Wedding Cake Toppers Friday, Jul 11 2008

One of the few things that I actually care about for the wedding/reception is our wedding cake topper. I wanted one that had a South Asian bride and an East Asian groom. Well surprise, surprise they don’t have them. I don’t know why I thought that with the current increase in inter-ethnic marriages that wedding topper creators would get more creative. Most wedding toppers that were listed under the “ethnic” category (which is stupid since white people have an ethnicity also) were for couples from the same or similar ethnicity. There was a set of mix-and-match couples that was listed under every website I went to, but they had a pretty limited selection. Every “race” was represented by only one figurine for each sex except for *surprise surprise* the white category. They had theirs broken down into hair colour for added variety. Lucky them! There was an “Asian’ groom but there wasn’t a South Asian bride to choose from. So if we want to choose from that collection, I have to either be “African American” or “Hispanic”. *sigh*

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My Beef With Census Canada Tuesday, May 13 2008

It was recently declared by the most recent Census Canada data (from 2006) that South Asians have surpassed the Chinese with the largest population in the visibility minority category. From those that filled out their census form, 1.3 million people have South Asian ancestry.

There are two things that bothers me about these stats (other than people not filling out their surveys). First, the term South Asian is so broad and essentializes a diverse group of people into a category based on an abstract construction of race. According to the Cesus Canada, South Asians are individuals who were born in or whose ancestors were born in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. Yup, definitely diverse. So why are all these countries lumped together while other categories like Chinese and Filipino are given their own? Just because we all fall under a category of “brown skin” doesn’t mean we should all be grouped into one category. I really don’t understand the logic behind the creation of these ethnic categories.

Second, the census asks people what ethnic categories their ancestors are and not what ethnic category/categories they want to affiliate with. Therefore someone like me, a visible minority whose ancestors fall under the category of South Asian, cannot claim my ethnicity to be Canadian. Some people would object to this, but I think it is important to find out how people want to identify themselves rather than forcing them into a labelled category based on their ancestry. Why should a person living in Canada have their identification constrained by how Stats Canada and other official organizations want to label them. If I want to call myself Canadian then I should be able to do that regardless of whether or not I was born in Canada or how my parents and grandparents affiliate themselves. First, second, and third generation Canadians should not be treated differently than later generations and all Canadian residents should be given the right to label themselves as they want. Limiting people’s ability to do so and restricting the access to classify one’s ethnicity as Canadian perpetuates the misguided ideology of Canada as a White nation where only “real Canadians” are those of fully European ancestry.

REFERENCES
The Globe And Mail: “Canada’s visible minorities top five million”

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