It was a strange experience reading Nandita Sharma’s Home Economics: Nationalism and the Making of “Migrant Workers” in Canada while fires raged every night in the suburbs of Paris last November as young men from ethnically Arab neighbourhoods protested their marginalization in French society. These explosive events, now vanished from the headlines as quickly as they appeared, provided a timely, if tragic, reminder of the alienation and rejection felt by non-white migrants who are physically present in First World countries but kept firmly on the margins of society as a result of government policy, generation after generation.
Canada, unlike France, is proud of its multi-cultural character. Our reputation for welcoming successive waves of immigrants from all over the world is viewed by many Canadians as a badge of honour. However, Canada also has a long history of recruiting temporary “migrant workers” who are prevented, as a matter of government policy...
Judith Ramirez is a founding member of INTERCEDE, an advocacy group for the rights of foreign domestic workers in Canada. She has also helped establish a number of other community-based organizations dealing with the health and employment needs of immigrant women in Toronto.
Advertisement
Advertisement