MS. ADRIANA ONITA

University of Alberta

From Multicultiphobia to Linguaphobia: Canada’s Un/written Rules for Cultural and Linguistic Conformity

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In this presentation, I discuss the unwritten rules or often-invisible societal factors that influence immigrants and refugees when choosing to speak (or not speak) their heritage languages at home and in public in settler colonial Canada. I examine how attitudes of multicultiphobia (Ryan, 2010) and linguaphobia permeated the zeitgeist of the 1970-1990s and promoted deficit views of heritage languages and cultures that persist today. While “individual multiculturalism in private life” (Li, 2003, p. 2) and surface multiculturalism in public life (i.e. food, fashion, festivals) are encouraged and celebrated—ultimately Anglo- or Franco-conformity, compliance, homogeneity, and uniformity are still the desirable outcomes and benchmarks by which immigrants are judged. Despite various rhetorical and policy commitments to multiculturalism, anti-racism, equity, and diversity, there is still a strong expectation for immigrants/refugees and their children to sacrifice their mother tongues on the altar of citizenship, equality, and unity. Parents and children negotiating whether to speak their heritage languages in and outside the home are hampered by various assimilatory pressures in their habitus (Bourdieu, 1991) or macrosystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), forces that are often subtextual and hard to explain, but have ripple effects throughout our schools and society. Those who are quick to abandon their first languages and master the two colonial/colonizing languages are often rewarded and considered “well-integrated” successful immigrants. With language often excluded from social justice discussions (Bilash, 2012), linguistic assimilation—or conformity to Canada’s two colonial and colonizing languages—is not only expected but remains unquestioned.

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Adriana Oniță (adrianaonita.com) is a Romanian-Canadian multilingual poet, artist, educator, and researcher who is currently completing her PhD in Education at the University of Alberta under the supervision of Dr. Olenka Bilash. Her Killam-funded research is on youth heritage language maintenance through arts-based curricula. Adriana is also the founding editor of The Polyglot (www.thepolyglotmagazine.com) which has published 148 poets and artists in 43 languages. Her recent academic work appears in the Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies (JCACS) and Sister Scholars: Untangling Issues of Identity as Women in Academe (ed. Ellyn Lyle and Sepideh Mahani). Her recent creative work appears in the Globe and Mail and the Romanian Women Voices in North America series.