Fuzzy Transnationals-American Settlement, Identity, And Belonging in Canada- Susan Hardwick

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Fuzzy Transnationals? American Settlement, Identity, and Belonging inCanadaSusan W. Hardwickaa University of Oregon, USA

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To cite this Article Hardwick, Susan W.(2010) 'Fuzzy Transnationals? American Settlement, Identity, and Belonging inCanada', American Review of Canadian Studies, 40: 1, 86 103

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American Review of Canadian Studies

Vol. 40, No. 1, March 2010, 86103

ISSN 0272-2011 print/ISSN 1943-9954 online

2010 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/02722010903536953

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RARC0272-20111943-9954American Review of Canadian Studies, Vol.40, No. 1, Jan 2010:p p. 00American Review of Canadian Studies

Fuzzy Transnationals? American Settlement, Identity,

and Belonging in Canada

American Review of Canadian StudiesS.W. Hardwick

Susan W. Hardwick

University of Oregon, USA

More Americans now reside in Canada than at any time since the Vietnam War. Thisarticle documents and analyzes the migration, settlement, and identity of US-born resi-dents in three Canadian cities. My work helps fill the gap in the scholarly literature onissues related to international migration at the CanadianUS borderlands. The articles

overarching goal is to illustrate that transnationality, as exhibited by US immigrants inCanada, is far more complex than prior studies of transnational identity have indicated.Findings from this study indicate that transnational linkages and identities are geo-graphically and temporally contingent and are, as such, a reflection of both time and

place. My comparison of the shifting identities of American migrants who reside inthree different metropolitan areas in Canada allows a more critical analysis of the ever-shifting terrain of transnational identities as they are expressed in different contexts.Data analyzed for this study were compiled from the Canadian census for the years1961 through 2006, survey questionnaires, unstructured and structured interviews, andon-site field work.

Keywords: transnational identity; immigration; sense of belonging; citizenship;CanadaUS borderlands

Introduction

I have developed a rich and rewarding life here in Toronto. But I feel like a giant with her twofeet straddling the border. I have a strong social, professional, and emotional life in the States,as well as one here [in Canada]. I call myself a split personality. (Helen, 2009, Toronto)

Citizenship is not only the glue that accords rights and benefits. . . . It can [also] be an identitythat provides a sense of belonging. (Bloemraad 2006, 1)

In late 2007, the release of the latest census data by Statistics Canada confirmed what the

media had been predicting for many years. By the middle of the first decade of the twenty-firstcentury, there were more Americans living in Canada than at any time since the Vietnam

War years1 (see Figure 1). Although census reports, media coverage, and dinner table con-

versations have drawn attention to this increasingly large flow of Americans to Canada in

recent years, to date few scholars have documented, analyzed, or theorized the migration,

settlement patterns, identities, and sense of belonging of this relatively large group of

immigrants.2 Research conducted for the study reported on in this article helps fill this

large gap in the scholarly literature on international migration at the CanadianUS border-

lands. Of particular interest is documenting and analyzing how a seemingly benign polit-

ical border continues to resonate in the lives and landscapes of international migrants,

especially that borders role in shaping their transnational identities.
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American Review of Canadian Studies 87

The following three interrelated questions about the migration decision-making, settle-

ment patterns, and identities of Americans in Canada guided this study: (1) Why did rela-

tively large numbers of Americans migrate to Canada from the United States, especiallybetween the Vietnam War and the Homeland Security eras? (2) What pushpull factors

helped shape the patterns of US migration flows in time and space in three comparative

metropolitan areas in Canada? (3) How do the differing locales and times of arrival of US

immigrants in Canada play a role in the construction of their national and transnational

identities, citizenships, and sense of belonging to Canada?

Theoretical underpinnings, methods, and approaches

Work by anthropologists Caroline Brettell and Carolyn Sargent (2008) and other scholars

in a wide variety of fields has raised a series of intriguing questions about relationshipsbetween and among an immigrants sense of belonging, of identity, and of citizenship

see, for example, the work of Guntram and Kaplan (2008), Escobar (2004), Robins and

Aksoy (2001), and Hall (2002). Findings from the Brettell and Sargent study indicate that

certain groups of immigrants may have choices about maintaining or rejecting ongoing

ties with their homeland. These choices may be political (e.g., becoming dual citizens and

maintaining flexible citizenship); economic (e.g., sending remittances home, participating

in global labor networks); cultural (e.g., making visits to ethnic heritage sites and ethnic

festivals); and/or religious (e.g., participating in a spiritual practice that is a combination

of here and there). Each of these choices, operating either individually or in tandem,

may result in differing levels of immigrant transnationality in time and place.

Identity and other related migration processes also may be shaped by the larger con-

text of conditions in the sending country, the characteristics and events that happen during

the journey in between, and the economic, political, and cultural context of the receiving

Figure 1. American immigrants in Canada, 19612006.


