dear sangom,
i am not sure how to answer your queries. i live in canada, where 30+ years when i came, it was impossible to find a job if you were non white. today 1 1/2 generation of nonwhites have been born and grown up here.
we have MLAs MPs who are non whites. these are not tokens. they have to stand for elections just like in india. my children do not talk about being discriminated against, and in our case, almost all their friends are white. it just happened that way.
they will be free to date and marry whites. when they attend music conerts or theatre, they just join the hordes of screaming crowds without being set aside as someone from another country. nobody tells my kids, 'go back to where you come from', something that was often heard 30 years ago.
there are no exclusive white areas in toronto, though there are low income group areas, fraught with drug dealers and some crime.
we have a huge black caribbean immigrant population here, and their participation in all sorts of criminal activities is way out of proportion to their percentage of population. nobody can understand as to why the blacks alone of all immigrant groups, did not take to, the opportunities that canada afforded, and the new generation even more entrenched in crime.
various ethnic groups are stereotyped in somewhat ways. we have a ukrainian maid. she is thorough and satisfies my finnicky wife, which the previous madis from caribbean or phillipines or mexico did not. today my wife would prefer anyday a european maid to clean the house, only because, for the same money, she gets better service.
educationwise, there was this talk that due to the jewish establishment, that admissions to medical colleges will be perserved as was, and immigrant children will not get a fair deal. there are now more chinese students in the medical colleges (over 40% in university of toronto), and indians in fair number. if at all anything, the anglo saxons are under represented, along with other groups. there are hardly any black or filipinos. there is one somali female doctor.
in one generation, indians have risen upto top echelons of government in canada. and to some extent in the usa. the chief minister of one of our provinces was an immigrant sikh ujjal dosanjh, who came to canada only in 1967 or 68. nikki haley daughter of sikh immigrant is a governor of a u.s. state. likewise bobby jindal, son of another immigrant.
29 year old athika sitsabeisan became the first MP of tamil descent. she is not a token one. it was a hard fought election, which she beat canada born white lady. i think, when we talk of a tolerant society, we are talking of giving equal opportunities to all its citizens, both in body and mind.
fortunately, barring its abominal treatment of its aboriginal people, since 1967 when it opened its doors to the whole world, canada has kept up its word, that it will transform itself into a fair multicultural society. that much credit we should give the white anglo saxon establishment which made it possible. the situation in quebec maybe different. i dont know.
if we compare that in india, we still have villages where dalits are not allowed to walk on certain streets. maybe it is that fact, that riles many of us, especially those who live abroad. our sensitivies are sharpened, due to the fact, that we ourselves are minorities in the countries where we live, and are afforded so much liberty and freedom, that very freedom is afforded to sections of our own, our own with whom we have shared the land for milleniums. in any new country they immigrate, barring the mid east, indians are the foremost to assert their rights, even before understanding the host culture and civilities. fortunately with the next generation, things settle down.
so, i think, on a society level, the perception of discrimination is comparative. to a tambram, the current quotas in jobs and college admissions, is discriminatory and unfair. to the OBC and dalit, this is social engineering, for the upliftment of the society.
which is why i would like to go back to my earlier post: that all of us are discriminatory. that is what defines us. it is just when our prejudices violates moral norms or universal truths, that we need to introspect.
hope this explains.. somewhat. or maybe, all is clear as mud, as the canadians would say.
ps.. i have a hindu nadar female friend from the village of k****i in southern tamil nadu. ilayaraja was from the same area. she used to narrate stories of how her father and his friends used to chase raja from the main village streets when they were young. it was apparently a popular teenager pasttime to run in dalit boys...
she told me that there were no brahmins in the village. or had ever been. yet she has an inborn complex against urban convent educated brahmin girls and their poise and suaveness. this, coming from, though a village born girl, now an excellent writer in english, a post graduate from a london univeristy with a senior job and resident in england. i cant figure this out
