  Tempo Exterior nº 5 segunda época
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| Negotiating Identities: The Portuguese Diaspora and the Politics of Multiculturalism in Canada | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Ana Paula Beja Horta |
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In the beginning of the new millennium Portugal is still very much a country of emigration. Almost five and a half million Portuguese reside abroad representing more than half of the total Portuguese resident population (Lopes, 1999)(1). Emigration has been viewed as a “structural phenomenon” in Portuguese society. Since the fifteenth century Portuguese have left the country to discover, conquer, colonize, trade and to work. These continuous out-flows of Portuguese citizens throughout the centuries have been instrumental in the constitution of Portuguese diasporic communities scattered all over the world. An ever-growing literature on the theorizing of diaspora has pointed out the ways in which this complex notion that has been used to characterize different phenomena in specific historical contexts. As Cohen (1995) argues the meaning of diaspora has changed from a concept with positive connotations denoting the expansion and dispersion associated with Greek colonization in pre-modern times, to a widely used conception closely associated with the Jewish, African and Armenians experiences of “enslavement”, “exile”, “loneliness” and “alienation”. More recently, the concept of diaspora has been reworked within a new framework of globalization, migration and transnationalism. The work of Vertovec and Cohen (1999) suggest that the idea of diaspora is able to convey the contemporary cultural, social, political and economic processes of “multilocality”, “global identities” and “transnationalism”. Diaspora is thus defined in terms of a “social form”, as a “type of consciousness” and as a “mode of cultural production”. Diaspora as a social form refers to the nature of social, political and economic relationships that have been created by globally dispersed ethnic groups. This entails the emergence of tri-dimensional relations: among the different communities scattered around the world who have maintain a collective identity and a sense of historical and ethnic commonality; with the country of settlement and with the homeland. The multiplicity of spaces of interaction raises important questions regarding notions of identity, and consciousness. The negotiation of different belongings and attachments comprises an ever-changing process of representations, of “histories, ´communities’ and selves” (ibid.,p.9). In a world characterized by global flows of social and cultural phenomena, diaspora as cultural production captures the fluidity, intermixing, and hybrid nature of identity production. As Stuart Hall has insightfully stated: “Diaspora does not refer us to those scattered tribes whose identity can only be secured in relation to some sacred homeland to which they must at all costs return, even if it means pushing other peoples into the sea… The diaspora experience as I intend it here is defined not by essence or purity, but by the recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity; by a conception of identity which lives with and through, not despite, difference; by hybridity. Diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference(2)”. Such reconceptualization of diaspora appeals to a new dynamics of belonging, ethnicity and identity to which the Portuguese diasporic experience is not foreign. If a pre-modern conception of diaspora stressing expansion and “settler colonization” could be applied to the Portuguese (as well as to the British and Spanish ones) in the period of mercantilism and colonization ( Cohen, 1995), the late modern conception of diaspora captures the complex local and global dimensions of Portuguese communities scattered through the world (Rocha-Trindade, 2000). The official discourse on the Portuguese nation as a nation of communities is a recent one. The lost of the empire and decolonization prompted a major shift in traditional notions of the nation, a nation from which Portuguese communities were, throughout the ages, systematically excluded. However, despite the pervasiveness of dominant discourses which refused to acknowledge and give visibility to the millions of Portuguese living abroad, these individuals and communities have throughout the times cemented social, cultural , economic and affective relations with the homeland. At the same time, their living experience in the countries of settlement have open-up new opportunities for self-improvement and community advancement. The nature of these processes of multilocality and their implications in the making of a multifaceted consciousness marked by hybrid forms of identification, cultural intersections and multiple loyalties need to be examined. In the first part of this article I will provide a brief outline of Portuguese diaspora phenomena focusing on its recent trends. In the following section I explore the changes and shifts in emigration policies and in the official discourses on the Portuguese communities abroad and the ways in which these articulate with changing notions of nationhood. This is followed by the case study of the Portuguese community in Canada and its responses to the policy of multiculturalism. Issues of diasporic identity and culture are a central concern in the following analysis. Portugal has been traditionally a country of emigration. It is estimated that between 1500-1750, 1,300,000 Portuguese left the country. During this period and up to the 1950s Brazil attracted the overwhelming majority of Portuguese flows (Rocha-Trindade, 1995; Serrão, 