An enduring uphill battle for rights

How multiculturalism helped early Italian immigrants overcome discrimination

What do Italian construction workers, who built Canada, share with Giovanni Caboto, who discovered it? Maybe nothing, but who, then, contributed more to this nation?"
This is not entirely a provocation. Gabriele Scardellato, professor of Italian Studies at the University of Toronto, is very serious in asking that question. Within the context of our report on multiculturalism, a question on the contribution of Italians cannot be avoided. Today, when discussing this issue, Italians are often used as an example of successful integration, but it wasn't always like this.
"I remember that when I was in high school, in the eyes of school authorities being Italian was decisive for my future. I was paternally encouraged to pursue a trade such as car mechanic, or something similar. Just because I was Italian. My vocation, my individual aspiration, mattered nothing. However, I had no interest in becoming a mechanic. I liked the idea of teaching, but my aspiration was 'out of place' for a son of immigrants."
Today, Gabriele Scardellato's dream has come true, and he's been asked by the Mariano Elia Chair to compile an historical atlas of Italian-Canadians, with details on the various migratory waves and the communities where they settled down. His experience as a young man only sharpened his curiousity towards the history of Italian-Canadians, their progress, their struggle, their conquests.
"This is a living curiosity, being passed from a generation to the next. Just consider the success of university classes in Italian Studies. The youngsters want to understand their parents and grandparents, the social structure that drove them here. It's a vital need of human beings," states Scardellato.
"There was no question that we, as Italians, felt discriminated against," declares Elio Costa, professor of Italian Studies at York University and director of the Mariano Elia Chair. "We were treated in a different way. Being accepted into the mainstream was very difficult at the time. Being encouraged to attend vocational schools was just an example of what we had to face. Nowadays the same goes for blacks, Vietnamese or other ethnic groups. Back then I was a teacher and I toured all the departments of the Toronto school board in order to stop that practice, raising awareness on the civil rights of immigrants. This was before Trudeau established multiculturalism as Canada's official policy, in 1971. They replied, very candidly, that the proof of our full integration in the school system was the large number of Italian caretakers. What's more, they said, these caretakers were used as interpreters between the teachers and kids freshly arrived from Italy knowing little or no English."
One of the worst problems for immigrants is the so-called "guest syndrome" preventing them from making specific requests, as if they were indebted for having been accepted. This was another hindrance that Professor Costa and other people had to overcome.
"That's right, and in my peregrinations in the quest for more civil rights and more dignity for my fellow nationals I had to fight on two fronts. On the one hand, against Canadian institutions and power centres; on the other, against Italians who tried to stop me 'making politics,'as they called my activity. Many people thought it was unworthy of a university professor."
If the current panorama is so advanced, according to Costa this is due to Canada's multicultural programs. "That's part of the miracles done by multiculturalism in the last 30 years. Of course, it's not perfect. For certain, those who say it favours the creation of ghettos are making a valid criticism. The ideal thing would be that the Federal government would turn multiculturalism into a humanistic reality, in the Renaissance meaning of the word. Pico della Mirandola fed his huge culture with Arab authors and other foreigners. Much in the same way, Canada could have shared different cultural heritages. Anyway, this country is unique. When I go to York University, I feel like I am entering the United Nations building. For my daughters, who grew up between Toronto and Montreal, multiculturalism, and indifference to a person's race or ethnic group of origin, is taken for granted. It's not even something worth discussing."
But are these young Canadians, children of immigrants and formed on the multicultural models, more tolerant and therefore more peaceful? Elio Costa has no doubts: "That can't be denied. I can see the horror that this generation harbours for what is happening in Afghanistan. I think that multiculturalism has gone even beyond its original purpose from this standpoint. The mere coexistence in everyday life has taught more than a treatise on tolerance."
"If one lives in a society where one neighbour is Portuguese, another neighbour is Greek, and one plays with Jamaican kids, even accepting someone else's faith becomes easier," adds Scardellato. "That's unavoidable."
According to Scardellato, the success of the Canadian model is undeniable. "There's an absolute measure for that: civil rights. Wherever there is a multicultural environment, there is progress for the rights of women and of homosexuals, as well as in the struggle for equal pay between men and women doing the same job. They are all consequences of a global process, taking place within the framework of multiculturalism. Has discrimination disappeared? No, it hasn't, but one can feel the possibility to react to it with the support of most of society, let alone the existence of a law system entrusted with protecting rights. That's no small thing".

Publication Date: 2001-12-16
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=743