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Originally Posted by Acajack
Things have never evolved in any other way in Canada. As they say, nature abhors a vacuum.
Every time there has been a hole to be filled in Canada as a result of British or Canadian influences receding, it's U.S. stuff that fills the hole every single time.
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Well, (Anglo-) Canada has tried to fill the hole with "multiculturalism" or the idea that all immigrant cultures are equally Canadian, according to our national mythos, but while bandied around from elementary school classrooms to national media, it still doesn't really work as a foil in deflecting our similarity with the US, despite all the talk, well at least not that I've seen so far.
If we (Anglo-) Canadians really walked the walk about multiculturalism (and all cultures equally acceptable as Canadian when brought over here) versus the American melting pot, we would not put Hollywood on a pedestal over say, Bollywood or Nollywood. Clearly not the case. Most Canadians also think of "making it" when Americans notice us (eg. the idea of TIFF as a launching pad to the Oscars).
If Canadians really wanted to use "multiculturalism" to distinguish ourselves from our southern neighbors, we'd see an immigrant fresh off the plane from Lagos or Hanoi as equally "Canadian" as an immigrant fresh off the bus from Nashville or Portland. Yet, in fact, despite how much we define ourselves as "not-American", funny thing if the immigrant from Lagos or Hanoi starts acting more like the immigrant from Nashville or Portland or eventually assimilates to the culture of the latter, we still start to see him or her as being more "Canadian" than if he or she kept their home culture within Canada! That shouldn't happen if we defined ourselves as "not American" and also a mosaic not a "melting pot", which shows a lot of denial of US-Canada similarities and playing up of the influence of non-western culture in Canada is all bluster.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
Yes that is very true. It's quite odd to us for example to see people who speak no French be involved and active in Franco-American associations. You'd obviously never see that here, although I suppose that's the point that the community down there is at in its evolution
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Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
I never thought about this but it's kind of interesting. Even here in Vancouver, which is barely more "French" than most American cities, I am only aware of Francophone cultural groups that revolve around speaking French. There is little or no French culture or ancestry stuff. There are other groups for, say, Ukrainians which are as far as I can tell much more based around ethnic heritage than language. Many of these groups also have religious connotations. Maybe there was a time when certain Catholic churches played a role like this for French Canadians in cities like Vancouver.
I implicitly tend to think of "French background" as being about language. You have it to the extent that you speak French. Having a French last name is not interesting, because it is so common in Canada and because so many people in that category are fully assimilated to English-speaking culture. The idea of somebody doing the Italian thing but with a French theme seems very silly.
Another thing that happens here is that people conflate French Canadian stuff and French stuff. It took me a while to remember to interpret "French" here to mean vague association with French language or derived culture rather than "born in France".
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How common is it for ethnic organizations to totally disregard language ties and focus on cultural attributes without needing to think you need to learn the language to be "one of us" at all?
I think you'd miss out on a lot of ties to the (non English-speaking) ancestral country if you lack language connections (I mean, do these associations watch/read or discuss the "old country" media, unless you have some members translate and discuss in English or something), but if you just think of these clubs as more "meetups for people who share the same genealogy" kind of thing, or members of a shared church or religious group or something (if the service is acceptably conducted in English), then I can see how language becomes less important.