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88 S.W. Hardwick

society. Of particular note are ways in which the characteristics of particular places help

shape individual and group decision-making. Although transmigrants are often described

in spatially interwoven terms as migrants who live in two worlds at the same time, in order

to find ways to survive or even thrive in their new lives they are forced to make decisions

and produce actions in their new locales. Therefore, while past lives and decisions may

continue to shadow migrants (e.g., during periods of military unrest or economic duress at

home), most must focus their energies on finding ways to survive economically and adjust

to their new place of residence, especially in the earliest years of resettlement.

A suite of quantitative and qualitative methods was employed in this study to help

uncover some of the processes involved in constructing a sense of belonging, of identity,

and of citizenship for US immigrants in Canada. First, a national-scale cartographic ana-

lysis was completed based on Canadian census data tabulated between 1961 and 2006 to

document the location patterns of US-born residents in Canada at different time periods

and in different places. These comparative maps laid a foundation for the distribution of

online and on-site survey questionnaires to US immigrants living in three carefully

selected Canadian metropolitan areas: Toronto, Vancouver, and Halifax. I also conductedon-site and telephone interviews using a snowball sampling technique that involved a mix

of genders, ages, socioeconomic classes, and levels of education with a total of 87 American

immigrants in the three target cities of this project. Information gathered during interviews

with Americans in each study site helped validate and humanize cartographic and survey

data and deepen my understanding of the many nuanced expressions of transnationality

expressed by this little-studied immigrant group.

To clarify some of the impacts of place, space, and time on international migrants

residing in different locales, this article begins with a discussion of the larger spatial,

social, and historical contexts of American migration to Canada. I then turn my attention

to the comparative stories of selected groups of US migrants residing in the Toronto, Van-couver, and Halifax metropolitan areas. This discussion is followed by an analysis of the

citizenship(s) and sense of belonging of this group of what I call fuzzy transnational

migrants. The article concludes with some predictions about the future patterns of these

new Canadians and suggestions for future research on related topics.

Americans in Canada: Historical context

Canada has a long history of welcoming dissenters and other immigrants from the United

States (see Figure 2) and other nations. As Vic Satzewich and Lloyd Wong (2006) have

pointed out, there are deep historical roots to American emigration to Canada, beginningwith the United Empire Loyalists who headed north during and after the Revolutionary

War. Incoming waves of Loyalists swamped some parts of British North America, espe-

cially Ontario and the Maritime Provinces (Bow 2008, 344). As a result of this early

migration wave, classic work by Gourlay (1822) documented that at least four-fifths of the

settlers in western Ontario in the early decades of the nineteenth century were US-born.

During yet another period of social, economic, and political upheaval in the United

States before and during the Civil War from 30,000 to 60,000 African American slaves

escaped to Canada via the Underground Railroad (Mensah 2002). As a result, there were

at least 62,000 African Americans in Canada by 1860, who arrived both as fugitives and

free men and women (Winks 1997). As discussed below, although many returned to the

United States after the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation, a large number of these

former slaves remained in Canada for permanent residency in search of new lives and

livelihoods in places such as Nova Scotia and southern Ontario.


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Figure2.

Pre-1920AmericanmigrationtoC

anada.

Source:Ad

aptedfromT

hompsonandRandal

l,2002,pg18.


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90 S.W. Hardwick

A much larger wave of white US settlers crossed the 49th parallel between 1898 and

1914, during Canadas Land Boom years. Encouraged by Minister of the Interior Clif-

ford Siftons pro-white immigrant policies, rural residents of the northern Great Plains

states were recruited to settle the western Canadian interior. With an eye on groups he

viewed as being the most promising for successful agricultural settlement, Sifton admit-

ted that his open-door policy was selective and did not include Orientals, Blacks, Jews,

southern Europeans, [and] even English city dwellers (Hall 1981, 678). As a result of

these quasi-open-door policies of the Canadian government, at least a third of the more

than one million immigrants who settled in Canada from 1901 to1907 were born in the

United States (Woodsworth 1972, 245).

Many of the Americans who relocated to Canada during these Land Boom years were

part of the large-scale migration of religious groups, such as the Mormons, Hutterites, and

Mennonites. These spiritually defined migrants were drawn to small towns and more rural

parts of south-eastern British Columbia, southern Alberta, and Saskatchewan in close

proximity to the US border. At the beginning of World War II, however, their lives were

severely disrupted by the Canadian War Measures Act, which prohibited entry into Canadaof enemy aliens. Of particular concern to the Canadian government after the passage of

this legislation were German-American Mennonites and Hutterites, many of whom were

deported back to the United States during the war because of their German ancestry. Later,

in the 1920s, other alien deportees included members of the pacifist Russian Doukhobor

sect. The reasons given for this treatment were perceived threats that Russian-style com-

munism might be brought into Canada by this group. As an interesting and important

aside, however, when the Canadian Communist Party was formed in 1921, none of its

founders was from the United States (Avery 1983). Nonetheless, anti-immigrant policies

first set in motion by the War Measures Act discouraged the ongoing settlement of large

groups of American migrants in the decades thereafter until the 1960s.The largest politically motivated migration of Americans to Canada occurred from the

mid-1960s through the 1970s as a direct result of the US war in Vietnam. Most Americans

arrived in Canada as draft dodgers, deserters, or political activists who opposed the war.

