multiculturalism

The regional director designated me as the ‘project coordinator’ for the spending of a large donation from governmental body. This means that a) she’s worried that I am getting bored with my job and b) I have to select 12 thousand dollars worth of multicultural books. The intent is to develop a core collection of multicultural resources for kids and young adults in each of our branches. That’s NOT 12 thousand per library (yikes!) that’s 12 thousand for the entire region. Still. Yikes.

She recommended that I try to select books that represent the communities’ multicultural profiles. So I turned to Stats Canada to see what I could see for the HSJ region. Here’s what I discovered:

In Saint Quentin there are 40 Arab people and 10 Korean people.
In Plaster Rock there are 25 Black people.
In Saint-Francois there are 10 Latin American females.
In Florenceville there are 40 S. Asian, 10 Latin American and 10 Arab.
In Saint-Léonard there are 20 Koreans.
In Edmundston (the most “diverse” by far) there are 15 Chinese, 10 S. Asian, 45 Black, 15 Latin American, 10 SE Asian, 15 Arab, 10 Korean and 45 who identified as “multiple visible minority.”
In Grand Falls there are 10 S. Asian, 30 Black, 10 Latin American and 10 SE. Asian.
In Perth-Andover there are no visible minorities.
In Kedgwick there are no visible minorities
In Nackawic there are no visible minorities.
In Hartland there are no visible minorities.

Of course these are small populations, and bear in mind that this is only representative of those people who actually completed the census, and who identify with the fairly broad classification terms supplied by Stats Can. BUT STILL! Compare these “multicultural profiles” to somewhere like Hamilton.

Oh small town life! How you often make me feel like I am wading in a bowl of oatmeal.

In a way, growing up in Southern Ontario I took for granted the variety of people, colours, languages, religions and backgrounds that surrounded me. Even moving to Halifax I was surprised at how “white” it was. Moving here and being suddenly immersed in the strictly Catholic, mostly white population it was as much a type of culture as it would be to move to, say, china-town in Toronto. I am uncomfortable and I feel out of place, and I’m craving something that is blatantly not here.

That’s not to say there isn’t any “culture” in HSJ. Acadian culture is rich, interesting and historical. I’m just not sure that there is “multiculture” which makes this selection project all at once very important, and also kind of elaborate.