh (SI B ). In 2016, Maniruzzaman and others publicly highlighted the issue of underrepresentation of visible minorities in municipal politics. According to Maniruzzaman, a lot of visible minorities have interesting academic profiles but may be intimidated by the political world. He feels it is crucial that the municipal political parties create initiatives that will lead to better representation of visible minorities in future elections.

A l a n D e S ousa: In v e s t in g in M u n i ci pal Poli ti cs Alan DeSousa, who has been involved in Montreal municipal ­politics for many years, emigrated from Pakistan with his Roman Catholic family as a teenager. He earned a bachelor’s degree and graduate diploma in accounting from McGill University. His career has since been characterized by a commitment to community and politics (see chapter 3). In 2001, DeSousa became the mayor of Saint-Laurent, one of the most diverse neighbourhoods of Montreal. He was elected at a time when major changes were underway in municipal politics with the implementation of Law 170, which resulted in structural municipal reorganization (Simard 2004). Organizations had hoped for better

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representation of minorities, including women and underrepresented cultural communities (see chapter 1). Municipal politics is a good way for immigrants participate in political life. With immigrants making up 22.6 per cent of the population of the Montreal census metropolitan area, it is important to see cultural diversity among the elected representatives (Statistics Canada 2013). In terms of numbers, the people involved in municipal politics still do not reflect the cultural diversity of Montreal, but having DeSousa as a mayor is a strong step forward. His presence can be a source of motivation for new immigrants in Montreal. This city is the centre of immigration for the province: in 2015, just over three-quarters of new immigrants to Quebec (76%) chose to make their new life in Montreal (MI DI 2015). The strong involvement of DeSousa is an indication that it is possible for immigrants to integrate into the political life of Montreal, even though it is not easy (see chapter 1). Of the 103 representatives in Montreal, a mere 10 belong to ethnic minority groups, a proportion that is clearly not representative of society. However, DeSousa’s presence as mayor of Saint-Laurent may encourage other ethnic minorities who wish to follow a similar path. Having gone through the immigration ­process himself, he is acutely aware of the struggles faced by new members of Saint-Laurent’s culturally diverse population (see ­chapter 4). Moreover, DeSousa is well known in this borough. He has lived there for many years, and he served as a city councillor even before Saint-Laurent was merged with Montreal. Aside from the participation of visible minorities in local politics, the environment is another pertinent issue for DeSousa. Since he has been mayor, the environmental situation of Saint-Laurent has improved considerably. The borough received an Honourable Mention in the energy category of the 2014 Sustainable Communities Awards presented by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, for its project of converting street lamps to L E D lighting to reduce electricity use. DeSousa has implemented other municipal projects resulting in an 18 per cent reduction in the volume of domestic garbage over ten years, despite the fact that the population of Saint-Laurent has grown by twenty thousand during that time. With this type of initiative, DeSousa clearly intends that the community of Saint-Laurent will become a model of sustainable development for other cities in Quebec. His innovative projects aim to create a more sustainable environment, which helps people to feel part of the community.

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R e f e r e nces Matringe, Denis. 2008. Les Sikhs: Histoire et tradition des lions du Pendjab. Paris: Albin Michel. MI D I (Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion). 2015. “Fiche synthèse sur l’immigration au Québec – 2015.” http://www.midi. gouv.qc.ca/publications/fr/recherches-statistiques/FICHE_syn_an2015. pdf. Simard, Carolle. 2004. “Qui nous gouverne au municipal: Reproduction ou renouvellement?” Politique et Sociétés 23 (2–3): 135–58. Statistics Canada. 2013. “Immigration et diversité ethnoculturelle au Canada.” Catalogue no. 99-010-X2011001. https://www12.statcan. gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-fra.cfm.

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P ART T H R E E Identity and Cultural Transformations

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7 The Hindu Temple as a Site for the Transmission of Traditional Values Anne-Laure Betbeder Lauque

This chapter looks at the role of Hindu women in Quebec – in particular, how they relate to the ideal of the pativrata, how they participate in temple activities, and how they feel toward the divine couples present in this public place of worship – and their agency in transmitting traditional religious values to their daughters (Betbeder Lauque 2012). The structuralists consider the human subject not as an agent of change but as doomed to reproduce hierarchical symbolic structures through cultural and religious practices (Bourdieu 1987). According to Judith Butler (1997), women’s agency implies the “reflexivity” or critical distance of the female subject toward patriarchal traditions and norms to redefine one’s self-identity. In concrete terms, Clifford Geertz (1991) suggests that such agency (as subjectively defined previously) can result in choosing whether to reproduce or to “interpret” cultural norms and practices. Accordingly, my conceptual framework locates Hindu women’s religious practices on a continuum ranging from the reproduction to the adaptation of traditional values and practices. As Michèle Vatz Laaroussi (2007) explains, the success of transmission relies on immigrant women’s reflexive stance, drawing from traditional values to produce their own frame of reference that is “flexible.” Therefore, I intend to assess the extent to which Hindu women who are first-generation Canadians pass on patriarchal norms to their daughters by means of religious or cultural practices. I will be addressing the following question: Do Hindu immigrant women reproduce and pass on patriarchal norms to their daughters, or do they reinterpret those norms on more liberal grounds?

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According to Jacynthe Cardinal (2000), the agency of women is initiated by a critical distance toward a symbolic patriarchal structure, which allows first personal (critique of the ideal of the pativrata) and then collective (participation in the organizational structure of the temple as well as in religious and cultural activities conducted on its premises) changes. My respondents reported that they had initially practised their religious rituals mainly within the domestic sphere, since the Hindu Mandir, a Hindu temple located in the western suburbs of Montreal, was not built until 1991.1 As Aparna Rayaprol (1997) mentions, the concept of the “public sphere” of public places of worship refers to their organization and management (boards and committees). By the time the Hindu Mandir was built, the participation of women in the public sphere of the temple showed a desire to exercise their rights by demanding equal representation within its governance. Ultimately, the women’s involvement contributed to the creation of an experiential democratic framework, not only for them but also for the generations to come. At the same time, the respondents’ interest in the transmission of cultural/religious practices while ensuring that they are transmitted with flexibility also shows a need to preserve their traditions in a foreign context. As Vatz Laaroussi (2007) underlines, a successful intergenerational transmission depends on its “flexibility.” This chapter mainly relies on qualitative data obtained from a fiveyear study (carried out between 2007 and 2012) that used participant observation at the Hindu Mandir and forty semistructured interviews conducted in English with female devotees. First, the participant observation was carried out using an observation grid that was designed to meet the research objectives. It included five analytical categories: contextual data, gendered data, devotional practices, ritual practices, and social practices. Second, the semistructured interviews allowed me to grasp what cannot be assessed through mere participant observation: that is, the meaning that my respondents ascribe to a given social situation (Mayer 2000). As I did not seek the representativeness of Montreal’s Hindu community but wanted to deepen my research question, I used a “non-probability” sampling (Deslauriers 1991; Kaufman 1996) as well as a “maximum variation sampling” (Guba and Lincoln 1989) in terms of age (twenty first-generation women, twenty second-generation women) and region (twenty from Uttar Pradesh, ten from South India, ten from Gujarat) to be able to identify significant facts.2 To this end, I designed

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two interview guides: one for the first-generation women and the other for the second-generation women. In sum, in this chapter I assess how women’s participation within a selected diasporic temple may have impacted their self-­identification and altered the way in which rituals/festivals are conducted. My objectives were to (1) determine if women’s participation may have triggered the reinterpretation of patriarchal norms on more liberal grounds and (2) evaluate how some variables, such as participants’ region of origin and their sectarian affiliations, may have led to cultural retentions or adaptations.

S e l e c t io n o f t h e T e m p le and Des cri pti on o f   t h e S a mple As shown in chapter 3, in Quebec there are eight Hindu temples (most built during or after the 1990s); the Hindu Mandir is best suited for the particular focus of my research. These places of worship are all situated in and around Montreal and reflect the national heterogeneity of Quebec’s Hindu community as they host devotees from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Guyana as well as neo-­Hindus. Indian immigrants started to settle in Quebec in the early 1960s, whereas Sri Lankan refugees first arrived in the mid-1980s. Within the Sri Lankan community, a greater retention of traditions (increased by the nature of its forced migration) can be observed in terms of architecture, rituals, women’s participation, and sectarian affiliation. It seems useful to clarify that the Sri Lankan immigration to Quebec was forced by civil war, which mostly explains the community’s desire to maintain tradition. As for the Indian community, its temples are affiliated mainly with Vaishnavism and are divided roughly along regional lines. The Hindu Mandir is the only temple to accommodate both North and South Indian communities. The temple makes this accommodation while also advocating an egalitarian perspective, as women are very active in its administration and female participation is important during rituals. It should be mentioned that some people from South Asia who are classified as Hindus do not participate in temples and are often agnostic or atheistic in their beliefs. As mentioned previously, I conducted interviews with female devotees of the Hindu Mandir who are originally from Uttar Pradesh, South India, and Gujarat. Although the respondents from Uttar Pradesh and South India immigrated in two waves (between 1970

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and 1975, and between 1990 and 1995) after completing their studies, to join their husbands, those from Gujarat were limited to a single wave of migration (between 1980 and 1990) and came with their husbands.3 In the 1980s, several Hindu-Muslim riots occurred in the state of Gujarat, which explains the uniqueness of this immigration wave as many people fled from the violence in their native region. On average, 90 per cent of the respondents from Uttar Pradesh and 80  per cent of those from South India hold a university degree in contrast to 25 per cent of those from Gujarat. Regardless of the region of origin of their parents, all the second-generation respondents either attend academic courses or hold a university degree. In terms of sectarian affiliations, most of the first-generation respondents remain affiliated with Vaishnava deities, for they represent a “symbolic tie” with their family traditions, while firmly believing in the existence of a transcendental God (Vatz Laaroussi 2007). By “transcendental God,” I refer to the Vedanta philosophy of a genderless supreme cosmic spirit, also known as Brahman, indicating the monotheistic tradition of Hinduism. “Transcendental” means the individual soul and the universal soul are one reality (Brahman). This being said, I will analyze the extent to which this transitory practice (devotional-transcendental) plays a part in the identification of the first-generation respondents with the deities present at the public temple. As for the second-generation respondents, they selected their own deities in childhood and tended to deviate from devotional practices during adolescence. In many ways, this familiarity with their deity both increases awareness of themselves as they realize they identify with a transcendental god and entails the expression of their agency to cope with difficult situations.

T he A d o p t io n o f a M o r e Egali tari an I deal: A Cr it iq u e o f t h e Id e a l of the Pati vrata Hinduism means different things to different people; not all Hindus share the same beliefs. Some follow the concept of the pativrata. Leona Anderson (2004, 27) provides a definition: The ideal wife, the wife who exhibits total devotion to her husband, is known as pativrata (literally, one who has taken a vow to her husband). The pativrata vows to protect and serve her husband as if he were a god and provide him with children … Though there are many variations on this theme, generally

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women are seen as the responsibility of men and their primary roles are to produce sons and facilitate their husbands’ salvation through domestic and ritual chores. A wife who vows to remain subjected to her husband and ensure his well-being, while completing domestic chores and taking care of her children, fulfills the idea of the pativrata. According to David Kinsley (1988, 76), the goddess Sita is widely associated with the ideal of the pativrata: “Sita’s self-effacing nature, her steadfast loyalty to her husband and her chastity make her both the ideal Hindu wife and the ideal pativrata.” I will here demonstrate how my respondents no longer accept the concept of the pativrata. The majority of first-generation respondents from Uttar Pradesh contradict many aspects of the ideal of the pativrata; for example, they share equally in decision-making, participate actively in the financial well-being of the household, and do not limit their mobility to the private sphere (purdah). The adoption of an egalitarian ideology by immigrant women seems here to be facilitated by three factors: their high level of education, the lack of an extended family, and their duration of exposure to the host society. For Aadhaya, a woman must have self-respect, use her inner strength (shakti), and impose her will for greater equality:4 In older times, the pativrata was whatever the pati [husband] is saying you do. I am against that. Not to die for the pati. Women are now ready to face the unfairness with their shakti. They can level on. Long time ago, women were not working and dependent on the men, but I am against this. If my husband is dead, I don’t want to die, I am against that. As Imani points out, the ability to assert herself as an individual within her marriage requires preliminary work on the self (both spiritual and physical) that evolves over time and through marital interactions:5 My definition of pativrata is you have to be truthful to yourself. I am not talking about the husband. I have to be an honest ­person with myself and along with that, because I am a human being, I have my self-respect and my place in this world. Keeping that thing in my mind, my duty is to take care of him also, but not to the point where he disregards me because I am a human

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being. Suppose you are living with me, I want to take care of yourself. So I will take care of you very honestly with my full intentions. Keeping my self-respect, my identity, I will do what I should do and I feel I could do. Unlike the ideal of the pativrata that promotes self-abnegation, Imani argues that a Hindu wife should not only take good care of her husband but also express her own sense of individuality while making decisions that fit her value system. It is through a reflexive attitude that was initiated by the practice of yoga and meditation that she came to define the role of the pativrata according to her individual set of criteria. As for the second-generation respondents from Uttar Pradesh who graduated mainly in medicine and engineering, it appears that they unanimously adopt an egalitarian perspective in their relationships while also taking care of the well-being of their families. While most of the first-generation respondents from Gujarat disagree with the ideal of the pativrata, perhaps because they are employed, they also try to take care of, for instance, household chores and their children’s homework, and they spend a significant amount of time in the domestic sphere. This is illustrated by Pajika, who, because she has worked all her life, does not adhere to the ideal of the pativrata yet ironically reproduces its terms in the domestic sphere:6 Pativrata means what they say they do. We don’t do anything wrong. Sometimes, the husbands say don’t go. We do everything for the husband. We cook, we clean, we go shopping. We do everything for them, they ask us to do. Don’t you think that is called pativrata? Euh (…)? I was a teacher in India. Here I have worked all my life. The causal relationship between having a paid job and the adoption of egalitarian practices cannot be validated, since Pajika has the same level of education as her husband and contributes to the family income. Two factors seem to have an impact on the reproduction of the ideal of the pativrata: the duration of exposure to in-laws and the nature of the migration journey. Moreover, it is interesting that the second-­ generation respondents from Gujarat unanimously reject the ideal of the pativrata, as the following statement by Sayali illustrates:7 Back in the day, what was defined as pativrata is no longer valid. I think you have to change the practices to a certain degree as the