Census tabulations reported by Statistics Canada for the years 19612006 provide evid-

ence that more women than men left the United States for Canada in almost every census

year. Interviews and surveys conducted for this study (along with the findings of political

scientist John Hagan [2000]) reveal that female migrants left the United States for many of

the same reasons that encouraged their male counterparts to relocate to Canada. These

included strong opposition to the war in Vietnam and other political and social challenges

of life in the United States. American draft dodgers, deserters, and war resisters first foundsanctuary north of the CanadianUS border in 1963. Only two years later, Canada

accepted 1700 American war refugees as legal immigrants. In 1969, the Canadian gov-

ernment enacted legislation allowing all US migrants legal admission to Canada without

regard to their military status (Hagan 2000, 609), thereby launching the tide of what would

grow to more than 50,000 Americans in Canada by the end of the war (Jones 2005; Hagan

2000, 2001). Many of these Vietnam Warera arrivals from the United States first found

their way to Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. As a result, the largest number of US-

born new Canadians in recorded history had established permanent residence north of the

USCanadian border by the end of the Vietnam War in 1974.

The recruitment of academics from the United States for college and university posi-

tions in Canadas expanding higher education system in the 1970s, along with the ongoing

arrival of corporate elites, skilled workers, and entrepreneurs, added to the number of

Americans in Canada in the 1970s and 1980s. Since that time, a veritable flood of new


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migrants from south of the 49th parallel has continued to arrive (Boswell 2008). Many

have decided to leave the United States due to acute dissatisfaction with the conservative

politics and policies of their homeland. Others have arrived in Canada as retirees from the

United States as part of the growing global gray nomad movement, or as midlife maver-

icks seeking new lives in the promised land north of the border. Still others have been

attracted by Canadian policies in support of universal health care, gay and lesbian rights,

multiculturalism, and gun control.

The map in Figure 3 provides a spatial summary of the populations and patterns of

US-born immigrants in Canadian provinces, territories, and major cities at the beginning

of the twenty-first century. By 2006, Statistics Canada reported that the highest number of

Americans had moved to Canada in over 30 years, with a 20 percent increase over the pre-

vious year and almost double the number who had arrived five years earlier (Statistics

Canada, 2001, 2006). This time period corresponds closely with the US presidential elec-

tion of conservative candidate George W. Bush in 2000 and his subsequent reelection four

years later. Commenting on this increase, Jack Jedwab (2008, 1) reported that: There has

been a significant increase in the past five years. The number hasnt exceeded 10,000since 1977. . . . During the 1970s, Canada admitted between 22,000 and 26,000 Americans

a year, most of whom were draft dodgers from the Vietnam War.

Canadian census data summarized in Table 1 provides more detailed evidence of the

expanding numbers of Americans who have arrived in Canada since the late 1990s.

A tale of three cities

The Toronto, Vancouver, and Halifax metropolitan areas were selected for this analysis

because each of these cities is home to a large number of US-born residents. These three

places were also chosen because they represent three different scales of analysis and threedramatically different geographic locales in Canada.

Along with their unique characteristics of size and location, Toronto, Vancouver,

and Halifax also have a great deal in common in terms of their transnational connections

with the United States. All were important sites of American settlement for Vietnam

Warera war resisters and draft dodgers. In addition, in more recent years Americans

have migrated to these cities for a plethora of other reasons, including a search for

affordable health care and more liberal political policies. Still other US migrants who

live in Toronto, Vancouver, and Halifax, as in other parts of Canada, represent a mix of

entrepreneurs, bankers, life insurance agents, university professors, and other business

and professional immigrants. Table 2 provides a summary of the comparative size of thetotal US-born population in each of these three cities during the past three and a half

decades.

Americans in Toronto

Toronto is Canadas most important immigrant gateway. According to the most recent

census counts, 45.7 percent of the total population of the Toronto Consolidated Metropol-

itan Area (CMA) are foreign-born (Chui, Tran, and Maheux 2006). Although the largest

groups of newcomers originated in China and India, immigrants from the United States

continue to arrive as well. Most come looking for employment opportunities, escaping

what they view as unacceptable policies and politics in the United States, or as retiring

reverse snowbirds seeking universal health care benefits and other social support services

and environmental amenities.


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92 S.W. Hardwick

Figure3.