1977). After the Second World War, from mid-1960s to mid-1970s, approximately one and a half million Portuguese emigrated to Europe and to the American Continent. During this period, France alone absorbed nearly fifty percent of the total massive Portuguese out-flows (Baganha, 1998; Cassola Ribeiro, 1986)(3). Economic backwardness, the outbreak in the 1960s of colonial wars in Guinea, Angola and Mozambique and slim future prospects constituted major push factors prompting the massive exodus of Portuguese. On the other hand, post-war European economic recovery and severe labour shortages created by wartime casualties were determinant pull factors configuring labour transfers from the European periphery countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain,) to the most industrialized European countries (e.g., Germany, France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Great Britain). Furthermore, in the specific case of Portugal, emigration policies in the 1960s and early 1970s were grounded on the notion that out-migration provided an outlet for excess labour supply in labour supply in Portugal, and thereby would tend to attenuate the economic costs of unemployment and underemployment. On the other hand, emigrant remittances were crucial to minimize the national deficit and to subsidize the costs of colonial wars. In the early 1970s nearly half of the Portuguese national budget was spent in military expenditure (MacQueen, 1997). Also the remittances were (and still are) of utmost importance to improve the livelihood of those family members who remained in the country(4). During the late 1960s and early 1970s in an attempt to monitor out-migration flows, and to ensure minimally the protection of Portuguese workers abroad, Portugal signed a number of bilateral agreements with European labour–importing countries (Rocha-Trindade, 1993). Labour migration quotas were established to better suit the manpower needs of Portuguese economy. However, these migratory measures proved to be highly ineffective in regulating massive emigration flows. Between 1961 and 1974 the annual average of departures totalled 122,000 emigrants, reaching a peak in 1970 with 183,000(5). An important change in the pattern of Portuguese migratory movements took place in the early 1960s when emigrants switched their primary country of destination from Brazil to France. Whereas from 1950 to 1956, 69.2% of the total Portuguese emigration was directed to Brazil from 1960 to 1969, 50.9% emigrated to France and only 11.3% to Brazil (Cassola Ribeiro, 1986). France, West Germany, the United States of America and Canada became the major countries of destination of Portuguese emigration in the 1960s and early 1970s. (Figure 1.)
By the mid-1970s, emigration outflows came temporarily to a sudden halt. Economic recession, the oil crisis and subsequent restrictive immigration policies in European countries highly reduced Portuguese labour migratory flows. Furthermore, European receiving countries return policies (e.g., France and Germany) induced the return of legal immigrants. It is estimated that that between 1981 and 1985 approximately 500,000 Portuguese had returned to Portugal (Ferrão, 1996). Concomitant with these return flows were the new inflows of Portuguese citizens residing (and working) in the African ex-colonies “colonial emigrants” (ibid: 180) which nearly totalled 600,000. In a few years more than 1,000,000 Portuguese had returned to Portugal. Yet, if emigration outflows had decreased significantly in the 1970s, in the next two decades the total number of departures grew considerably. Despite the increasing difficulty in quantifying labour movements within the European space, it is estimated that in the 1980s the average annual departures were approximately 20, 000 up until 1985. With the entrance of Portugal in the EU, new institutional, and working conditions in the European space have facilitate permanent and temporary emigration. In 1991, the total number of departures reached a peak of 46,000 (Baganha & Peixoto, 1994). Switzerland is presently the major country of destination of Portuguese migrant outflows absorbing nearly 40 percent of the total migratory movements. Germany and other European countries (e.g., Luxembourg and France) have also become preferred countries for Portuguese outflows in the 1990s(6). Regarding the emigration movements within the European Union, recent flows to France and to some extent to Germany have taken the form of seasonal and “pendular movements” or family reunification (Rocha-Trindade, 1995).Contrary to other Southern European labour –exporting countries (Spain, Italy and Greece) which have, presently, substantially low levels of out-migration, Portugal continues to be a country deeply structured by out-migration phenomena. Yet, in the last three decades Portugal has also became a country of immigration and a preferred destination for migration flows from the African ex-colonies. At present, the immigrant population in Portugal represents approximately 3.5% ( 341. 