Bilingual and bicultural Canada!
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The bilingual and bicultural framework of Canadian identity operates as a mechanism that sustains colonial racial hierarchies by centering British and French identities as the “founding nations” while relegating all others—Indigenous peoples, racialised communities, and immigrants—to the margins. Thobani argues that multiculturalism, though celebrated for fostering diversity, functions within this colonial framework to manage and commodify difference rather than dismantle systemic inequalities. This is evident in how the policy emphasises cultural pluralism yet confines racialised groups to fixed, culturalised identities, maintaining whiteness as the unspoken norm. In the classroom example described by Badri Narayanan, these dynamics are laid bare when his Tamil identity, and its linguistic nomer, is conflated with the usage of it as a racial slur. This mirrors Thobani’s assertion that racialised identities in Canada are often reduced to markers of otherness, reinforcing their exclusion from the core national narrative.
Narayanan’s experience teaching in rural Quebec also illustrates the insularity produced by the bilingual and bicultural framework. In a region like Beauce, where whiteness is overwhelmingly dominant (99.3% of the recorded population being classified as white), ignorance about racialised identities is not only pervasive but institutionalised, as evidenced by students and educators misusing racialised terms without understanding their origins. This aligns with Thobani’s analysis of Canada’s multiculturalism as a project that prioritises superficial cultural diversity while obscuring the power dynamics that privilege whiteness. Narayanan’s efforts to educate his students about the history and significance of Tamil identity echo Thobani’s critique that the state’s emphasis on bilingualism and biculturalism leaves little space for meaningful engagement with the histories and experiences of racialised communities within Canada. The perception of "cultural deficiencies" among non-white communities, Thobani notes, is framed as a barrier to national participation, deflecting attention from the structural racism that restricts their inclusion (162).
Narayanan’s classroom serves as a microcosm of this broader dynamic, where racialised identities are derided, rendering them perpetual outsiders. Equally, Thobani’s critique deepens this understanding by showing how multiculturalism reconfigures race as culture, obscuring the colonial underpinnings of Canadian nationhood while reifying whiteness as tolerant and cosmopolitan.