POL101 Argumentative Paragraph Assignment

Justin Ha

03/27/2023

Race is not a pre-existing category but rather a social construct that is ‘made’ and

reinforced by way of categorization (Marx, 1996:182,198). In the Canadian context, race is

politically constructed through immigration and multiculturalism policies that categorize and

integrate individuals of different ethnicities and reinforce the country's multicultural national

identity while also maintaining social cohesiveness. Since the end of World War II, Canada has

maintained an open-door immigration policy, which has significantly contributed to the country's

diverse multicultural society and by extension its national identity (Claremont and Wien, 1976:

190). With the rise of minority populations, Canada’s national identity has increasingly been

defined as a multicultural mosaic consisting of diverse groups living inside its boundaries (Levitt

1997: 41, 42, 44, 47). As an ethnically diverse country, Canada has long struggled with the

absence of a distinctive "Canadian race" or ethnic group as Canada was a settler state that lacked

its own unique culture, traditions, and religion (Howard-Hasseman,1999: 529). However, in

recent years Canada has begun to leverage its diversity as a strength by increasingly defining its

national identity around its multiculturalism. According to Marx, nation-building is the process

of developing a national identity that enables the effective operation of a sovereign state, which

involves bringing people of various races together to work towards a shared purpose (Marx,

1996: 207). Nations like Canada, which lack an ethnically homogenous population, employ race

to create a nationality through the legal concept of citizenship, which promotes a sense of

cultural homogeneity and recognizes that ethnic groups are a component of a larger endeavor to

establish and foster an inclusive national identity ( Vickers and Isaac, 2012: 47, 107-110). Today,
Canada is widely recognized for its multiculturalism and success in race-making achieved

through multiculturalism policies (Meister, 2021: 4-6, 236-240). This included the consolidation

of various groups through the common values of diversity, inclusivity, and tolerance, and the

universal legal concept of being Canadian citizens.

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 Works Cited

Howard-Hassmann, Rhoda E. 1999. “‘Canadian’ as an Ethnic Category: Implications for

Multiculturalism and National Unity.” Canadian Public Policy 25 (4): 523–37.
https://doi.org/10.2307/3552426.

Levitt, Cyril. 1997. “The Morality of Race in Canada.” Society (New Brunswick) 34 (6):
40–47. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03355966.

Marx, Anthony W. 1996. “Race-Making and the Nation-State.” World Politics 48 (2):
180–208. https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.1996.0003.

Meister, Daniel R. 2021. The Racial Mosaic : a Pre-History of Canadian

Multiculturalism. Montreal : McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Vickers, Jill, and Annette Isaac. 2012. “The Politics of Race: Contexts and Bottom-Up
Approaches to Change.” In The Politics of Race, 169–. Canada: University of Toronto Press.
https://doi.org/10.3138/j.ctt2tv3zx.10.