270) of the total population ( SEF 2001. Statistical Report). Although the weight of the foreign population has not reached the proportions observed in other European countries such as France (5.6%); Germany (8.9%); Sweden (5.5%) or Belgium (8.3%), the settlement of migrant ethnic communities raises crucial challenging questions regarding national identity, citizenship rights, cultural difference and the integration of migrant populations in mainstream Portuguese society. The demise of the empire and the integration of Portugal in the European Union have prompted major changes in Portuguese policy-making. These have entailed a complex process of deterritorialization /reterritorialization and subsequent deterritorialization (Santos, 1993). The notion that the national territory somehow extended itself into Africa and that the colonial empire was an integral part of one single and individual state “Um Estado uno e indivizível” crumbled in 1974 (Figueiredo, 1975). After decolonisation, Portugal had to come to grips with a nation reduced to its diminutive geographical dimension. However, the new process of “reterritorialization” was short-lived, for the integration in the EU prompted a new process of “deterritorialization.” In other words, concomitantly with the construction of a new imaginary national community was a process of transnationalization implicated in Portugal’s accession to the European Union. In Santos’ words, “In less than twenty-years, the transnationality of the colonial space is transferred to an European transnationality in which Portugal continues to occupy a relatively peripheral situation” (1994:136).However, the increasing influxes of migrants and refugees from the ex-colonies were met with growing apprehension. In 1981 a more restrictive citizenship law (Law 37/8) was introduced. If the previous law was based on an equilibrium between jus soli and jus sanguinis, the new regulations largely privileged jus sanguinis. For Esteves (ed., 1991), this shift in the definition of citizenship was rooted on nationalist fears fuelled by increasing inflows of migrants as a consequence of decolonisation. But, if on the one hand, the new law restricted the access to citizenship to immigrants, on the other hand it facilitated the reacquisition or acquisition of nationality to Portuguese emigrants and their descendents living abroad. Also the introduction of regulations allowing for dual citizenship also favoured Portuguese emigrants who had acquired a different nationality and who had to forego Portuguese citizenship. In the 1980s, the official representations of the nation became increasingly tied to a conception of the nation as an imagined community of descent which transcended territorial boundaries. This greater sensitivity towards Portuguese emigrant communities underlined a major ideological shift in the conception of Portuguese nationhood . The envisioning of Portugal as “a nation of communities” (Aguiar, 1999:19) reflected a self-understanding of the nation in which Portuguese emigrants became a most important constitutive element. The new national imaginary embraced the long forgotten and often neglected “Portuguese of the Diaspora”. Special rights, privileges and the creation of institutional channels for the full participation of Portuguese emigrants and their descendants in Portuguese society attempted to strengthened the economic, cultural and ethnic bonds between Portugal and its communities abroad(7). At an institutional level, in 1980, the Secretary of State for Portuguese Communities was constituted under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This new official body had as major objectives the formulation and implementation of migratory policies. The extension of social, cultural and political citizenship rights to Portuguese living abroad was a crucial concern in migratory policy-making. The safeguard of Portuguese citizens’ rights in the diaspora; the extension of social security benefits to all Portuguese living abroad through bilateral agreements; the promotion of Portuguese language and culture through the creation of cultural centres in host countries; the creation of economic incentive mechanisms to promote remittances and the investment of migrants savings in Portugal were some of the basic features of such policies (Secretaria de Estado das Comunidades Portuguesas, 1987). Given the considerable number of return migration in the 1980s, the official policies have emphasized the creation of economic, social and professional conditions to accommodate the return of those abroad. An effort has been made to make people and communities receptive to the social problems arising from emigration and re-integration. The project “Community Receptivity in Areas of High Emigration” was launched in the early 1980s to increase the receptivity of the Portuguese residing in Portugal towards the problems face by Portuguese who have resided abroad and to minimize the cultural and social gaps concerning the returnees. Regarding the cultural and political rights of emigrants, in 1980 the Council of the Portuguese Communities (Conselho das Comunidades Portuguesas) was created in 1980 (Decree-Law nº 373/80). The Council is an international autonomous organization constituted by representatives of Portuguese associations abroad. It operates as an advisory committee on major issues concerning emigration policy. For one of the most influential politicians in the area of emigration the Council was perceived as a “project that captures the dynamic and authentic dimension of the Portuguese nation that transcends its limited territorial borders and which aims at the safeguard and promotion of our cultural and moral patrimony through the active protection of our citizens’ rights, no matter where they live, and through the promotion of the Portuguese language and culture” (Aguiar, 2000:25). The notion of the nation here advanced proposes a redefinition of the nation-state traditionally anchored on a “dogma of territoriality”. In such conception, citizenship rights were only attributed to those citizens living within the territorial boundaries of the sovereign state. Consequently, all those residing outside the national territory were excluded from citizenship rights. In the last two decades, Portugal, like other European countries ( for example, France and Spain), has extended citizenship rights to those living abroad. The