Historical Connections between Canada and American Immigration Policy
February 1, 2023 | 12:30 - 2 p.m. | 223 Moses Hall
Speaker: Dr. Hidetaka Hirota, UC Berkeley
This lecture explores historical connections between Canada and American immigration policy in the long nineteenth century. Based on his earlier and current works, historian Hidetaka Hirota will discuss three aspects of this history: Canada as a destination of deportation from the United States; Canadians as targets of restrictive immigration policy; and Canada as a potential ally of the United States in migration control. In doing so, he will illuminate the experiences of Irish migrants in the mid-nineteenth century, Canadian migrants in the late nineteenth century, and Japanese migrants in the early twentieth century. These migrant groups’ experiences demonstrate that Canada remained an important part of the history of American immigration policy.
Hidetaka Hirota is a social and legal historian of the United States specializing in immigration, and an associate professor of history at UC Berkeley. He is particularly interested in the history of American nativism and immigration control. His first book, "Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy" shows how an influx of impoverished Irish immigrants in the early 19th century led nativists in New York and Massachusetts to develop policies for deporting destitute foreigners to Europe and Canada, and laid the groundwork for later federal legislation. His current projects include an examination of long-running tensions between nativism and a demand for migrant labor in the United States, as well as an exploration of the Japanese immigrant experience before 1924.
The Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Vote in a More Tolerant Canada
March 15, 2023 | 12:30 - 2 p.m. | 223 Philosophy Hall
Speakers: Dr. Eric Guntermann, UC Berkeley, and Dr. Edana Beauvais, Simon Fraser University
Research on the political preferences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) voters shows that they are more progressive than heterosexuals. However, few studies consider differences between heterosexual, gay/lesbian, and bisexual men and women. Furthermore, little is known about how these preferences have changed as society has become more accepting of diverse sexualities.
This presentation analyzes original research on Canadian LGB voters’ political preferences a decade and a half after same-sex marriage was legalized. Consistent with prior findings, gay men, and, to a lesser extent, bisexual men, are more left-wing than heterosexual men. A more novel finding is that bisexual women are the most left-wing group. Lesbian women are only slightly to the left of heterosexual women. While left-wing bisexual women are growing in number, the overall gap between LGB and heterosexual voters has remained stable across generations, because marriage narrows some of the preference gaps.
Dr. Eric Guntermann is a John A. Sproul Research Fellow in the Canadian Studies Program, and a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on the representation of citizens' preferences by governments, as well as public attitudes towards political parties and related voting behaviour.
Dr. Edana Beauvais is an assistant professor of political science at Simon Fraser University. Her research explores how inequalities shape communication and action, producing unequal political influence between different social group members.
Fragility and Resilience: Climate Change and Arctic Archaeology
April 5, 2023 | 12:30 - 2 p.m. | 223 Philosophy Hall
Speakers: Dr. Christyann Darwent, UC Davis
The human history of the North American Arctic has been a cycle of expansions and contractions, of mobility and migration, and of fragility and resilience. Archaeology brings a long-term perspective to the relationship between humans and the arctic environment. More recently, however, the face of archaeological research and knowledge production has undergone rapid change, particularly in the past decade. Just as geneticists and isotopic chemists have discovered the wealth of information locked in the archaeological record of the arctic, these formerly frozen sites are rapidly melting or eroding into the sea. In addition, Inuit scholars and communities are redefining their relationship with archaeology and archaeologists. Based on the author’s own field work, this talk focuses on the historical ecology of Smith Sound at the northern edge of what is now Canada and Greenland. New questions and new methods have enhanced our understanding of a place that exemplifies both isolation and long-distance social bonds, precariousness and resilience
Dr. Christyann Darwent is a professor of anthropology at UC Davis. She is originally from Calgary, where she completed her undergraduate degree in archaeology and undertook her first of several field seasons in the Canadian High Arctic 30 years ago. After receiving her M.A. at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, and a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri, she started her career at UC Davis in 2001. Since then, she has conducted NSF-sponsored archaeological excavations in Kotzebue Sound, Alaska and Inglefield Land, Greenland. For the past decade her lab has also been conducting archaeological research near the Native village of Shaktoolik in Norton Sound, Alaska. In addition to studies of past subsistence practices and social organization among Inuit, Inughuit, Inupiaq, and Yup’ik occupants of the Arctic over the past 1000 years, she has published on the history of Inuit sled dogs using ancient and modern DNA.
