AT HOME IN EXILE

This book aims to explore the various forms of adapta¬tion that migrants from the sub-continent have evolved to deal with ‘the varying degrees of prejudices, constraints and dominance’ of their host society. The issues raised in the preface include the choices relating to value change, cul-tural persistence and cultural change and the impact of these processes on second and third generation immigrants.

The picture that emerges of Indian settlers in Canada from the readings in this book is of a community in transition. Immigrants into Canada from the sub-continent have been of two types: those sponsored by relatives already settled there and the skilled professionals who entered in large numbers under the Canadian govern¬ment policy of the sixties. According to Ram P. Srivas¬tava, in his ‘Evolution of adaptive strategies’, external social conditions by and large determine the nature and areas of interaction between Indian immigrants and the Canadians. Thus, presently, at a time when unemployment is rising in Canada, the climate of feel¬ing is directed against the South Asian community. Frances Henry has estimated in her study, ‘Some problems of South Asian adaptation in Toronto’, that 68 per cent of the immigrant group studied had experienced instances of discrimination.