Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Racial Mosaic: A Pre-History of Canadian Multiculturalism

The Racial Mosaic: A Pre-History of Canadian Multiculturalism

Meister, Daniel

Paperback

Series: Rethinking Canada in the World, Book 10

Canadian HistoryGeneral Racism & Ethnic Studies

ISBN10: 0228008719
ISBN13: 9780228008712
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Published: Dec 22 2021
Pages: 408
Weight: 1.30
Height: 1.10 Width: 5.80 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

Canada is often considered a multicultural mosaic, welcoming to immigrants and encouraging of cultural diversity. Yet this reputation masks a more complex history. In this groundbreaking study of the pre-history of Canadian multiculturalism, Daniel Meister shows how the philosophy of cultural pluralism normalized racism and the entrenchment of whiteness.

The Racial Mosaic demonstrates how early ideas about cultural diversity in Canada were founded upon, and coexisted with, settler colonialism and racism, despite the apparent tolerance of a variety of immigrant peoples and their cultures. To trace the development of these ideas, Meister takes a biographical approach, examining the lives and work of three influential public intellectuals whose thoughts on cultural pluralism circulated widely beginning in the 1920s: Watson Kirkconnell, a university professor and translator; Robert England, an immigration expert with Canadian National Railways; and John Murray Gibbon, a publicist for the Canadian Pacific Railway. While they all proposed variants of the idea that immigrants to Canada should be allowed to retain certain aspects of their cultures, their tolerance had very real limits. In their personal, corporate, and government-sponsored works, only the cultures of white European immigrants were considered worthy of inclusion.

On the fiftieth anniversary of Canada's official policy of multiculturalism, The Racial Mosaic represents the first serious and sustained attempt to detail the policy's historical antecedents, compelling readers to consider how racism has structured Canada's settler-colonial society.

1 different editions

Also available

Also from

Meister, Daniel

View All

Also in

General Racism & Ethnic Studies

View All