In 1929 the old Hastings Mill Store building was towed by scow from Vancouver's inner harbour to its present location near Spanish Banks in Point Grey. In the following two years, the Native Daughters of British Columbia transformed the old building in to a museum to preserve historical relics of the early days of Vancouver. Their museum recounted pioneer histories of journey to, and settlement in, British Columbia in order to celebrate European development of the region, promote Vancouver's connection with the British Empire, and encourage future economic growth in the city. Today, the Native Daughters continue to operate this quirky and curious museum. Their exclusive tale of European pioneer history has been preserved in its original form, untouched by decades of museological change and post-colonial critique of cultural representation. The thesis uses the Hastings Mill Museum as a case study in heritage preservation in British Columbia. It claims that the museum itself is an artifact. It is a material remnant of an important movement in local history when such groups as the Native Daughters used the preservation of the past to address contemporary political and social concerns. Representing an idealized pioneer past provided an important source of political and social power for the Native Daughters. Through the Hastings Mill Museum, the Native Daughters helped its members - and the province's community of native-born, Anglo-European - affirm their status as a genealogical and historical elite. The Native Daughters used a variant of the North American "pioneer myth," a nostalgic interpretation of local history that distilled the city's history into a simple narrative of anglo-European settlement, sacrifice and development, to document their claim to the region's political, institutional, and economic power. Their use of heritage preservation as a source of power was shaped by gender. The Daughters used their position as "guardians" and "nurturers" of the region's heritage in order to promote and strengthen the position of their community of white, native-born British Columbians. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

This study examines how in the context of international migration, ethnic (cultural) assimilation may influence fertility and attitudes towards fertility. The relationships between ethnic assimilation (measured by the extent to which immigrants will have subscribed to the core values of Canadian society through life style or behaviourial characteristics and social networks), socioeconomic status (that is, level of education and income), and six variables used to measure fertility and attitudes towards fertility of Black African immigrant women in Canada are examined. These include: ideal number of children; ideal number of Sons; currently preventing pregnancy; currently pregnant or trying to get pregnant; children ever born still living and more sons than daughters. The African women who participated in the study were all immigrants in Canada, selected from the different African communities. Only women in their child bearing years were selected. An attempt was made to include women from all the different categories of immigrants. Africans that were not black and blacks from North America and the Caribbean were excluded from the sample. Data collection for the study was at the micro-level. In total, 165 questionnaires, consisting of structured questions were handed out. Results revealed statistically significant relationships between ethnic assimilation and fertility and attitudes towards fertility. For example, a significant relationship existed between attending African dances, parties and informal social affairs, and currently preventing pregnancy, and pregnant or trying to get pregnant. A significant negative correlation was found between income and children ever born that were still living. Age too was found to be related to fertility, with women in the older age—group (35-44) reporting higher averages for ideal number of children and sons, as opposed to those in the younger age—groups and the entire population. Surprisingly enough, no significant relationships were recorded between level of education, feeling of ethnicity, maintenance of contact with homeland, years spent in Canada, residence in Africa, the category immigrants belonged to, and fertility as originally anticipated. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

