Community and family domains represent important and understudied contexts of immigrant acculturation and adaptation. Adopting an ecological-contexualist perspective (Birman, Trickett & Vinokurov, 2002; Birman, 1994; Trickett, 1996), two studies were conducted to examine the predictors of community and family adjustment in a sample of 130 adult second-generation Ukrainian-Canadians. Study 1 examined adaptation at the community level by assessing the association between acculturation to Ukrainian and Canadian cultures, perceived social support, religiosity, and sense of community with respect to two community referents: the local Ukrainian ethnic community and the residential neighbourhood. Results demonstrated that acculturation was positively associated with ingroup sense of community, such that acculturation to Ukrainian culture predicted stronger sense of community in the local ethnic community. Personal and social resources, including religiosity and perceived social support from Canadian friends and neighbours were positive predictors of neighbourhood sense of community. Study 2 investigated adaptation at the family level by measuring the influence of acculturation variables (familism, acculturation to Ukrainian and Canadian cultures) and acculturative stressor variables (acculturative family hassles) on family life satisfaction overall. In addition, the importance of these predictors for the following three family subsystems was explored: family life satisfaction with spouses, family life satisfaction with parents and family life satisfaction with children. Results indicated that in terms of overall family life satisfaction, family life satisfaction with spouses, family life satisfaction with parents, both acculturation variables and acculturative stressor variables made significant and unique contributions to the explanation of quality of family life. Furthermore, acculturative stressor variables were found to negatively predict total family satisfaction, marital satisfaction and parental satisfaction, over and above the effects of demographic variables and acculturation variables. In contrast, neither acculturation variables nor acculturative stressor variables significantly predicted family life satisfaction with children. Taken together, the results of the two studies showed support for an ecological approach to the conceptualization and measurement of immigrant adaptation in community and family spheres of life, emphasizing the need to understand the relationship between acculturation and outcomes 'in context'. The findings are discussed in light of the literature and theoretical and research implications of the results are presented, along with recommendations for future research.

This dissertation examines female immigrants who were targeted for deportation after the Second World War. The women documented in this study include a broad array of immigrants who came to Canada from different locales such as Europe, the Caribbean and the United States. They were also quite divergent in terms of their class and racial backgrounds and experiences during and after the war. The only thing they shared, was that they were targeted for deportation by the federal Immigration Branch. Relying on 376 deportation case files from the Library and Archives of Canada---along with many other types of sources---this study delves into the diverse experiences of these women and attempts to piece together their treatment by the state as well as responses to the deportation process. As non-citizens, I argue, they did not have the resources and rights that Canadians enjoyed. Consequently, female immigrants who committed an offence under the Immigration Act were vulnerable to deportation and could not rely on the court system to protect them. Furthermore, this study illustrates that these women's experiences were different than those of Canadian women as well as their male counterparts. As such, regardless of the fact that the Immigration legislation appeared somewhat gender neutral, female immigrants were charged with different offences and subject to different standards than male immigrants, when the immigration officials were adjudicating their cases. The female immigrants in this study were typically convicted of offences under the Immigration Act relating to mental and physical health problems, moral charges, indebtedness and dependency. While these types of crimes were not included in the Criminal Code of Canada, they were an integral part of the Immigration Act, and female aliens who violated them, were typically reported, interrogated, regulated, and deported for committing these offences. Most of the women had no option but to submit to the deportation process and cooperate with the department's attempt to expel these female immigrants from Canada and return them to their homelands. There were, however, some women who fought back; a few disappeared, others refused to testify or sign the deportation order, and finally, a very small number challenged their cases all the way to the superior courts. Consequently, not all were victimized by the state.

Les Suisses n'ont jamais été nombreux au Canada, et pourtant ils ont jalonné toute l'histoire du pays. À travers les repères qu'ils ont laissés au cours des cinq demiers siècles, ils se sont montrés de puissants révélateurs de l'imaginaire national canadien. Tour à tour traités en étrangers encombrants ou tolères, en incroyants assoiffés de gain, en hérétiques qui pervertissent les Canadiens, puis subitement en immigrants appréciés et courtisés, ils ont forcé les métropoles française et britannique à ajuster leur définition de la citoyenneté, ils ont préconisé le cosmopolitisme et accompagné l'ouverture du Canada sur le monde, ils ont galvanisé l'affirmation du sentiment national en agissant soit comme repoussoirs soit comme faire-valoir, et ils ont finalement remis en question la définition même de "nation" au Canada. La présente thèse, par un dépassement voulu des frontières chronologiques et géographiques, envisage sur la longue durée l'expérince de migrants qui tendent à échapper à toute catégorisation sociale. Grâce à une analyse microhistorique, elle procède aun jeu d'échelles et de contrastes qui autorise un examen rapproche des phénomènes révèles par les sources suisses, canadiennes, françaises, britanniques et américaines. Cette réflexion propose une façon originale d'étudier les migrations dans l'optique de la problématique identitaire. Elle fait ressortir à la fois les moments forts de l'émigration suisse et les dates charnières de la modernité canadienne. C'est à l'intersection de ces deux chronologies, au gré du dialogue constant et soutenu entre autorités politiques, religiouses et communautaires, sous l'effet des tensions linguistiques et culturelles, des tensions entre conquérants et conquis, des tensions internes et externes entre tradition et modernité, que s'est constituée et adaptée une conscience collective unique, marquée moins par la continuité que par les tenions, la diversité et les compromis. Les Suisses ouvrent justement une fenêtre sur ces compromis qui donnent lieu à la complexité canadienne.

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