Greater influence from "overseas" -- Miami (Latin America) or Vancouver (Asia)?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

I'm not sure if dc_denizen explicitly brought up African Americans or Hispanics (Americans or otherwise). He did bring up black demographics (including Caribbean).).

You're right that he didn't do that specifically. But it's brought up a lot in these discussions.

[Capsicum]

Going back to the topic of Vancouver, from a lot of discussion you get the impression that Vancouver's metro area is being influenced by many rich, wealthy Chinese immigrants. There is a lot of resentment of local residents, but then again some of the local residents themselves are often long-standing Asian Canadians (often Chinese Canadians from previous immigration waves). It often seems like there's tensions between new immigrants and others, but it's hard to tell if that's any more so than other North American cities or just that it's brought up often.

Are relations between Asian Vancouverites and non-Asian Vancouverites more integrated or less than those between Hispanic/Latino Miamians, and non-Hispanic/Latino Miamians?

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Acajack

You're right that he didn't do that specifically. But it's brought up a lot in these discussions.

Well, if one's criteria of diversity measures is counting domestic minorities, versus immigrant ones, than it goes without saying that it would raise the diversity profile vs. only counting recent international migration.

For example, Canada has groups like French Canadians, Inuit, Métis etc. that are non-immigrant, but count to its diversity, and aren't as numerous outside it.

Also, where do you draw the line between "domestic" diversity and international? We know for instance, that African-American is considered a distinct category (compared to say, Afro-Caribbean). But does "Black Canadian" (those with multi-generational roots like Black Nova Scotians) then count as distinctive a group versus say immigrant-descended Black Canadians only one or two generations from Somalia or Barbados? Then, one can also say, there's few Black Canadians outside Canada just like there's few African Americans outside the US.

Are Cajuns in the US different enough from Acadians in Canada to be their own group? Are the Pennsylvanian Dutch or Ukrainian Canadians on the prairies separate enough from recent immigrants from the same ancestral European countries? Could we count Punjabi Sikh descended Vancouverites, if they go down to California as Indo-Canadians, separate from Indian-Americans whose families are owning hotels there? We can keep adding new demographic groups by claiming one's own country's minorities, once born and raised there, are different than another country's (with the same or similar ancestry).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Well, if one's criteria of diversity measures is counting domestic minorities, versus immigrant ones, than it goes without saying that it would raise the diversity profile vs. only counting recent international migration.

For example, Canada has groups like French Canadians, Inuit, Métis etc. that are non-immigrant, but count to its diversity, and aren't as numerous outside it.

Also, where do you draw the line between "domestic" diversity and international? We know for instance, that African-American is considered a distinct category (compared to say, Afro-Caribbean). But does "Black Canadian" (those with multi-generational roots like Black Nova Scotians) then count as distinctive a group versus say immigrant-descended Black Canadians only one or two generations from Somalia or Barbados? Then, one can also say, there's few Black Canadians outside Canada just like there's few African Americans outside the US.

Are Cajuns in the US different enough from Acadians in Canada to be their own group? Are the Pennsylvanian Dutch or Ukrainian Canadians on the prairies separate enough from recent immigrants from the same ancestral European countries? Could we count Punjabi Sikh descended Vancouverites, if they go down to California as Indo-Canadians, separate from Indian-Americans whose families are owning hotels there? We can keep adding new demographic groups by claiming one's own country's minorities, once born and raised there, are different than another country's (with the same or similar ancestry).

It's definitely a case of YMMV. Indo-Canadians and Indo-Americans would generally not be significantly different until they attain a high degree of assimilation and acculturation into mainstream Canada and USA.

Cajuns are definitely different from Canadian Acadians and are their own thing for sure, owing to time and many other factors.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It's definitely a case of YMMV. Indo-Canadians and Indo-Americans would generally not be significantly different until they attain a high degree of assimilation and acculturation into mainstream Canada and USA.

Cajuns are definitely different from Canadian Acadians and are their own thing for sure, owing to time and many other factors.

Right, one problem of using cultural distinctiveness for an ethnic group with factors like assimilation or acculturation (as opposed to more straightforward metrics like percent of X ancestry, or percent born in country Y, or speak language Z) is that there is so much assimilation even within one generation that someone could argue that kids become a different ethnic group than their parents!

