Multiculturalism, Racism and Infectious Disease in the Global City: The Experience of the 2003 SARS Outbreak in Toronto

Abstract

The 2003 SARS outbreak in Toronto, which killed forty-four and made hundreds sick, tested the multicultural model often presented as the reason for making that city a livable global metropolis. Billed as the “Chinese disease,” SARS connected seamlessly with previous periods of racializing disease assumed to originate from migrants and foreigners in North America. Yet when restaurants in the city’s three Chinatowns remained empty for weeks and close contact with Chinese citizens was avoided by others in public, the dynamics that unfolded also tied in with a new development in Toronto: the formation of the global city. As news on the SARS outbreak spread and the intricate details of travel patterns and infection-pathways became clearer, the relationships of Toronto diasporic communities and business ties with other globalizing cities like Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Singapore became obvious, and Toronto’s vulnerability in the network of global flows of finance, culture, commodities and people was exposed. Our paper provides a narrative of the racialization of infectious disease in the context of Toronto’s multiculturalism and the region’s formation as a major global city. Providing evidence of racialization in public discourse, everyday practices and institutional policies, we advance the hypothesis that the SARS outbreak strained the usually happy appearance of this particular multicultural urban fabric of diversity. This analysis is part of a long-term research project at York University on SARS and the Global City, which addresses the network connectivity of Toronto in the global city hierarchy; the influence of infectious disease; and the re-scaling of the health governance system in Toronto in the wake of the SARS outbreak.