US-bornresidentsinCanadabyprovince,

territory,andmetropolitanarea.

Source:Sta

tisticsCanada:2001.

ProfileforC

anada:Provinces,Territories,Cen

susDivisions,andCensusSubdivisions,2001.


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Overall, the province of Ontario is Canadas most important destination for US immi-

grants, with British Columbia in second place. According to a recent report from Statistics

Canada following release of that agencys latest Canadian census data, there were at least278,140 former Americans living in Canada in 2006, with 46,575 in Toronto and 28,575

in Vancouver. Many came as corporate executives after 1975, when Canadian laws were

changed to permit US firms to open branch offices in Toronto and elsewhere in the nation.

Thereafter, many American-owned and -operated companies (such as City Bank, Bank of

America, J.P. Morgan, and Security Pacific) sent teams of US administrators to open and

manage branch offices in Toronto and elsewhere in Canada.

The arrival of these well-educated and economically viable Americans was a direct

response to Canadas booming economy during this time period. Canadian expansion in

the 1960s and 1970s, especially in the business and academic worlds, created an unprece-

dented number of jobs, both for native-born Canadians and for immigrants. According to

Gonick (1975, 117):

While the investment boom began in 1963, it had reached its peak in 1965 and 1966. . . .[V]ast expansions . . . occurred in housing, schools, universities, roads, hospitals, and the like.By 1966, total investment absorbed one dollar for every four dollars of incomes. . . .[B]etween 1966 and 1970, wages and salaries rose by 46 percent.

Tens of thousands of new immigrants seeking Canadas employment opportunities and

higher salaries arrived during these boom years. Most came from the United States and

Britain. At the time of the 1961 census, US-born employees made up only 13 percent of

all professional-class employees. By 1971, their numbers had risen to 21 percent, and thento 28 percent of professionals by 1981 (Harvey 1991, 278). These business leaders and

entrepreneurs joined other former Americans who had arrived during earlier waves of set-

tlement in the city as war protesters, university professors, political exiles, and retirees.

Table 1. US-born population in top Canadian provinces, 19912006.

Before 1991 19911995 19962000 20012006

Ontario 68,275 8,205 11,625 18,300British Columbia 39,690 3865 4830 8175

Alberta 18,780 2265 2905 4370Quebec 17,940 2100 2465 4065

New Brunswick 6565 760 565 775Nova Scotia 6220 405 495 835Manitoba 4875 605 570 1040Saskatchewan 3780 365 455 825

Source: Census of Canada, Statistics Canada (2006); Jedwab (2008).

Table 2. US-born population in Toronto, Vancouver, and Halifax, 19712006.

Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) 1971 1991 2001 2006

Toronto 35,830 36,465 37,790 1280Vancouver 25,685 22,685 23,070 24,775Halifax 2595 3620 3330 3370

Source: Census of Canada, Statistics Canada (1971, 1991, 2001, 2006).


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94 S.W. Hardwick

Members of Torontos American population overall (as in most other Canadian cities)

earn higher salaries and are more highly educated than other immigrant groups (Jansen

and Lam 2003). As shown in Figure 4, the majority of US immigrants falls into the higher

income categories, with more than 13 percent earning $120,000 or more. The high salaries

and comfortable lifestyles of many of the corporate elites who live in Toronto are one of

the major reasons why these numbers are so high in census reports. According to a

Toronto interviewee who recently retired after a long career heading up a US banking firm

in Toronto:

[we] moved up here with J.P. Morgan in the late 1970s because Toronto is the financial cap-ital of Canada. A lot of other people have moved out to the suburbs since then, but we stilllive right downtown in a large four bedroom house near the ballet, opera, and shopping.

This interviewees spouse currently is the president of the American Womens Club of

Toronto. During an interview for this project, she recalled their familys decision to leave

the United States in the 1970s, when their son was in high school, and noted the anti-

American attitudes they faced in Toronto:

Those were the Trudeau years and everyone was pretty down on Americans then. In fact, wewere blamed for just about everything. This was a tremendous era of bad feelings about

people from the US because of all the Canadian national feelings then. It really hasntchanged much now, at least here in Toronto. But we cant go back home because we couldnt

possibly afford the health care costs in the United States now.

This interviewees membership in the American Womens Club of Toronto represents

only one of many social, business, and civic organizations in support of US immigrants in

Toronto today. A cursory list includes the American Legion, American Chamber of Com-

merce, Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, and various US-based alumni

organizations with members who graduated from US universities such as Harvard and

Yale.

The membership of these and other US organizations in Toronto is made up of Americans

who represent diverse backgrounds and different times of arrival in Canada. A large

Figure 4. US immigrants in Canada: household income, 2001.


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number came from the 1960s through the 1980s as teachers and university professors.