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environment is evolving and changing. Back in the day, women were not working. Now women work, the couples are equal more than it was before. I think the duties are whatever you define with your partner. How you decide to split them. The way I see it is very different from my mom because she comes from an older school (…) But I think even with my mother, things are changing for her too because she’s been living in this environment for so long. When she was ill, my father and I have been cooking, we both shared a lot of responsibilities; now, he would even do the laundry. So if it is not like that with my father, I would not expect it to be differently with my partner. Unlike their counterparts from Gujarat, the first-generation respondents from South India did not live with their in-laws prior to migration and voluntarily joined their husbands in Quebec once they had completed their degrees. In practice, the role of the pativrata is reflexively negotiated considering that they harmoniously combine some Hindu values with those of the host society (Ghosh 1981). Such is the case of Varati, who defines egalitarianism within her relationship in terms of “mutual respect.”8 In fact, she reminds us that the self is part of the divine through the example of the divine union of Shiva/ Parvati that merges the masculine principle with the feminine one: The term pativrata is interpreted in many different ways. If it is in the sense that you have to follow what your husband says without asking any questions, for me it is very difficult because what’s the point of following and not questioning? Why is it that lord Shiva gave 50% to Parvati? So you are 50%, I am 50%. It is equal. So why should I follow whatever he says? Why can’t we say you do things, I do things. We’ll say it is for the family? (…) Pativrata for me is a disciplined wife. She does everything for the welfare of the family, and I do that to some extent, because all I have in my mind, my daughter first, my husband and I. I don’t put myself first. I feel I am doing some justice to that name. My mother is my role model. I got it from her. I have seen how much care she takes. As illustrated by the divine union of Shiva/Parvati that allowed Varati to question her conservative family tradition, the adoption of an egalitarian practice takes time to conceptualize. For Vatz Laaroussi (2007), the “tools of resilience” that, in her study, take the form of

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objects, people, and/or mythical figures become crucial elements in the integration of immigrant communities. Based on my interviews, I argue that the selection of such “tools of resilience” largely depends on the nature of a woman’s relationship with her parents, their level of religious initiation, their devotional strength, and their individual sensitivity. For instance, some respondents draw their resilience from the life or religious path of their mothers and/or fathers, the teachings of gurus (initiation to sacred texts, meditation, and yoga), or domestic deities.

I n d iv idua l Id e n t if ic ati on wi th Di vi ne Cou p l e s : A   C r it ic a l V is i on of the I deal o f   t h e   P at ivrata At the Hindu Mandir, a large majority of the first-generation respondents are affiliated to Vaishnavism, as shown by the presence of the secondary divine couples Rama/Sita and Krishna/Radha on the main altar. Even if these deities represent a “symbolic link” with their family traditions, the respondents remain critical of their symbolism and believe deeply in a transcendental God (Vatz Laaroussi 2007). For most of those respondents who are affiliated to Vaishnavism, it seems inconceivable to relate to Vaishnava divine couples like Rama/Sita as they are opposed to the ideology of the pativrata. For Kalapi, the divine couple Rama/Sita is not in line with her earthly egalitarian ideal, which is why she prefers to draw her resilience from the concrete example of her parents:9 There is no ideal divine couple really. In the modern ages, no. In idealistic life lord Rama and Sita was the idealistic divine couple and even that time lord Rama could not trust his own wife. He tested her. He thought she wasn’t pure after living with another man, but she wasn’t touched. She passed the test over the fire. Even then he threw her out of the palace on little pretext, because he was considered an ideal king. If he could not do that, so nobody is a god! In modern ages, I don’t find anybody as a divine couple but as a couple what I feel is a unit. This is how it is in the Hindu culture and with my parents. Husband and wife are the two wheels of a chariot, and if one wheel is broken, we cannot run the family. So the couple as a unit you do things together, you say yes or no together, loyalty and trust is the foundation.

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All of the first-generation respondents who are Vaishnava are critical of their sectarian divine epics and do not want to identify themselves with divine couples who are not egalitarian, let alone see them as ideal. This “reflexivity” is based on their oral initiation to the sacred texts, which took place at a young age, as they left India when they were in their twenties. In many respects, most of the female devotees who belong to this subcategory value their family traditions and pray to Rama; however, they remain critical of what he symbolizes. Among the first-generation respondents affiliated with Shaivism, the divine couple Shiva/Parvati is celebrated for its egalitarianism in so far as it transcends the union of the male and the female principles that permeate the Shakta tradition. Meanwhile, the fluid nature of Hinduism allows these respondents to adopt a critical distance from their home deities in order to be able to reflect upon the egalitarian nature of divine couples. As stated by Lalita, who is a worshipper of Ganesh, the divine couple Shiva/Parvati represents an ideal she can relate to, as the couple is faced with marital difficulties similar to those of humans:10 I like Shiva and Parvati because they are very much near to realism than idealism. They get angry. They laugh together. They love each other. This is reality. If I see other gods and goddesses, they are too perfect, you know. For me, perfection is not there. We have ups and downs; there are bumps everywhere. That’s why I like Shiva and Parvati because they have downs and ups. As she masters the principles of the Shakta tradition, this respondent, who is opposed to the ideal of the pativrata, cannot identify with a divine couple that reflects the Brahmanical principles. The union of Shiva and Parvati offers an androgynous representation of the divine that facilitates access to spiritual liberation in that it is beyond gendered prescriptions. In view of these data, it should be noted that the nature of oral transmission somehow locates the position of my respondents closer to the pativrata ideologically. As for the second-generation respondents, they clearly confess their poor understanding of the symbolism attached to the deities, which explains their absence of identification with and devotion to divine couples. They share the egalitarian vision of their mothers, who neglected to explain to them the ideology of the pativrata, and

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they prefer to learn from the past and current real-life experiences of their parents’ married life.

E n t e r in g t h e “ P u b l ic S p here” of the Hi ndu M a n d ir : A n E g a l ita ri an S trategy It should be noted that going to the temple regularly is not a common practice in India. Hinduism is distinct from religions such as Christianity and Islam in that going to church and the mosque are very important in those religions. Many Hindu households have within them a small “temple” or place of worship, and they worship their family deities, which vary to a great extent. In immigrant communities, the idea of going to the temple is as much a social activity as a religious one. In Montreal, the paradox of subjectivation (Butler 1993) can be found in Hindu temples for it allows women to express their own agency, as shown by their presence in the organizational structure of the Hindu Mandir. Several studies show that first-generation Hindu women in the diaspora openly express their egalitarian claims by entering the “public sphere” of public places of worship, for instance, by serving on decision-making committees (Ralston 1988; Rayaprol 1997). In Halifax, however, Helen Ralston (1988) witnessed limitations to the feminization of Hindu temples, as immigrant women do not preside over these places of worship. Although this limitation to feminization also exists at the Hindu Mandir, first-generation female devotees are in a position to challenge its structure by sitting on its board of directors and organizational committees. In many ways, the presence of women in the religious structure of the Hindu Mandir has had a significant impact on the rituals and the festivals chosen to be celebrated, the degree of women’s participation, and the importance assigned to the role of the priest. Kathleen Erndl (1997) argues that deities cannot be reduced to abstract divine referents because they precisely allow women a gendered experience of faith. At the Hindu Mandir, an egalitarian interpretation of the ideal wife is mirrored in the celebration of festivals like the one dedicated to Rama.11 At the request of their mothers, the females of the second and third generations entered the “public sphere” of the temple to perform the Ramlila. During this representation, which was spearheaded by two women from Uttar Pradesh, the androcentric components of the Ramayana were intentionally omitted.

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It is by means of a thoughtful selection of the Epic of the Ramayana that these first-generation women intended to convey to the secondgeneration women the idea of what a dharmic action should be. My respondents from Uttar Pradesh who were critical of Rama did not challenge Sita’s loyalty, because they disapproved of the notion of dharmic action as applied by Rama toward Sita.12 The mothers, by not only addressing the androcentric components of the Ramayana that were orally passed on to them but also choosing not to explain the ideal of the pativrata to their daughters, exposed the latter to a new experiential referent that defines any dharmic action from an egalitarian perspective.13 It is also interesting to note that the first-generation respondents do not recall their own wedding ceremonies, for their average age was eighteen at the time, and the priest had not given them an explanation of the seven marital vows.14 The combination of these two factors denied them any critical distance from their wedding ceremony or the seven marital vows. Overall, women’s agency can be observed to evolve with time and life experiences, as illustrated here by Aamani.15 She confessed her admiration for her daughter’s involvement in her own wedding ceremony, which took place at the temple: At the time I didn’t know the meaning of the seven steps. I learned it later. The priest did not explain. These days, he explains to the people but, at the time, people did not do that. My daughter had a say in it (…) When we were young, we did not question. If I had to do it all over again I would change things. This stance was facilitated by the liberal attitude of the priest, who did not hesitate to explain in Hindi the different stages of the ceremony so that both mother and daughter could fully appreciate its significance and be consider some aspects critically. As for the marital vows, the second-generation respondents, including Rajani, disagree with their androcentric components:16 I mean, I understand in general why pujas are done for but the symbolism I don’t necessarily know. Actually, we knew the priest who was doing the ceremony so we went through the meaning of everything and what it meant with my husband. I’ve seen several weddings so I knew the meaning of the seven steps. Do I agree

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with all the seven steps? No. But I know it is something more ­significant in a larger sense. We can’t take it per se, word for word what it means. As pandit ji told me, it has to be thought in a greater context so it didn’t bother me so much. It lasted about an hour and a half. In fact, Rajani found comfort in the priest who told her that these vows should be contextualized; this allowed her to build her own interpretation of the ritual and assign new meanings to the seven vows. In a nutshell, the need for the second-generation respondents to understand traditional values and practices prompted the reflexive capacity of their mothers.

T he P re s e n c e o f W o m e n in the Admi ni s trati on of  t h e T e m p l e : A d o p t io n of a Pan-I ndi an a n d   E c u m e n ic a l I deology The presence of immigrant women in the administration of public places of worship strongly indicates that their individual and collective rights are exercised fully in order to promote greater diversity and equality. In other words, their participation on the decision-­ making committees of Hindu temples helps to convey a “pan-Indian” and “ecumenical” ideology. At the Hindu Mandir, the diversity of the materials used for the construction of the deities reflects the celebration of a heterogeneous immigrant community that claims its regional diversity within a single public place of worship. Some deities that are on the altar – including Durga, Sita, Rama, Lakshmana, Hanuman, Krishna, and Radha – are carved from marble, which means they come from northern India. However, Ganesh, the Shiva Lingam, and Venkateshwara are crafted out of granite, which signifies that they originate from the South of India. Even if the majority of the deities carved in marble appear to be affiliated with Vaishnavism, the marble carving of Durga, who belongs to the Shaiva tradition, reminds devotees of the importance of transcending sectarian borders. By promoting a “flexible” symbolic referent that is respectful of its internal diversity in terms of gender, regional background, and sectarian affiliation, the followers of the Hindu Mandir can express their own adaptive strategies (Vatz Laaroussi 2007). Drawing on my interviews, there is evidence to suggest that both first- and second-generation devotees adhere unanimously to

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this double perspective that is “ecumenical” and “pan-Indian.” As Imani noted, such flexibility allows these women to express their family traditions and their individual beliefs on the very premises of the temple: I think it is very important because since you are not in India, we don’t have that many temples here. In India, you can have your own temple, but here it is not possible to have that many. So having the deities from all the regions it is a fantastic idea because as I can see, I can relate to Radha and Krishna, and ­others can also relate to their form of god, and I think they have done a fantastic job. Similarly, the presence of marble and granite deities on the same altar helps to celebrate a plurality of regional backgrounds and sectarian affiliations on an equal footing, even though this arrangement contradicts the Agamic prescriptions.

G o in g b e yo n d E t h ni c Boundari es a n d   S e c ta r ia n Affi li ati ons: T h e Im p o rta n c e o f t h e Ri tuals Selected Three-quarters of my subsample of first-generation respondents informed me they were affiliated with a specific subsect derived primarily from the Vaishnava tradition while also recognizing that God takes on an abstract form. In fact, few devotees admitted to attending the daily evening services that are dedicated to a subsect, which implies that home deities serve essentially as a link to their family tradition as well as a concentration point. The weekly ceremony that attracts the most followers is the Sunday morning service dedicated to all the deities present on the altar. As Roger Bastide (2007) argues, these observations confirm the idea that rituals are not a mere reproduction of tradition but rather a source of interpretation that is here mirrored by the assertion of “ecumenical” devotional practices. Actually, devotees from various sectarian affiliations and regional backgrounds recite devotional songs to their respective home deities in their native languages, giving not only an “ecumenical” but also a “pan-Indian” value to this ritual. It is the first-generation women from Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Gujarat who chant lengthy devotional songs in vernacular Hindi,

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Punjabi, and Gujarati while accompanied by traditional musical instruments. Therefore, the priestly direction of this ritual is minimal because the priest does not wash the deities (abhisheka) but simply honours them with Sanskrit mantras and the arti.17 Unlike the Brahmanical tradition that praises the “great tradition” of Hinduism and the recourse to Sanskrit, Bhaktism is commonly associated with its “popular tradition” that promotes folk texts and vernacular languages.18 This feminine agency that consists of reciting devotional songs in the public sphere of the temple shows a “bypass” of the Brahmanical prescriptions by the use of the local tradition from various regions and vernacular languages. The use of vernacular languages by the first-generation respondents from Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Gujarat does not stand for a regional or linguistic claim, but rather suggests a familiar language that falls within their family traditions and facilitates their devotion to God. For Geeta, the weekly rotation of devotees who participate in this ritual allows her to be exposed to a plurality of languages and devotional songs, as well as a variety of family and sectarian practices:19 I don’t know all the bhajans (devotional songs), but I follow. They are not in the books. Different people get the microphone and sing. If you say Hare Rama, Hare Krishna, people will follow that and the next line comes and people follow, if they can sing. Some people sing Krishna’s bhajans. Some people sing Durga’s bhajans. Some Shiv ji’s bhajans. Whoever wants to sing whatever bhajans they can sing and every Sunday they are different. There are no hard rules for that, anyone can sing. The slokas (Sanskrit hymns) and the arti (holy ceremony) remain the same. Although Geeta does not always grasp the meaning of the devotional songs that the devotees recite, it does not prevent her from “uniting with God” as the pleasant rhythms that echo through these songs help her transcend regional and sectarian affiliations. In addition to being appeased, she emerges from this devotional experience with a renewed energy (shakti) that allows her to define her value system for herself and to act with “reflexivity” in her daily life. As Hanita noted, their community’s participation in the ritual is not merely religious but also cultural:20 I don’t go to the temple too often. It’s like when our friends have a special occasion or a big festival. I don’t have time to go on a

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weekly basis. When I am there I am fully in there, but I cannot go weekly. I cannot promise to myself I will go. I don’t have time with the little ones. I am running around so much with all those schedules (…) Going to the temple is like a visit you have to make, and on the weekends, my kids have swimming lessons. For me taking care of my family and my kids is like offering a prayer to God. God has created the kids; he wants them to be safe. The temple is a nice place to socialize and expose my kids to the culture, but again, you can do only so much. According to Hanita, the Hindu Mandir is primarily a socializing place as she admits attending the Sunday morning service provided that she is invited by a friend or she is sponsoring the event. However, many first-generation respondents have confessed their unfamiliarity with these weekly gatherings, since in some parts of India it is customary to make only a short visit to the temple. As for the majority of the second-generation respondents from Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, there is evidence that they stop attending the Sunday morning service as soon as they are old enough to go to university. In the case of Odika, this can be explained by a lack of interest in devotional practices:21 When I was younger, I used to go a lot more to the Mandir. Attending the pujas on Sundays, but I don’t do as much now. When I was younger, I had time on my hands, but now, I am at university so I don’t have that much time to give. Plus, I don’t believe in bhajans. Odika’s comment illustrates Priya Agarwal’s theory (1991) that marks the different phases of adaptation among the second generation, who, in this case, emulate the way rituals are conducted in childhood, then question them in adolescence, and aspire to a compromise at a later age.

