As I travel down 120 St (Scott Rd), in Surrey, I am fascinated by the width of the street and a distinctly foreign atmosphere. The sides of the road are lined with store fronts with Punjabi characters advertising clothing, sweet shops, passport photo agencies, and banks.
I venture into one of the shops with curiosity and peruse the skirts, lengas, shawls and jewelry. I look over at the shop attendant and register a stare of curiosity and almost disapproval. For the first time I feel awkward and aware that I don't belong. I wonder, is this hostility I am experiencing? I may have detailed knowledge of culture, language, food and clothing having lived and been educated in India for years of my childhood, none the less here in Canada my Anglo-Canadian skin betrays me. I am not Punjabi and I feel I do not belong.
Ofcourse Canadian cities offer ethnic mixing and intergration. My best friends are Latino and my brother's are Iranian. But once we move to the city edge, experiences like mine along Scott Road become all too common. Abbotsford, Richmond, Surrey, Coquitlam (just to mention the suburbs of the Lower Mainland) become the zones of ethnic isolation. It is no wonder that my appearance in a Surrey Punjabi shop is met with stares and curiosity. With such a large Punjabi community in Surrey what is the necessity for inter-cultural interaction and mixing?
Evidently Canada is a society of many ethnicities and cultures. There are all the cultures of all immigrant groups that come, which are so pleasantly preserved within the suburban setting.
But what culture is being created for Canada? A culture of isolation, spectacle and fear?
2 comments:
Shreya you made intersting observation and comments. Well I have few questions and comments. Do you really know the Punjabi culture and language? If you do and had a conversation with the shop person in Punjabi indeed you would have received a total differnt response.
Secondly I would say that it is not matter of belonging there or not. In my opinion when we are in a new environment where we do not belong both parties feel awkward. And in order to have that awkwardness whcih you felt we have to make an effort to reach out and this way the zones of non-interaction will gradually disappear.
I'll share similar kind of experience where I was made felt that I don't belong there. Once I went to Virgin store to buy some music, I was wearing my traditional dress (shalwar qameez), I was being watched by the store staff the entire time I was in the store. So it in a way gave me a message that hey you are brown and how can you buy music because not very many brown people come to buy music.
So I guess the ethnic isolation happens because we do not try to make an effort to reach out to each other and secondly we do not interact (eg. in capacity of shopping) that much because different cultures cater items to the member of that culture and hence if someone who doesnt' belong to culture would stand out in such a shop.
I completely agree with what you are saying Halima -- zones of non-interaction occur because we don't make the effort to reach out and interact with other people. My point is simply that these types of ethnoburb environments exaserbate cultural segregation and reduce the likelihood of communication and integration.
I hear your point that these zones of non-interaction are not confined to the suburbs and that non-integration exists throughout society not just in immigrant districts. I also see that by talking about suburbs in this way (as locations of problem and isolation) we are working along an assumed binary of perifery vs. core, immigrant community vs. established community, and problematic vs. stable. Naturally this type of thinking perpetuates sterotypes and deminishes integration.
Post a Comment