Harvey (1991, 286) calculated that:

Between 1962 and 1980, the U.S. was the primary external source of teachers for Canada. . . .But it was at the university level that the increases were sharpest and the U.S. proportion most

impressive. A mere 3 percent of all U.S.-born teachers in 1921, university professors made up43 percent of all American immigrant teachers during this period . . . [and they totaled] 9,634. . . 47 percent of all professors.

The expansion of university teaching positions in Canada was part of the nations expand-

ing economy during this time period. It also reflected the increasing number of institutions

of higher education in Canada, as in the United States, that needed to accommodate the

large number of post-war baby boom students seeking college and university degrees.

According to Harvey (1991), most of these educators from the United States were special-

ists in the humanities and social science disciplines.

This influx of American university professors, teachers, senior managers, and corpor-

ate elites after the 1960s no doubt contributed to recent findings by Jansen and Lam

(2003) that US-born immigrants in Toronto are the most educated of all immigrant groups.

Not surprisingly, Americans in Toronto also continue to be significantly overrepresented

in the number of professional-class immigrants in the city.

In sum, American immigrants in Toronto arrived for a variety of reasons. Most shared

one commonality, however their mixed feelings related to identifying with being an

American or being a Canadian. According to a typical survey respondent who moved

to Toronto to escape army duty during the early years of the Vietnam War:

I always felt like a Canadian from the first day I lived here. It was such a relief to be in a place

that had respect for my same values and politics after years of feeling estranged from my owncountry in the US.

Comparatively, another Toronto interviewee claimed more of a lingering attachment to

the United States than to her current home in Canada:

I moved to Canada with my husband and thus didnt really ever feel I had much of a voice inthe decision to leave the US. I mean, I am grateful to Canada for all it represents but I still feellike a loyal American much of the time. Even though all three of my kids were born here inToronto and are proud Canadians, I still feel attached to my memories of Wisconsin in a lot ofways.

Americans in Vancouver

During the US war in Vietnam, the cities of Toronto and Vancouver both emerged as early

focal points for US war resister migrant settlement in Canada (Hardwick and Mansfield

2009; Jones 2005; Hagan 2001). It is estimated that at least 40 percent of the American

men who dodged the military draft during the Vietnam War now reside in British Columbia.

Many live in the Vancouver metropolitan area. Others reside in south-eastern British

Columbia, especially in the small town of Nelson and other parts of the Kootenay Mountain

region, and on Vancouver Island. Despite former US President Jimmy Carters declaration

of amnesty for draft dodgers in 1977, at least half of those who left the United Statesduring this time period remained to become a permanent part of the economic and social

fabric of British Columbia and other parts of Canada.


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96 S.W. Hardwick

As mentioned above, more women than men left the United States for Vancouver and

other parts of Canada during the Vietnam era. Census data documenting the number of US

migrants in British Columbia during the past 40 years by gender provides evidence that

women outnumbered men in most census years (Statistics Canada 1961, 1971, 1981,

1991, 2001). Many came on their own as war protesters, civil rights activists, students, and

teachers. Others arrived with their husbands, seeking new and better lives for their families

north of the border. One of these long-term US migrants in Vancouver is a 65-year-old

African American woman from Minneapolis who relocated to the city with her husband

during the Vietnam War:

We felt that we had made the best possible decision to leave the US considering the politicsand existing war. I feel that some of the lifestyle opportunities I/we experienced . . . in Canada. . . would not have been available to us as a mixed heritage couple had we been living in theUnited States.

In recent years, political refugees who escaped the current US war in Iraq andAfghanistan also have added to the mix of politically motivated Americans living in

Vancouver and other parts of Canada. It is estimated that there are now approximately

200 Iraq War deserters living in Canada. Many were attracted to Vancouver and other

parts of British Columbia by its reputation as Canadas most liberal city and province.

Unlike US citizens who were given permission to stay during the Vietnam era, however, a

few of these more recent deserters have already been caught and arrested by Immigration

Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency on grounds of being in the country ille-

gally. Most face deportation to the United States for trial and, for some, a long sentence in

an American military prison.

In an attempt to ease the situation for deportees and their families, Canadas House of

Commons adopted a motion calling on the government to stop deportation proceedings

against US army deserters. This 2008 non-binding resolution passed by a 137110 vote to

encourage the government to allow conscientious objectors to apply for permanent resi-

dent status and remain in Canada. However, despite this resolution and the efforts of the

War Resisters Support Group and other anti-war organizations, five US army deserters

and their families were deported by the Canadian government in 2008.

Vancouver and other parts of British Columbia have also become an increasingly

important settlement destination for retirees from the United States. The US Consulate in

Vancouver estimates that there are now at least 250,000 US citizens living in British

Columbia. Many have selected Vancouver due to its booming real estate market and the

areas many environmental, economic, and cultural amenities, and they typically reportfeeling at home in Canada. According to a 70-year-old male interviewee who moved to a

Vancouver suburb three years ago:

When I pulled out of our driveway in the Bay Area, I was already looking forward to mywhole new life as a Canadian. But my children were really worried about me for the first yearor so because of my angry feelings of disappointment about the US. I moved up here duringthe Bush years, you know? So I had lots of negative energy going at the time.