For example, if an African American moves to Canada and has a kid there, her kid won't have "African American" on the census category, but might write down "Black Canadian". Or if an Anglo-Canadian or allophone immigrant straight from the homeland that barely knows French has a kid in Montreal, and the kid grows up fully Francophone, then you have a Quebecois who has no Quebecois parents or "Quebecois" ancestry. A Haitian-Canadian becomes French Canadian in one generation, but a fourth-generation "French-Canadian" Franco-American in Connecticut also answers they're French Canadian on a census or survey -- so are these two hypothetical people then the "same" ethnic group in name only? One generation can literally change an ethnic group into another one, if it's about cultural distinctiveness. Also, that means adopted people have a tricky time answering (depending on if an ethnic group is seen by culture, vs. ancestry).

So much easier to report "self-identity" instead (even if you can have someone self-identifying with a group but having little cultural connection to another member of a group that self-identifies similarly).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Or if an Anglo-Canadian or allophone immigrant straight from the homeland that barely knows French has a kid in Montreal, and the kid grows up fully Francophone, then you have a Quebecois who has no Quebecois parents or "Quebecois" ancestry.).

That's one of the reasons that explains the eagerness in Quebec in the 70s and 80s to move away from the French Canadian moniker and instead use Québécois - to address cases like these and others. Moving away from ethnicity and towards nationality. Québécois in this sense is supposed to be more like "American" or "Australian" than "African-American", for example.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

A Haitian-Canadian becomes French Canadian in one generation, but a fourth-generation "French-Canadian" Franco-American in Connecticut also answers they're French Canadian on a census or survey -- so are these two hypothetical people then the "same" ethnic group in name only?.

My neighbours who were born in Africa are more "French Canadian" in terms of culture than some of my siblings and their kids, in spite of the latter group having the "bloodlines".

[Capsicum]

Somewhat related to the topic of "Asian influence" in the thread, as well the discussion in the last several posts immediately above this one.

A white Canadian (who, according to some googling was born in Montreal) wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal titled "Why anyone can be Chinese".

By making the case that he's more "Chinese" through living in China for decades, being familiar with Chinese culture, and learning the national language than assimilated Chinese-Americans born and raised in the US who has done none of these things, predictably gets responses like these.

[Capsicum]

Another "culture vs. ancestry" debate featuring Miami, appearing on the Amazon headquarters thread.

Originally Posted by pj3000

Diagonal opposite geographically from Seattle... in what has become the hub of access to Latin American commerce and wealth in the hemisphere. Miami and Florida will do whatever Amazon wants and have the $ to do so. High-speed rail being developed along with all of the massive real estate development and population influx. Major international airport.

And Bezos is Cuban and grew up in Miami.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Bezos is not Cuban. He was adopted by his Cuban stepfather.

Originally Posted by pj3000

Exactly. He was adopted and raised by a Cuban man (who he fully considers his father)... that alone makes him Cuban.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

No... lol okay.

Originally Posted by pj3000

I've been married to a Cubana for over a decade... jeez, I'm practically Cuban by now.

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Conversely, Steve Jobs' biological father was Syrian, but he did not get a chance to meet or grow up with him.

According to Steve Jobs' Wikipedia page, Jobs' attitude was very much that he saw his adoptive parents as his real parents, not his biological ones.


Jobs would become upset when Paul and Clara were referred to as "adoptive parents" as they "were my parents 1,000%."[12] With regard to his biological parents, Jobs referred to them as "my sperm and egg bank. That's not harsh, it's just the way it was, a sperm bank thing, nothing more."[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Family

[Acajack]

Culture is most definitely an acquired thing as opposed to being related to bloodlines. We often lose sight of that because in many cases culture largely conflates with bloodlines and ethnicity: most members of the "Russian" culture are ethnically Russian, for example. (But they've still acquired it through their parents and community, and can still lose it, or at least fail to pass it on to their kids.)

There are way more cultures in the world that are like the Russian one than cultures like the American one where a huge proportion of its members have "acquired" it or are a product of "acquisition)- in the case of the U.S. and some other places to the point where it's become impossible to associate a "founder ethnicity" to the culture.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Another "culture vs. ancestry" debate featuring Miami, appearing on the Amazon headquarters thread.

Culture is a question of self-identity. People can claim and feel that they're "Cuban" simply by virtue of being married to a Cuban person. People who observe them (especially if they are Cuban themselves) may set a higher bar. There is no definitive authority.

Here in Canada there are plenty of people who live outside Quebec who have surnames like Tremblay and Gagnon who've defiantly told me (often in broken French) that they're every bit as francophone or French Canadian as any Québécois. (Even if they know usually zilch about francophone culture.) So in most cases the reality is that they're mistaken, but who am I to tell them how to feel?

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Culture is most definitely an acquired thing as opposed to being related to bloodlines. We often lose sight of that because in many cases culture largely conflates with bloodlines and ethnicity: most members of the "Russian" culture are ethnically Russian, for example. (But they've still acquired it through their parents and community, and can still lose it, or at least fail to pass it on to their kids.)