right of dual nationality, voting rights to legislative and presidency elections, political representation through the election of four members of Parliament, social benefits and television programming targeting the Portuguese communities (RTP internacional) are some of the major measures being taken to promote a more inclusive policy. Besides these, a push towards more social and political rights (for example, welfare benefits, minimum wage gurarantee, and voting rights) have underlined recent official discourses. The “deterritorialization” of policies and the extension of citizenship rights are perceived as effective mechanisms to promote equality and justice among all Portuguese citizens (Aguiar, 2000). In 1996, it was the created the Community of Countries of Portuguese Language (Comunidade de Países de Língua Portuguesa, CPLP). The constitution of this community also provided a new political space for the debate of emigration and immigration issues, identity and citizenship rights. Its main objectives were the construction of a transnational lusophone identity and the creation of a “lusophone citizenship” grounded on extended citizenship rights for Portuguese speaking country nationals (Aguiar, 1998; Jesus, 1998; Leitão, 1998). The unfolding of a lusophone space of membership appeals to an expanded notion of citizenship within a space of “interculturalism which calls for the right to share a territory and also the obligation to live according to the culture of various groups and communities without subordinating their statutes to the majority” (Rocha-Trindade, 1998:12). Yet, for Lopes, in paraphrasing M. Villaverde Cabral this community sedimented in terms of a common language is essentially “a new rhetorical expediency along the lines of luso-tropicalism or a plausible area of institutional cooperation. That is, an imaginary community built by the political elites when confronted by a new nacional identity after the lost of the empire and the integration of Portugal in the EU” (cited in Lopes, 1999:52)(8). According to Lopes, the CPLP is an imaginary community which emerged as a response to the lost of the empire and to the integration of Portugal in the EU. For the former High Commissioner, José Leitão the lusophone citizenship does not conflict with Portuguese obligations with the EU. On the contrary, it is perceived as being of utmost importance in a “world increasingly shaped by regional integration and economic social and cultural processes of globalization” (Leitão, 1998:59). Despite the shifts and changes in migratory policies and in the Portuguese conceptions of the nation and national identity, the Portuguese Communities living abroad, although highly differentiated, have webbed their own transnational networks and created spaces of transculturality (Welsh, 1999) in which new hybrid cultural forms cross a multiplicity of social worlds. The case study of the Portuguese communities living in Canada well illustrates the dynamics of diasporic identities and the complex ways in which cultural identities are reproduced, negotiated and transformed. Portuguese Emigration to Canada Prior to the Second World War, the Portuguese presence in Canada was not significant. The first phase of large scale emigration of Portuguese to Canada took place between 1952 and 1957. During this period labour shortages in Canada prompted the Canadian government to sponsor a program in which unskilled labourers were recruited to work in pre-assigned jobs on farms and on railways tracks. In 1958 the program was cancelled due to high unemployment rates in the unskilled sectors of the Canadian economy. By that time, approximately 10,710 Portuguese had already entered the country. These immigrants laid the foundation for a kinship-based migration of Portuguese into Canada which reached its peak between 1965-1969, when one quarter of all Portuguese immigrants arrived. From 1960 to 1969, 60,150 Portuguese immigrants entered Canada compared to 17,056 for the period 1950-59. During this period, Canada became the fourth preferred destination for Portuguese emigrants. Of the total 620,811 Portuguese who emigrated from Portugal in the 1960s, 7.8% came to Canada, 10.3% to the United States, 11.3% to Brazil and 50.9% to France (Cassola Ribeiro, 1986). In 1963, a new immigration policy was adopted in response to the demands of a rapidly growing Canadian economy characterized by an increasing need for skilled workers and professionals. To this effect, Canadian immigration policy stressed the importance of skill as the main criterion in the selection of unsponsored immigrants. Despite the numerous highly skilled technicians and white-collar workers arriving from Portugal in the 1960s, this shift in Canadian immigration policy made it particularly difficult for the Portuguese to qualify as independent immigrants, since those more likely to emigrate were unskilled workers who had on average four years of formal schooling in the homeland. While some Portuguese took advantage of the relaxed immigration laws between 1962 and 1972 which permitted the visitor to apply for landed immigrant status within the country, a large percentage of Portuguese emigrants to Canada in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were either sponsored or nominated by relatives already residing in the country. According to the Green Paper on Immigration, 75% of the 64,999 Portuguese immigrants to Canada for the period 1968 to 1973 entered under the sponsored and nominated categories (Green Paper on Immigration 1974) This pattern has been maintained throughout the years. In 1986, 80% of all Portuguese entering Canada were admitted under the family category; only 12% entered under the independent class (Canada, Department of Citizenship and Immigration – Immigration Statistics, 1986). After 1976 total Portuguese emigration to Canada declined substantially. This may be attributed to changes in Canadian immigration policies and to the improvement of Portuguese economy in the 1980s and 1990s and rising expectations for better economic and educational opportunities due to the entrance of Portugal in the European Union. According to the Census of 1991, there are approximately 292,185 people who claim Portuguese ethnic origin. Of these, 161,180 were immigrants. (Statistics Canada, 1996). The Portuguese living in Canada are mainly concentrated in the Provinces of Ontario (approximately 200.000), Quebec ( 40,000) and British Columbia (20,000). Historically, the Portuguese communities in Canada have been organized around the Catholic parish church. Portuguese parish churches in Canada are not only mere centres of spiritual guidance ; above all, they are cultural centres fulfilling both religious and social functions. The parish has extended its sphere of control throughout the Portuguese communities by organizing other associations – parish schools, folk-dance groups, soccer teams and youth groups. A significant number of Portuguese immigrants attend church services regularly and participate actively in cultural and recreational activities promoted by the parish. The parish church has been most successful in mobilizing a large pool of resources. For Portuguese immigrants, participating in church organized activities is more than a religious-patterned way of coping with the new milieu. It is also a means for cultural identity maintenance. By reproducing in the host country similar cultural, social and religious patterns to those existent in the native country, the parish becomes a bridge linking the receiving society to the homeland. Many Portuguese community organizations have been established outside the parish. Social, leisure, educational and sports organizations have proliferated throughout Canada. These associations have been instrumental in providing the social, economic and cultural cushions for the Portuguese communities. However, lack of resources and organizational skills, low social position, and endemic animosities and tensions among associations’ leaders have greatly hampered the political mobilization of the Portuguese communities in Canada. Unlike other migrant minorities which have been more successful in ethnic mobilization at a national level (for example, Asians, Italians, and Greeks, Ukrainians, to name just a few), the Portuguese were not throughout the years very successful in establishing a Portuguese organization at a national level. Only in 1993, a Portuguese national “umbrella” organization was created. The Portuguese-Canadian National Congress had as major objectives to promote the participation of Portuguese community in Canadian society; to assess and develop a wide range of social, cultural, economic and political activities and programs directed at the Portuguese communities scattered throughout Canada; to develop communication channels among Portuguese communities residing in Canada as well as between Portugal and Canada: Furthermore, the Congress was also launched as a potentially advisory organization operating at the local, provincial, and national levels of the Canadian polity. Despite this important move towards collective mobilization at the national level, the Portuguese communities’ responses to the policy of multiculturalism has been at best ambiguous. Portuguese Diasporic Identities and Multicultural Politics The policy of multiculturalism introduced by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1971 was derived from Book IV of the Royal Commission’s Report on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1969). In 1969, the federal government accepted the recommendations of the Commission on the status of English and French as the two official languages in Canada. In the Official Languages Act, bilingualism became the official language policy in Canada. Two years later Prime Minister Trudeau introduced in the House of Commons, a policy which he called “multiculturalism within a bilingual framework”. In his own words: “For although there are two official languages, there is no official culture, nor does any ethnic group take precedence over any other. No citizen or group of citizens is other than Canadian and all should be treated fairly… a policy of multiculturalism within a bilingual framework commends itself to the government as the most suitable means of assuring the cultural freedom of Canadians” (House of Commons’ Debates, 1971. Statement by Prime Minister Trudeau, October 8th). There are two major factors that provided the momentum for the creation of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism and the subsequent introduction of the policy of multiculturalism. First the rise of French-Canadians’ disenchantment with their cultural and socio-economic status in the 1960s became a major challenge to Canadian Confederation, and more specifically to Anglo-Saxon domination (Peter, 1981). Second, the new non-racially discriminatory immigration policy outlined in the White Paper on Canadian Immigration Policy in 1966 in the form of the “point system” led to a remarkable shift in the ethnic and occupational composition of Canadian population. The rise of non-English and non-French well educated immigrant population brought to the fore ethnicity as a salient feature of Canadian social structure. According to Peter (1981) the multicultural policy emerged as an institutional response to the threat posed by Quebec’s nationalism and by other ethnic groups to the ruling dominance of English speaking