Anti-Racism Learning Toolkit

Describes Beiser's ten-year study of 1,300 Boat People admitted to Canada between 1979 and 1981 and chronicles the former refugees' struggles to establish themselves in their new environment. A remarkable study with profoundly human dimensions.

The immigrants profiled in The Immigrant Other shed light on a system designed to dehumanize and disenfranchise them, and they describe the difficulty of finding shelter in an increasingly globalized and unsympathetic world. They include Muslims facing discrimination from both the "War on Terror" and the "War on Immigration," Latino day laborers, Filipino immigrants supporting themselves and their families back home, and Brazilian parents terrified of being separated from their naturalized children. Immigrants living in Spain, Australia, Greece, and Qatar are also represented, showcasing the similarities and differences in the treatment of immigrants worldwide.

Human migration has reached an unprecedented level, and the numbers are expected to continue growing into the foreseeable future. Host societies and migrants face challenges in ensuring that the benefits of migration accrue to both parties, and that economic and socio-cultural costs are minimized. An insightful comparative examination of the policies and practices that manage and support immigrants, Twenty-First-Century Immigration to North America identifies and addresses issues that arose in the early years of the twenty-first century and considers what to expect in the years ahead.

At the time, Canadian policies regarding ethnic communities were preoccupied with the involvement and loyalty these communities had with their homeland's politics and the fear of infiltration from either the left or right of the political spectrum. Focusing on the creation and operation of under-examined government institutions and committees devised to exercise subtle control of minority groups, Ivana Caccia explores the shaping of Canadian identity, the introduction of government-inspired citizenship education, and the management of ethnic relations.