Does Multiculturalism have to be disjointed?

There has been a flurry of events in recent weeks aimed at connecting immigrants and refugees with the health and social services that are available.  At PWN, finding a way to reach immigrant women who are living with or at risk for HIV is like the Holy Grail.  I had the distinct (and somewhat accidental) pleasure of attending three recent intercultural events.  All were successful events at which I learned a lot and make some connections that I think will be useful in future.  But I came home with dozens of business cards, highlighted notes, and ideas that are completely disconnected, and it got me thinking about Canadian multiculturalism, the joys and challenges of Vancouver’s diversity, and the overwhelming sense of disconnectedness that newcomers must feel.

I have some (very limited) experience with being plucked out of my surroundings and transplanted in another culture, because I lived in France for one year in high school, without any previous French-speaking ability to speak of.  But I chose this strange and isolating adventure.  My goal was to be immersed and to absorb myself in the language and culture – essentially, to be assimilated for twelve months after which I knew I would be heading home.  This is completely different from the experience of immigrants who – whether or not they come as refugees – are leaving their homes permanently because they think it’s the best bet to build a better life for themselves and their families.  Shahla Masoumi, who spoke on a panel at the Robert Lee YMCA’s Strategic Connections for Inclusive Communities symposium, said that immigrating is like having your whole life saved on a computer and then having it crash.

I also set up and staffed PWN info booths at the AMSSA Diversity Health Fair and the Abbotsford Diversity Health Fair  – two successful annual public events aimed at connecting immigrants with a broad range of health-related services that they may not be aware of otherwise.  It’s obvious that there are many barriers for newcomers to accessing services and support: language barriers, stigma and discrimination, different cultural assumptions, lack of information, the added psychological stress of immigrating, possibly post traumatic stress disorder, and different expectations about what services might be out there.  For women, there are additional barriers because of the patriarchy that dominates most of the world’s religions and cultures, because women are too busy caring for everybody but themselves, and because we require specialized care around sexual and reproductive health.  I think it is also obvious to most moderately progressive Canadians that we want to try to get past these barriers.  But how?

Since Canada prides itself on celebrating cultural diversity and on taking a multiculturalism rather than an assimilation or segregation approach to immigration, how can we possibly find a way to reach everybody?  Maybe the first step is to recognize that there is no Holy Grail … there is no one solution that will work for everybody.  Just because print materials are translated doesn’t mean they will be used … and when it comes to interpreters, much is lost in translation, including humour and personality.  Even the trend toward organizing groups of peers to support each other within a given ethnic community (which I think is a good idea) runs into problems when there is stigma, power imbalance, or distrust within that community.  Marja Romic, another speaker at the Strategic Connections symposium, spoke out against the tendency to think of immigrants as “a group” rather than as individuals.  While some speakers talked about the importance of learning and being sensitive to the cultural norms of a particular cultural group, others were critical of this approach, which they argued focuses too much on “dividing into groups” and not enough on respecting everybody’s diversity, regardless of race, ethnicity or language.

Maybe part of accepting multiculturalism is accepting that one approach won’t work for everybody, which might just mean that we will always be juggling disjointed information and responding to it in disjointed ways.  What do you think?

-Miriam

This was posted on Friday, June 11th, 2010 at 10:45 am and is filed under Networking, News . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.

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