Discrimination During Settlement: Faced By The Immigrant Population
Expectations of immigrants are high when they come to Canada. As time passes the immigrants face multiple oppressions and then realize the gap between the perception and reality of the social situation in Canada. Immigrants in Canada face discrimination variously. As per Statistics Canada 2016 census data, 21. 9% of the Canadian population are immigrants and 22. 3% are a visible minority population. Visible minority immigrants such as South Asian, Chinese, Black, Filipino, Latin American, Arab, Southeast Asian, West Asian, Korean and Japanese population are the victims of racial and ethnic discrimination. The “General Social Survey on Victimization” (Statistics Canada, 2014) reported that 17% of the immigrant population were the victims of discrimination while non-immigrant population (12%), and 20% of the non-established immigrant population experienced discrimination in relation to their ethnicity and race.
Anti-oppressive social work intervention can address racial and ethnic discrimination among the immigrant population. Critical self-reflection will also be conducted to show how the social location of the author influences a social work practitioner intervening in the issue of discrimination encountered by the immigrant population. Canadian immigrants face racial and ethnic-based discrimination in housing, workplaces, labor markets, and even professional integration. To find an affordable house is one of the greatest struggles in the life of immigrants in Canada. There are different strategies adopted by the landlords to exclude them from renting such as due to a large family and different habits of the immigrant like cooking (Teixeira, 2011).
A landlord is a powerful person and he has a filtering tendency in relation to color and culture, and this is the reason for the discrimination of immigrants from renting which means the landlords act as “social gatekeepers” (Teixeira, 2011). A huge amount of rent is another difficulty faced by immigrants. Immigrants are the central factor of demand in the housing sector and the effective immigrant integration to the society is based on satisfying their basic needs includes affordable housing, reasonable income source and active involvement with the host society (Teixeira, 2011). Many researchers such as Carter et al. 2008; Ghosh, 2007; Murdie, 2008; Murdie and Teixeira, 2003; Preston et al. 2007; Rose and Ray, 2001 emphasize the admittance to housing is considered as one of the main routes of economic and social integration of immigrants to the new society (As cited in Teixeira, 2011). Discrimination towards the visible minority people occurs “Fairly widespread” in workplaces in Canada (Banerjee, 2006, as cited in Chaze & George, 2013). The victims are mainly immigrants than native-born (Chaze & George, 2013).
Nowadays, racism shows indirectly and concealed manner than the previous explicit form during the daily interaction in the society (Li 2001a; Dietch et al. 2003; Henry and Tator 2006, as cited in George & Chaze, 2014). Workplace discrimination includes jokes relating to race and ethnic features, annoyance, and targeting the group than the individual (Canadian Human Rights Commission, 2010, 2. , as cited in George & Chaze, 2014). Employment discrimination occurs systemic in nature because the hiring procedures look impartial, but the employers are doing planned exclusion and showing the targeted group is not suited to the work (Henry & Tator, 2006, as cited in Chaze & George, 2013). Visible minority immigrants face Multiple inter-connected oppressions in the labor market which includes asking Canadian experience, color and culture, language proficiency and foreign credential approval. Foreign experience is not considered like Canadian experience (Oreopoulos, 2011). Foreign degrees are not valuable corresponding Canadian degree, and this is one of the important issues accessing the labor market (George & Chaze, 2014). Canadian accent and fluency in English is a necessity (George & Chaze, 2014).
The immigrants face cultural, demographical and economic discrimination which increases their stress in comparison with other existing immigrants. The labor market issues of non-European immigrants lead to “individual and family poverty” (Omidvar & Richmond, 2003). There is an extensive figure of indication representing income discrimination towards visible minority employees and wage discrimination based on gender facing female immigrants (Shields as cited in (Omidvar & Richmond, 2003). The family poverty of visible minority immigrants in Toronto is double than Canadian origin as well as European immigrants, and the visible minority immigrants are the main dependence of food bank including well educated non-established immigrants (Quinn, 2002, as cited in Omidvar & Richmond, 2003). Discrimination or its observation is a distressing, traumatic and psychologic life incident which result in problems of health (Nakhaie & Wijesingha, 2015). Social location is significant in “intersectional analysis” (Chaze & George, 2013). Individual differences in gender, color, culture, and class of every person intersect to position the individual on different factors of the atmosphere of oppression and privilege (Chaze & George, 2013).
Social location is the identity of an individual transversely different maxims of spots of benefits and drawbacks (Yee, 2018, September 20). Many persons have a considerable assortment of oppressive situations and privileges in their social location (Carniol, 2005). Generally, social workers respect the uniqueness of the clients and their individual challenges as well as privileges whereas critically thinking social workers analyze more by challenging uniqueness of the client which seats entire responsibility on the shoulder of that individual (Carniol, 2005). Analysis of their own social location helps to analyze oppressive circumstances of service users. Therefore, in anti-oppressive perspective of social work, analysis of social location has a significant role. When I saw the website of the immigration department, I was really dreaming of coming to Canada, but when I tasted the fruit I realized that this is not a heaven, and all are not equal. My social location is a mixture of privileges and drawbacks. I am a young, brown bodied, male, visible minority immigrant and post graduate in social work. I am an Indian national who lived in Montreal, Quebec, for one year and then moved to Toronto, Ontario. When I landed in Montreal I had difficulty finding an apartment.
