The holidays are the season of family reunion. For those of us who live outside of our culture of origin, to have the opportunity to share our traditions with the loved ones is a special treat that doesn’t come often, so we must embrace fully. But deciding which traditions we honor is not necessarily an easy choice because after a while our loyalty to one or another culture tends to blur. Surprisingly, far from being a problem, this is only allowing us to accept a wider range of traditions without the usual conflict of feeling foreign to them. This seems to be the special gift of Third Culture Kids:
While Third Culture Kids usually grow up to be fiercely independent and cosmopolitan, they are more culturally sound and sensitive. They also tend to get along with people of any culture.
Third culture kids grow up in a genuinely cross-cultural world. While expatriates watch and study cultures that they live in, third culture kids actually live in different cultural worlds. Third culture kids have incorporated different cultures on the deepest level, as to have several cultures incorporated into their thought processes. This means that third culture kids not only have deep cultural access to at least two cultures, this also means that thought processes are truly multicultural. That, in turn, influences how third culture kids relate to the world around them, and makes third culture kids’ thought processes different even from members of cultures they have deep-level access to. TCKs also have certain personal characteristics in common. Growing up in the third culture rewards certain behaviors and personality traits in different ways than growing up in a single culture does, which results in common characteristics. Third culture kids are often tolerant cultural chameleons who can choose to what degree they wish to display their background.
TCK’s are on the rise as a result of the massive migrations triggered by globalization processes. The impact that this demographic group may have on culture understanding is possibly a prelude to how a global culture may be a good thing in the long run: A wonderful generation of culturally sensitive people who have been exposed to several cultures and are accepting of all things new.
Since I don’t drink coffee, it is hard for me to judge them on the quality of their product. And as hinted by my very first post I must have some sort of obsession with coffee:
Global Culture should not be about MacDonalds and Starbucks in every little town around the world. It should be the opposite: being able to experience your own cultural heritage in the context of a foreign community. So if you come from Venezuela, where good coffee is a century-old tradition, you should be able to find the equivalent to your traditional coffee house wherever you go. If done well, becoming a global citizen should not require you to loose your cultural baggage.
If you read through the reviews, most people are drooling over how cool the Far Coast lounge is, but people like Paul Terefenko from NOW Magazine have dissected every element of their operation, from the apparent eco/social responsibility of the brand to the extensive market research that allowed them to come up with refined spaces that appeal to the knowledgeable urbanite.
Immigration is one of the main themes of the Canada in 2020 space, presenting opinions by leading personalities on the issues, events and trends that could transform Canada by the year 2020. With the essay Sao Paulo of the North: The Effects of Mass Immigration, Daniel Stoffman presents a looming picture of the future of major Canadian cities as immigration rates outpace their ability to create the infrastructure required:
In 2020, vast tracts of suburban slums occupy what used to be good farmland on the city’s outskirts. Traffic congestion and air pollution are unbearable. Toronto’s reputation as one of North America’s most liveable cities is a distant memory.
With the most aggressive immigration quota in the world at around 250,000 immigrants per year, is not surprise that many Canadians are feeling their quality of life threatened by the lack of responsiveness to the real issues derived from such an unnatural growth, even questioning whether or not is worth it.
There is no reason why Canada should have far more immigration than any other country. Canada’s existing population is younger than those of most other developed countries and its ratio of working age people to retired ones is higher. If Canada reverted to its traditional, more moderate, immigration program, it could continue to enjoy the benefits of immigration while sparing its cities the problems of unmanageable growth.
I’ve mentioned in previous posts that Toronto (my city) is sort of a social experiment that will likely give us invaluable information on the type of issues the world will continue to face over the next few decades. It gets almost half of all new immigrants making it one of the most diverse cities in the world, but already suffering the consequences:
Highway 401 across Toronto has become the busiest road in North America, the city can’t find a place to put its garbage, and its public schools can’t afford to provide the English instruction newly arrived children need.
The obsession for growth must be rooted in the fact that Canada is such a young country that adding a few million people seems like the right thing to do,
But London and Paris grew to their current size gradually over hundreds of years and their greatness is the result of the wealth of the empires of which they were the capitals. You don’t build London and Paris by adding millions of bodies over a short period of time. That’s how you build Mumbai and Mexico City.
I’ve lived in Mexico City so I can attest to the kind of chaos that results from desperate people looking for any kind of opportunities when they have none left in their original communities. In the case of Mexico City, the masses of migrants came from the country after years of neglecting farmers. Toronto is not too different: migrants find here the type of opportunities (professional, quality of life, security) that they can’t find in their original countries. It means that a solution to the Canadian immigration problem can not be found without considering the global context.
Suggesting that “closing the doors” will solve the problem is not too far from the U.S. attempting to create a fence throughout their south border. A sense of global duty should reinforce our commitment towards those foreign countries that contribute our immigrants. Nothing will stop them for as long as their original communities fail them.
Update:Transcripts for the session are available now in two parts. Read part 1 & part 2.
