Linguistic Discrimination Against Immigrants

Migrating to a new country comes along with many struggles. One of those many struggles is, dealing with linguistic discrimination. Linguistic discrimination and racism is often based on accents, and speaking one's native language (orelus cite). Migrating to a new country is extremely difficult, but it is even more strenous when immigrants are migrating to an english speaking countries such as Canada, and the United States. For many immgrants that are migrating to English speaking countries, having an acccent or speaking in their native language can result in linguistic discrimination against them. It can become difficult to obtain a job, or to find housing (creese cite). Many new immigrants rely on getting a job for financial support, to provide for their families and themselves.

Demographics

According to Statistics Canada, in recent years there has been an influx of immigrant woman residing in Canada. In Canada, immigrant woman and girls make up 21.7% of the entire female population according to the National Household Survey of 2011 (stats).

According to Statistics Canada's population projection, if trends continue like how they currently are, immigrant woman and girls would constitute for 27.4% of Canada's female population (stats).

Canada is home to a very diverse population, many of which are immigrants. Many immigrants don't speak the English or French language in Canada. According to Statistics Canada "within the immigrant population, 70.4% of female immigrants, and 78% of recent female immigrants had a non-official mother tongue only. This degree of diversity is related to a decreasing proportion of immigrants landing in Canada from Europe. In 1981, 52% of female immigrants had a non-official mother tongue only" (stats).

Canadian Employers Desire Accent Free Employees

Research

Many immigrants that come to Canada are highly qualified, but many come to Canada to escape their own countries as refugees in hopes of a better life. The vast diversity in Canada is what drives many immigrants to come here and settle down. Although, it is hard to settle down when getting a job is so difficult. Many qualified immigrants also have a hard time finding a job, even if they're highly qualified. In a research study done by Gillian Creese and Edith Ngene Kambere, it was evident that having an accent can deter employers from hiring a potential employee (Creese cite). The methods used were focus groups and they consisted of African American immigrant women in Vancouver (creese cite). The researchers asked eight open ended questions about employment, housing, language, and gender. Participants in this study were qualified women who have been residing in Canada for at least a few years. Although all the participating women in this study were fluent in english, their accent kept deterring them from securing jobs. The participants mentioned that their skills would often get them an interview, but once the employer heard their accents it would become clear that these woman are immigrants and that alone would prevent them from securing the job (creese cite).