This thesis examines the influences on Irish identity articulation within Melbourne and Chicago during the nineteenth century. Bringing together ethnicity and religious devotion, this thesis argues that the foundational identities encouraged by religious orders within parish schools and societies were fundamental to the shape of nationalist politics that emerged in each city. While the imperial and republican contexts of Melbourne and Chicago presented specific opportunities and restrictions on Irish cultural and political identity articulation, the ethnic pluralism of the Catholic Church in each city influenced the networks established between Irish migrants across class, occupation, and gender. In turn, the Catholic parish structures of each city altered how Irish identity was articulated at a local and global level. While focusing on Irish Catholic identity, this thesis also examines the establishment of secular and ethnic Irish institutions utilised by middle-class culture brokers within Melbourne and Chicago to promote a civic Irish identity. It explores the ways that Irish migrants interpreted British imperial and American values to encourage diasporic Irish identities shaped by Irish and local contexts. Using comparison, this work identifies similarities between two cities previously dismissed as divergent and transnational links between Ireland, Australia and Chicago. Examining these societies over a fifty-year period allows for the interrogation of identity influencers over numerous generations, addressing the evolving shape of two cities and the Irish communities therein.

Thesis has no abstract

My thesis, then, proposes to examine an often-overlooked field in which tensions relating to immigration also occurs: health care. It aims to better understand how Germany’s health care system, particularly its emergency facilities, have responded to the increasing ethnic and cultural diversity of patients as a result of these demographic shifts, and what still must be done to provide equal and satisfactory health care for all patients.

Traditional Indian cultural narratives are pervasive and serve to typify personal identity and experience. These cultural narratives portray Indian women as a wife and mother, nurturing, obedient, forbearing, soft-spoken, and the primary transmitters of the ethnic culture. American culture, on the other hand, encourages independence, individualism and a more elastic view towards gender. As assimilation theory suggests, Asian Indians in the United States are likely to assimilate at least some degree into American society. Accordingly, these narratives make up the cultural identity of Indian women in the United States. The contrasting cultural narratives shape the identities of Indian women residing in the United States and have the capacity to influence Asian Indian women's attitudes toward traditional Indian views about marriage, culture and gender expectations. Using data from interviews with eleven college-aged Indian women, I examine how college-aged Asian Indian women in a large southern university negotiate their Indian identity in American society. The personal identities they construct are much more diverse and complex than the typifications in the cultural narrative of 'Indian women.' Specifically, I explore how these women understand expectations of dating and marriage, education and independence, and clothing and demeanor, as well as how each of these are negotiated and shaped to fit the personal identities these women are constructing for themselves.

This thesis examines the changes that occurred in the French identity of Huguenot immigrants to colonial Carolina. In their pursuit of prosperity and religious toleration, the Huguenots' identity evolved from one of French religious refugees to that of white South Carolinians. How and why this evolution occurred is the focus of this study. Upon arriving in the colony in the 1680s and 1690s, the Huguenots' identity was based on several common factors: their French language, their Calvinist religion, and their French heritage. As the immigrant group began to build their new lives in Carolina, these identifying factors began to disappear. The first generation's identity evolved from French immigrants to British subjects when they were challenged on the issues of their political and religious rights and, in response to these challenges, requested to become naturalized subjects. The second generation faced economic challenges that pitted planters against the wealthier merchants in a colony-wide debate over the printing of paper currency. This conflict created divisions within the Huguenot group as well and furthered their identity from British subjects to planters or merchants. Another shift in the Huguenots' identity took place within the third generation when they were faced with a slave uprising in 1739. The Huguenots' involvement in finding a legislative solution to the revolt completes this evolutionary process as the grandchildren of the immigrant generation become white South Carolinians. This thesis expands the historical data available on immigrant groups and their behaviors within colonial settlements.

No description available.

Germans are among the largest ethnic groups, both in Canada as a whole and in British Columbia. Nevertheless, neither nationally, nor provincially, has this group received much academic attention, especially for the years between the end of the Second World War and the building of the Berlin Wall when about 200,000 German-speaking persons arrived in Canada. Based on the life stories of fifty German immigrants interviewed in British Columbia, published biographies, and archival records from Germany and Canada, this study reconstructs the conditions in interwar and postwar Europe that led to the mass-emigration of Germans in the late 1940s and the 1950s. It argues that this migration movement was not only influenced by government policies and the support of humanitarian organizations, but also by the existence of earlier settlement facilitating chain migrations to Canada. From the port of entry, the dissertation follows the immigrants’ adaptation and integration into Canadian society. Though the vast majority of them did not speak any English, or know much about their adopted country, except that it must be better than what they left in war-torn Europe, Germans are generally ranked among the best integrated ethnic groups in Canada. Yet, despite this assessment, the picture emerging from the sources strongly questions the existence of a singular German immigrant identity in Canada. The distinct self-perceptions of German nationals and ethnic Germans based on their experiences in Europe during the Second World War created striking differences in their patterns of immigration and adaptation to life in Canada which are still discernible after over half a century of settlement in North America.