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Paradoxes of the Canadian mosaic: “being, feeling and doing Canadian”

  • Gloria Nystrom ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: February 10, 2023
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Applied Linguistics Review
From the journal Applied Linguistics Review Volume 15 Issue 5

Abstract

This autoethnographic narrative shows how discourses of belonging for racialized identities within Canada’s mosaic are bounded by history, cultural politics, and attendant social struggles. Using an intersectional framework of Asian Critical theory, politics of location, and cultural capital, this paper demonstrates how ideologies of belonging are sustained by processes of cultural and institutional socialization which maintain hierarchies privileging some social groups over others and produce racial/ized difference and inequities within Canadian citizenry. As a second-generation of Chinese ancestry born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, my lived experiences in a predominantly white English-speaking environment illustrate how my status as “model minority” or “honorary white” has been a precarious position. Bonilla-Silva warns us that “honorary white” positioning may be revoked in times of economic, racial or ethnic tension. Dramatic increases in anti-Asian hate incidents during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic—earning Vancouver, BC, the title of the “anti-Asian hate capital of North America”—is an example of how these racialized statuses are paradoxical designations which deny the existence of social inequities. Critical research must interrogate how the continued use of mis-aggregated data that essentializes diverse population groups and perpetuates harmful distortions of Canadian citizenry contribute to, rather than dismantle, discourses of race in “multicultural” Canada.

Keywords: Canada; Chinese; identity; model minority; racism
Corresponding author: Gloria Nystrom, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, E-mail:

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Received: 2023-01-23
Accepted: 2023-01-23
Published Online: 2023-02-10
Published in Print: 2024-09-25

© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Special Issue: The Yellow Peril or the Model Minority? Racialized identities and discourses of Asian Americans and Asian Canadians; Guest Editor: Christian Chun
  3. Research Articles
  4. Paradoxes of the Canadian mosaic: “being, feeling and doing Canadian”
  5. The Asian American teaching method? An overview of language education, social justice issues, and challenging ‘Oppressed’ versus ‘Model’ minority binary discourse
  6. Life and work between home and “homeland”: a narrative inquiry of transnational Chinese adoptees’ identity negotiations across time and space
  7. I ain’t your f*cking Model Minority! Indexical orders of ‘Asianness’, class, and heteronormative masculinity
  8. Special Issue: Assessment and Creativity through a Translingual Lens; Guest Editors: Lavinia Hirsu, Marta Nitecka Barche and Dobrochna Futro
  9. Editorials
  10. Assessment and creativity through a translingual lens: introduction
  11. Assessment and creativity through a translingual lens: transdisciplinary insights
  12. Creative translanguaging in formative assessment: Chinese teachers’ perceptions and practices in the primary EFL classroom
  13. Creativity, criticality and translanguaging in assessment design: perspectives from Bangladeshi higher education
  14. Integrating translanguaging into assessment: students’ responses and perceptions
  15. Research Articles
  16. Investigation of factors underlying foreign language classroom anxiety in Chinese university English majors
  17. Why can’t I teach English? A case study of the racialized experiences of a female Ugandan teacher of English in an EFL context
  18. Primary-concern solicitation in Chinese medical encounters
  19. The relationships between young FL learners’ classroom emotions (anxiety, boredom, & enjoyment), engagement, and FL proficiency
  20. Visualising the language practices of lower secondary students: outlines for practice-based models of multilingualism
  21. Observing a teacher’s interactional competence in an ESOL classroom: a translanguaging perspective
  22. Foreign language teacher grit: scale development and examining the relations with emotions and burnout using relative weight analysis
  23. Vocabulary learning in a foreign language: multimedia input, sentence-writing task, and their combination
  24. The predictive effects of reading speed and positive affect on first and second language incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading an authentic novel
  25. The effects of cultural and educational background on students’ use of language learning strategies in CFL learning
  26. Transl[iter]ating Dubai’s linguistic landscape: a bilingual translation perspective between English and Arabic against a backdrop of globalisation
  27. Exploring Tibetan residents’ everyday language practices in Danba county, Southwest China: a case study
  28. The mechanism for the positive effect of foreign language peace of mind in the Chinese EFL context: a moderated mediation model based on learners’ individual resources
  29. A latent profile analysis of L2 writing emotions and their relations to writing buoyancy, motivation and proficiency
  30. “Part of me is teaching English”: probing the language-related teaching practices of an English-medium instruction (EMI) teacher
https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2023-0022
Keywords for this article
Canada; Chinese; identity; model minority; racism

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Special Issue: The Yellow Peril or the Model Minority? Racialized identities and discourses of Asian Americans and Asian Canadians; Guest Editor: Christian Chun
  3. Research Articles
  4. Paradoxes of the Canadian mosaic: “being, feeling and doing Canadian”
  5. The Asian American teaching method? An overview of language education, social justice issues, and challenging ‘Oppressed’ versus ‘Model’ minority binary discourse
  6. Life and work between home and “homeland”: a narrative inquiry of transnational Chinese adoptees’ identity negotiations across time and space
  7. I ain’t your f*cking Model Minority! Indexical orders of ‘Asianness’, class, and heteronormative masculinity
  8. Special Issue: Assessment and Creativity through a Translingual Lens; Guest Editors: Lavinia Hirsu, Marta Nitecka Barche and Dobrochna Futro
  9. Editorials
  10. Assessment and creativity through a translingual lens: introduction
  11. Assessment and creativity through a translingual lens: transdisciplinary insights
  12. Creative translanguaging in formative assessment: Chinese teachers’ perceptions and practices in the primary EFL classroom
  13. Creativity, criticality and translanguaging in assessment design: perspectives from Bangladeshi higher education
  14. Integrating translanguaging into assessment: students’ responses and perceptions
  15. Research Articles
  16. Investigation of factors underlying foreign language classroom anxiety in Chinese university English majors
  17. Why can’t I teach English? A case study of the racialized experiences of a female Ugandan teacher of English in an EFL context
  18. Primary-concern solicitation in Chinese medical encounters
  19. The relationships between young FL learners’ classroom emotions (anxiety, boredom, & enjoyment), engagement, and FL proficiency
  20. Visualising the language practices of lower secondary students: outlines for practice-based models of multilingualism
  21. Observing a teacher’s interactional competence in an ESOL classroom: a translanguaging perspective
  22. Foreign language teacher grit: scale development and examining the relations with emotions and burnout using relative weight analysis
  23. Vocabulary learning in a foreign language: multimedia input, sentence-writing task, and their combination
  24. The predictive effects of reading speed and positive affect on first and second language incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading an authentic novel
  25. The effects of cultural and educational background on students’ use of language learning strategies in CFL learning
  26. Transl[iter]ating Dubai’s linguistic landscape: a bilingual translation perspective between English and Arabic against a backdrop of globalisation
  27. Exploring Tibetan residents’ everyday language practices in Danba county, Southwest China: a case study
  28. The mechanism for the positive effect of foreign language peace of mind in the Chinese EFL context: a moderated mediation model based on learners’ individual resources
  29. A latent profile analysis of L2 writing emotions and their relations to writing buoyancy, motivation and proficiency
  30. “Part of me is teaching English”: probing the language-related teaching practices of an English-medium instruction (EMI) teacher
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