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Elspeth Cameron, ed. Multiculturalism and Immigration in Canada: An Introductory Reader, xxiv, 426 pp. Toronto: Canadian Scholar's Press, 2004. $49.95 sc.
Elspeth Cameron introduces Multiculturalism and Immigration in Canada by noting that multiculturalism is an ideology with a complex meaning and an equally complicated history and is variously described as an instrument of state power and local empowerment. This edited volume plus together such contradictory interpretations to diagnose all the rich diversity of Canadian society. The book is divided into sections on "Theory," "Experience," and "Documents and Tables." The first two sections cover multicultural policy and representative voices from diverse communities. There are short excerpts from landmark texts on multiculturalism such as the "Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism" and John Porter's The Vertical Mosaic. The organization is partly historical, with the early sections indicating that racial ideologies underpinned Canada's immigration policies before 1962. The selections illuminate the way a hierarchy of ethnic groups placed French Canadians and Native Canadians on the lower rungs of the social ladder. Asian and African groups fared hardly better. The last section includes summaries of Canada's ethnic composition alongside Pierre Trudeau's public policy statement of 1971 and the "Canadian Multicultural Act, 1985." In short, this publication can hardly fail as a comprehensive guide to the subject for undergraduates.
A common theme is the social adjustments forced upon immigrants by the "majority culture." In the first three-quarters of the twentieth century the basic model of immigration for policy makers and academics was the assimilation and acculturation of...