A P r e f e r e n c e f o r t h e Transmi s si on o f   C u lt u r a l / R e l igi ous Values : A S ig n o f W o m e n’s Agency Although in India tradition is passed on by means of various family and social institutions, the dynamic is quite different in the diaspora, where Hindu temples serve as places where the ancestral tradition

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can be preserved. Once the Hindu Mandir was built, the first-generation respondents clearly showed their willingness to contribute to the intergenerational transmission of their religious/cultural heritage. For instance, Varati underlines the importance of investing time, money, and energy in the temple to pass on Hindu values to the second generation: Back home it is not a question. Here I have to make sure my daughter follows the culture. Everybody was following in India, and it was taken for granted. Here we have to really make sure that we invest our time, money, and energy for the kids to follow our religion. Otherwise, it is very easy for them to deviate from that. The combination of three particular variables – the nature of the migration journey, the level of education, and the absence of an extended family – has not only allowed the expression of Hindu women’s agency in public temples but also fuelled their quest for meaning. As Vatz Laaroussi (2007) notes, effective transmission requires a well-thought-out selection of what needs to be transmitted, and this has been achieved at the Hindu Mandir. As mentioned earlier, the first-generation women rarely preside over Hindu temples; this strongly indicates that the feminization of public temples in a context of migration is limited (Ralston 1988). However, it is worth asking whether the rise of women within the religious administration of temples is hindered by their male counterparts or deliberately avoided by women themselves in order to concentrate on the transmission of their religious/cultural heritage. In response to that question, the first-generation women I interviewed consider that the absence of women from the presidency of the Hindu Mandir is the result of deliberate choice, since they prefer to support educational activities that fall within specific organizational committees. This supports the study carried out by Ratna Ghosh (1981) in that first-generation South Asian women are mostly involved in the intergenerational transmission of their religious practices. At the Hindu Mandir, two women from Uttar Pradesh have been volunteering for fourteen years to teach vernacular Hindi to the second and third generations, whose parents or grandparents originate from Uttar Pradesh.22 As Janatha argues, teaching Hindi is essential even though it is not always spoken at home because it allows the

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second and third generations to bridge the gap with their past heritage and to maintain a linguistic bond with their families in Montreal and in India:23 At the temple, I teach Hindi. It’s been fourteen years. When my children were younger, they used to go with me. They don’t know much how to write but they speak Hindi. Even at home we speak Hindi. We don’t speak English, you know. That’s why we started a school because they shouldn’t forget their culture, language, and tradition. But the parents sometimes speak English at home too. That’s why we teach Hindi, and they are good. They learn fast. They speak well. With my kids, we always spoke Hindi at home. If the mother is always speaking, they learn fast because they get more practice. This agency allows first-generation Hindu women to provide second and third generations with the linguistic tools that will enable them to make sense of their hyphenated identity. In other words, these later generations will be well equipped to understand the sermons of gurus/swamis, the ritual explanations offered by the priest, and the bhajans recited by their mothers. However, will the second and third generations succeed in taking a critical distance from their ancestral heritage as they read religious textbooks, read sacred texts, and listen to sermons or devotional songs? In many ways, the issue pertaining to the second and third generations’ mastery of their parents’ or grandparents’ mother tongue represents a vital component of their understanding of religious rituals. Even though members of the second generation from Uttar Pradesh have been initiated to Hindi, they are unable to grasp the significance of the devotional songs that their mothers recite, as they contain an abundance of foreign concepts. As Gulabi’s remarks show, this apparent issue has paved the way for a variety of religious interpretations because it can favour a transcendental union with God:24 I don’t know all the bhajans. There’s too many and there are always new ones coming up. I understand the Hindi bhajans: the others, no. Even if they are in Hindi, just because the context is not clear to me or they are referring to something specific. So sometimes I’ll understand the words but not the meanings. If I don’t know the words (…) I close my eyes and listen. I imagine God.

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Her interpretation of the Sunday morning ceremony enabled her to make sense of “contradictory feelings” by closing her eyes during the religious service and thinking of God in its transcendental form (Simmel 1912).

C o n c l u s ion As Butler (1997) indicates, immigrant women are in many ways agents of change, which implies a “reflexive” stance in terms of their traditional values. The agency of the women I interviewed and observed at the Hindu Mandir can be expressed in various ways both in the domestic sphere and at the temple. First of all, they are mostly opposed to the ideal of the pativrata, because they adopt an egalitarian practice within their marriages and are critical of divine couples like Rama/Sita. By participating in the administration of the temple, they demonstrate their adoption of an egalitarian strategy. Moreover, their contribution to the selection of the rituals and festivals performed in the temple prove their claim for a pan-Indian and ecumenical experiential framework. They readily admit that they prefer to support various educational activities in order to expose the second generation to their religious/cultural heritage. Thus, the success of their transmission depends on the “flexibility” of the experiential referent adopted in the context of migration (Vatz Laaroussi 2007). While Hindu women carry the responsibility of passing on their religious traditions to their children, they will most likely see their children adapt religious practices according to their own ideas of ethics and social justice instead of being faithful to patriarchal practices in the name of religion.

Not e s   1 To preserve the anonymity of my respondents, I will use pseudonyms.   2 The proportion of respondents from Uttar Pradesh (50%), Gujarat (25%) and South India (25%) roughly reflects that of the Hindu Mandir.   3 Most of my respondents from Gujarat did not complete their studies, because they got married and had to live with their in-laws.   4 Aadhaya comes from the subsample of first-generation women from Uttar Pradesh.

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  5 Imani comes from the subsample of first-generation women from Uttar Pradesh.   6 Pajika is a first-generation woman from Gujarat.   7 Sayali is a second-generation woman from Gujarat.   8 Varati is a first-generation woman from South India.   9 Kalapi is a first-generation woman from Uttar Pradesh. 10 Lalita is a first-generation woman from Uttar Pradesh. 11 At the Hindu Mandir, the festival dedicated to Rama, called Ram Navami, gathers mainly devotees from Uttar Pradesh. Consequently, my analysis focuses on my subsample of respondents from Uttar Pradesh. My observations are based on my attendance at two Ram Navami festivals. 12 The first-generation respondents are very critical of Rama, especially when he exiles Sita during her pregnancy. 13 Except for one of them, the second-generation respondents did not know the term “pativrata” – it had never been used or explained by their mothers. 14 It is important to note that the seven marital vows are commonly recited in Sanskrit. 15 Aamani is a first-generation woman from South India. 16 Rajani is a second-generation woman from Uttar Pradesh. 17 The arti is a ceremony in which deities are blessed while using, among other things, the sacred light. 18 Bhaktism is an egalitarian philosophical movement of the medieval period. 19 Geeta is a first-generation woman from Uttar Pradesh. 20 Hanita is a first-generation woman from Uttar Pradesh. 21 Odika is a second-generation woman from Uttar Pradesh. 22 One of these two first-generation women is also in charge of the summer camp that is attended by the second and third generations of all regions, but here I will focus on the Hindi class. 23 Janatha is one of the two volunteer Hindi teachers from Uttar Pradesh. 24 Gulabi is a second-generation woman from Uttar Pradesh.

R e f e r e n ce s Agarwal, Priya. 1991. Passage from India: Post-1965 Indian Immigrants and Their Children. Palos Verdes, CA: Yuvati. Anderson, Leona. 2004. “Women in Hindu Traditions.” In Women and Religious Traditions, edited by Leona Anderson and Pamela Young, 1–44. Don Mills, ON : Oxford University Press. Bastide, Roger. 2007. Sociologie du folklore brésilien: Études afro-­ brésiliennes. Paris: L’Harmattan.

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Betbeder Lauque, Anne-Laure. 2012. “Agentivité des femmes hindoues immigrées au Québec et transmission intergénérationnelle.” PhD diss., Université du Québec à Montréal. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1987. Choses dites. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that Matter. New York: Routledge. – 1997. The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Cardinal, Jacynthe. 2000. “Suzanne Jacob et la résistance aux fictions dominantes: Figures féminines et procédés rhétoriques rebelles.” MA thesis, Université du Québec à Montréal. Deslauriers, Jean-Pierre. 1991. Recherche qualitative: Guide pratique. Montreal: McGraw-Hill. Erndl, Kathleen M. 1997. “The Goddess and Women’s Power: A Hindu Case Study.” In Women and Goddess Traditions: In Antiquity and Today, edited by Karen Leigh King, 17–38. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Geertz, Clifford. 1991. Bali: Interprétation d’une culture. Paris: Gallimard. Ghosh, Ratna. 1981. “Social and Economic Integration of South Asian Women in Montreal, Canada.” In Women in the Family and the Economy: An International Comparative Study, edited by George Kurian and Ratna Ghosh, 59–71. Westport, C T: Greenwood. Guba, Egon, and Yvonna Lincoln. 1989. Fourth Generation Evaluation. Newbury Park, CA: S AG E. Kaufman, Jean-Claude. 1996. “Des instruments évolutifs.” In L’entretien compréhensif, edited by Jean-Claude Kaufman, 33–57. Paris: Nathan. Kinsley, David. 1988. Hindu Goddesses: Vision of the Devine Feminine. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mayer, Robert. 2000. “L’entrevue de recherche.” In Méthodes de recherche en intervention sociale, by Robert Mayer, Francine Ouellet, MarieChristine Saint-Jacques, and Daniel Turcotte, 115–33. Montreal: Gaëtan Morin. Ralston, Helen. 1988. “Ethnicity, Class and Gender among South Asian Women in Metro Halifax: An Exploratory Study.” Canadian Ethnic Studies 20 (3): 63–83. Rayaprol, Aparna. 1997. Negotiating Identities: Women in the Indian Diaspora. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Simmel, Georg. 1912. Mélanges de philosophie relativiste. Paris: Alcan. Vatz Laaroussi, Michèle. 2007. “Les relations intergénérationnelles, vecteurs de transmission et de résilience au sein des familles immigrantes et réfugiées au Québec.” Enfances, Familles, Générations, no. 6 (Spring): 1–15.

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8 Dual Socialization between Religion and School: The Case of “Nepalese” Girls Béatrice Halsouet Being a young South Asian woman in the smaller, regional towns of Quebec can often seem somewhat incongruous. As many chapters in this volume emphasize, immigration in general, and South Asian immigration in particular is most common in the city of Montreal. However, one category of immigrant is not given the choice of where they would like to settle in this Canadian province: state-sponsored refugees. In fact, these people, who are chosen while in their country of origin or in a transit country, find themselves assigned to their first home in Canada. In Quebec, this assignment necessarily leads to the smaller communities of the province, rather than the city of Montreal, because the immigration policy (MC C I 1990) aims at counteracting the métropolisation of immigration, an issue that is more accentuated in this province than elsewhere in Canada. As a result, more than 2,000 Bhutanese refugees have been relocated in four medium-sized regional towns in Quebec. This relocation is a part of Canada’s welcoming of 6,500 such refugees from Nepalese camps since 2007.1 Our study focuses on the generation of school-age children, which represents approximately a third of the Bhutanese refugees settled in Saint-Jérôme, a city of 60,000 inhabitants about forty kilometres north of Montreal. The migratory path of the young women discussed in this chapter is different from that of their parents: the youth knew no other home but the refugee camps since birth and consider themselves “Nepalese” in Quebec. Their parents, who identify as “Bhutanese,” had previously left the South of

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Bhutan, where their families had lived for generations. In their home country, they followed the way of life of their pioneer Nepalese ancestors; however, in the early 1990s, they chose or were forced to choose exile as a result of Bhutan’s strongly nationalist One Nation, One People policy (Hutt 2003). The “killing time” (Gustafson 2008) in the camps would last at least seventeen years and carries on even today for thousands of these people (Banki and Phillips 2014). Today, relocated young “Nepalese” women are experiencing an introduction into new social environments in their regional Quebecois schools and, at the same time, the transmission of Hindu tradition within the home and cultural community. How, then, does this double socialization work in a postmigratory, provincial Quebec context? What do these women think of all this? And what are the reactions of their teachers, their parents, and other members of their community? Are there points of commonality or, on the contrary, tension between the two worlds? This chapter aims to answer some of these seldom-explored questions in the context of a medium-sized, regional city.

