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TIL Canada is less multi-cultural than the United States

shira

Member
I'm actually shocked at this statistic considering how much Canada is pushed as being multicultural, and the US as... well not that.

e-canada-us-population-by-approximate-us-race-ethnicity-category-2006-pie.png

Major cities are way more diverse than this. Especially with students, top universities, extended visitors
 

Matt

Member
Exactly the same thing did happen in both Canada and Mexico - the indigenous peoples were massacred, those who remained were forced off their lands into small segregated reserves or forced to assimilate, and the world lost a great many unique cultures and peoples. Canada and Mexico aren't innocent of this either, but the United States is worse by virtue of numbers.

At the very least, the Fang people of Gabon survived France. What happened to the Chitimacha? The Timucua? The Secatogue? The United States destroyed these people and their history and their language and their customs; we will never know them.
First of all, to suggest that the other colonial powers never helped to exterminate a people is offensive.

Secondly, how many Native Americans do you think the US killed? Because, while it's certainly a tragedy and crime of a massive scale, the total numbers compared to so many other colonial genocide are tiny. Like, possibly 1/200th of the number of Congolese killed by the Belgians in a 20 year period (though of course there is debate about what the exact number is). The vast, vast majority of the Native American population had died before the US was ever founded.
 
As an American my perception of Canada has always been extremely white and not multicultural at all. And that's the general impression from popular culture, too. So this seems kinda "water is wet" to me.
 

Valhelm

contribute something
Multiracial =! Multicultural

That's a bingo.

Multiculturalism really isn't a concept we talk about in the US, outside of college orientations and municipal politics. There's an understanding that all people ought to participate in the broader Anglo-American culture, while offering up certain cultural artifacts that the majority-culture finds worth taking. In Canada and especially in Europe, the preferred system seems to be the "mosaic", where ethnic communities are insulated from broader cultural pressures but also isolated from people of other backgrounds.

The word we use all the time in America is "diversity", but this has far less to do with culture and much more to do with race and heritage. A crowd of people can be diverse even if it's made up of English-speaking Catholics who live in the same neighborhood, long as they're are all of different skin colors.
 

Kinitari

Black Canada Mafia
Still not compared to American cities.

Vancouver:

White: 53%
Asian: 41%
Black: 1%
Hispanic: 1%​

Toronto:

White: 50%
Asian: 34%
Black: 9%
Hispanic: 3%​

-----

New York City:

White: 44%
Hispanic: 29%
Black: 26%
Asian: 13%​

Los Angeles:

White: 29%
Hispanic: 49%
Black: 10%
Asian: 11%​

I wish we could see it broken down by ethnicity - 'black' in the U.S. is very different than black here, proportionately. Not to say that it really matters too much, but this is still a pretty simplistic generalisation. I think New York though would STILL be more diverse with this metric than any Canadian city, but that metric would be more useful to me.

ie:

The most common reported ethnic origins of Toronto residents are those from England (12.9%), China (32.0%), Canada (11.3%), Ireland (9.7%), Scotland (9.5%), India (17.6%), Italy (6.9%), the Philippines (5.5%), Germany (4.6%), France (4.5%), Poland (3.8%), Portugal (3.6%), and Jamaica (3.2%), or are of Jewish ethnic origin (3.1%). There is also a significant population of Ukrainians (2.5%), Russians (2.4%), Sri Lankans (2.3%), Spaniards (2.2%), Greeks (2.2%), Koreans (1.5%), Dutch (1.5%), Iranians (1.4%), Vietnamese (1.4%), Pakistanis (1.2%), Hungarians (1.2%), Guyanese (1.1%), and Welsh (1.0%). Communities of Afghans, Albanians, Arabs, Barbadians, Bangladeshis, Bulgarians, Colombians, Croats, Ecuadorians, Ethiopians, Grenadians, Macedonians, Mexicans, Nepalis, Romanians, Salvadorans, Serbs, Somalis, Tibetans, Trinidadians, and Vincentians are also recognized. Established ethnic neighbourhoods such as Chinatown, Corso Italia, Little Italy, Little India, Greektown, Koreatown, Little Jamaica, Little Portugal and Roncesvalles celebrate the city's multiculturalism.

Although I think this also from a while back
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
First of all, to suggest that the other colonial powers never helped to exterminate a people is offensive.

It is, which is why I'm not doing that.

Secondly, how many Native Americans do you think the US killed? Because, while it's certainly a tragedy and crime of a massive scale, the total numbers compared to so many other colonial genocide are tiny. Like, possibly 1/200th of the number of Congolese killed by the Belgians in a 20 year period. The vast, vast majority of the Native American population had died before the US was ever founded.

Genocide isn't just the murders, it is the repression of that population as well, the preventing of them ever re-emerging. Given time and land, communities can recover. The United States specifically acted to prevent that from happening. The Belgians have retreated from the Congo; indigenous American reserves are a fraction of the land they once covered.

We've also not even touched upon the slave trade - people unjustly seized from their country of origin to enrich the metropole? That's yet more colonialism, and the number of slaves traded in the United States - averaging 35,000 a year - is yet another significant contributor.

