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published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / History / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The current historiography on Mexican immigration from 1850 through 1920, has neglected to seriously study the forgotten migration of American citizens, not big capitalists as those have been well documented, seeking their American Dream in Mexico. Thus, my work seeks to understand how a very unstable international border dominated by constant Indian raids and filibuster attempts, led to transnational migration. A direct consequence of transnationalism is that it created a xenophobia mentality among the masses, and in some instances, a fetishism for anything foreign, especially among elites and the new breed of young politicians under President Diaz. I focus my analysis on the wave of American citizens, mostly former Civil War veterans, who in the 1860s decided to go to Mexico because President Benito Juarez offered them generous incentives such as tax exemptions and large land grants for colonization purposes, if they decided to join his military efforts to rid his country of the French invaders. Beyond just those white American immigrants, the dissertation also looks at the experience that black colonists encountered in a country that proudly boasted that it welcomed anyone, regardless of their skin color, so long as they adhered to the law. So I argue, that after analyzing the experience of several ethnic groups, such as the Italian immigrants in Cordoba, Veracruz, or the colonies of those immigrants seeking religious freedom such as the Mormons and Mennonites in northern Mexico, that indeed, Mexico was the Land of God and Liberty. This was the popular term used by runaway slaves from Texas in the 1850s and by many African Americans from Alabama who sold everything they had in 1895 to pay for their transportation cost to Mexico in search of a better life not found in the United States.

This research illuminates the gendered nature of immigration and business ownership in the Atlantic Canadian context. A feminist analysis of semi-structured interviews with 15 immigrant women entrepreneurs in Halifax, Nova Scotia, shows that immigrant women face many barriers to meaningful employment, but entrepreneurship in the food sector can facilitate substantive citizenship. The research explains why and how stores, restaurants, and farmers’ market stalls exist. The processes through which participants come to open their businesses and settle in Canada align with twentieth century anthropological understandings of rites of passage as developed by Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner. Liminality – a key element of every rite of passage – is found to be a time in which participants feel lost betweentheir old and new lives, so conclusions in this research advance policy and programming recommendations aimed at reducing the length of time immigrants’ feel like outsiders in Halifax and the business realm.

Bangladeshi Bengali migration to Canada is a response to globalization processes, and a strategy to face the post-independent social, political and economic insecurities in the homeland. Canadian immigration policy and the Multicultural Act that were adjusted to meet labour demands in local job markets encouraged the building of a new and growing Bangladeshi Bengali immigrant community in Canada. The general objective of this research is to explore how Bangladeshi immigrants’ national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender, and class identities that were shaped within historical and political contexts in Bangladesh are negotiated in new immigrant and multicultural contexts in Toronto. By looking at various identity negotiation processes, this research aims to critically examine globalization theories in social science, and multicultural policies in Canada. More specifically, the objective is to determine whether transnational migration to Canada as a global process creates homogeneity, disjuncture, hybridity, or inequality in Bangladeshi immigrants’ lives in Toronto, and how Bangladeshi Bengalis as an ethnic and cultural group relocate their identity within Canadian multiculturalism. In order to address these objectives and issues, one year of in-depth anthropological research was conducted among the Bangladeshi immigrants in Toronto between 2007 and 2008. The core research location was the Danforth and Victoria Park area, but in order to address class diversity, respondents from Dufferin and Bloor Streets, Regent Park, and Mississauga areas were incorporated. Applying snowball and purposive sampling techniques, and identifying key informants, 75 Bangladeshi immigrant families were selected from three religious groups – Muslim, Hindu, and Christian. In-depth personal interviews, case studies and focus group discussions were conducted among these Bangladeshi immigrants. This research underscores that, on one hand, Bangladeshi Bengali immigrants negotiate and re-define their “proper” ethnic, cultural, nationalist, and religious identities by imagining, memorizing, simulating, and celebrating local traditions. On the other hand, immigrants define “authentic” identity by creating “separations” and “differences” based on colonial and nationalist histories. Religious differences, the ideology of “majority and minority”, and social classes play major roles in shaping identity. This study finds that multicultural diasporic immigrant space is neither a disjointed, nor an in-between space, nor a place where ethnic cultures are only “consumed”, but it is a battleground to resist and challenge religious and gender inequalities in a globalized location. Bangladeshi Bengali identity is both fixed and contextually variable; identity is shaped in response to political contexts of both global and local.

Using a nationwide database of nonprofit organizations, this thesis examines the impact of the socio-spatial environment and resource dependency on the development of ethnic organizations among four East Asian communities (Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese) across Canadian cities. The thesis makes an original contribution to the theoretical understanding of ethnic communities by evaluating the different perspectives for understanding three related but distinct properties of ethnic organizations (1) distribution – the number of organizations in a given city; (2) financial capacity – total revenue of the organization; and (3) cross-border activities – location and type of activities pursued outside of Canada. The findings suggest that organizations develop more in response to social need rather than group resource, and that the number of organizations is greater in cities where levels of residential concentration are high. The analysis shows that group characteristics such as income and size of enclave do not predict higher revenue among nonprofits. Rather, the effect of government funding is the most consistent predictor of financial capacity across all groups. Overall, the results highlight the importance of inter-group dynamics for institutional development, with traditional predictors such as group resource playing a lesser role. In regards to their activities, the results show that organizations of recent immigrant groups do not necessarily operate programs back home as some groups have more programs in places outside their home country. Additionally, source of funding and religion play a role in determining the location of cross-border activities. These findings challenge the current perspective on transnational linkages as ethnic organizations have the power to mediate group interests away from the host-home nexus. Together, the research offers a novel empirical approach to examine how groups organize at the community level and provides an alternative perspective in the understanding of integration, social cohesion and sense of belonging in multicultural societies.