Other migrants from southern California and other parts of the United States have been

attracted to Vancouvers film industry and trendy cultural scene since the late 1990s. Just

north of the famed Lions Gate Bridge in North Vancouver, for example, actor Goldie

Hawn and other Hollywood actors and musicians have purchased homes in the hills over-

looking the rugged Pacific Ocean. These and other Americans from the arts and music


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scene have continued to add to the cultural vitality of this cosmopolitan city in recent

years, bringing their values and economic contributions to the local economy with them.

Americans in Halifax

Despite its smaller size and peripheral location, Nova Scotias largest city of Halifax also

has a long and rich history of American settlement. Recently, Halifax has also become an

important settlement site for other groups of immigrants from outside North America.

According to recent Canadian census reports, slightly more than half of the foreign-born

newcomers in Halifax came from Asia in 2006, with the second-largest group originating

in the United States (see Chui, Tran, and Maheux 2006). Beginning with the arrival of

Loyalists who left the United States during and after the Revolutionary Wars (to assert and

sustain their loyalty to England) and continuing to the present day, the coastal city of Halifax

has continued to be a magnet for US-born settlers.

The earliest African Americans to settle in Canada were slaves brought to Halifax by

white Loyalists from the New England states (Clairmont and McGill 1970). According toJames Walker (1980), Halifax soon became the center of black Loyalist settlement because

of these early arrivals. Many thereafter provided support for the British war effort as sol-

diers, guides, spies, buglers, and general laborers, with some forced to ultimately find work

as tenant farmers, laborers, domestic servants and sharecroppers for economic survival in the

post-Revolutionary War years (Mensah 2002, 46). A larger group of about 3600 African

American slaves was brought to Nova Scotia in 1815 for protection, with the majority set-

tling in Halifax (Krauter and Davis 1978). An African American settlement near Halifax

known as Africville was constructed in the early 1840s by former slaves (Boyko 1998). Less

than two decades later, another significant wave of slaves from the United States arrived in

Nova Scotia via the Underground Railroad. This migration flow was a direct result of Can-adas becoming well known as a safe haven for slaves after passage of the Canadian Aboli-

tion Act in 1793 (Lampkin 1985). Geographer Joseph Mensah (2002, 90) provides this

summary of the settlement patterns of the descendents of these early African Americans in

Halifax today: Blacks constitute the most visible . . . of the visible minorities in Halifax . . .

where the majority (66.3%) of Blacks [in Nova Scotia] live. Of the citys 329,750 residents,

some 22,320 are visible minorities out of which 12,000 (more than half) are Blacks.

White migrants from the United States also settled in Halifax as Loyalists during and

after the Revolutionary War and have continued to arrive since that time. Many of the

most recent arrivals from the States are relatively affluent and well educated. Some are

midlife mavericks, such as Jo Davenport, who moved to Halifax from Georgia in 2001.Davenport cites political reasons for her move, especially disagreement with the US gov-

ernments decisions and actions following the events of 9/11; she asserts: In addition to

universal health care, inexpensive prescription drugs and the last stretch of affordable

oceanfront real estate in North America, Nova Scotia has the picturesque charm of historic

New England (Townsend 2005).

Another wave of Americans arrived in Halifax for spiritual reasons. This group origi-

nated in Boulder, Colorado, as followers of Tibetan Buddhist monk Chogyam Trungpa

Rimpoche. This spiritual leader selected Nova Scotia to be the world headquarters of his

religious organization in the late 1970s. According to Swick (1996, 11), Halifax was a

most unusual place for American Buddhists to settle at the time:

In 1977, the province was most famous for being provincial. A loyal outpost of the BritishEmpire, it was a proud bastion of Victorian values and Christian faith. . . . Old money ruled,


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98 S.W. Hardwick

and little changed. Generations of poverty made mistrust of outsiders key to the provincialcharacter . . . [thus] Nova Scotians were leery of an influx of newcomers professing a foreignreligion.

Despite the locational, economic, cultural, and climatic challenges posed by Rimpoches

decision to relocate his religious sect to far north-eastern Canada, the first group of AmericanBuddhists arrived in Nova Scotia in 1979. Today there are approximately 500 Tibetan

Buddhists from the United States residing in Halifax and the surrounding area. Many are

members of the Shambhala Community, a meditation practice also founded by Rimpoche.