This two-part study evaluates a government sponsored Long Term Care Aide/ESL Program taken by a group of immigrant women. The purpose of the first part of the study was to assess how effective a B.C. government sponsored Long Term Care Aide/ESL program was in preparing a group of immigrant women for the workplace. A questionnaire was used to determine demographics and employment status. Also, it obtained perceptions on the strengths and weaknesses of the program. The purpose of the second part of this study was to hear the women's personal insights and voices about their experiences while taking the program and after the program. Semi-structured interviews were used to obtain these stories. Results from the quantitative questionnaire indicated that 94% of the immigrant women who had taken this course were employed as care aides. Three years after the completion this program, the women felt that the course had provided them with both a vocational skill and more English language skills. Results from the qualitative portion of this paper focused on how the women felt about their experiences in this Long Term Care Aide/ESL program in their own words. The data were analyzed and put into themes. Theme 1 was "The pain of renewal". It presented their collective stories of being an immigrant and struggling to begin again. Theme 2 was "The costs and the benefits". This theme presented the women's insights on working as care aides. Most of the women liked their jobs but found trying to secure a full time job difficult. Theme 3 was "The need to learn the language of care". All the women interviewed wanted to have more "caring" language, the "everyday" language to relate to their clients. Theme 4 was "Advice to other immigrant women". This theme revealed how some women felt about the work they did. The last theme, Theme 5, was "Hopes and dreams". Half of the women interviewed had aspirations to continue their education and these women were already enrolled in other health care courses. The results of the study are discussed and implications are drawn for research and pedagogy. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The analytical and creative chapters of my thesis display the best and the worst of bicultural daughters and their mothers as writers represent this relationship in short stories. Throughout the analytical chapters, I show that the through their fiction these writers help us understand that the bicultural daughter/immigrant mother relationship not only is affected by general feelings of matrophobia – as Adrienne Rich points out – but also by different pressures and paradigms that can only be experienced if the daughter belongs to and/or associates herself with a different culture than that of her mother. I hypothesize that the stories reflect these paradigms as usually negative because the pressures from both “American” society and the immigrant mother are often so great that the bicultural daughter cannot embrace either one fully. However, with the adverse feelings from both mother and daughter, comes a realization from both that neither will succeed in dominating the other. Once this is established, both mother and daughter will either reach a consensual agreement to disagree, or will continue having a hostile relationship. By including my own short stories in context with the analyses done for the stories by Kingston, Tan, Pietrzyk and Danticat, I hope to bring interest to this genre for further analysis on the bicultural daughter and immigrant mother relationship as depicted in short stories.

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Muslim family members constitute a significant migration flow to the UK (Kofman et al., 2013). Despite such observations, this form of mobility is under-explored in geographic scholarship on migration. Accordingly, this thesis examines the subjective experiences of migration of a small group of Muslim women, who migrated either with or to join their families in Scotland. Participant observation, focus groups and the life narratives of eight women are used to gain an in-depth understanding of both the reasons for and the consequences of migration for this group of Muslim women. In addition, this thesis examines the role of a secular community-based organisation in supporting migrants in their everyday lives. Drawing on conceptual approaches to migration, this study reveals diverse and complex motivations among participants in “choosing” to migrate. Far from “victims” or “trailing wives”, participants privileged their children's needs but also the possibility to transform their sense of self through migration. The study draws attention to the struggles of daily life in Scotland where, bereft of extended family, the synchronisation of migration with childbirth resulted in some participants enduring years of isolation. Such struggles resulted in changes in the home, with husbands providing both physical and emotional support. The experience of migration affected the women's religious identities, providing solace as well as a way to assert belonging in Scotland by drawing on Islamic theology. The community-based organisation provided a “safe space”, bridging the secular and non-secular and offering women the chance to socialise, learn and volunteer. The study shows that volunteering provided not only a way into paid work but also shaped women's subjectivities and home lives. However, the re-direction of national government funding towards “Muslim problems” threatens to undermine the organisation's ability to continue to meet the local needs of Muslim migrant women.

"July 24, 2004" / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 297-319) / xix, 319 leaves : ill. (some col.), maps ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, Discipline of Geographical and Environmental Studies, 2004

The recognition that women are not in a fixed position but are dynamic and active in any of the processes of migration and post-migration adjustment helps us to see the complexity of women's participation in migration. Using life history interviews, three Sri-Lankan womens' migration experiences are examined for the ways in which personal networks were utilized in various phases of the migration process and how social and human capital was transformed in the post-migration adjustment process. Though in some instances the data did not fully support Boyd's (1989) predictions of the ways in which personal networks affect migration, overall, both Boyd's and Kopijn's (1998) statements that social capital is transmitted and transformed in the migration process are supported. The analysis indicates that all three women were successful in their post migration adjustment in that they were able to retain a strong sense of identity while adopting new practices in the United States. / Graduation date: 2004