T h e S o c ia l iz at io n o f Adoles cents in a P o s t m ig r atory Context Several recent studies in Canada examine the socialization of adolescents in a postmigratory context, both in the family sphere and in the school sphere. Regarding the place of religion in immigrant families, Peter Beyer (2008, 29) compares it to a collective anchor: “one of the more common conclusions drawn from research among immigrants to Western countries like Canada and the United States is that those who have arrived in a country relatively recently will often find in their religious faith an important anchor and orientation for their ability and effort to establish themselves in their new homes.” Taking this idea further, Beyer and Rubina Ramji (2013) centre their research on the reconstruction of religion in a postmigratory context for two hundred youth between the ages of eighteen and twenty-seven who live in urban areas (Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto) and who identify as Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist. The practising Hindus, according to the researchers, belong to one of three categories: ethnocultural Hindus, for whom religion and culture are combined; nonpractising Hindus; and strictly observant Hindus. One marked difference between the categories is transversally interesting: “What seems clear

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is that the women, much more than the men felt a responsibility for carrying on and carrying forth the Hindu tradition and identity, even if for most this was not a matter of perpetuating religion but more one of culture, or at least both at the same time” (Beyer 2013, 64). In Montreal, the research team GR I ME R (Groupe de recherche interdisciplinaire sur le Montréal ethnoreligieux, or the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Ethnoreligious Montreal) similarly observed youth as one axis of its transversal study of the Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian communities (Rousseau 2012). Across all generations, the Tamil Hindu refugees interviewed considered the temple especially important to their religious practice, for three reasons: it “permits the establishment of a sense of continuity between the immigration context and the culture of origin” (Boisvert 2012, 169), it is a place of socialization among people from a common ethnocultural origin, and it sustains the diffusion of their culture. Even so, all of the existing studies deal with dense, multicultural urban environments, which are unlike most typical Quebec towns. In the province, the resettling of refugees is attended to by nonprofit organizations that are funded by the federal and provincial governments. The mandate of these organizations is the resettlement and integration of immigrants into the community within five years of their arrival. In Saint-Jérôme, the city north of Montreal where this research took place, the organization in question is CO F F RE T (Centre d’orientation et de formation pour favoriser les relations ethniques traditionnelles, or the Orientation and Training Centre to Foster Traditional Ethnic Relations). As was the case with all resettlement and integration agencies (Kanouté et al. 2008), its intermediary role between families and their new educational environment appears to be essential. With this in mind, how does the socialization of young immigrants in regional schools actually happen? Marilyn Steinbach (2010), in her research on young people who attended high school in Sherbrooke, another regional Quebec town, recorded adolescent discourse around mutual rejection, for both youth of immigrant origin and those born in Quebec. A longitudinal study carried out between 2009 and 2011 (Steinbach and Lussier 2013) reinforced her conclusions: namely, that prejudice is common, racist incidents occur within schools, and any meaningful cultural exchange is precluded by the lack of a common language and a certain reciprocal shyness – though cultural exchange is something that official policy promotes (M E L S 2008).

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Social integration into a regional school environment, which is more homogeneous, seems then to be potentially thorny for young immigrants. In what ways may this social integration differ from that of immigrant youth in Montreal? In Montreal, young Allophones spend ten to twenty months on average in closed newcomer-integration classes. They are quite common in Montreal, but the vast majority of regional high school and elementary school students do not have access to these classes. Instead, such students are introduced directly into the regular class at a grade level corresponding to their age. Within the regional framework, these students do, however, benefit from other complementary linguistic-support measures (de Koninck and Armand 2012), based on the choices and resources available to the school boards. This way of doing things can be advantageous in facilitating social integration, so long as certain conditions are in place, such as frequent French-language courses and effective collaboration between teachers and guardians to meet this challenge (de Koninck, and Armand 2012). As for the socialization of these young “Nepalese” immigrants to their familial culture, something Danielle Juteau (1999) calls “ethnicisation,” it is enacted within the community they belong to and, for the most part, at the family level. Mathieu Boisvert (2013, 307) describes this socialization as “the preferred sphere for the passing on of tradition.” The girls’ parents, however, are themselves also in a process of reintegration, which often implies a retraining, starting with French courses offered by the provincial government. Moreover, according to Juteau (1999), the production of ethnicity, which is a labour in itself, is predominantly the mother’s job; through her daily acts she demonstrates cultural practices. This role is particularly pronounced in the passing on of Hindu religious practices: “Mothers have traditionally been seen as the transmitters of cultural and religious values to their children, and women in the diaspora have sought in different ways to fulfill this expectation” (Warrier 2008, 90). The question of gender is also of interest here, as the constraints imposed on girls by their families seem stronger than those aimed at boys, at least in the South Asian families that have been studied (Bakhshaei, Mc Andrew, and Georgiou 2012). This gendered difference is particularly salient in the school context: “All the school respondents insisted that there is a difference between the social integration of girls and boys of South Asian origin. The male students were viewed as being culturally more free than their female peers, and as such

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were perceived to have a greater chance of integration into Quebec society” (Bakhshaei 2013, 82). Furthermore, it is known that cultures of the South Asian subcontinent commonly attribute gendered roles to every member of society, regardless of age. This is especially the case for young people, who do not customarily spend time with members of the opposite sex before choosing their life mate. As such, this study aims to better understand how young women negotiate their place in relation to their familial culture of origin and to the culture of their new school environment in a context (regional Quebec) that is commonly considered monoethnic.

D if f e r e n t F ac e t s o f the Double S o c ia l iz at io n o f t h es e Young Women Passing along the Hindu tradition in the family home “Ethnicisation,” per Juteau (1999), refers to the socialization that takes place in the family home. This process emphasizes the role of the mother, as we have already seen. But where should the researcher’s lens focus in this vast domain that is socialization? Since the Hindu religion is an orthopraxy, which is present in actions, prescriptions, and perspectives on life, three areas help us assess the impact of Hindu prescriptions on a young woman’s life: the concept of marriage (vivahā), the votive offerings by youths (vrata or bartā), and taboos around menstruation. Let us now briefly explain these three concepts, which come from the strīdharma, the dharma (or path) that a Hindu woman is expected to follow. Firstly, the vivahā, or marriage, is a very important rite of passage (samskāra) for the young Hindu woman. As Boisvert also explains in chapter 2 of this volume, the ideal marriage is an endogamous one: the sought-after spouse must be Hindu and of the same caste (jāti), in order to perpetuate the same rituals that everybody learns and experiences starting in childhood (e.g., rituals for ancestors, daily or periodical pujas).2 Marriage is usually arranged or semi-arranged and must be done with parental approval (either beforehand or after the fact). In fact, the Hindu conception of love itself is that it is born of an official union and is fortified over the course of a marriage. In addition, once married, a woman becomes first and foremost a member of her spouse’s family and moves into their home.3 In the context of their new lives in Quebec, however, what specific aspects of a

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conception of marriage might young, single, first-generation immigrant Hindu women adopt? Second, the young women were interviewed regarding their daily fast (or partial fast) practice, called vrata or bartā (the latter term being the one this study’s participants used). The bartā is often dedicated to a divinity of the Hindu pantheon and is accompanied by “a combination of any of the following: worship (pūjā), ritual bathing (snāna), all-night vigils (jāgarana), meditational recitation (japa), and gift-giving (dāna) [and] vrata-kathā – a ritual telling of a narrative concerning the performance and benefits of the vrata” (McGee 1996, 150). The variations of these votive practices are numerous, notably regarding their frequency, and they depend on the family and their region of origin. This is something that must be specified in the particular case of these young Hindu “Nepalese” women. The purpose is for every woman to be in harmony with the cosmic law that rules the universe, the dharma, allowing for her home to be a place of wellbeing and for her family to flourish. The bartā is equally meant to increase an individual’s tapas, or innate power. Historically, these fasts have been studied primarily in the case of married Hindu women. Therefore, studying fasting behaviours among young, unmarried women is original, particularly in the postmigratory context. Third, practices surrounding menstruation are charged with ritual power because menstrual blood is considered the ultimate impurity in Hinduism. A menstruating woman is called nacuni, or “untouchable” – a term that applies to members of the lowest castes (Bouillier 1982, 109). The mythical origin of this impurity is the atonement for a transgression of the god Indra, who murdered a Brahman. The residual monthly “staining” of the woman distances her from tasks requiring purity. For example, “the actual cooking of the food in India must be ritually pure” (Douglas [1966] 2003, 128), so a woman cannot take part in meal preparation during the initial four days of menstruation. Traditionally, menstruating women also cannot be seen by men; “they eat separately, remain in a corner of the house, do not cook or bathe, and do not decorate their bodies” (Marglin 1985, 63). In addition, at the time of her menarche, a young woman may be isolated for even longer, for a period called gupha basne (“staying in the cave”). Were these rituals practised in the refugee camps where the young women we interviewed (between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one) likely experienced their first periods? Do these ritual practices continue to be observed in Quebec?

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This study aims, then, to better understand a range of cultural and religious perspectives: specifically, how the young Hindu “Nepalese” women apply these typically feminine Hindu prescriptions in the postmigratory context. Socialization at school: The system’s scope Quebec’s school system has identified three “missions” for its schools: instruction, socialization, and qualification. Particularly pertinent to this study is the goal of socialization, whereby “the school is called upon to enable cohesion by teaching how to live harmoniously with others and by inspiring a feeling of belonging for youth within the wider community” (ME L S 2008, 6). Moreover, this mission is echoed in the program for newly arrived high school students in Quebec (MELS 2006), where “integrating with the school environment and Quebec society” is listed as a valued skill. Finding reliable and tangible indicators of social integration is not an easy task, however, and no real consensus yet exists about the possibilities in the matter. Indeed, criteria vary considerably by country and even from researcher to researcher. In the school context, Marie Mc Andrew (1994) has identified three principal types of potential indicators of social integration: individual or collective participation in various school events and activities; possible contacts between members of the welcoming group and those of the newcomer group; and the quality of, and the related appraisals of, interethnic relationships in the school environment. To start with, the participation indicators measure the degree of participation by youth in activities of their own group or of the welcoming group, which could be activities at school or related to school, during leisure time, within social networks, or at parties or cultural events. Nevertheless, for Mc Andrew, the temporal dimension of these participation indicators is problematic. To be able to fully interpret an indicator, she advises considering a period of ten to even fifteen years. However, as my research subjects are first-generation immigrants and have been in the Quebec school system since 2008 at the earliest – a maximum of six years at the time of the research – I limit consideration to activities with which these subjects are familiar, for example, soccer. Second, contact indicators can refer to interactions between members of the same ethnic group, between members of ethnocultural groups and members of the welcoming group, and between members

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of different ethnocultural groups. Louise Bouchard, Jean-François Roy, and Solange van Kemenade (2006), who draw linkages between social capital and health, advise first observing the network structure – namely, the number and diversity of the people connected – as well as the quality of strong relationships (e.g., family, friends) or weak ones (e.g., acquaintances) between members. Subsequently, the dynamic of these relationships, meaning the frequency of contacts and the reciprocity of exchanges, should be assessed. The nature of exchanges – that is, the emotional, affective, material, and instrumental resources within – can then be considered. Third, indicators for the quality of interethnic relations are intended to measure interethnic dynamics. These are dynamics experienced by members of an ethnic group with members of other ethnic groups and with those of the majority, host community (Mc Andrew et al. 1999). Regarding the former, it is important to remember that few ethnic groups are present in regional schools, particularly in SaintJérôme, where this study takes place. Ultimately, this investigation into the socialization of “Nepalese” students describes the relationships that these young women maintain with their ancestral culture, on the one hand, and school culture, on the other, as well as the negotiation that these relationships require of them.

M e t h o d o l o g ic a l C o nsi derati ons In order to fully grasp the nature of the relationships between these young women, their culture of origin, and their adopted culture, a systematic approach was chosen to focus on the adolescents, their teachers, their mothers, and their resettlement and integration organization, the C OF F R E T . I make my methodological position explicit from the start, because, as Alban Bensa (2009, 323) asserts, “The conditions surrounding the production of anthropological knowledge are inseparable from the knowledge itself. Interpersonal interactions, through which the ethnographer accesses ‘data’ are not like some ephemeral scaffolding that can be forgotten or erased once the investigation is completed but rather they impose themselves materially into the consideration and analysis of the study’s results.” As such, my fieldwork approach is influenced strongly by my training as a teacher. Since June 2010, the date of my first contact with the participants, I have offered regular French-language tutoring support to

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several young people, whether they be high school students or enrolled in adult education. Since October 2012, I have hosted tutoring sessions twice a month in a high school, both for students of the International Baccalaureat program and for Nepalese students. In addition, in my role as learning counsellor with the Rivière-du-Nord school board, I have worked within the framework of a project studying the education of immigrant students, a topic that had until then been addressed only at a basic administrative level. The duration of my engagement with participants, since June 2010, is therefore what accounts for the candidness of my interviews and exchanges. My way of working aligns with a model of interaction where “subjectivity is no longer an obstacle but a gift” (Jaccoud and Mayer 1997, 220): intersubjectivity becomes the means and the locus of pertinent observations. This close interaction with my subjects accounts for my adoption of a research position that is interpretative, in the sense of Jean-Guy Goulet (2011). This research was mainly based on situational observations and more than thirty individual semistructured interviews. These interviews were originally conducted with nine girls and women between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one, living in Saint-Jérôme, who attended a Francophone school and were from Hindu families. This age range was chosen because the young women had largely begun puberty, meaning that they were responsible for observing menstrual rites, which were of interest for the study, and they were born in refugee camps, which meant that in some fashion they self-identified as Nepalese. To reiterate, these adolescents were first generation, having recently arrived in Quebec (specifically, between 2008 and 2011); at the time of the interview they had been in Quebec for four to six years. To better understand the daily reality of these youth, data collection was expanded to include five of their mothers.4 The mother is recognized as the person most likely to transmit cultural heritage to her children (Juteau 1999). These mothers, all born in Bhutan, were between thirty-seven and fifty-eight years old at the time of their interviews. They had received little or no schooling in their home country (Bhutan) or in their country of transit (Nepal), and three of them were still taking French courses in an adult education institution. Finally, I interviewed thirteen teaching professionals: three men and ten women who worked in one of the two high schools or the adult education school that the young participants attended. It was relevant to broaden perspectives on the socialization at school

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by cross-referencing with one or two teachers who worked with each of the young participants, either as a teaching assistant or a subject teacher. A linguistic-support teacher was also a part of the study sample. In the end, two interviews were conducted with social workers, one of whom was the case worker I C SI (l’Intervenante Communautaire Scolaire Interculturelle), from an agency concerned with intercultural relations in the school and community. Notably, this person played an important role as a liaison between the school and immigrant families and had known all of the young participants since their arrival in Quebec.5 All of the interviews took place between April and November 2014, and each was an hour to an hour and a half in duration. All were conducted in French, except for the case of two of the mothers who were not conversant in French; their daughters were therefore asked to serve as interpreters, one being a study participants and another an older youth. The discourse analysis was then performed on the corpus of data collected in this way. This analysis was elaborated on the basis of the six steps identified by René L’Écuyer (1988) and privileged the thematic approach conceptualized by Pierre Paillé and Alex Mucchielli (2012).