These former Americans have been joined by several hundred other Buddhist seekers who

have migrated to Halifax from Europe and other parts of Canada in recent years (Swick

1996, 1516). These newcomers have not only increased the number of Americans in

Halifax; they have also begun to transform the commercial and spiritual landscape of this

small city as owners and patrons of espresso cafs, New Age book stores, yoga studios,

and health food stores. When one of these 1970s-era entrepreneurs was asked about his

attachment to the United States and Canada, he reported:

You asked me if I felt both American and Canadian now? Well, thats a really hard questionsince I no longer even travel to the US unless theres a family emergency to deal with downthere. You see, I am a Canadian now and the country to the south is no longer my own. They

just dont get me in the States because of my spiritual beliefs and my liberal political atti-tudes, so why would I bother caring about it anymore?

Citizenship, identity, and belonging at the borderlands

How do these mixed feelings related to connections to their US homeland find expression in

the citizenship of Americans in Canada? First, it is important to note that Canadian citizen-ship, unlike citizenship in the United States, is not a requirement to receive government social

and economic benefits (Bloemraad 2006, 3). This may be one of the primary reasons why

Satzewich and Wong (2006) found that while 70 percent of Americans in Canada became

Canadian citizens in the 1980s, by the late 1990s the number had dropped dramatically. A

more recent study by Jedwab (2008) documented that only a little over half of todays

Americans in Canada have become Canadian citizens. Compared with a 78 percent Canadian

citizenship rate for all immigrants in Canada, only 56 percent of Americans had become

citizens of their new place of residence by 2006 (Jedwab 2008). This is surprising, since

Americans in Canada are allowed to hold dual citizenship, which provides them with options

based on having an alternative country in which to live, work, and invest; an additional locusand source of rights; and additional obligations and communal ties (Schuck 1998, 163).

American immigrant perceptions of the relationship between Canadian citizenship and

their sense of belonging in Canada were expressed often in the individual stories gathered

during the interview phase of this project. According to Matthew, a 36-year-old former

Californian who now lives in Vancouver (2007):

It just doesnt feel important to me to become an official Canadian citizen, at least not rightnow. I have a strong sense of belonging here because I share the values, politics, and personal

belief system of my Canadian friends and co-workers, I really dont need to become a citizento prove this to anybody.

Likewise, many of the respondents to the projects survey questionnaires who had come to

Toronto in the late 1970s as corporate executives expressed an abiding desire to hold onto


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their American citizenship. Their reasons were quite different, however, to those of the

Vancouver resident cited above. Surveys completed by almost everyone in this group

stated a strong preference for maintaining their US citizenship for the following reason

(2009):

I never really wanted to be a Canadian, you know? Thats not why I came to Toronto. So whywould I want to apply for citizenship here? I will always be an American. This doesnt haveanything to do with feeling like I belong here. I think of myself as a global citizen who canlive wherever I want.

The trend to hold on to their US citizenship is not unusual among American ex-patriates

worldwide. Some do choose to maintain dual citizenship to provide maximum political

and social benefits and ease of travel to their homeland. With more and more Americans

living abroad in recent years, however, the number of US-born migrants choosing to give

up their US citizenship is increasing in Canada as elsewhere in the world, according to a

count done by the Internal Revenue Service. In 2006, at least 509 Americans worldwidehad given up their US citizenship. According to Karen Maxfield, a spokeswoman for the

American Embassy in London (where a similar trend has been noted), American immi-

grants usually take this step because they do not have strong ties to the United States and

do not believe they will ever live there in the future (Carvajal 2006, 1). Like others from

the United States who reside permanently in other countries, Americans in Canada

reported a variety of reasons for renouncing their US citizenship in survey and interview

data analyzed for this project. Most cited social and political concerns, especially displeas-

ure with the US government, and avoidance of dual taxation as their primary motivations.

Does making the decision to remain an American citizen (or even a dual citizen) mini-

mize Americans sense of belonging in Canada? According to data gathered and analyzedfrom surveys and interviews conducted for this project, the answer to this question

depends on the spatial and temporal contexts of their Canadian settlement experience.

Responses to questions relating sense of belonging with the citizenship of Americans in

Toronto, Vancouver, and Halifax varied by an individual migrants reasons for leaving the

United States and his or her time of arrival in Canada (along with other individual charac-

teristics such as gender, age, and socioeconomic status). Americans who left their home-

land during the Vietnam War era, for example, almost all held on to an abiding sense of

belonging to Canada, no matter what their citizenship decisions were over the years.

Those who arrived later as midlife mavericks, retirees, academics, entrepreneurs, or spirit-

ual seekers were much less likely to feel a clear attachment to being Canadian, perhapsdue to their ability to take frequent trips back to the United States and to maintain close

connections with friends and family there. Other responses to our questions were located

somewhere in between these two extremes, with those who had been in Canada longest

and who had political motivations for leaving the United States clinging most fervently to

belonging to Canada and a strong sense of being Canadian. Comparatively, migrants

who relocated to Canada more recently, especially those who came for economic reasons,

were more likely to hold on to their deep and abiding attachment to being American.

