GRSJ224/wikibasics/RacismandImmigration
Racism and immigration become the main agenda to immigrants living in Canada. Racism is the negative notion which is based on a belief where there is the hierarchy of the races that is superior to others. Immigration is an international movement where people move into the destination of the country which they are not a citizen, or they are not natives to settle there. Racism and immigration for the immigrants who are leaving in foreign countries face a lot of challenges [1]. For example, in Canada, the issue of racism and immigration has a negative impact on the Chinese who are living there as they provide cheap labor and pay high tax. Racism and immigration have led to intersectionality, racialization, whiteness, external obstacles, and internal obstacles. Racism and immigration have become the main obstacle to immigrants who are living in foreign countries.
Intersectionality
Intersectionality is where the multiple systems of discrimination and oppression are looked at. It contends the different cultural, social, and biological groups like gender, ability, class, race, age, and sexual orientation interact on the group and at simultaneous levels. It accounts for people who have overlapping experiences and identity to understand the complexity of the prejudices people facing. A person can experience oppression in different configurations which may vary according to the degrees of the intensity. For example, the black lesbian feminist organization released The Combahee River Collective, which was the political movement that was to stop manifold and continuous oppression of all women according to their color face [2]. Intersectionality becomes the most important tool which knows how intersecting of various economic, political, and social forms of discriminations and oppressions affects different people.
Racialization
Racism and immigration have led to racialization which is the process where geographical, cultural, and physical attributes like skin color, language, and birthplace have the social impact like markers of difference. This difference has led to the creation and enforcement of the hierarchy and racial constructs [3]. Racialization takes place in the environment which is dominated by anti-Muslim sentiments and narratives, anti-migrant, commercial interests, and racism. According to Yarbrough the society of modern U.S. was historically established where the concept of race remains, and integrals racial exclusion to a contemporary working on a state policy affects the lives of the society[4]. Racialization has given the shape of identity and lives to people, an ethnic landscape and geographies which serves like the foci to different present geographers.
Whiteness
Whiteness is the position of structural privileges which lead to being continually challenged and deconstructed [5]. It is about the social and political ideological constructs where privileges and powers are unevenly distributed according to the physical appearance. This is according to skin color and the social position which is like a class. According to Keskinen, S. [6], whiteness represents the position of the powers where power holders like the state, defines the racial groups and determine who is or not white. White is the racial group which exists in relation or opposition to the other racial groups like the black. For example, according to white Canada policy, at the beginning of 19th century, the race has been the strongest defining factor in Canada’s regulations of the immigrants where the non-Anglo-Saxon immigrant was taken as morally and racially inferior [7]. Over time, the meaning of white has changed within a racial group of white are in hierarchies based and differences in language, culture, gender, class, sexuality, ability, and age.
External Obstacles
This system discriminates on the race, education, financial and employment requirements are the point system that represents the barrier of different groups. It is evident that not all the potential migrants who have similar chances to meet the skills and education requirements. The amount needed to settle skilled workers in Canada require 10,000 to 20,000 CA dollars, which is a barrier to potential migrants. In Canada, the location and the number of immigrant offices outside vary greatly between Global South and Global North. To access, visas, this differs between the Global South and Global North which is external obstacles. The immigration families who have managed to settle in Canada that sponsor another member of a family to settle, requires a substantial amount of money where it is about 30,000 dollars which is difficult for immigrant families to get [8].
Internal Obstacles
Canada is not a unified method to provide services, and the programs for the new immigrants and the resources which are provided are very little. The number of people who are under-employed or unemployed is high as the immigrants’ identifications cannot be acknowledged or people are discriminated by ethnicity or language. To get affordable housing and clean water, this becomes an issue for many immigrants, which is internal obstacles [9]. Many reports in Vancouver alone have been reported concerning housing discriminations besides racialized immigrants. For example, the Immigration Act of the 1910 and 1919, section 38(c) states that immigrants can be denied at the entry by the race or nationality. Those internal obstacles have made the immigrants living in Canada face discriminations in everything they do.
Conclusion
Racism and immigration have become the main obstacle to immigrants when they are living in Canada. The effects of racism and immigration have been intersectionality which is the multiple discrimination and oppression of the immigrants. Racialization is as a result of racism and immigration, which is where geographical, cultural, and physical attributes have social impacts. Whiteness has structural privilege which leads to continually challenge and deconstructed to people who are immigrants. External obstacles which are discriminated on the race, education, finance, and employment and internal obstacles which are the discrimination on services and programs are the effects of racism and immigration. People who live as immigrants in different parts of the countries need to be treated well because they also need to be recognized and be given equal opportunities in every area.
- ↑ Loyal, S. (2018). Welcome to the Celtic Tiger: racism, immigration and the state. In The end of Irish history?. Manchester University Press.
- ↑ What is intersectionality, and what does it have to do with me?. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.ywboston.org/2017/03/what-is-intersectionality-and-what-does-it-have-to-do-with-me/
- ↑ Jon E Fox, L. M. (2012). The Racialization of the New European Migration to the UK. Sage Journals.
- ↑ Yarbrough, J. F. (June 2010). Racialized places, racialized bodies: the impact of racialization on individual and place identities. Sringer Link.
- ↑ Cabrera, N. L. (2012). Working through whiteness: White, male college students challenging racism. The Review of Higher Education, 35(3), 375-401.
- ↑ Keskinen, S. (2013). Antifeminism and white identity politics.
- ↑ Harring, S. L. (1998). White Man's Law: Native People in Nineteenth-Century Canadian Jurisprudence. University of Toronto Press.
- ↑ Knowles, V. (2016). Strangers at Our Gates: Canadian Immigration and Immigration Policy, 1540–2015. Dundurn.
- ↑ Jobbins, G., Langdown, I., & Bernard, G. (2018). Water and sanitation, migration and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. ODI Briefing. London: ODI.