S oci a l iz at io n at S c h o o l and i n the Home: A n   E vo lv in g P rocess Routines that give rhythm to life, even as they adapt For the great majority of the young participants, the three rituals we  asked them about are still important in their daily lives, to varying degrees. During their menses, the majority of women know and follow certain constraints during the first four to seven days. For example, during this time they take no part in preparing food and they avoid contact with the men in their families. When asked, none of the young women could explain why women were expected to adhere to these practices. They had never received any explanation, nor had most ever asked for one; the one young woman who said she had asked her mother is still waiting for an answer. Women are obliged to follow these traditions, which have been passed down for generations. Questioning the underlying reasons for these practices is quite

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unusual. As Mary Douglas ([1966] 2003, 50) states, “Culture, in the sense of the public, standardised values of a community, mediates the experience of individuals.” The young woman conforms to what she observes others doing, and to what she is culturally educated to do, knowing all the while that these practices are always changing. The adaptations depend on the new context in which she finds herself, but mostly on the religious orthodoxy of her family. More conservative families, for example, will provide menstruating women with separate cooking utensils. By contrast, other families will keep them from working in the kitchen but will let them get their own food from the refrigerator, which goes against traditional constraints. Two of the mothers reported finally accepting that their daughters did not follow these regulations, based on what the girls were witness to outside of their community and also having reconsidered the necessity of these practices. Regarding the young women’s current beliefs around marriage, becoming a wife remains the only conceivable path for all women; this was seen in all of the participants’ comments, confirming the observations of Karine Bates (2013, 125) on Hindu women: “Marriage is considered by the classic texts and mythology as the only acceptable condition for [Hindu] women.” The context, whether South Asian or postmigratory, does not change this fundamental belief. The absence of sexual relations before marriage still appears to be mandatory, at least according to the comments of my young participants, and endogamy is still sought out. For many, however, endogamy is only ethnocultural (marrying a person of the same cultural background) and not ethnoconfessional (a Hindu spouse) or in respect to caste (a spouse of the same jāti, or caste), as their mothers would want. Two other major changes were also heard and observed. First, the age at which the decision to marry is made is referred to as “after the study,” an age that remains vague but in any case differs from the young age their mothers had to decide – between seven and eighteen years of age. The mothers agreed completely with what their daughters perceived to be an appropriate age to decide on marriage. Second, parental approval remains a requisite, but according to the participants it can come after the young woman makes her choice. This development is quite remarkable, compared with the arranged marriages that their mothers had. For the older generation, the first and only meeting with the fiancé was organized by their parents and without their previous agreement. The current conception of marriage

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among the younger generation, then, is a semi-arranged marriage: the young woman has agency in her choice, often following friends’ recommendations and the transnational network that is very active in this diaspora. The enactments of the bartā are rarely practised by this group of young women. The fasting tradition seems no longer to be their responsibility; rather, it is the concern of their mothers. Still, some youth do seem to enjoy the accomplishment of a fast, sharing in the experience with the adult women in their community. The frequency of the fast varies for the older women who participate: either on a fixed day of the week, on the eleventh day of the lunar cycle (ekādaśī), or on particular dates of their choosing. The schedule varies depending on the relative conservatism of the individual. The traditional model of the Hindu woman was adhered to (with minor adjustments to traditional practice), and this was evident over and over again in the interviews. Each of the aforementioned rituals establishes a role, a status (Bourdieu 1982), even without mentioning their religious or mythical bases or their position in the dharma of the Hindu woman, the strīdharma. How, then, is the young women’s role subsequently altered by her socialization at school? A harmonious relationship to education and the beginning of socialization at school The socialization of these youth within their school in the three institutions we studied happens in class and through the “hidden curriculum” of the school (Forquin 1989; Hohl and Normand 2000). Additionally, according to the larger vision of socialization that Jacques Tondreau and Marcel Robert (2011) present, it takes place in the school activities themselves and through participation in field trips from school. I can attest that the socialization is already in progress in the Quebecois school system. Nevertheless, this socialization at school of the young “Nepalese” women seems to take place most often without their Quebecois peers. These Quebecers seem not to be active in this socialization but more likely to be indifferent to it, as unstructured blocks of time (recess and lunch hour) are spent with members of the same ethnocultural community. In fact, few relationships are formed outside this community. Field trips are opportunities to discover new places but

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not necessarily the people around them. Nonetheless, Monika Fiset (2009, 68) states that in the case of first generation students, for example, measures which are meant to attract peers to engage with these youth to help them integrate into the class and to the school can contribute to breaking the isolation that they experience when they arrive. It is important to emphasize that the current resettlement process is insufficient. Peer support should be maintained beyond the arrival of the youth, because contact with peers improves their acquisition of French and the school norms and social norms of Quebec. For their part, the participants had a positive view of school but maintain that they go there mainly to learn and to earn qualifications (comments relayed by the mothers). They never mentioned the goal of socializing or making friends, for example. It is apparent that the young women socialize actively with their peers from the same migratory path, not just locally but also internationally. In fact, the influence of the internet and social networks is obvious. Across these networks, which they access frequently, the goal is less to meet new friends who will be part of their daily life (Nadeau-Cossette 2013) and more to maintain and forge relationships with others like them around the world, from the same migratory background, who are now spread out mainly across eight distant countries. The indicators of social integration (Mc Andrew 1994) – contact, participation, and appreciation – have been very revealing in describing these young women’s socialization at school. These metrics illustrated the following: the place of the ethnocultural group in their primary area of daily interactions; their regular participation in field trips and the rare activities that took place outside of the school but were not situations of contact; and their Quebecois peers’ indifference to them. As for the teaching professionals, the classroom is sometimes the site of intercultural contact but sometimes not, depending on their individual awareness and motivation. Certain teachers paid special attention to the young women, learning about their language and culture, making sure they were considered and respected by the group in the class setting, and being mindful of the formation of work teams. Others seemed to have been less aware of this facet of their

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role and did not differentiate their treatment of these students in regard to their social integration. In every case, the teachers reported that they often felt unable to be fully and effectively supportive. They attributed this inability to insufficient communication from their management and the school board, as well as a lack of initial and ongoing training in cultural diversity and intercultural education. Of course, this is understandable, because the organization and mobilization of universities in this matter is fairly recent, starting with the publication of the integration policy of school and intercultural education in 1998 (Larochelle-Audet et al. 2013; Ministère de l’Éducation 1998), and has perhaps not been experienced by teachers of a certain level of experience and seniority. This corresponds with the conclusions of a recent research report by Mahsa Bakhshaei (2015, 49) on initiatives that should be prioritized: “In areas where immigration is a recent issue and where the immigrant students do not represent a critical mass in the student body, the challenges have been deemed particularly steep. In these areas there is effectively a lack of expertise.” Many specialists emphasize the importance of a solid background in intercultural training, which enables teachers to understand the subtleties of working in a culturally diverse framework (Gajardo and Leanza 2011; Sanchez-Mazas and Fernandez-Iglesias 2011). Such training seems to have been absent from the initial training of most of the teacher participants. Ongoing training, still in its infancy in the school board but in use at the ministry level for some time, is not highly valued today by the teaching personnel. This could be because they, as high school teachers, have many different problems to solve, and this aspect is low on their list of priorities. In the school, in general, intercultural education is becoming more widespread. Two of the three schools in this study have organized informative events around this theme. Yet Mehra Beloo (2003) emphasizes the limits of these fairly simplistic approaches in terms of improving relations with the “Other”; this type of initiative is dependant on the engagement of school personnel, which itself varies depending on the area. Nonetheless, if we follow the recommendations of Lucille Guilbert (2005, 70) based on research conducted in the outlying areas of Quebec, the entire system needs to mobilize all its efforts synergistically: “Efforts have to be deployed in three ways: intercultural lessons and activities in class; mediation between school, children and parents; and intercultural training for teachers and administrators in the school, to become attuned to the issues facing

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refugee and immigrant students and cultural mediation.” Intercultural socialization in school is still progressing tentatively, which is understandable given how recently it began (between four and six years prior to this research). A double, or even triple, socialization? Contrary to the parent-child conflicts that Sikata Banerjee and Harold Coward (2005) predict and that Mathieu Boisvert revisits in this volume (chapter 2), the young participants all stated that they experienced their socialization at school and at home fluidly. More accurately, they experience a certain “compartmentalisation” (Ramanujan 1990; Singer 1972). Beyer (2007) even mentions a phenomenon of “seamless compartmentalisation”: they seem not to experience any difficulty in adapting to each sphere accordingly. This is consistent with what Carmel Camilleri (1989, 1990) categorized as a conflict avoidance strategy by simple consistency. This can be more precisely described as a temporary code switching: from the pragmatic pole (the school’s and host society’s values) to the ontological pole (the family’s cultural and religious dictates) depending on the circumstances. So, at school the young participant is a model student, absorbing the modalities of school interactions and blending in with the class group, and at home, she tends to be a model Hindu girl, carrying on tradition and enjoying the togetherness of collective ritual activities. What makes this phenomenon complex is that the two spheres stay mobile, in constant adaptation, as Vappu Tyyskä (2008, 82) highlights: “There are patterns of both continuity and change in family relations and hierarchies upon immigration and settlement. Some traditional patterns prevail while others change significantly.” Within the dynamics of this socialization of the population who participated in the study, a third sphere of influence made itself explicit: the peer group, both local and transnational. The local peer group is made up almost exclusively of girls of the same ethnocultural group. This peer community extends transnationally to include friendships with male peers, also mostly of the same ethnocultural group, contacted frequently via the internet and other means of communication. These networks afford these young women an extended degree of freedom, allowing them to escape certain parental restrictions on their social lives. The above spheres considered, we propose that it is a triple socialization that these young women experience.

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The community outreach group acts as a mediator, which is sometimes necessary between the family and the school environment. Results of this mediation vary according to the establishments or, more precisely, according to the sensitivity of the people who work there. However, the community outreach group has also shown itself to be an agent in the socialization of some of these youth. Indeed, it organizes non-school-related social opportunities (Bautier and Rayou 2009) like homework help sessions, summer day camps, and the pairing of newcomer families with local families. These opportunities have been, for certain participants, chances to connect not only with youth from other ethnocultural groups but also with peers of Quebecois heritage, which gives the young women a remarkable advantage and has been an integral part of their socialization. This is not, however, the case for all of the participants and so could not constitute a “quadruple socialization.” In figure 8.1, the community outreach group’s sphere is outlined with a dotted line to indicate this contingency. This diagram also attempts to illustrate the layers of socialization, between the local, real-life environment and the mostly virtual transnational life, to show the complexity of this triple – and even quadruple for certain participants – socialization in the postmigratory context.

C o n c l u s ion This study focused on the socialization of young women who were born in refugee camps in Nepal and resettled in Quebec with their Hindu families, in successive waves since 2008. Their socialization at school was shown to be a work in progress. Resettlement and integration organizations – and the participants themselves – tended to emphasize the goals of instruction and qualification rather than socialization, which is the third aim of these ministerial programs. Parallel to this, most of these young women carried on the ritual practices transmitted to them by their parents, potentially adjusting them according to the degree of Hindu conservatism in their family. They balanced these two spheres by “compartmentalizing,” something that is remarkable but is put to the test over time, when decisions are to be made, notably with the decision to marry. Will these young women respect the model set up by tradition, namely, the approval of their parents and semi-arranged marriage? Or will they

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Figure 8.1  The socialization of young women refugees in the postmigratory context

choose their partners with their heart and thereby exercise their individual decision-making? Concurrently, non-school-related forms of socialization have arisen: with peers, here and in the transnational network, and, for certain participants, through the community outreach group. The above considerations have led to the conclusion that these young women all experience a triple socialization, with their ethnocultural peers occupying an important place in their daily life and in their decisions, whether present in their local environment or across online social networks. The evolution of their complex socialization, across several spheres and through several layers of actual and virtual social contact, will therefore be of great interest longitudinally, notably regarding important life decisions. This will be equally relevant to study for siblings who came to Quebec at a younger age and for the second generation. This study should therefore extend to all of Canada, since this ethnocultural group is atypical when compared with the rest of the South Asian diaspora of the country, and its attachment to the Quebec region is tenuous.

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No t e s   1 Seven other countries have initiated similar refugee resettlement programs: Australia, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States (which has taken in the most refugees, resettling 75,000 as of April 2014). In Canada, 5,760 Bhutanese refugees had arrived by the end of March 2014.   2 The caste system in Nepal differs from the four Indian Hindu classes, as a result of the increased complexity of the numerous and diverse ethnic factors present.   3 A husband’s family of origin’s home is the māit. The husband’s room or section in his family home is called ghar.   4 Only five mothers were included because three of the participants were siblings and one of the mothers was chronically ill, preventing the possibility of an interview with her.   5 Incidentally, the I CS I is jointly funded by the School Board (thanks to funds specifically granted by the minister for this purpose) and by the resettlement and integration organization.

