The Immigration Process and Minority Identities: Where We Are and What We Still Need to Know

The immigration process impacts the identity of ethnocultural, racial, religious, and linguistic minority Canadians. The immigration process refers to that of landing (as immigrant or refugee) and settling in Canada. Although the beginning point is well-defined, the end point may vary with each individual and group. However, settlement is not synonymous with adaptation, integration, civic engagement, and (social) citizenship with its concomitant identity formation; all of these are processes that may go on for life. While all Canadians, whether immigrants, minorities or official majorities, are constantly being touched by on-going immigration which changes the fabric of Canadian society every day, this paper focuses only on those minority Canadians who have actually been through the immigration process. As we go through the different streams of academic literature focusing on identity change subsequent to the immigration of ethnocultural, racial, religious and linguistic groups to Canada, we find that the boundaries are both blurred and mobile over time. Indeed, these categories are social constructions and the identities based thereupon vary over time as a resul