The Clinton Global Initiative is running its annual meeting this week, and while I’m not quite familiar with their work so far, one of their focus areas is Mitigating Religious and Ethnic Conflict, which got my attention as it seems to be related to some of the general topics I discuss here. In particular a session entitled “Bridging the Transnational Cultural Divide”:
This session will move to the broader level of intercultural communication, misunderstanding and conflict [...] and of growing cultural stereotypes, with westerners seen by Muslims as patronizing and domineering, and Muslims seen by westerners as fanatical and intolerant
While transcripts are not available yet, there is at least one person blogging live from the event. My favourite news program “The Daily Show” had Bill Clinton as a guest to promote the event:
I was particularly impressed with the pragmatism of the organization and its 52 ways to make a difference, among which the following seemed bang on for those who follow this space:
Attend a religious service other than your own.
Organize screenings of films dealing with issues of cross-cultural conflict and tolerance.
Organize inter-ethnic or inter-religious community work efforts.
Bring people with diverse backgrounds together via sports/company social activities.
Learn about different religions and educate employees or community members about them.
Create a program to share “best practices” on ethnic diversity
I’m tempted to update the “participate” page on this site to include some of these.
Reading about the British-born terrorists which plot was discovered recently, and remembering how in Toronto 17 youngsters, Canadian born and raised, were planning to behead Stephen Harper, the question of multiculturalism acquires new relevance. We can define multiculturalism as how well a society will receive the different cultures that form the threads of its fabric. The other definition is how well people from different cultures can adapt to the new environment they chose to live in.
Reading Pewglobal you can discover that some groups still have more ties to their original culture than to the adopted one. Muslims in the Western world, born and raised here, still think that they are first Muslims, then British or Canadians. Other example from my own experience is that Italian-Canadian in Woodbridge, Ontario, who have never been to Italy, speak Italian or have any knowledge of Italian history, call themselves Italians and in some cases will cheer Italian teams over Canadian‚Äôs. Chinese diaspora in Markham, On. don‚Äôt bother with learning English and they live all their existence in the safe surrounding of their own. Read “No place like home” from Neil Bissoondath in the New Internationalist for more on the disfunctional relationship between immigrants and the current multicultural policy.
I am guilty of prefering Mexican-raised friends over others. We may keep a strong tie to our original culture, but we have to remember that nobody forced us to migrate (even refugees have options where to go, in some cases) and that we should adapt to our new home.
We can see how two different cultures react: When Sikh men refused to wear the Stetson hat that characterizes the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, they were granted permit to not use it, demonstrating how adaptive the Canadian culture is by accepting that Sikh join the RCMP using turbans. This is an example of foreigns not accepting local traditions but locals accepting foreigners.
Why people come to a country if they cannot accept the local customs? Multiculturalism should be a two-way street. The hosts to foreign cultures have to accept the contribution from abroad, but people coming to a new environment have to realize that they are vowing to change their life style and they need to embrace, at least to some degree, the ways of their new home. Every time that I cross the border, the customs official greets me with a ‚ÄòWelcome Home‚Äô. It’s about time we all feel at home.
Note from the editor: this is a contribution by another blogger. If you have something to say, this space is yours. Check the guidelines to participate.
This week we were all reminded of how real the sentiments of segregation are in the U.S., thanks to the comments Senator George Allen made to an Indian-American (see video below). The editorial of USA Today emphasizes that for a country that was born from immigrants, has the highest rate of immigration and plenty of immigrants in powerful positions, it is a shame that politicians still want to play the “diversity” card in their campaigns. Whether they are trying to empathize with ethnic groups or appealing to the cause of nationalists, the fact is that every time they voice their agendas all they do is undermine the possibility that this society will, one day, learn to live as one.
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, many U.S. cities are a likely model of the society we should expect to see in the future: diverse, cosmopolitan, unaware of boundaries. This is why every effort needs to be made to make sure we get it right.
There is a certain hint of a solution in the Toronto Star (Canada) article “Redefining multiculturalism” when it tries to alleviate the claims of others that multiculturalism should be abolished. In concrete, it proposes:
Instead of funding ethnic dance shows, the government needs to modernize immigration and settlement programs into one basket with the common goal of not only enriching what we have here, but to provide the country with access to the skills that will allow it to connect better with the new global economy. Thus, you reframe “multiculturalism” as “strength through integration of diversity.”
The article cites the stereotypical example of a chinese family that never leaves their neighborhood, therefore never bothers to learn other languages than their own. Lacking the tools to survive outside of the boundaries of their “ethnic ghetto”, they would not be able to integrate fully into this society.
While it is very likely that extreme cases such as this exist, the fact is that in an important twist to McLuhan’s generation gap, the youngsters born in a foreign country are more likely to absorb the general elements of culture to find their ways among peers at school, while at the same time will carry their ancestors culture in many ways. This demographic group, the mythical gap, can help bridge not the generations, but the cultures that are represented at each side.
Attending Democamp (an informal gathering of Toronto’s geek community) earlier this evening confirmed the fact that there are many bloggers with diverse ethnic backgrounds who consider themselves bridges between their cultures and our city. Considering the amazing diversity of cultures Toronto hosts, it can play a fundamental role in the shaping of global culture.
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