It's pretty shameful the steps being taken to ignore this.
 
I'm in the big blue part of the chart, but my mom is an immigrant from the Middle East who speaks Arabic. Culturally, each side of my family is very different.
 

Matt

Member
It is, which is why I'm not doing that.



Genocide isn't just the murders, it is the repression of that population as well, the preventing of them ever re-emerging. Given time and land, communities can recover. The United States specifically acted to prevent that from happening. The Belgians have retreated from the Congo; indigenous American reserves are a fraction of the land they once covered.

We've also not even touched upon the slave trade - people unjustly seized from their country of origin to enrich the metropole? That's yet more colonialism, and the number of slaves traded in the United States - averaging 35,000 a year - is yet another significant contributor.

It's pretty shameful the steps being taken to ignore this.
Yes, of course the slave trade was shameful. No one is trying to ignore that. But basically every European colonial power engaged in it. The US actually engaged in it for a comparatively short amount of time.

This is what I don't understand. You say the US engaged in colonialism to the highest degree, but every bit of evidence you offer at every stage doesn't support your argument. You say the US eliminated cultures, but so did the other powers, including Mexico and Canada. You say the US killed and subjected people, and it did, but to a tiny extent compared to the other states. You say the US's crimes are on another scale of Canada's and Mexico's because of the numbers, but the number difference in these cases is actually pretty small.

You seem to be starting with a thesis: "the US was the most colonialist of the powers," and then are trying very hard to find information to back it up. But it doesn't exist. It's a frankly ridiculous thesis. Where is this idea coming from?
 

Gutek

Member
I'm actually shocked at this statistic considering how much Canada is pushed as being multicultural, and the US as... well not that.

e-canada-us-population-by-approximate-us-race-ethnicity-category-2006-pie.png

It is less racially diverse than America, if you use the American racial constructs. It is more culturally diverse, though.
 

Beach

Member
I wish we could see it broken down by ethnicity - 'black' in the U.S. is very different than black here, proportionately. Not to say that it really matters too much, but this is still a pretty simplistic generalisation. I think New York though would STILL be more diverse with this metric than any Canadian city, but that metric would be more useful to me.

ie:



Although I think this also from a while back
I'm pretty sure you could find more diversity at UCLA or Berkely than what you posted let alone an entire country
 

Zips

Member
So if the charts in the OP are bupkis, are there accurate ones to consider, or will this just go around and around as people pick and choose to go with whatever their preconceived ideas compel them towards?
 

Kurdel

Banned
If we're taking language into account, the US is still more diverse than Canada. Tried viewing the link to the actual study but I got directed to some kind of home realtor site.

Canada has 2 official languages and the US has 0.

Checkmate USA
 

Gutek

Member
Using the American concept of race as an indicator for diversity is super dumb. Iranians, Swedes, Poles, Algerians are all white. They're cultures are very different.
 

Kin5290

Member
Canada is not 90% white I can assure you that
In the 90s, it was, but looking at Wikipedia it's now 76% white as of a few years ago. Contrast with the US being 63% NHW (the very small population of "Latin Americans" is in the Canada stats as a non-white group).
 

Matt

Member
Using the American concept of race as an indicator for diversity is super dumb. Iranians, Swedes, Poles, Algerians are all white. They're cultures are very different.
Right, so what you're saying is that the US is, in actuality, ridiculously more diverse than office numbers would indicate.
 

Matt

Member
Nope. Canada is more diverse. Countries in Africa are the most diverse.
Right, you are going based off that study you posted before...which I already pointed out might not be wholly accurate for the US. It's hard to tell without the actual study.
 

Audioboxer

Member
Societies tend to be judged more on how they treat all cultures, races and how the overall mix gets on/thrives. There isn't some "end goal" of stats like this to say they must reach 25/25/25/25% or 50/50%. Not saying you were aiming to do that OP, but sometimes when people see figures/pie charts there is a tendency to think a smaller slice is somehow a concern/problem. Therefore, just dumping stats and going "look" doesn't always offer much. As I said it's how the country in question treats all of those who contribute towards the makeup of said country. People would rather be a minority in a country where they can be happy, hence why many do emigrate. It goes a long way as a start if your country isn't hostile to a mix of people.

In recent times that's probably where Canada has been giving America a bit of the side eye. It certainly helps if your leader and political parties aren't hostile to multiculturism. Multiple cultures can thrive and survive just fine under an umbrella of general laws/social etiquette. It's not without challenge but it can be achieved if approached honestly and with compassion. Hostility and othering have never helped throughout history.
 

neptunes

Member
As an American my perception of Canada has always been extremely white and not multicultural at all. And that's the general impression from popular culture, too. So this seems kinda "water is wet" to me.

That perception is flawed, especially for Ontario, British Columbia, and cities like Montreal.
 
The only thing shocking to me is that there is a higher percentage of Asians than black people in Canada.