Hildebrand Graduate Research Showcase
April 26, 2023 | 12:30 - 2 p.m. | 223 Philosophy Hall
Speakers: Taesoo Song and Joshua Zimmt, UC Berkeley
Learn about the research Canadian Studies funds through our Edward E. Hildebrand Graduate Research Fellowships, as recipients present overviews of their projects.
"Affordability for Whom? The Impacts of Foreign Buyer Taxes on British Columbia and Ontario Rental Housing Markets"
Taesoo Song, Ph.D. student, City and Regional Planning
During the mid-2010s, British Columbia and Ontario provincial governments implemented foreign buyer taxes (FBTs) to discourage foreign investment to promote affordability in the housing market. Although limited empirical evidence suggests that the taxes were effective in curbing house prices, there has been no significant discussion of their potential impacts on the rental market. Understanding this relationship would be crucial in meeting the housing needs of lower-income and immigrant households. Using empirical data from the Canadian Housing Mortgage Corporation and the Canadian Census, Taesoo examines how FBTs have impacted the regional rental markets and their implications for housing policy and planning.
"Exploring the Link between Climate Change and Mass Extinction: A Case Study of Late Ordovician Fossils from Anticosti Island, Quebec"
Joshua Zimmt, Ph.D. candidate, Integrative Biology
Joshua’s work uses a first-of-its-kind method to analyze the fossil record for links between climate change and faunal turnover. By applying this method to the exceptional fossil and rock records on Anticosti Island, he hopes to understand how climate change may have caused the Late Ordovician mass extinction, one of the largest known extinction events. Joshua’s research contributes to a better understanding of this critical interval in the history of life, and serves as a case study of global change that can help us better understand our rapidly-changing modern world.
ACB-FGC: A Culturally Responsive Program to Support Black Families Involved with the Ontario Child Welfare System
September 26, 2023 | 12:30 - 2 p.m. | 223 Philosophy Hall
Speakers: Dr. Lance McCready, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
The disparate and disproportionate involvement of African American families in the child welfare system has been well documented, but research examining the experiences of African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) Canadian families in child welfare is emerging in Canada. In the province of Ontario, recent studies find that Black families are represented in the child welfare system at disproportionate and disparate rates. Experiences of Black youth, caregivers, and workers also highlight differential and punitive treatment within the system. These findings have given rise to the development of the African, Caribbean, Black Family Group Conferencing Project (ACB-FGC), a restorative, culturally responsive innovation to support Black families at risk of, or already engaged in, the child welfare system in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). In this presentation, Dr. Lance T. McCready, co-director of ACB-FGC, describes the community-based research that led to the development of ACB-FGC and implications of ACB-FGC for provincial policies and practices to address anti-Black racism in the child welfare system and among partner institutions.
Dr. Lane McCready is the co-director of ACB-FGC, and an associate professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He holds a B.A. in psychology from Carleton College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in education from UC Berkeley. Dr. McCready is the recipient of the 2017 Ludwik and Estelle Jus Memorial Human Rights Prize from the University of Toronto, and the 2018 Distinguished Research Scholar Award from the Ontario Education Research Symposium. He received a 2022 Sproul Fellowship from Canadian Studies to support his research.