When I started to live in an apartment, I understood I was cheated in rent because my rent was higher than other neighborhoods and the heating was not included in the rent. Initially, the landlord said that heating will be a minimal amount, but in winter it was more than $350 dollars. The ventilation and doors were not maintained well, I was unable to control the cold entering inside the home through the decayed edges of the windows and doors when it was below minus 30-degree temperature our heating system was not maintaining the temperature. Whenever I call the landlord he will not pick-up the phone. Once the maintenance came he collected money from me even if it is his responsibility as per the agreement as well as the rule of the Quebec housing administrative tribunal. In addition to this, the landlord never removed the snow on the way to my apartment (agreed). On contrary, when one of my neighbors wanted the same maintenance, the landlord tried to collect money, but he argued with him based on the norms and then the landlord was polite to him because he was a young male Canadian born native. Employment search was awful. It was highly difficult to get a job because of two factors such as broken French and South Asian Immigrant. I tried several jobs including factory job with heavy lifting and fulltime standing as well as artificial turf maintenance. In my workplace, the supervisor usually calls me hello Mr. Indian instead of my name. My next trial was professional integration and as a result, I understood only one university is conducting the bridging program for internationally educated social workers in North America and that is in Toronto. Consequently, I moved to Toronto. When I moved to Toronto, the apartment rent is more than 60% of the salary.
During my search for a job in Toronto, asking Canadian experience. As a low-income permanent resident, I applied for the Ontario student assistance program, but Ontario authorities replied that I am a Quebec resident, therefore, approach to Quebec. When I approached Quebec, the authorities answered I am not a Quebec resident. Now I am struggling to survive in Toronto, Ontario. Anti-oppressive social work practice is significant to address immigrant discrimination issues. Cultural level anti-oppressive practice discusses the oppression of the dominant group on the subordinate culture (Mullaly, 2010). Cultural level anti-oppressive social work practice strategies involve to develop confrontation approach, to encourage alternate culture, to resist harmful stereotypes and to challenge dominant discussions with alternate discussions (Mullaly, 2010). The discrimination of immigrants in multiple sectors such as housing, workplace, labor market, and professional integration necessitates intervening anti-oppressive practices. To bring back the effective federal level social housing as in the 1990s for addressing the issue (Teixeira, 2011).
Universities can help visible minority immigrant students in acquiring secure employment (George & Chaze, 2014). Immigrant service providers should focus on helping the oppressed clients in entering into the labor market successfully (Chaze & George, 2013). Advocacy is required influencing the government to provide incentives to employers for the promotion of visible minority immigrants (Chaze & George, 2013). There is a need for anti-oppressive social work practice which is universal and structural in nature to address the immigrant discrimination issue. The universal approach is effective in the context of Canadian multi-cultural society. Universal social work surpasses national borders and that provides a universal face which means there are uniformities in theory and praxis across broadly different circumstances (Gray & Fook, 2004), thus, universal social work can address global issues. Canadian social issues appear universal in nature due to divergent culture. Structural social work interprets social issues are arising from social situations, therefore, isolating and abusive social order should be changed rather than the individual (Baskin, 2003). Effectual social policies are required to address racial and ethical discrimination issue of immigrant population.
There are challenges and opportunities in anti-oppressive approach in this regard. Social workers are responsible to address the visible minority immigrant discrimination issue as the core professional value of service to humanity (Canadian Association of Social Work, 2005). The challenges are racial hierarchies occurs in social work institutions, power and position in social work institutions are under a dominant group, social work organizations itself gendered and racialized (Razack & Badwall, 2006). Cultural and color-based discrimination of visible minority immigrant population in labor market, workplace, housing and in professional integration can confront with anti-oppressive social work intervention. The per-capita immigrant percentage is higher in Canada in comparison with other countries (Dolin & young as cited in Oreopoulos, 2011).
Policymakers are worried about difficulties of immigrant integration and questioning, without adequate attempt to attract immigrants into the labor market how can utilize skills of immigrants to enhance Canadian economy (Oreopoulos, 2011). Multiple discrimination increases the life stress of visible minority immigrants. A deeply racialized and discriminated social worker will be a better person (Razack & Badwall, 2006) to deal with racial and ethnic discrimination issues of visible minority immigrants. Lived experiences contribute to realize and analyze the situation of others who are in the same state in an empathetical manner. Globalized and structural social work theories based on anti-oppressive perspective is vital to address immigrant discrimination issue.