As a general rule, blacks in North America were originally heavily concentrated around the American South (I'm sure I don't need to tell you why) with the population thinning the further north you go; it's almost purely a logistical issue. Canada's numbers are pretty comparable with the northernmost US states, I think.

Meanwhile, the West Coast (including Canada's Vancouver) are major immigration destinations for Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants.
 

jorma

is now taking requests
Right, so what you're saying is that the US is, in actuality, ridiculously more diverse than office numbers would indicate.

No i'm pretty sure that he was saying that he doesn't get why people from the US only ever measure diversity by race.

Not sure if that's true, but it does look that way when i read US-based views on diversity here on gaf, even when the topic is clearly about cultural diversity.
 

Matt

Member
No i'm pretty sure that he was saying that he doesn't get why people from the US only ever measure diversity by race.

Not sure if that's true, but it does look that way when i read US-based views on diversity here on gaf, even when the topic is clearly about cultural diversity.
I was kidding.

Culture and ethnicity matter here too, but maybe in different contexts. I know from my time in politics sometimes ethnic issues are very important for outreach.
 
No i'm pretty sure that he was saying that he doesn't get why people from the US only ever measure diversity by race.

Not sure if that's true, but it does look that way when i read US-based views on diversity here on gaf, even when the topic is clearly about cultural diversity.

It's because racism is an overwhelmingly larger concern in American society than, for example, discrimination against the Irish. That's not to say the latter isn't or wasn't an issue--it certainly was, and probably still is, in places--just that it seems somewhat trivialized in context.
 

Heshinsi

"playing" dumb? unpossible
No i'm pretty sure that he was saying that he doesn't get why people from the US only ever measure diversity by race.

Not sure if that's true, but it does look that way when i read US-based views on diversity here on gaf, even when the topic is clearly about cultural diversity.
On top of that, throwing everyone who has a similar skin tone into broad groups is idiotic. You're lumping people with vastly different ethnicities, cultures, and languages into the same groups, and then going, "look, same!"
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
I think this map splits white Canadians by ethnic heritage (probably Anglo/Canadienne) but does not do the same for white Americans.

From what I understand, white ethnic divisions are much more important in Canada than in the US.
Are you insane? White divisions are so important in the US that people forget that Hispanic/Latinos are white.
 
Are you insane? White divisions are so important in the US that people forget that Hispanic/Latinos are white.

No one really forgets this because this isn't really true. Yes there are white latinos but latinos by default aren't white. Unless you erase the sizable native and African groups.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
No one really forgets this because this isn't really true. Yes there are white latinos but latinos by default aren't white. Unless you erase the sizable native and African groups.
A large majority are white. Curiously the second largest group of Hispanics don't identify with any of the 'standard' races.
But you are right, I guess what I meant was people forget that Hispanic/Latino isn't a race.
 

jstripes

Banned
As other have said, OP doesn't understand what multiculturalism is.

The US may be more ethnically "diverse", in terms of a non-white percentage of the population, but everyone is heavily encouraged to blend into the default American culture. The melting pot.

In Canada multiculturalism involves holding onto one's culture while still integrating into the lager society. The mosaic. It's tricky, because it involves fostering a sense of acceptance into society so those pieces can all fit together, but it's been mostly working.

It's like, Americans lose their minds when anything "Mexican" gains social prominence, but in Canada, Chinese New Year has slowly become a de facto national celebration and everyone's OK with that.
 
I'm curious about this research, as the US doesn't breakdown census data by ethnicity. I tired to read the actual report but the link is broken.

I wouldn't call this a smoking gun just yet.

Well the US Census does use ancestry which is the closest the US has for ethnicity like in some other countries. It is from the 2000 US census.

This is how the US Census describes ancestry.
Ancestry refers to a person's ethnic origin or descent, "roots," or heritage, or the place of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States. Some ethnic identities, such as "German" or "Jamaican," can be traced to geographic areas outside the United States, while other ethnicities such as "Pennsylvania Dutch" or "Cajun" evolved in the United States.

The intent of the ancestry question is not to measure the degree of attachment the respondent had to a particular ethnicity. For example, a response of "Irish" might reflect total involvement in an "Irish" community or only a memory of ancestors several generations removed from the individual. A person's ancestry is not necessarily the same as his or her place of birth; i.e., not all people of German ancestry were born in Germany (in fact, most were not).

Currently, when someone reports more than two groups for their ancestry in the American Community Survey, only the first two ancestries are tabulated.

Some people identify their ancestry as American. This could be because their ancestors have been in United States for so long or they have such mixed backgrounds that they do not identify with any particular group. Some foreign born or children of the foreign born may report American to show that they are part of American society. There are many reasons people may report their ancestors as American, and the growth in this response has been substantial.

The ancestry question was added to the census form in 1980, so the earliest information available from this question is from 1980. Several publications listed in the ”Publications" section of this ancestry website contain 1980 and 1990 data.


From this link: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2004/dec/c2kbr-35.pdf
92 ancestries are over 100,000 and 500 were reported.

This is different I think.
https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2000/phc/phc-t-43/tab01.p
 
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