‘Am I a South Asian, really?’ Constructing ‘South Asians’ in Canada and being South Asian in Toronto

Abstract

In 2006, ‘South Asians’ emerged as the single largest visible minority group in Canada. Studies on their settlement experiences have concluded that ‘South Asians’ are a spatially segregated and economically struggling immigrant group. Juxtaposed to these findings however, there exists another image about ‘South Asians’, particularly in Toronto, where a majority of the newcomers have settled. This image is that of a mass culture, imbued with splashed of color, spice, music, dance, and cinema. The over arching aim of this paper is to unravel the construction of ‘South Asian’ identity in Canada both conceptually and empirically. Conceptually, I investigate the historical and relational processes of racialisation of a space (South Asia), to argue that ‘South Asian’ is a racialised and externally imposed identity, and empirically, I attempt to understand how ‘South Asians’ in Toronto may variously internalise and use this identity in their everyday life situations.