Bangladeshi Bengali migration to Canada is a response to globalization processes, and a strategy to face the post-independent social, political and economic insecurities in the homeland. Canadian immigration policy and the Multicultural Act that were adjusted to meet labour demands in local job markets encouraged the building of a new and growing Bangladeshi Bengali immigrant community in Canada. The general objective of this research is to explore how Bangladeshi immigrants’ national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender, and class identities that were shaped within historical and political contexts in Bangladesh are negotiated in new immigrant and multicultural contexts in Toronto. By looking at various identity negotiation processes, this research aims to critically examine globalization theories in social science, and multicultural policies in Canada. More specifically, the objective is to determine whether transnational migration to Canada as a global process creates homogeneity, disjuncture, hybridity, or inequality in Bangladeshi immigrants’ lives in Toronto, and how Bangladeshi Bengalis as an ethnic and cultural group relocate their identity within Canadian multiculturalism. In order to address these objectives and issues, one year of in-depth anthropological research was conducted among the Bangladeshi immigrants in Toronto between 2007 and 2008. The core research location was the Danforth and Victoria Park area, but in order to address class diversity, respondents from Dufferin and Bloor Streets, Regent Park, and Mississauga areas were incorporated. Applying snowball and purposive sampling techniques, and identifying key informants, 75 Bangladeshi immigrant families were selected from three religious groups – Muslim, Hindu, and Christian. In-depth personal interviews, case studies and focus group discussions were conducted among these Bangladeshi immigrants. This research underscores that, on one hand, Bangladeshi Bengali immigrants negotiate and re-define their “proper” ethnic, cultural, nationalist, and religious identities by imagining, memorizing, simulating, and celebrating local traditions. On the other hand, immigrants define “authentic” identity by creating “separations” and “differences” based on colonial and nationalist histories. Religious differences, the ideology of “majority and minority”, and social classes play major roles in shaping identity. This study finds that multicultural diasporic immigrant space is neither a disjointed, nor an in-between space, nor a place where ethnic cultures are only “consumed”, but it is a battleground to resist and challenge religious and gender inequalities in a globalized location. Bangladeshi Bengali identity is both fixed and contextually variable; identity is shaped in response to political contexts of both global and local.

According to a recent Pew poll approximately 97% of all Hindus live in the countries of India and Nepal. However, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Hindus living in other parts of the world. Across the United States, Hindu temples are joining the religious landscape of the country. They are often greeted as signifiers of a “model minority” by the mainstream because of Asian American economic success. However, as religious and racial minorities, Indian immigrants and Indian Americans just as frequently face ignorance and discrimination. This rejection by mainstream society, combined with a desire to reconnect with the traditions and heritage of their homeland, India, pushes many Hindus in diaspora to explore and embrace a nationalistic interpretation of their religion. This thesis seeks to understand the trend toward religious nationalism among diaspora Hindus in the United States through an ethnographic examination, using the Sri Ganesha Temple of Nashville, Tennessee as a case study. This community is an ideal case study for two reasons. For one, its internal diversity exemplifies the necessity in diaspora to find commonality in order to build new communities, which creates an opportunity for Hindu nationalism to address pragmatic concerns of the community. Second, the community’s location in the American South, particularly the Bible Belt, places the temple in an environment in which clear, logical and universalist interpretations of Hinduism are needed to deal with real and perceived threats from conversion and discrimination. Throughout this project, it is argued that the Hindu nationalist discourse is pervasive among the Sri Ganesha Temple community, though few in the community would actually endorse the political positions of Hindu nationalist organizations in India. This contradiction is explained theoretically in the nature of transnationalism and diaspora, which uproots ideas and practices from one context and adapts them to become meaningful in new circumstances. It is also explained ethnographically by acknowledging the particular concerns and issues faced by the diaspora community, especially the perceived need to create a strong community in order to prevent future generations from abandoning the Hindu religion and its distinctly Indian heritage.

Transnational migrants challenge meanings of home, belonging, and citizenship because they exercise their right to mobility and form multiple allegiances abroad, all while negotiating different gender roles and new care deficits. In three parts, I explore the meanings of home and belonging for transnational women and seek to understand the gendered implications of their migration, especially how migrant women meet care needs and confront institutional exclusion. First, I explore how Global South women use transnational friendship networks to migrate and fill welfare-pitfalls in the US. Next, I argue that the concept of the ‘Third World Woman’ helps in understanding belonging and informal support networks both at work and in life. Finally, bringing citizenship, belonging, and care together through multiple meanings of home, I explore how multiple allegiances to multiple places form and how exclusion, inclusion, feelings of belonging, and citizenship shape transnational women’s experiences in and attachments to different places.

This thesis uses focus group interviews and survey questionnaires to examine perceptions of Ghanaian and Somali youth, residing in Toronto, about barriers to their labour market access. The emphasis is on perceptions that deal with labour market discrimination based on race, ethnicity and recency of immigration. The results show that perceptions of discrimination based on these factors are widespread among all of the participants interviewed or surveyed. This suggests a very strong belief that employment discrimination is pervasive and persistent in the Toronto labour market. The findings also show that the perceptions of discrimination are largely driven by ‘lived discriminatory’ experiences faced by the participants as well as revealing their desire for fairness and equality in society. The perceptions of discrimination negatively affected the level of trust the research participants have in people and institutions as well as impacting their sense of belonging to their communities and the wider society. The relationship between perceptions of discrimination and low levels of trust and sense of belonging is established in the findings of the Ethnic Diversity Survey. The consequences of this impact on the research participants and their communities are high levels of unemployment, high poverty rates and participant dissatisfaction with their own communities and society at large. It is my belief that this thesis contributes to the debate about the significance of discrimination due to race, ethnicity and immigrant status in the Canadian labour market.