Canada. An ever-growing literature on multiculturalism has focused on the positive and negative implications of such policy in Canadian society. For Breton (1986) multiculturalism has been instrumental in the pluralization and redistribution of symbolic resources among ethnic communities. Yet, he contends that in such policy there is a lack of consensus regarding the nature of Canadian identity and culture. A different position is defended by other authors (Porter 1975, Abu-Laban and Stasiulis, 1992) for whom the official policy’s definition of culture as “lifestyle” obscures the fact that culture is intimately connected with the group’s “life changes”. Porter (1975) in his discussion of Canadian ethnic pluralism argues that identifying culture as a lifestyle has two major undesirable consequences. Given the differential socio-economic status of ethnic groups, a policy that promotes the maintenance of ethnic heritage tends to reinforce the existing unequal ethnic life chances, thereby, perpetuating the Canadian “vertical mosaic”. A policy that concentrates on the life styles and on non-controversial aspects of culture as mediating factors against discrimination and inequality is perceived an inadequate device to address the existing problems of an ethnically differentiated society. For Wilson (1978) while the policy of multiculturalism focus on life styles and folklore as a way of living, the structural position of ethnic groups in the Canadian society remains unexplored. A similar position is held by other authors (Adam, 1984; Moodley, 1983; Vertovec,1996; Narang, 1994). For instance, Adam’s argument is that“… we celebrate ideological multiculturalism but do not practice structural multiculturalism”, the latter meaning that “… the equal access to crucial resources and positions of power by all segments of Canadian society” (Adam, 1984:248). This argument is taken further by those who contend that the policy of multiculturalism leads ultimately to the ghettoization of ethnic communities (Reitz, 1980; Bissoondath, 1995). For Reitz the policy of multiculturalism seems to reinforce existing ethnic stratification rather than promoting equal opportunities for upward mobility for members of ethnic groups. The policy’s emphasis on cultural distinctiveness has as a net effect the neutralization of group and individual’s efforts for socio-economic mobility through a process of ethnic atomisation. The institutionalisation of cultural differences in a society dominated by Anglophone culture encourages ethnic marginality to the extent that it hardens the boundaries between “us” the charter group and “them” the ethnic minorities. By promoting a monolithic and static notion of culture, multicultural policy tends to perceive ethnic minorities as unmmutable groups enclosed in their cultural shells. A similar argument is made by Bissoondath (1995) who asserts that multiculturalism tends to legitimise a radical cultural pluralism and therefore encouraging the marginalization of minorities. This, in Bissoondath’s opinion constitutes a major threat to the social cohesion of Canadian society. For Houle (1999) multiculturalism should allow for the articulation of cultural difference and particularity with a common public culture of universal rights shared by all citizens. Besides the government vested interest in the policy of multiculturalism who else is benefiting from it? According to Jean Burnet (1975) some of the ethnic groups’ leaders who have pressed more enthusiastically in support of a policy of multiculturalism were predominantly Canadian born. The upwardly mobile East Europeans viewed the policy as an open avenue for political recognition. In contrast, the South Europeans and the Chinese had shown little public interest in multiculturalism. In his book, The Survival of Ethnic Groups, Reitz (1980) argues that high levels of ethnic identification among ethnic groups with low status, for example Southern Europeans and Chinese, undermines the political participation of these ethnic groups in the Canadian society. In his words. “ Ethnic identification results in low political participation because ethnic inequality encourages a self-definition of marginality” (1981:228). It is the more established ethnic groups that haves manipulated successfully their ethnicity in the pursuit of political interest. By rediscovering their ethnic identity, these “professional –ethnics” (Peter, 1981:66) attempted to secure positions of power in an ethnically skewed power elite. O’Brian, Reitz and Kuplowska’s study on multiculturalism found that more than three-quarters of all Portuguese interviewed had no knowledge of the policy and more than half of all Chinese were unaware of it. Greeks and Hungarians were the two ethnic groups who showed a greater knowledge of the policy. There is no doubt that unlike the Greeks, the Portuguese have shown little interest in the policy of multiculturalism. Lack of knowledge of the policy, lack of organizational skills and deficient collective organizing may undermine the mobilization of Portuguese concerning multicultural issues. In a society in which multicultural grants are allocated to groups rather than individuals the inability of Portuguese to operate as an “official” interest group may, in fact, relegate them to a marginal position vis-à-vis other ethnic groups which have been more successful in capitalizing on ethnic exclusiveness an on public funds. Moreover, low levels of ethnic political mobilization may weaken the group politically, making it more vulnerable to political manipulation by government bureaucrats. Still the question remains whether this seemingly apathetic behaviour is a strategic form of escaping institutionalised ethnic difference or