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Hutt, Michael. 2003. Unbecoming Citizens: Culture, Nationhood, and the Flight of Refugees from Bhutan. New Delhi: Oxford India Paperbacks. Jaccoud, Mylène, and Robert Mayer. 1997. “L’observation en situation et la recherche qualitative.” In La recherche qualitative: Enjeux épistémologiques et méthodologiques, edited by Jean Poupart, Jean-Pierre Deslauriers, Lionel-H. Groulx, Anne Laperrière, Robert Mayer, and Alvaro P. Pires, 211–49. Montreal: Gaëtan Morin. Juteau, Danielle. 1999. L’ethnicité et ses frontières. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Kanouté, Fasal, Michèle Vatz Laaroussi, Lilyane Rachédi, and Madeleine Tchimou Doffouchi. 2008. “Familles et réussite scolaire d’élèves immigrants du secondaire.” Revue des sciences de l’éducation 34 (2): 265–89. Larochelle-Audet, Julie, Corina Borri-Anadon, Marie Mc Andrew, and Maryse Potvin. 2013. La formation initiale du personnel scolaire sur la diversité ethnoculturelle, religieuse et linguistique dans les universités québécoises: Portrait quantitatif et qualitatif. Université de Montréal, Chaire de Recherche sur l’Education et les Rapports Ethniques. L’Écuyer, René. 1988. “L’analyse de contenu: Notions et étapes.” In Les méthodes de la recherche qualitative, edited by Jean-Pierre Deslauriers, 49–65. Quebec City: Presses de l’Université du Québec. Marglin, Frédérique Apffel. 1985. Wives of the God-King: The Rituals of the Devadasis of Puri. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Mc Andrew, Marie. 1994. “Pertinence et limites des indicateurs socioculturels dans la mesure de l’intégration scolaire.” In Actes du Séminaire sur les indicateurs d’intégration des immigrants, 279–95. Quebec: Gouvernement du Québec. Mc Andrew, Marie, Michel Pagé, Mathieu Jodoin, and Francine Lemire. 1999. “Densité ethnique et intégration sociale des élèves d’origine ­immigrante au Québec.” Canadian Ethnic Studies 31 (1): 8–25. McGee, Mary. 1996. “In Quest of Saubhāgya: The Roles and Goals of Women as Depicted in Marathi Stories of Votive Devotions.” In Images of Women in Maharastrian Literature and Religion, edited by Anne Feldhaus, 147–70. Albany: State University of New York Press. ME L S (Ministère de l’Éducation du Loisir et du Sport). 2006. Intégration linguistique, scolaire et sociale. Enseignement secondaire. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec. – 2008. Programme de formation à l’école québécoise. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec.

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Ministère de l’Éducation. 1998. Un école avenir: Politique d’intégration scolaire et d’éducation interculturelle. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec. MC C I (Ministère des Communautés culturelles et de l’Immigration). 1990. Let’s Build Québec Together: A Policy Statement on Immigration and Integration. Quebec City: Gouvernement du Québec. Nadeau-Cossette, Anaïs. 2013. “L’intégration socio-scolaire des adolescents immigrants: Facteurs influents.” Ediqscope 1. Paillé, Pierre, and Alex Mucchielli. 2012. L’analyse qualitative en sciences humaines et sociales. Paris: Armand Colin. Ramanujan, A.K. 1990. “Is there an Indian Way of Thinking an Informal Essay?” In India through Hindu Categories, edited by McKim Marriott, 41–77. New Delhi: S AG E. Rousseau, Louis, ed. 2012. Le Québec après Bouchard-Taylor: Les identités religieuses de l’immigration. Quebec City: Presses de l’Université du Québec. Sanchez-Mazas, Margarita, and Raquel Fernandez-Iglesias. 2011. “L’interculturel à l’épreuve de l’action: Comment équiper les enseignants face au public scolaire hétérogène.” Alterstice 1 (1): 35–46. Singer, Milton. 1972. When a Great Tradition Modernizes: An Anthropological Approach to Indian Civilization. NewYork: Praeger. Steinbach, Marilyn, and Sylvain Lussier. 2013. “L’intégration sociale des élèves issus de l’immigration dans une région du Québec.” In Les collectivités locales au coeur de l’intégration des immigrants: questions identitaires et stratégies régionales, edited by Michèle Vatz Laroussi, Estelle Bernier, and Lucille Guilbert, 29–47. Quebec City: Presses de l’Université Laval. Steinbach, Marilyn. 2010. “Eux autres versus nous autres: Adolescent Students’ Views on the Integration of Newcomers.” Intercultural Education 21 (6): 535–47. Tondreau, Jacques, and Marcel Robert. 2011. L’école québécoise: Débats, enjeux et pratiques sociales. Anjou: Éditions C EC . Tyyskä, Vappu. 2008. “Parents and Teens in Immigrant Families: Cultural Influences and Material Pressures.” Canadian Diversity 6, no. 2 (Spring): 79–82. Warrier, Maya. 2008. “Diaspora.” In Studying Hinduism: Key Concepts and Methods, edited by Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby, 86–96. New York: Routledge.

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C o n c l u s i on

South Asians in Quebec: A Specific Experience? Priti Singh and Ratna Ghosh

Although Canada is a country built by immigrants, its early immigration policies were racist and excluded people from the subcontinent of India. It is ironic, indeed, that currently the largest group of immigrants to Canada come from South Asia. People from South Asia arrived on the West Coast at the turn of the twentieth century and did not arrive in Quebec till almost seven decades later. While Quebec has been host to several large migrant groups, there is no record or written history of South Asians in the province. Quebec’s unique characteristics within Canada make it interesting to look at the experiences of different groups of people who settle there and make it their home. South Asians are currently the largest group of immigrants to Canada, but not to Quebec. This book is an attempt to fill the gap in literature on South Asians in Quebec and explore the unique challenges they face as compared with other immigrant populations. South Asian immigration has been on the rise, especially since the start of the twenty-first century, and has in turn impacted the kinds of experiences South Asians have in Quebec. By exploring the different dimensions of this experience, this book brings forth issues of ethnoreligious diversity and heterogeneity, associative networking, mental health, and schooling. While these challenges are too many and too varied to be dealt with exhaustively, we make an effort in these concluding remarks to raise a few pointed issues and to discuss them in a comparative perspective with similar matters in the rest of Canada as well as in their countries of origin on the Indian subcontinent (notably the Republic of India,

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although references will be made to other countries). These issues are specific to Quebec because they deal with the province’s unique characteristics such as its language policy, its selection of immigrants, its policy for managing diversity, and its interpretation of secularism.

S ou t h A s ia n Im m ig r at io n and I ntegrati on As a couple of chapters in this book have pointed out, South Asian immigration is relatively recent and this group’s movement is much lower to Quebec than to Ontario or British Columbia. Moreover, in Quebec, people of South Asian origin are concentrated in the urban area of Greater Montreal, giving them a particular socioeconomic character (although Béatrice Halsouet shows in chapter 8 how a small number of state-sponsored refugees from Nepal have been socializing in regional towns with fewer facilities). However, for all practical purposes, immigration to settler societies such as Quebec and Canada is a fairly recent phenomenon when compared with civilizational societies of South Asia. This itself has a unique impact on the immigrants from that geographical region. Anna Maria Fiore, in chapter 3, points to the necessity of understanding the premigratory characteristics of immigrant groups – and, in the case of South Asians, their internal diversity – to be able to analyze their experiences. Not only do South Asians belong to different nationalities, but India alone is probably one of the most diverse countries in the world in terms of culture, ethnicity, language, religion, and caste and class difference (Ghosh 2018). Similarly, the concept of “diversity” in Canada (including Quebec) has broadened to one of super-diversity (Vertovec 2007) as a result of globalization and its multilayered complexities. India and Canada have experienced British domination (although the French did colonize small areas in India), while Quebec is unique in that it is the only French-dominated province in Canada with French as its official language. Language policy As Ratna Ghosh, Marie Mc Andrew, and Mehdi Babaei point out in chapter 1, the French language is a very important marker of Quebec collective identity. With legislation in 1974 making French the official language in Quebec, followed by legislation in 1977 requiring all new immigrants to send their children to French schools, South

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Asians have been greatly disadvantaged. In the countries of South Asia, they are more likely to learn English (although many do not know English); they are typically not familiar with French and find it a difficult language to learn. Even when they can manage to live in Quebec and work in the English sector, since French school education became mandatory they cannot participate in the education of their children, which has been a factor in those students’ lacklustre performance in the French education sector (Bakhshaei, chapter 6). In contrast, South Asian immigrants who settle in other parts of Canada find it easier to work in English and their children perform well at school. Although Canada is officially a bilingual country, its other provinces have English as their official language (with the exception of New Brunswick, which is bilingual). In India there is no national language, but Hindi and English are the official languages of the Central Government, and twenty-two languages have official regional language status. So, people from India are used to hearing many different languages, but French is not one of them. Selection of immigrants Based on the policy of preserving the French language and Francophone culture of Quebec – in a continent where, with French speakers being 2 per cent of the population, it is in danger of being assimilated – the province’s decision to choose its skilled immigrants on the basis of knowledge of French, among other requirements, can be justified. Quebec is the only province with the authority to choose its own immigrants in the skilled category, and the federal government helps to fund Quebec’s francisation programs for new immigrants who do not know French. However, the later reforms to the immigration policy in the province in terms of matching employers with skilled immigrants are likely to focus on less-specialized workers, whereas skilled applicants from South Asia tend to have higher levels of education. While immigrants from South Asia are the largest group to immigrate to Canada, Quebec’s share of the group will likely continue to be relatively small. Policy for managing diversity The population of Canada is highly diverse in terms of culture, ethnicity, religion, gender, language, and class. In Quebec, the situation

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is complex: its large Francophone majority is a minority in the country, but the province also reflects the diversity of the rest of the country. At the same time, the notion of super-diversity implies that each community is itself heterogeneous. One of the main arguments that this book advances is that the South Asian community in Quebec comprises numerous collectives of religious and ethnic identities that may even consist of overlapping nationalities (chapter 2). Divisions (e.g., traditional/modern, political affiliations) can exist within each community even across a common language and religion. Although several distinctive communities exist in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, India alone contains more than 4,500 communities, and a continuous interface between the institutional and the social leads to mutual sharing and overlap of cultural practices. Thus, India has been called a “composite culture” because these communities have kept their own cultural and religious identities. How does India manage its diversity? How is it different from the models adopted in Canada, and specifically in Quebec?

N at io n a l is m s , Identi ti es , a n d M a n ag in g Di vers i ty Quebec differs from the rest of Canada in its approach to integrating the diverse and varied immigrants who come into the province, in  that it supports interculturalism rather than multiculturalism. Interculturalism is believed to be more effective – with its emphasis on “cross-cultural exchange” through the use of French language for common parlance in public life – in preventing marginalization and ghettoization that can result from the diverse origins of immigrants. While many scholars have pointed out that multiculturalism and interculturalism have more similarities than differences (chapter 1), Quebec’s focus on interculturalism indicates a desire for the recognition of a “distinct” and not necessarily a separate identity. Divergent approaches toward integration of ethnic or religious diversity are not very different from the questions that arise from modern nation-state discourse. What defines citizenship, jurisdiction, and legitimacy within a nation-state? How are the legalities negotiated? Do nations breed nationalism or does nationalism form nations (Armstrong 1982; Gellner 1982; Smith 1986)? In other words, does nationalism surface during the establishment of modern nation-states and is destined to disappear with its consolidation? Is

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nationalism singular or can multiple nationalisms still be part of a nation-state? How do nationalisms construct the boundaries of the nation-state with its claim of territory and sovereignty? Arguments that give credibility to the criticality of state tend to disregard identities that do not fit. What one needs to keep in mind is that ethnic identities often seek not “national” autonomy but internal recognition (Calhoun 1993, 235). This argument is crucial to understanding the evolving identities of immigrants as they slowly merge into and in turn impact the identity of their host country. India has had an unstated and unofficial multiculturalism in practice ever since independence. The Indian constitution does not use the term “multiculturalism,” as it is inherently multicultural because of its core values of equality of all groups. This is what perhaps explains the seeming effortlessness with which South Asians coming from the Indian subcontinent, adjust to Quebecois society and even organize themselves (chapter 3) despite their problems of language, religion, and culture. This may be elaborated by taking the example of the ability of young Hindu women in Quebec to compartmentalize their lives with relative ease while they experience a “double” socialization – one of “ethnicization” at home and the other of integration in their school environment (Halsouet, chapter 8). This is necessary to retain one’s ethnic identity and at the same time receive acceptance and internal recognition from the host society. It is, however, important to keep in mind that in Quebec, as elsewhere, the diaspora often starts to develop a romanticized image of the homeland, although what one remembers as home is constantly changing. Diaspora thus is seen as “a type of conscience,” which may develop more ethnonationalist fervour in Quebec than back in India and thus make identities more complicated to deal with. Secularism in Quebec One of the recurrent themes in the book is the attempt to expand on Quebec’s distinctive interpretation of secularism and the integration of its diverse immigrant society. For example, Ghosh, Babaei, and Mc Andrew in chapter 1 discuss secularism and Boisvert in chapter 2 recalls the role of religion as a “deeply defining element” of an individual’s identity. Many of the chapters discuss the mounting discourse on treatment of minorities, especially in light of the BouchardTaylor Report of 2008, the Charter of Quebec Values discussions in

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2013, and most recently Bill 21, An Act Respecting the Laicity of the State, which increased the focus on Islamic, Jewish, and Sikh minorities in Quebec. A central argument of a number of the authors in this book is that the development of a postmigration South Asian identity in Quebec is more political than ethnic in nature. This is evident in the bonding and networking among South Asians, which shapes this identity although its extent is open to debate (Fiore, chapter 3). What is the premigratory experience regarding secularism of South Asians? Pakistan is an Islamic Republic and Islam is its state religion. According to the original constitution of Bangladesh, adopted in 1972, secularism was one of the country’s fundamental principles – although it was removed from its constitution five years later, and Bangladesh was an Islamic state until secularism was restored in 2010. However, Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim country and Islam remains the state religion. The present coalition government is led by the Awami League, which strongly supports secularism and promotes respect toward other religions. In Sri Lanka, Buddhism is the state religion. Although the Sri Lankan constitution grants its citizens freedom of religion, there is at present a dramatic rise in hardline Buddhism in the island country (Haviland 2015). Canada (especially Toronto and Montreal) is home to large numbers of Sri Lankans of Tamil origin who fled during the country’s thirty-year civil war. The 2015 constitution of Nepal declared it a secular country, with freedom of religion for its citizens, although it was previously a Hindu kingdom (yet Hinduism was not made the state religion). Bhutan is a predominantly Buddhist country with a large Hindu minority, but it has freedom of religion for its citizens. India, like Canada, is a secular democracy. Both countries interpret secularism as tolerance of all religions. In Quebec, however, secularism is interpreted differently. The Proulx Report (Proulx 1999) had recommended open secular schools (laïcité ouverte) without any overt hostility toward other religions. In other words, the Task Force on the Place of Religion in Schools in Québec did not want to exclude other religions from schools and did not mind other religious and secular world views being included in schools. The very need to use the term “open” along with “secularism” points to the fact that on its own, secularism need not always be understood as open; it could also be “closed” (as in France, where the state does not accept any reference to religion) or “positive” (as in the constitutions of India and Canada, where all religions have the same status). While it is