There are way more cultures in the world that are like the Russian one than cultures like the American one where a huge proportion of its members have "acquired" it or are a product of "acquisition)- in the case of the U.S. and some other places to the point where it's become impossible to associate a "founder ethnicity" to the culture.

Another issue is that cultures don't stay static after the "founders" produce them. The founders of a culture from centuries would surely be culturally foreign to us -- a 17th century resident of New France or early American in the 13 colonies would have social, cultural, religious, political views and lifestyles as exotic to us, or any modern American or Canadian, as the average Nigerian or Pakistani today. Probably, even more in some ways if the Nigerian or Pakistani was educated and used the internet, and was exposed to mass media (including Hollywood and the US cultural juggernaut) enough to have shared points of reference.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Culture is a question of self-identity. People can claim and feel that they're "Cuban" simply by virtue of being married to a Cuban person. People who observe them (especially if they are Cuban themselves) may set a higher bar. There is no definitive authority.

Here in Canada there are plenty of people who live outside Quebec who have surnames like Tremblay and Gagnon who've defiantly told me (often in broken French) that they're every bit as francophone or French Canadian as any Québécois. (Even if they know usually zilch about francophone culture.) So in most cases the reality is that they're mistaken, but who am I to tell them how to feel?

There are occasionally spats in the US over the question of whether and to what extent African American can extend to recent African American immigrants without a long history in the country, even situations where white people from the continent of Africa claim to be "African American", that usually provokes quite a response.

The thing is the people who think culture overrides blood/ancestry and the people who think blood/ancestry overrides culture really like shouting at once another, and talk past one another.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Here in Canada there are plenty of people who live outside Quebec who have surnames like Tremblay and Gagnon who've defiantly told me (often in broken French) that they're every bit as francophone or French Canadian as any Québécois. (Even if they know usually zilch about francophone culture.) So in most cases the reality is that they're mistaken, but who am I to tell them how to feel?

Well, maybe not "French Canadian", but at the very least, the term francophone has a clear definition -- the line drawn at language, so in a sense if someone literally does not speak French, you can say they're not francophone, so they are mistaken (while French Canadian does not have this clear definition).

[Djesus777]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

more cultural diversity, eh?

Montreal has 100,000 Caribbeans.

Miami has 1.2 million Caribbeans.

Montreal has 3% Spanish speakers (mother tongue)

Miami has...well, let's leave that aside

Miami is 35% non-hispanic white. It's 20% black (many carribean).

Huge jewish (500,000 people) and Russian immigrant populations too.

Montreal has a francophone connection but let's not talk up its trivial non-francophone diversity.

Montreal has 200+ ethnic groups, Miami Metro has what? 130? maybe less? We may not have a large number of Spanish or Carribean people, but we have more Euro, African, Asian population and also native population. Also comparing U.S metros to Canadian, obviously the American side is going to be skewed. So in terms of the number of ethnic groups and groups outside the Pan-American region, Montreal has a more proportional and diverse group of people. Maybe if you step foot in Montreal and live in both cities you'll see it for yourself as well.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

There are occasionally spats in the US over the question of whether and to what extent African American can extend to recent African American immigrants without a long history in the country, even situations where white people from the continent of Africa claim to be "African American", that usually provokes quite a response.

The thing is the people who think culture overrides blood/ancestry and the people who think blood/ancestry overrides culture really like shouting at once another, and talk past one another.

I often think about this when I check off "French" as ethnic origin on the census form - and how this could put me in the same category as someone who was born in Paris and arrived here five years ago. (And could be Zinédine Zidane's first cousin! )

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Well, maybe not "French Canadian", but at the very least, the term francophone has a clear definition -- the line drawn at language, so in a sense if someone literally does not speak French, you can say they're not francophone, so they are mistaken (while French Canadian does not have this clear definition).

I get your point about the nuance. I guess we can debate if being "francophone" is simply about knowing a language or if there is also an cultural dimension to that.

Generally speaking, people like Stephen Harper and the late Jack Layton (and John Kerry I suppose) who can speak French are known as "francophiles", not "francophones". Whereas Zachary Richard who has the same citizenship as John Kerry is definitely considered a "francophone".

IMO you don't necessarily have to have French as a mother tongue to be a "francophone" but you probably need to be living a decent portion of your life in the language and have at least something cultural attached to it beyond a simple means of communication.

Of course, you can be "born" (sic) francophone and grow up francophone but no longer be one at a later point in life.