This thesis examines the recent emergence of Astronaut and Satellite family forms in Vancouver, British Columbia. Evident in several cities around the Pacific Rim, these transnational arrangements, among economic-class immigrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan, involve one or both adult members of the nuclear family returning to the country of origin to pursue a professional career or business. In the Astronaut arrangement, it is usual for the woman to remain in Vancouver - taking charge of all domestic and childcare tasks. In the Satellite situation, children are left without parental guidance for most of the year. Dominant media and academic representations point to two contrasting interpretations of these phenomena. Recently, academics have emphasised the financial vulnerability of these assumed 'wealthy' immigrants. Migrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan are understood to be "reluctant exiles," and the Astronaut situation reflects a failure to find work in the new country. A second, more common portrayal conceives of these migrants as part of a larger, "hypermobile" cosmopolitan elite, who utilise migration as a strategy of economic and cultural accumulation. Particular forms of capital are achievable at particular global sites; the Astronaut and Satellite arrangements epitomise the placement of different family members in different locations to this end. Through in-depth interviews with members of 42 such fragmented families residing in Vancouver, I established the generally strategic nature of these circumstances. Overwhelmingly, migration had been sought primarily for the education of the children, and the transnational arrangement was planned before migration. I was interested also in how the lone spouse and the Satellite children experienced their situation. A different body of academic literature has emphasised the way in which migration negatively impacts the female of the family, and also how the Chinese family remains significantly patriarchal after migration. For the female participants, practical and emotional difficulties were encountered during the first year of settlement - exacerbated by the loss of both the spouse and old support networks in the new setting of Vancouver. Women undertook all domestic tasks and commonly experienced feelings of boredom, loneliness and fear. After a year, however, many women reported a sense of freedom, clearly linked to the absence of the husband and their own agency in the creation of new support networks and stable surroundings. The Satellite children presented an ambivalent picture of freedom and aloneness. In the command of their daily lives and in the subversion of parental control and expectations (for example, regarding their strategic acquisition of 'cultural capital') they demonstrated significant independence. Yet they had little control over their placement in Vancouver. The negative implications of this family arrangement for the emotional well-being of the children were clearly apparent, and school staff in particular stressed the need to regard Satellite status as a social problem. The empirical data challenge many assumptions concerning the flexible Chinese family in the contemporary era of transnationalism and globalisation.

This thesis explores the immigration experiences of five Latino-American women who reside in Lethbridge, Alberta. Rather than using interviews as a research protocol, the author used conversation as a tool to explore the narratives of these women’s experiences. Four of the five told their story in Spanish, and after transcribing the conversations, the author used critical inquiry to find common ground between the women’s narratives and her own immigration experiences. This thesis explores topics such as belonging and connections to different communities and how these women use stories of change and continuity in constructing their identities. Language, employment, recognition of previous education as well as separation from their families and support networks were the main difficulties identified. As anticipated, these women accessed federally funded and provincially delivered immigrant settlement services, such as ESL classes. While hesitant to use formal counselling, three of the women accessed these services for gendered matters such as spousal abuse. Relationships based on kinship were crucial resources and central to their narratives as was church, which provided both a familiar and significant source of community and support. This study found that when using conversation the researcher establishes relationships with the participants, other writers/academics, as well as the readers. Thus this thesis suggests that narrative research is fundamentally a relational activity. In this context stories are considered gifts, and the exchange of gifts an important aspect of research design. The narratives were shaped by, and interpreted in light of, various contextual factors such as the women’s relationships with the researcher, and their individual as well as socio-cultural and historical circumstances. The five women who participated in this research were found through community networking, and had some familiarity with counselling–either as service recipients or a professional connection–circumstances which shaped their willingness to participate as well as the stories they narrated about their immigration experiences. In constructing the narratives of their past experiences, from the vantage point of the present, the women emphasize gratitude to Canada and only subtly allude to issues such as racism or stereotyping. / viii, 170 leaves ; 29 cm. --