is multiculturalism simply bypassing the Portuguese? For some Portuguese, multiculturalism’s rethoric of “unity”, “equality” and “harmony” is little more than a symbolic move which looses its grandeur when confronted with daily life experiences. As a Portuguese carpenter observed: “They show us all those beautiful images of Canada made up of many different peoples and races. It almost seems we are all equal. But these are only images which do not mean anything. When I look for a job they still ask me if I have Canadian experience. I’m a carpenter, that’s all. Do you know what Canadian experience means(9)? While the policy of multiculturalism advocates the upward mobility of ethnics, the means to attain full economic and political participation are still unclear. Economically, the Portuguese community has remained at the lower ranks of the occupational structure with few opportunities for upward mobility. Lack of skills, formal education and knowledge of the English language constitute major impediments to occupational mobility and self-improvement. Furthermore, this “minority status” (Noivo 1999) has had major implications in the life chances of future generations. Young Portuguese-Canadians educational deficit and social and occupational low status point out the processes of social reproduction of marginalization facing the Portuguese communities in Canada (Nunes, 1999). Moreover, by promoting a monolithic and static notion of culture, multicultural policy tends to perceive ethnic minorities as groups enclosed in their immutable cultural shells. The Portuguese communities in Canada have defied this traditional notion of culture and identity. Their lifestyles are not reduced to the preservation of cultural traits acquired in the homeland and which are passed on to future generations. On the contrary, their ways of life point out the interconnected and entangled nature of living that go beyond national cultures. When I asked Portuguese immigrants what it meant to be a Portuguese in Vancouver several said they did not know. Others told me that their way of living was not very different from what they perceived to be the “Canadian” lifestyle which for them meant to own a house, a car, to have credit cards and to send their children to good schools. They were, however, quick to explain that the only differences between them and the “Canadians” were that Portuguese have a stronger sense of the family, and that, because they always thought about the future they tended to work and to save more. For a pioneer Portuguese immigrant being Portuguese is illustrated as follows: “I get up at 6 0’clock in the morning and go to work. There are some Portuguese working at the site. We stick together because we understand each other. Then I go home, have supper and watch the news. I like hockey games. I also watch RTP (Portuguese Television) international. Sometimes, I get together with some relatives, and friends. We drink wine, talk about work, hockey, soccer and Portugal. On Sundays we go to Our Lady of Fatima Church. I guess doing these makes me a Portuguese in Vancouver…”. The Portuguese, regardless of their length of stay in Canada, continue to have strong attachments to the homeland. Frequent contacts with their families in Portugal, holiday trips, transfer of resources in the form of financial remittances and a everlasting ambivalence towards the place of residence structure many Portuguese lifestyles. For many their commitment to their native village is manifested in different forms. Regional social events are organized regularly to raise funds to remodel a parish church in their native villages, help the construction of hospitals, old age homes or to purchase vehicles for the handicapped. Besides the channelling of funds for social causes in the homeland, transfer of personal funds to be invested in the purchase of a house, business or land in the native village or to assist relatives in difficult economic conditions are still common practices. Although the homeland continues to be a referential axis, their living experience in Canada has allowed for novel interactions with different cultures and life-forms which are internalised and fused with their heritage culture. The intermixing, overlapping and distinctions among diverse cultural patterns become inscribed in a lifestyle which is a constant negotiation among multiple spaces and ways of thinking the world. In the words of a Portuguese woman living in Vancouver for the last thirty-years: “I lived here for a long time. My husband is now talking about going back to Portugal. Going back to what? To take care of chicken and running after the pigs wile he spends his time talking with his friends.. I prefer to stay. I have my own independence here. I earn my own money. I have my own car….And then I can go to Portugal whenever I feel like. Nowadays it is so easy…. Tradition is good, it tells you who you are but you built on it, you built on it with new things that you learn. Here I have learnt many things…”. It is this feeling of multiple belongings, and identification with different cultures which are not bound by time and space that provides new frameworks of livelihood which are not exclusive. On the contrary, they entertain a cultural praxis that cannot be reduced to the multicultural assumptions of identity as the “preservation of cultural heritage traditions”. Furthermore, such life strategies point out to the flexible, permeable, and ever-changing nature of culture, locating the individual at the intersection of traditionality, present experiences and perceptions and future expectations. As Noivo has rightly claimed Portuguese-Canadian ethnic identification is shaped by a multiplicity of factors that have to do