Book Talk: Cross-Border Cosmopolitans: The Making of a Pan-African North America
October 17, 2023 | 12:30 - 2 p.m. | 223 Philosophy Hall
Speakers: Dr. Wendell Adjetey, McGill University
20th-century Black history cannot be understood without accounting for the influence of Pan-African thought. In the early 1900s, Marcus Garvey’s followers saw North America, particularly Canada, as a base from which to liberate the Black masses from colonialism. Then, after World War II, Vietnam War resisters, Black Panthers, and Caribbean students joined the throngs of cross-border migrants to denounce militarism, imperialism, and capitalism. As revolutionaries from Oakland to Toronto dreamed of an “African world”, the prospect of coalitions among the Black Power, Red Power, and Quebecois Power movements inspired U.S. and Canadian intelligence services to infiltrate and sabotage Black organizations across North America.
In his new book Cross-Border Cosmopolitans: The Making of a Pan-African North America (University of North Carolina Press, 2023), Dr. Wendell Adjetey explores how twentieth-century global Black liberation movements began within the U.S.-Canadian borderlands as cross-border, continental struggles. This work reveals the revolutionary legacies of the Underground Railroad and America’s Great Migration, and the hemispheric and transatlantic dimensions of this history.
Dr. Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey is assistant professor of post-Reconstruction U.S. and African Diaspora history at McGill University, where he holds the William Dawson Chair. A first-generation high-school graduate, he earned a Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. from Yale University in History and African American Studies. He completed his B.A. in history and political science from the University of Toronto (University of St. Michael’s College), from which he also holds an M.A. in political science and ethnic, immigration, and pluralism studies.
From “Tarktuk” (Darkness) to “Qaumajuk” (Light): Transformations in Canadian Inuit Arts
November 28, 2023 | 12:30 - 2 p.m. | 223 Philosophy Hall
Speakers: Dr. Nelson Graburn, UC Berkeley
During the more than sixty years that Nelson Graburn has been visiting the Canadian North, studying and experimenting with Canadian Inuit arts, and living and communicating with Inuit artists, life in the region has undergone major changes. The North has not only become increasingly “urbanized”, with schools, electricity in permanent housing, and communications by plane, phone, and internet; Inuit artists have become aware of their global context and the international art world. Today, many have undertaken professional arts education and moved to live in the South.
The original generation of artists - Kananginak, Qirnuajuak (Kenojuak), Charlie and Aisa Shivuarapik, Jessie Oonark - were proud to share their world with the outsiders. With the arrival of new forms of communication, those living in the North became more aware of the significance of their arts, their place as icons of Canadianness, as well as their relative poverty and formerly very localized world view. A new generation arose who incorporated views of and from the outside world. They increasingly visited the South, whether to sell their works, attend openings and exhibitions, attend schools and colleges, or just to spend time. They also became aware of their cultural and linguistic relatives in Greenland and Alaska and, like them, have won political rights and degrees of self-government. Many even settled away from their homeland to practice and sell their arts in the South.
Today, over one-third of Canadian Inuit live in the South, and younger artists practice many art forms, like Qallunaat (white) and other Indigenous contemporary artists. Theirs is no longer “tourist art” but it remains an ethnic art, expressing their contemporary identities, struggles, and views of their ancestral culture. Their arts remain proud - and exploited - icons of Canadian identity, but also express strong Circumpolar and postcolonial feelings.
Dr. Nelson Graburn first lived in the North in 1959 and again in 1960, as a student at McGill and an employee of the Federal Government of Canada. He was struck by the creativity of Inuit artists and the importance of their sanasimayangiit (things we made) in their personal, cultural and economic lives. After completing his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, he returned to live in the North eight times, along with many smaller trips. He first published about Inuit art, as ‘Airport Art’ in Canada (1967) and examined comparable movements among the world’s other indigenous peoples, in Ethnic and Tourist Arts (1976). He has continued to research, teach and publish about contemporary art, heritage, identity and tourism – and he communicates almost daily with the Inuit, their children and grandchildren in the North via the Internet.