Articulating the Collective Immigrant Experience in Canada: The Boat People and Shut Up, You’re Pretty

Abstract

ABSTRACT Exploring the ideology behind merit-based immigration policy in Canada, the paper discusses the collective immigrant experience in the works of two contemporary Canadian female authors, Shut up You’re Pretty (2019) by Congo-born Tea Mutonji, and the novel inspired by the refugee crises since the 1970s, The Boat People (2018) by Sharon Bala. The introductory part problematizes the historically discriminatory immigration policies, and explores the position of the immigrant in contemporaneity, in the process of integration through performatives shaped by the counternarratives of multiculturalism. The analysis of the specific characters’ narratives in these works explores the connection between the personal, subjective, and the collective within the groups of immigrants, refugees and born Canadians to whom Canadianness features as an unattainable goal located behind the glass ceiling. In the concluding remarks, the paper summarizes how these contemporary female authors expose the hypocritical, pragmatic and shifting nature of the multicultural narrative.