with present-day representations of the Portuguese nation in the European context and with their social position in the Canadian society. Also issues of gender, class and generation impinge on Portuguese-Canadians cultural identity. It is thus in this complex web of identity processes that Portuguese-Canadians have engaged in the construction of an hybrid cultural space that is made up of many life-worlds. However, the production of such a space is not without tensions and conflicting expectations. Authors such as Nunes (1999) and Noivo (1997) have argued that “the social, cultural and economic marginalization of the Portuguese in Canada plays a major role in influencing their vision of themselves and their place in society” (Nunes, 1999:2) Whether the Portuguese will be able to overcome their social, economic and political handicaps is the real test of whether the policy of multiculturalism is capable of mediating immigrants’ integration into the mainstream. The loss of the empire, the construction of a democratic society and the integration of Portugal in the EU have constituted major challenges for the re-imagining of the Portuguese nation and national identity. In the 1980s, the long forgotten Portuguese communities abroad became a referential axis of a nation undergoing complex processes of deterritorialization engendered by decolonisation and the subsequent transnationalization of the nation state due to membership in the European Union. Concomitant with this ideological shift was the implementation of legislation extending citizenship rights to the Portuguese communities abroad. Despite the new visibility of Portuguese emigrants in the official discourse, immigration has gained an unprecedented centrality in Portugal in the last decade. The official definition of Portugal as a country of immigration has contributed to the politicisation of immigration at the cost of emigration issues. The presence of immigrant communities and their impact in the Portuguese society has become a political priority, relegating emigration policies to the backstage of policy making. Despite this new “invisibility”, the dynamics of the Portuguese diaspora have transcended Portuguese nation state identity politics, asserting itself in a transnational space of membership and citizenship rights. As it was discussed above, the Portuguese communities in Canada capture the new social, cultural and political processes of late-modernity diasporas. By questioning a multicultural policy that proposes a static, closed and monolithic notion of culture, the Portuguese have claimed new lifestyles and a social and cultural praxis in which bonds to the country of origin, and specially to the local place of birth, combine with other loyalties. It is in a space of diversity, multiplicity and intersection and not of zero-sum identity games that Portuguese emigrants have engaged themselves and their families. Throughout the decades, their living experience has spoken of culture as a constant negotiation of meanings that transgresses national cultural myths. At the centre of these trajectories is the awareness that identity is no longer anchored on a single territory or community but on the articulation of multiple worlds and spaces where boundaries are crossed and new life possibilities are invented. Ana Paula Beja Horta, CEMRI/Universidade Aberta. |
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Notas (2) Cited in Steven Vertovec and Robin Cohen (eds.). 1999. Migration, Diasporas and Transnationalism. Cheltenham: Edward Edgar Publishers. (3) For an analysis of Portuguese emigration to France see Bretell, 1986. According to figures provided by the Portuguese Secretary of State of Emigration, 1975, when illegal emigration is taken into account, the total number of Portuguese residing in France in 1975 was 1,524,413 (legal emigration 412,961; illegal emigration 558,.882). After 1962 illegal outflows constituted more than half (61%) of the total Portuguese emigration legal flows (Rocha-Trindade, 1995:153). (4) After 1977 due to political and economic instability, the total volume of remittances dropped significantly. Yet in the 1980s remittances constituted the most important source of foreign currency (Rocha-Trindade, 1993). In 1994, total remittances amounted to 601.6 milhões de contos (approximately 5 billion dollars), approximately 4.1% of the GDP. For the same year, net European structural funds totalled 6.1% of the GDP (Rocha-Trindade, 1995). (5) See Arroteia, 1983; Baganha, 1998; Rocha-Trindade, 1995. According to these authors, Portuguese official statistics grossly underestimated the total number of departures. (6) According to Baganha and Peixoto (1994), the entry of Portugal in the EU does not constitute a determinant factor in shaping Portuguese emigration patterns. The case of emigration to Switzerland seems to support these authors' hypothesis. Still, the increasing emigration flows to Germany and other European countries seem to be tied to Portuguese membership in the Union. (7) See Aguiar, 1999; Bretell, 1986; Rocha-Trindade, 1995. (8) For a critical discussion of Gilberto Freyre's theorizing on cultural hybridity and miscegenation, see Papastergiadis (1997) on Portuguese colonial ruling in the tropics see for instance, Boxer (1988); Venâncio (1996). (9) Research conducted in Canada, Vancouver during the periods 1986-1988 and 1996-1998. The quotations used in the article are, unless otherwise referenced, from the interviews I have conducted with members of the Portuguese community in Vancouver and Toronto during the periods mentioned above. |
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ÚLTIMA REVISIÓN: 02/03/2003
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