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understood that “secularism is a political and legal system whose function is to establish a certain distance between the state and religion,” there are differences in defining the term (Maclure and Taylor 2011, 3). Since the Quebec experience has been one of domination by the Catholic Church, open or positive secularism (in Quebec) positions the Catholic Church as a rival to the state and “mobilises political power to extricate individual and society from the ‘hold’ of the Church” (Lefebvre 2014, 258). This is a sentiment that Quebec has experienced since the Quiet Revolution. The recommendation of the Bouchard-Taylor Report of 2008 that civil servants should be given the right to wear religious symbols as long as those symbols did not go against the neutrality of the state or hamper the performance of their duties can also be viewed as considering the state as neutral. While Quebec views itself as a distinct society, it has been argued that religious minorities use the debate on secularism to reshape/ renew their ideas and values. For example, the Sikh practice of wearing a kirpan led to a discourse in Quebec that helped both Sikhs and non-Sikhs to understand each other’s point of view. In shaping “notions of secularism” (Stoker 2007, 818), the Quebec charter of secularism, also called the Charter of Quebec Values, proposed by the Parti Québécois in 2013, and the recent Bill 21 prohibit publicsector employees displaying any “conspicuous” religious symbols. The charter died a natural death once the Liberal Party came to power in Quebec in 2014; the bill had been introduced just before the election. While it may be called a case of political opportunism, the support of this bill by Quebecers points to the preference of residents to keep the state separate from religion. However, the passage of Bill 21 in June 2019 prohibits people in certain positions of authority (e.g., teachers, educational administrators, judges, police officers) from wearing religious symbols. The bill has been criticized as a way to appease the regional votes in the province outside of Montreal and to permit “white Quebec’s ‘neutralization’ of its visible and religious minorities” (Sahi 2019). On the one hand, the challenge for Quebec is to attract and select the kind of immigrants it greatly needs to fill the labour shortage in certain sectors and to pay taxes for a population that has a low birthrate and that is also greying. On the other hand, the province needs to maintain its distinctiveness as a French-speaking society with secular values. What policies will help immigrants to integrate and make Quebec their home? Out-migration to other provinces has been a

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serious problem. As Jaswant Guzder shows in chapter 4, the mental health of South Asian immigrants needs attention because this group underuses the mental health services available to them, until the problems become very serious, owing to the stigma attached to these issues. Mahsa Bakhshaei discusses the educational performance of South Asian youth in chapter 5, pointing to the unsuitable practices, insufficient resources, and weak parent-school partnerships that result in the high dropout rates and poor performance of South Asian youth in the French school system. In India, the term “secularism” has somewhat different connotations. While the term “secular” was introduced in the Preamble of the Constitution by the 42nd Amendment in the 1970s, it is in-built in many of the constitution’s provisions, including its fundamental rights such as the right to freedom of religion. In India, it is difficult to have a complete separation of state and religion because religion is embedded in the cultures of its people. Rather, the debates at the time of framing the constitution leaned more toward the state giving equal respect to all religions or keeping the state at a “principled distance” from religion within the confines of the constitution. The presence of multiple religions in India meant a commitment to multiple values and their public acceptance. It may be argued that the very concept of secularism is flawed, based as it is on the idea of a modern nation-state that is distanced from religion. However, according to Rajeev Bhargava (2006, 20–1), India has developed a “distinctive” and different style of secularism, which he calls “contextual secularism.” In other words, in India it is possible to have different interpretations of secularism, or “multiple secularisms.” The Indian state has been more accommodative than its neighbours in terms of religion and religious laws, such as those related to divorce and inheritance, that govern many matters in the private sphere. Coming to Quebec from this kind of a society, Indian immigrants try to preserve their culture through various means. In chapter 7, Anne-Laure Betbeder Lauque points to the important role that temples in Quebec play for Hindu immigrant women in transmitting their religious and cultural heritage, which is reinterpreted on more liberal grounds and with greater flexibility. One of the strengths of the Indian subcontinent resides in its common history, which indicates the ability to deal with flexibility with strife-­ ridden multiethnic, multireligious, and multicultural identities. This book unfolds the many dimensions and challenges of the experiences in Quebec of immigrants from this area: their sense of community, their

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willingness to reinterpret their culture or strength to demand a specific right, their vulnerabilities, and most of all their resilience.

R e f e r e n ce s Armstrong, John A. 1982. Nations before Nationalisms. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Bhargava, Rajeev. 2006. “The Distinctiveness of Indian Secularism.” In The Future of Secularism, edited by T.N. Srinivasan, 20–53. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Bouchard, Gérard, and Charles Taylor. 2008. Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation. Quebec City: Government of Québec. Calhoun, Craig. 1993. “Nationalism and Ethnicity.” Annual Review of Sociology 19: 211–39. Gellner, Ernest. 1982. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Ghosh, Ratna. 2018. “Multiculturalism in a Comparative Perspective: Australia, Canada and India.” Canadian Ethnic Studies Journal 50, no. 1 (Spring): 15–36. Haviland, Charles. 2015. “The Darker Side of Buddhism.” BBC News Magazine, 30 May. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32929855. Lefebvre, Solange. 2014. “Theism and the Secular in Canada.” In Multiculturalism and Religious Identity: Canada and India, edited by S. Sikka and L.G. Beaman, 253–74. Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press. Maclure, Jocelyn, and Charles Taylor. 2011. Secularism and Freedom of Conscience. Cambridge, M A: Harvard University Press. Proulx, Jean-Pierre. 1999. Religion in Secular Schools: A New Perspective for Québec. Quebec City: Ministère de l’Éducation. http://collections. banq.qc.ca/ark:/52327/bs40899. Sahi, Ahmed. 2019. “Quebec’s Unthinkable Bill 21.” Maclean’s, 9 April. https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/quebecs-unthinkable-bill-21/. Smith, Anthony D. 1986. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell. Stoker, Valerie. 2007. “Zero Tolerance? Sikh Swords, School Safety, and Secularism in Québec.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 75, no. 4 (December): 814–39. Vertovec, Steven. 2007. “Super-Diversity and Its Implications.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6): 1024–54.

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Contributors

M ehdi Babaei is a course lecturer and educational researcher at the McGill School of Continuing Studies. He holds a PhD in educational studies from McGill University’s Faculty of Education. His research interests include critical sociolinguistics, migration and adult language learning, identity and investment, and plurilingualism. He is a founding member of the Belonging, Identity, Language and Diversity (b i ld) research network at McGill University. His latest research project on prior learning assessment and recognition (p l a r ) concerns p l ar policies and procedures as regards adult learners, international students, and Indigenous student populations across the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, and universities and colleges in Quebec. M a hsa Bakh s h ae i currently serves as a senior research scientist at Digital Promise, a non-profit based in San Francisco, c a . In this role, she leads the investigation on what makes effective teacher professional development programs. Mahsa’s research interests also include social and educational development of immigrant-origin children. She has authored several books, journal articles, and book chapters on these topics. Mahsa earned her PhD from the Université de Montréal and worked as a postdoctoral research fellow with joint affiliation between McGill University and u c l a on the role of culture in academic performance. Her fellowship was awarded by the prestigious Quebec Research Funds – Society and Culture (f rq s c ) for outstanding quality and significant scientific potential. Anne-Laure Betbeder Lauque is currently working as a program evaluation and development advisor at the Faculté de l’éducation

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permanente at the Université de Montréal, where she has developed, among other things, a protocol for evaluating the professional environment of academic programs and carried out several strategic mandates. Her research interests and areas of expertise are immigration, religion, and gender issues among Quebec Hindu communities as well as qualitative methodology and the evaluation of academic programs. She has also worked for several research centres in Quebec (Centre d’études ethniques des universités montréalaises; Centre de recherche société, droits et religion; Groupe de recherche diversité urbaine; Centre de recherche métropolis du Québec; Centre de santé et de services sociaux de la Montagne) and holds a doctorate in sociology from the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Mathieu B oi sv e rt is the director of the Centre d’étude et de recherches sur l’Inde, l’Asie du Sud et sa diaspora of the Université du  Québec à Montréal. He also is the director of undergraduate ­programs in religious studies and the president of the Canadian Corporation for the Study of Religion. His research interest lies in the  articulation of politics and religion and on gender identity in South Asia. Some of his publications include Les Hijras: perspectives ­socioreligieuses d’une communauté transgenre sud-asiatiques (p u m , 2018) and L’Inde et ses avatars (p um, 2014). Anna Maria Fiore is an anthropologist with a PhD in urban studies. She was an advisor in intercultural affairs at the City of Montreal and an advisor in socio-economic development at the Department of Immigration and Cultural Communities (now the Department of Immigration, Diversity and Inclusion). She is interested in the areas of diversity management and the sociology of organizations and immigration and training in intercultural relations. She is a member of the Center for Ethnic Studies at Montreal Universities. Her thesis on South Asian associations explores the structuration of this group in Quebec. She is currently a freelance consultant and lecturer. R atn a Gh osh is Distinguished James McGill Professor and William C. Macdonald Professor of Education at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She leads a research team at the Faculty of Education in McGill University named Preventing Extremism through Educational Research. She was dean of education from July 1998 to December 2003. She was appointed a member of the Order

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of Canada (c m) in 2000 and officer of the Order of Quebec (o q ) in 2005, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (f rs c) in 1999. She is also a full member of the European Academy of Arts, Sciences and Humanities. She has been honored as a membre émérite (eminent member) of the Order of Excellence in Education by the Government of Quebec. Her publications in books, journals, and encyclopedias, her prestigious grants, and her teaching reflect her varied research interests. She has done research in Canada, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Professor Ghosh was featured in the Canadian edition of Time Magazine’s issue of 13 October 2003 as one of “Canada’s Best in Education.” Jaswant Guzder is a professor at McGill University in the Department of Psychiatry, a child and cultural psychiatrist, and an artist. She has been director of Childhood Disorders Day Hospital and head of child psychiatry at the Jewish General Hospital from 2004 to 2018. She was the founding clinical director in 1995 with Dr Kirmayer of the McGill Cultural Consultation Service and currently serves as a senior clinical consultant of the Cultural Consultation Service. She is active in global mental health work primarily in the Caribbean and Asia. Her recent research and writing includes such topics as refugee and migrant mental health, children at risk, and cultural psychiatry. She has been active with colleagues as a trainer in family therapy with the McGill School of Social Work and initiated a subspecialty psychiatry program in family training. Her recent art exhibitions and art seminars have been in Rome at the Museo della Mente, in Berlin with saavy International, and as an art instructor at Visual Arts Centre, Montreal. Her latest books are (in Italian, 2019) Ibridazione: Politiche delle cure e delle culture (Hybridization: the politics of healing and culture) and Cultural Consultation: Encountering the Other in Mental Health Care (editors: L. Kirmayer, J. Guzder, C. Rousseau), with a translation into Italian (in press 2020). B éatr ic e Ha l so ue t works as a pedagogical advisor for immigrant-origin children in an education board in Quebec, Canada. She defended her PhD in religious studies at the Université du Québec à Montréal, and participated in various research projects. Ma r ie Mc A ndr e w is an emeritus professor at the Faculty of Education of the Université de Montréal and an internationally

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recognized scholar in the education of minorities and comparative education. She has published many books including Immigration et diversité à l’école: le cas québécois dans une perspective comparative (Immigration and diversity in school: the Quebec case in a comparative perspective), recipient of the 2001 Donner Prize for the best book on Canadian public policy; Les majorités fragiles et l’Éducation: Belgique, Catalogne, Irlande du Nord, Québec (Fragile majorities and education: Belgium, Catalonia, Northern Ireland, Quebec), nominated for the 2010 Governor General’s Award; and Multiculturalism: Public Policy and Problem Areas in Canada, coedited with Christopher Raj. At Jawaharlal Nehru University she regularly teaches Canadian and Quebec studies. She has received numerous distinctions in recognition of the impact of her work, including the Order of Canada. Lau r en ce No r ma nd is currently working with immigrant women. She completed a master’s degree in religious studies at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She is interested in Sikh studies and has participated in various research projects related to South Asian communities. C lau dia P r é vo st is a PhD candidate in ethnology and heritage at Laval University in Quebec City. Her doctoral research focuses on Bhutanese refugees’ social process of learning French after resettlement in Quebec City. She is also interested in the impacts of cultural mediation practices in intercultural contexts. She has participated in various research projects on regional immigration, on the relationship between immigration and studies, and on the facilitators and constraints to communication between service providers and immigrant parents raising a child with a disability. She currently works as a research professional for l’Équipe de recherche en partenariat sur la diversité culturelle et l’immigration dans la région de Québec (é d i q ) and for the Chaire de recherche sur l’intégration et la gestion des diversités en emploi (c r i de ). She was awarded the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Joseph-Armand Bombardier Doctoral Scholarship. Priti Singh is chairperson and associate professor at the Centre for Canadian, US and Latin American Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. A recipient

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of Australia India Council’s Senior Fellowship (2003) and Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute’s Faculty Research Fellowship (2008), she has been engaged in comparative research on Indigenous communities and government policy. She was also visiting scholar at the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, in 2008. She teaches courses on multiculturalism, Indigenous Peoples and diasporic aspects of Canadian society, and history and foreign policies of major Latin American countries. Her publications include books and journal articles on Indigenous identities, activism and movements, and contemporary international affairs.