The Canadian Ethnic Diversity Survey (Statistics Canada 2002) backs up these find-

ings on citizenship and sense of belonging of Americans in Canada. It verified that more

than 67 percent of respondents expressed a very strong sense of belonging to Canada,

with only 4.5 percent expressing a not strong at all sense of belonging to their new place

of residence. Clearly, a range of feelings and attitudes about transnationality continues to

be expressed by individuals within this diverse immigrant group, serving as a reminder


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100 S.W. Hardwick

that both spatial and temporal contexts play pivotal roles in the construction of migrant

identities (especially in the case of migrants who have the ability to make individual

choices about identifying with their homeland, their new site of residence, or both or

neither).

Future patterns, processes, and identities?

As Paul Gecelovsky (2007, 519) points out, Canada has become America idealized in

the post-9/11 world for many people in the United States. This perception and positive

image of Canada, along with overt frustrations with the politics and policies of their home-

land, have resulted in a record number of people from the United States emigrating to

Canada in recent years. Despite increasingly strict post-9/11 security measures now

enforced at the CanadaUS border (Bradbury and Turbeville 2008), as discussed in this

article more Americans left their homeland for Canada in 2006 than at any time in 30

years.

My findings on the migration experiences, spatial patterns, and relationships

between and among identity, citizenship, and belonging of Americans in Canada both

inform and confuse earlier arguments related to the transnational identity of Americans

in Canada (Satzewich and Wong 2006; Wong 2002). The results of this study serve as a

cautionary reminder that immigrant groups who have choices related to whether or not

to cling to dual identities and dual lives that exist both here and there (because of

individual characteristics such as skin color or socioeconomic class) may choose to

become citizens of their new place of residence or primarily foster and maintain an

identity tied to their homeland. Attempting to prove that an entire immigrant group is

transnational (or not) treads on dangerous ground, given that the spatial and temporal

context of individual decision-making creates different levels of transnationality forindividual immigrants.

These findings also indicate that the experiences and identities of American

migrants who reside in locales other than Canada (and who may have left the United

States during different time periods than those discussed here) provide additional rich

sites for migration stories that remain to be told. Until more evidence is gathered from

additional work with these still unstudied groups, especially those who reside in periph-

eral places, a long list of lingering questions remains. What are the implications of race,

ethnicity, and gender on migrant bonds to home and participation in transnational net-

works? How can relationships between and among these and other variables be docu-

mented and interpreted to provide a more nuanced view of the immigrant experience?And how do the migration pathways and identities of foreign-born residents of the cities

studied for this article compare with the patterns and processes shaping peoples and

places elsewhere? The answers to these and other, related questions offer fertile ground

for understanding more about some of the reasons people move, the choices they make

about maintaining old identities or embracing new ones, and the impacts of time, place,

and process on a world in motion.

Acknowledgments

Funding needed to complete the fieldwork for this article was provided by the generous support of aCanadian Embassy Faculty Research Grant. I also appreciated the invaluable research assistance ofRebecca Marcus and Derek Miller and the cartographic support of the InfoGraphics Laboratory atthe University of Oregon.


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Notes

1. Note that the term American is used in this article to refer to US-born residents of Canada.I am aware that this term also refers to all residents of both North and South America andthus could be viewed as inappropriate here. However, because Canadians refer only tomigrants from the United States as Americans, the term is appropriate for use in this par-

ticular study.2. Despite the dearth of recent work on Americans in Canada, studies abound on their histori-

cal settlement see, for example, the seminal work of Randy Widdis (1997a, 1997b) onAmericans at the borderlands and Canadian identity, and his article on US immigration toSaskatchewan, and David Harveys (1991) book,Americans in Canada. The Vietnam War-era migration of American war resisters, draft dodgers, and political activists in Canada hasalso been well documented by scholars such as John Hagan (2000, 2001), Joseph Jones(2005), Renee Kasinsky (1976), and James Dickerson (1999). However, much less has

been said about the current wave of Americans in Canada, other than a web-based article byAudrey Kobayashi and Brian Ray (2005), Placing American emigration to Canada in con-text, and Vic Satzewich and Lloyd Wongs (2006) book, Transnational identities in Canada.For this article, I also gained valuable insights from Heather Nicols work on CanadaUS

borderlands issues, especially her 2005 article Resiliency or change: The contemporaryCanadaU.S. border, and Brian Bows Anti-Americanism in Canada: Before and afterIraq, published in 2008.

Notes on contributor

Susan W. Hardwick is a Professor of Geography at the University of Oregon. Her research focuseson immigration, identity, and place in the American and Canadian West. She is the author or co-author of nine books, including The Geography of North America: Environment, Political Economy,and Culture, published by Prentice Hall in 2008.

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Documents

Fuzzy Transnationals-American Settlement, Identity, And Belonging in Canada- Susan Hardwick