SOURCE: Samantrai, Ranu. “States of Belonging: Pluralism, Migrancy, Literature.” Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 57 (winter 1995): 33-50.

In the following essay, Samantrai explores aspects of modern Western culture and the immigrant's role in its evolution, using Mistry's Swimming Lessons as an example of how the immigrant views this ongoing change.

In Canada, normally so open to immigrants, a blatant ethnocentricity condemns people of color to the sidelines: eternal immigrants forever poised on the verge of not belonging.

—Claire Harris (115)

Thou shalt be ethnic, our legislators say; thou shalt honour thy mother tongue; thou shalt celebrate thy difference in folk festivals; and thou shalt receive monies to write about thy difference (providing thou art a member of an ethnic organization that sponsors thy application). And we have responded to that call, ethnics and non-ethnics alike; we have responded by discovering that difference is sexy.

—Smaro Kamboureli (146)

I give my name...