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Index

Adami, Hervé, 127, 129 adolescents and postmigratory socialization, 192–5 Agarwal, Priya, 185 Agarwal-Narale, Tulika, 32 age structure and South Asian ­population, 41 Alphabeille, 121 Among the Believers (Naipaul), 64n4 Anderson, Leona, 174 “anti-Oriental” riots, 73 âpaddharma, 59 Appadurai, Arjun, 29 Apparicio, Philippe, 77 Arabization, 56, 58 Awami League, 218 Bakhshaei, Mahsa, 32, 204 Balaskrishnan, T.R., 77 Banerjee, Sikata, 61, 205 Bangladesh, 22, 25, 43, 46, 56, 75, 97 Bastide, Roger, 183 Bates, Karine, 201 Beaudoin, Louise, 31 Beloo, Mehra, 204

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Bensa, Alban, 198 Beyer, Peter, 192, 205 Beyond Belief (Naipaul), 58 Bhaktism, 184 Bharat Bhavan Foundation (b b f), 78, 83 Bhargava, Rajeev, 220 Bhat, Anitha, 60 Bhutan, 25, 218; One Nation, One People policy, 116, 192 Bhutanese Citizenship Act, 116 Bhutanese refugees, 115–19; ­challenges and resources, 127–9; French learning trajectory, 120–6 bicultural tensions, 98–104 Bilingual Framework policy, 20 Bill 21, 22, 218–19 Bill 101. See Charte de la langue française Boisvert, Mathieu, 194–5, 205 bonding social capital, 68 Bouchard, Louise, 198 Bouchard-Taylor Report of 2008, 217, 219 bridging social capital, 68 British colonialism, 71 British Columbia, 72–3

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230 Index

Buddhism, 51, 53, 70, 218 Butler, Judith, 171, 188 Camilleri, Carmel, 205 Canada: Canadian Multiculturalism Act, 15; “diversity” in, 214; Multiculturalism Policy, 15; policy for managing diversity, 215–16; resettlement program for refugees, 115; as secular democracy, 218; South Asian population in, 3–4, 16, 24–8. See also British Columbia; Montreal; Quebec Canada Council for the Arts, 85 Canadian Community Health Survey, 96 Canadian Multiculturalism Act, 15 Cardinal, Jacynthe, 172 case studies: bicultural tensions, 100–4; French language learning by Bhutanese immigrants, 122–6; mental disorders, 104–8 Castel, Frédéric, 63n1 caste system, 70–1 Catholic Church, 21, 219 Cégep de Sainte-Foy, 118, 121–4, 126–7 Centre Louis-Jolliet, 122–4, 126–7 Centre Monseigneur Marcoux, 121 challenges: community, 152–4; family, 147–50; in French sector, 145–54; individual, 146–7; school-related, 150–2 Charte de la langue française, 17–18, 27, 30–1, 135–6, 149 Charter of Quebec Values, 94, 217, 219 Chicago School, 120 Christianity, 43, 51, 53, 70, 180 classes d’accueil, 141, 146, 157n3

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Coalition Avenir Québec, 22 co ffr et (Centre d’orientation et de formation pour favoriser les relations ethniques tradi­ tionnelles), 193, 198 Collins, Brian, 96 Comedy Central India, 163 commensalism, 59 Commission on Reasonable Accommodation, 94 “communal awards” of 1932, 71 community restructuring, 69–72 “compartmentalisation,” 205 Conseil sikh canadien (c sc ), 83–4 Coward, Harold, 61, 205 cultural flows of South Asians in Quebec, 28–33 cultural safety, 109 cultural values, 185–8 “culture of convergence,” 20 DeSousa, Alan, 165–6 Dhillon, Anju, 161–2 Dhruvarajan, Raj, 60 dietary prescriptions, religious, 52–3 discrimination, 26, 31, 77; and ­language regulations, 95 diversity, management of, 215–21 divine couples, 178–80, 188 Diwali, 51–2 Domingo, Lita, 60 Douglas, Mary, 201 dual socialization, 191–2, 195–8; and adolescents, 192–5; double, or triple, socialization, 205–6; methodological considerations, 198–200; routines giving rhythm to life, 200–2; socialization at school and in home, 200–6 Dumont, Louis, 59 Dyson, Tim, 60

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Index 231

École Madeleine-Bergeron school, 126 “ecumenical” devotional practices, 183 ecumenical ideology, 182–3 education: adult, 136; children’s, 140; harmonious relationship to, 202–5; of immigrant-origin students, 157; and immigrants, 19; Nepalese immigrants, 25; prospects in Canada, 27; of South Asian population, 44–5, 75; of women, 32, 71; youth, 141 elders: and mental health care, 99; postmigration challenges, 32–3 employment: benefits for South Asian women, 32; South Asian population, 46–8 endogamy, 59 Erndl, Kathleen, 180 ethnic boundaries, 183–5 ethnic identity, 53–7 “ethnicisation,” 194–5 ethnoreligious diversity, 49–53; and extended family, 58–62. See also Montreal: South Asian places of worship ethnoreligious identity, 63n1 extended family, 58–62 family status, 41–2, 43 Fecteau, Simon Olivier, 163 Federation of Canadian Municipalities, 166 Fiset, Monika, 203 forced marriage, 102–4 francisation program, 118, 121–2, 124, 126, 129, 215 Francophones, 18, 22, 63, 128 French Canadian nationalism, 17

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French language: and Bill 101, 27–8; as common language in Quebec, 17–18, 20; knowledge by South Asians, 30; and South Asian students school performance, 135–7 French-language schools: academic challenges, 145–54; qualitative study, 139–42; quantitative study, 138–9; schooling process, 143–5 funeral rites, 51 Gadalla, Tahany, 93–4 Gagnon-Tremblay-McDougall Accord, 18 Gandhi, Indira, 56 Gandhi, Rajiv, 55 Geertz, Clifford, 171 gender: and community networking, 76; discrimination, 78; and South Asian population, 40–1. See also women gender equality, 8, 21, 162 Ghosh, Ratna, 186 Ghosh, Sutama, 77 globalization, 6, 15, 33 Goulet, Jean-Guy, 199 gr imer (Groupe de recherche interdisciplinaire sur le Montréal ethnoreligieux), 193 Gross National Happiness (gnh), 55, 64n2 guided learning, 119, 127 Guilbert, Lucille, 204 Gur N nak, 161 halâl food, 52 Handa, Amita, 25 Hare Krishnas, 57 Henderson, Rita Isabel, 32

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232 Index

Hindu conservatism, 206 Hinduism, 42–3, 51, 59, 70, 180, 218. See also divine couples; pativrata Hindu Mandir, 172–3, 178, 180–2, 185–6, 188, 189n11. See also Hindu temples Hindu Mission, 58 Hindu-Muslim riots, Gujarat, India, 174 “Hindu race,” 26 Hindus, 173–4, 192; caste system, 70–1; discrimination after 11 September events, 57; in India, 25; from outside of India, 29, 49, 54–5; among South Asian immigrants in Quebec, 28 Hindu temples, 29, 57–8, 171–88. See also Hindu Mandir Hindu tradition, 195–7 Hindu women, 8, 180, 187–8. See also pativrata home, socialization at, 200–6 “honour killings,” 98, 102 i c s i (l’Intervenante Communautaire Scolaire Interculturelle), 208n5 identity, 49–50; ethnic, 53–7; Quebec, 216–21; religious, 5, 50–3 immigration, 15; and collective identity, 22; drivers of, 27; Quebec policy, 18–20; racist Canadian policies of, 26; status, 41, 42 India, 4, 24–6, 28–9, 60, 75; and English language, 44; immigrants in Quebec from, 41–2; and racist Canadian immigration policies, 26; Tamils from, 55–6

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India Abroad, 3 India-Canada Association, 78 Institut de la statistique du Québec, 128 integration of immigrants, 23–4, 214–16 interculturalism policy, 15, 20–1 Interdisciplinary Research Group on Ethnoreligious Montreal. See gr imer Intervenants Communautaires Scolaires (ic s), 156 i s k c on (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), 57 Islam, 25, 42–3, 51, 70, 180. See also Muslims Jainism, 70 jāti caste, 59, 64n5, 70–1. See also caste system Juteau, Danielle, 53, 194–5 Kala Bharati Foundation (k b f), 84–5 Khalistan, 72 Khullar, Samir. See Sugar Sammy King, Elizabeth, 60 King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, 116 Kinsley, David, 175 Komagata Maru, 34n2 Kunz, Jean Lock, 69 labour market and South Asian ­population, 45–6 language: learning among migrants, 118–19; policy, 214–15. See also French language learning: guided, 119, 127; natural, 119 L’Écuyer, René, 200 Le Devoir, 117

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Legault, Francois, 22 Leloup, Xavier, 77 Let’s Build Québec Together, 20 Lhotsampas, 115–16. See also Bhutanese refugees Li, Peter S., 69 linguistic characteristics: knowledge of English and French, 44; of South Asian population, 43–4, 54 linking social capital, 68–9 Lis-moi tout Limoilou, 121 Maniruzzaman, Khokon, 164–5 Martin, Paul, 162 Maxim, Paul, 77 Mc Andrew, Marie, 137, 148, 197 mental disorders, 104–8 mental health care, 93–109 Mieux-Être des Immigrants, 121 migration, 15–16, 29. See also immigration “model minorities,” 93 Montreal, 27, 33; Christian church in, 58; community networking in, 76–85; South Asian places of worship, 57–8 Morley-Minto “reform” of 1909, 71 Mucchielli, Alex, 200 Muharram, 51–2 multiculturalism, 20, 31, 33 Multiculturalism Policy, 15, 20 “multiple secularisms,” 220 Muslims, 22, 28, 43, 51–3, 56. See also Islam Naipaul, V.S., 58, 64n4 National Association of Canadians of Origins, 78 nationalism: French Canadian, 17; and migration, 15; Quebec, 216–21

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nationality, 49 “natural learning,” 119 Nayar, Kamala Elizabeth, 25 Nepal, 25, 55; linguistic diversity of, 54; refugees in Quebec, 58 “Nepalese” girls, 191–206 Notre-Dame-de-la-Délivrance, 58 Of Silk Saris and Mini Skirts (Handa), 25 One Nation, One People policy (Bhutan), 116, 192 open secularism, 219 “others” and “othering,” 7, 17, 57 Paillé, Pierre, 200 Pakistan, 25, 28, 56 pan-Indian ideology, 182–3 paradox of subjectivation, 180 Parti Québécois, 22, 219 pativrata, 171, 174–80 People’s Republic of Bangladesh. See Bangladesh Pillai, Aravind, 93–4 pluralism, 21 policies: language, 214–15; for managing diversity, 215–16 positive secularism, 219 “postmigratory identity,” 79 premigratory trauma, 96 Prévost, Claudia, 25 professional exclusivity, 59 Programme de soutien à l’Interculturalisme, 85 Projet Intégration Québec (piq), 123 Proulx Report, 218 “public sphere,” 172, 180–2 Punjabis in British Columbia, The (Nayar), 25

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234 Index

“quadruple socialization,” 206 Quebec, 115; Department of Education, 136; ethnic relations in, 16–24; Francophone cultural space, 7; immigration policy, 18–20; immigration regionalization policies, 117; interculturalism policy, 15, 20–1; language policy, 214–15; migration to, 15–16; nationalisms, identities, and managing diversity, 216–21; promotion of French as common language, 17–18, 20; secularism in, 217–21; selection of immigrants, 215; South Asian population in, 4–6, 24–8; welcoming refugees to, 117–18 Quebec Anglophone community, 17 Quebec Dance Association, 85 Quebec Goan Association, 78 Quebec-India Business Council (q i b c ), 84 Quebec school system: and elementary school, 154; and first-­ generation immigrants, 197; level of entry into, 143–5 Quebec Soccer Federation, 31 Quiet Revolution, 98, 219 Ralston, Helen, 180 Ramadan, 52 Ramayana, 180–1 Ramji, Beyer, 192 Ramji, Rubina, 192 Ramlila, performance of, 180 Rayaprol, Aparna, 172 “reasonable accommodation” ­controversy, 22 religious identity, 5, 50–3

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religious values, 185–8 resettlement process, 32 rituals, importance of, 183–5 Rivest, Philippe, 77 Robert, Marcel, 202 Roy, Jean-François, 198 Rozzet, Jurdi, 77 Rumbaut, Ruben, 97 Samuel, Edith, 32 school, socialization at, 197–8, 200–6. See also French-language schools “seamless compartmentalisation,” 205 sectarian affiliations, 183–5 secularism, 21–3; in Quebec, 217–21 “secular values,” 98 September 11. See terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 Service d’aide à l’adaptation des immigrants et immigrantes (sa a i), 121 Shaivism, 179 Shakta tradition, 179 “significant others,” 7, 9n1, 115, 123, 129, 130n1 Sikh Diaspora in Vancouver, The (Nayar), 25 Sikh gurdwaras, 29 Sikhism, 51, 70, 161–2 Sikhs, 26, 31, 73, 94–5 Sikka, Anjoo, 98 Silove, Derrick, 109 social capital, 68–9, 85 socialization: of adolescents in a postmigratory context, 192–5; dual, 195–8, 205–6; at home, 200–6; at school, 197–8, 202–5;

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Index 235

system’s scope, 197–8; triple, 205–6; of young women refugees in postmigratory context, 207 socioeconomic characteristics: ­education, 44–5; employment sectors, 46–8; labour market, 45–6 South Asian immigrant women. See women South Asian population associative network, 6, 68–85 South Asian students: and studies of French learning, 138–42; underperformance in French ­sector, 142–5 South Asian Women’s Community Centre (saw cc), 78, 82–3 Sree Ramji Mandhata temple, 57 Sri Lanka, 25, 55–6 Statistics Canada, 4, 40 Steinbach, Marilyn, 193 Stroker, Valerie, 83 Sugar Sammy, 163–4 Tagore, Rabindranath, 71 Tamil Hindus, 193 Tamil population, 54–6, 97 Tamil Tigers, 97 Task Force on the Place of Religion in Schools in Québec, 218 terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, 56–7 “thin culture,” 21 Together, We Are Québec, 21 Tondreau, Jacques, 202 “tools of resilience,” 177–8

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Toppleberg, Claudio, 96 transcendental God, 174, 178 transmission of cultural and ­religious values, 185–8 triple socialization, 205–6 Trudeau, Justin, 162 Tyyskä, Vappu, 205 unemployment, 46 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (unhc r ), 55, 116 Vaden-Goad, Linda, 98 Vaisakhi, 51–2 Vaishnavism, 173, 178, 182 values, cultural and religious, 185–8 van Kemenade, Solange, 198 varn.a class, 59, 64n5 Vatz Laaroussi, Michèle, 171–2, 177, 186 Vedanta philosophy, 174 Vietnamese refugees, 116 visible minority, 16 Waldner, Lisa K., 98 Wilson, Chris, 59–60 women: and cultural/religious ­values, 185–8; and education, 32, 71; and mental health care, 98–9; presence in temple administration, 182–3. See also Hindu women World Sikh Organization (wso), 31

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