Racialization and refugees
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Gifts from Amin by Shezan Muhammedi explores Canada's strategic reaction to Idi Amin's 1972 deportation of Asians from Uganda. Although presented as a humanitarian gesture, economic pragmatism played a major role in Canada's decision to welcome these expellees. Ugandan Asians were considered "desirable immigrants" by the government because of their middle-class status and entrepreneurial abilities. The ethical rationales for resettlement and Canada's more general immigration policies are called into question by this monetization of refugees. Additionally, Muhammedi places this in the context of British colonialism, which had forced these South Asians to relocate to East Africa before using them as scapegoats and uprooting them once more.
Neda Maghbouleh explores the historical and modern racialization of Iranian-Americans in her studies. U.S. courts categorized Iranians as ambiguously "white" or "non-white," a dichotomy that influenced their legal and social reality even prior to the large-scale Iranian migration. Their racialization as "dangerous brownness," a term associated with more general anti-Muslim stereotypes, was further solidified by the Iranian hostage crisis following the 1979 revolution. Additionally, Maghbouleh examines cultural icons such as "Ugly Persian Houses," which highlight Iranians' ongoing alienation in America and represent the racialization of Iranian aesthetics. This conversation is given a queer perspective by Shawndeez Jadali's thesis, which emphasizes how second-generation Iranian-Americans negotiate their identities in reaction to geopolitical developments such as Trump's "Muslim Ban." In the Iranian diaspora, Jadali's non-binary approach questions binary conceptions of religion and secularism.
The attention is shifted to language by Sonia Das' research on South Indian Tamils and Sri Lankans in Montreal. The linguistic regulations of the province as well as the larger "two solitudes" of Francophone and Anglophone populations influence the experience of Tamil refugees in Quebec. Das looks at how Tamil people employ different dialects of French to negotiate their identities, which frequently makes the binary description of Quebec's linguistic environment more complex. This conversation addresses misconceptions about Tamils as a homogeneous community and emphasizes how language, class, and migration intersect to shape the lives of refugees.