The Importance of Remembering the Past

[ed_rex]

I remember riding the subway one day back in the late 1980s and noticing just how many of the people around me were not white and for whom English was not their first language. Mulroney had opened the immigration floodgates, the results were beginning to be visible (as it were) and I was beginning to worry

Comments

[geonarcissa]

I really enjoy The Walrus.

I don't see how a new immigrant, particularly one who doesn't speak English fluently yet, and who belongs to a minority ethnic group, could successfully make the transition without having a buffer zone, a community, and a network of personal connections and resources to help.

If I ever moved to a different country and a different culture, I would certainly seek out other North Americans to connect with.

The Walrus

[ed_rex]

I too enjoy it. In fact, I had coincidentally sent off a subscription form only a couple of days before I picked up the current issue. But still, there is a kind of earnest, small-L liberal, do-gooder smugness to it that gets to me sometimes. Too much Shelagh Rogers and too little Anna Maria Tremonti, as it were.

But yeah, I'm looking forward to finding it in my mailbox again.

I don't see how a new immigrant, particularly one who doesn't speak English fluently yet, and who belongs to a minority ethnic group, could successfully make the transition without having a buffer zone, a community, and a network of personal connections and resources to help.

Very nicely-put. And especially for those working shit-jobs and trying to raise a family.

Re: The Walrus

[geonarcissa]

But still, there is a kind of earnest, small-L liberal, do-gooder smugness to it that gets to me sometimes. Too much Shelagh Rogers and too little Anna Maria Tremonti, as it were.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I think it's gotten better, but it's still there.

But isn't that typical of most Canadian-produced media? Even The National Post is a getting a little cutesy lately.

Re: The Walrus

[ed_rex]

But isn't that typical of most Canadian-produced media?

Unfortunately, I think it is. With non-fiction I prefer analysis over human-interest.

Even The National Post is a getting a little cutesy lately.

I'll have to take your word for that. I haven't read the Post in quite some time. It wasn't the bias that drove me away (though that would prevent me from being a regular reader), but the fact that I kept catching actual lies in it.

[sooguy]

Wow, that's a lot of food for thought.

Maybe you should send it to Walrus. I know its a bit of a mouthful for a "letter to the editor", but they might appreciate it all the same.

I have read an issue or two of the WALRUS before and have always been impressed. I should subscribe someday.

Susbscribe! Subscribe!

[ed_rex]

Maybe you should send it to Walrus. I know its a bit of a mouthful for a "letter to the editor", but they might appreciate it all the same.

I did, in fact, post a modified version on their website, minus the LJ-specific personal stuff and most if not all of the explanatory material. It is long for a letter of comment, but who knows? It'd be a gas to have my name show up in the print edition.

And yes, you should subscribe. Ten issues for something like 25 bucks is a pretty good deal.

[jade_noir]

I read that and I was a bit confused as to whose opinion was whose.
So the magazine says: "Integration is bad"
And you say "Integration happens and it should not be discouraged"
yes/no?

Personally, I go with the opinion of allowing people to mix in their own way and not scorn them for wanting to live next door to people from the old country.

I live in America and well... my best friends are a Chinese girl and a Jew. Sure I probably have more racial tendencies than you do but that is because Philadelphia blacks are messed up. (messed up in this sense means oppressed for a few generations and then end up poor in the ghetto with no hope for the future, leading into them hating all white people.)

Uh-Oh!

[ed_rex]

I read that and I was a bit confused as to whose opinion was whose.

That's not good; I had thought I was pretty clear. I'll need to go back over it.

Sure I probably have more racial tendencies than you do but that is because Philadelphia blacks are messed up. (messed up in this sense means oppressed for a few generations and then end up poor in the ghetto with no hope for the future, leading into them hating all white people.)

That sounds to me less like bigotry than a recognition of a specific social reality. How much contact have you had with black people where you live?

Re: Uh-Oh!

[jade_noir]

In my specific area, a lot because I used to live in the area of my town where all the blacks live. My best friends in Elementary school were black.
As soon as we got to adolescence, Jenny only wanted to hang-out with black people and sort-of white trash kids who don't do well in school. (I think that our study habits separated us.)

But with black people on the streets of Philadelphia, depending on the neighborhood I'm in, I may experience a deathly chill in my heart when crossing their paths or I may not even notice.

Re: Uh-Oh!

[ed_rex]

...I used to live in the area of my town where all the blacks live. [Emphasis mine.]

That's the problem with black/white relations in the US in a nutshell, isn't it?

Over the past 20-odd years, Toronto has seen the growth of a number of mostly-black (and poor) neighbourhoods, along with an increase in gun-violence (though I hasten to add, we had a total of 80-some murders last year - close to a record, but still pretty low for a city of 2.5 million people. At least, for a city of 2.5 million people in North America; someone from Japan would probably beg to differ. But I digress). However, it's my impression that most of those blacks are immigrants and/or first generation Canadians, so I remain hopeful this isn't going to prove to be a permanent ghettoization.