Richmond, B.C., considers banning Chinese-only signage

[dleung]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Must be about a pretty girl in Montreal named Marie-Josée who dumped him when he lived for a time in Montreal like a "expat" a while ago.

lol, this because I suggested the below statement might be a bit disingenuous?

Originally Posted by Acajack

I don't live in Vancouver so I don't have a horse in this race...

since a "threat" in BC can be used to garner sympathy for cultural protectionism in Quebec, as evidenced by where all the posts outside the affected region come from:

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by geotag277

I would say that Korean and Chinese use a different alphabet in the same way that Russian uses a different alphabet (Cyrillic versus Latin). It might be more natural for a native Chinese speaker to learn Korean compared to Russian but that doesn't mean Korean doesn't "truly" have a different alphabet.

Just to jump in here: Korea has an alphabet, but Chinese does not. Chinese has "characters." In linguist speak, it has what is called a syllabary. A syllabary consists of symbols that represent a single verbal syllable, but they do not necessarily indicate pronunciation in the direct way that alphabets do.

Every single one of the Chinese characters in existence for the Chinese spoken languages is pronounced as one syllable (by contrast, this isn't always the case for the Chinese characters used in Japanese, known in Japanese as "kanji"). Chinese characters are like square building blocks. You put them beside each other to build sentences.

Often what would be a word (a surprisingly tricky concept to nail down definitively) in English is given in Chinese as two characters together. This happens a lot because Chinese has fewer sounds than most other languages, so there are a heckuva lot of homophones to contend with. This is probably also why Chinese has tones. You have to distinguish between different lexical units somehow, and this is how Chinese does it.

A famous example Chinese language learners always come across:

"Mama qi ma, ma man, Mama ma ma."
媽媽騎馬，馬慢，媽媽罵馬。

Literally: "Mother rides horse, horse slow, Mother scolds horse."
Translated properly: "Mother is riding a horse. The horse is slow, so Mother scolds the horse."

With the tones:

"Mama1 qi2 ma3. Ma3 man4. Mama1 ma4 ma3."
媽媽騎馬，馬慢，媽媽罵馬。

Without the tones it would just sound like "ma ma ma ma ma ma....", and then where would you be?

You can see that the character for "horse," 馬, shows up in three of the other characters. Not only does Chinese have a lot of homophones, but the written language combines a lot of the characters together to come up with new characters.

For example, the character "horse," 馬, is combined with the character for "woman," 女, to form the character for "mother": 媽. The horse-馬 is the cue for pronunciation ("ma"), and the woman-女 is a "radical" that provides a cue for meaning.

No, this is not suggesting that Chinese people think mothers are female horses!

You'll also notice that the character "ride," 騎, has horse as a radical instead of as the main body of the character. This character is therefore not pronounced as "ma," but has a different pronunciation: "qi." The horse radical provides a cue for meaning. Horses run, which is why a lot of characters with the horse radical involve movement.

You'll also notice that the punctuation in the English is different from the Chinese. This is because written Chinese employs a lot of run-on sentences broken up by commas instead of full-stops. And the word "so" is implied in the Chinese by the syntax, so it is not necessarily needed (though in real life it would probably get used in this case).

Chinese is the most fascinating language in the world. I could also write a post on how the Chinese language shows how the crazy inflections in our Western grammars are totally unnecessary. One of the biggest mind-fucks experienced by every Chinese kid first learning English is the bizarre way that the word "I" changes to become "me" depending on where it is placed syntactically. What's the connection between "I" and "me"? What's the point?

Which, taken to the next level, is what English speakers struggle with when approaching languages like German and Russian, where "I" undergoes even more changes depending on its case.

And that's not even mentioning tense. Why on earth should the word "go" change into "went"? Or "going"? Or "goes"? Or "gone"? What crazy abstractions! Totally mind-boggling when all you really need is "go."

Because honestly, when I say "I tomorrow intend go Toronto," or "I yesterday go Toronto," is there any possible way that you wouldn't be able to understand what I mean? Of course not. Any alien would declare that the grammar in Western languages is totally bonkers, and our new overlords would ban it immediately.

Chinese is the most fascinating language in the world because it's the most logical and rational.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Just to jump in here: Korea has an alphabet, but Chinese does not. Chinese has "characters." In linguist speak, it has what is called a syllabary. A syllabary consists of symbols that represent a single verbal syllable, but they do not necessarily indicate pronunciation in the direct way that alphabets do.

Every single one of the Chinese characters in existence for the Chinese spoken languages is pronounced as one syllable (by contrast, this isn't always the case for the Chinese characters used in Japanese, known in Japanese as "kanji"). Chinese characters are like square building blocks. You put them beside each other to build sentences.

Often what would be a word (a surprisingly tricky concept to nail down definitively) in English is given in Chinese as two characters together. This happens a lot because Chinese has fewer sounds than most other languages, so there are a heckuva lot of homophones to contend with. This is probably also why Chinese has tones. You have to distinguish between different lexical units somehow, and this is how Chinese does it.

A famous example Chinese language learners always come across:

"Mama qi ma, ma man, Mama ma ma."
媽媽騎馬，馬慢，媽媽罵馬。

Literally: "Mother rides horse, horse slow, Mother scolds horse."
Translated properly: "Mother is riding a horse. The horse is slow, so Mother scolds the horse."

With the tones:

"Mama1 qi2 ma3. Ma3 man4. Mama1 ma4 ma3."
媽媽騎馬，馬慢，媽媽罵馬。

Without the tones it would just sound like "ma ma ma ma ma ma....", and then where would you be?

You can see that the character for "horse," 馬, shows up in three of the other characters. Not only does Chinese have a lot of homophones, but the written language combines a lot of the characters together to come up with new characters.

For example, the character "horse," 馬, is combined with the character for "woman," 女, to form the character for "mother": 媽. The horse-馬 is the cue for pronunciation ("ma"), and the woman-女 is a "radical" that provides a cue for meaning.

No, this is not suggesting that Chinese people think mothers are female horses!

You'll also notice that the character "ride," 騎, has horse as a radical instead of as the main body of the character. This character is therefore not pronounced as "ma," but has a different pronunciation: "qi." The horse radical provides a cue for meaning. Horses run, which is why a lot of characters with the horse radical involve movement.

You'll also notice that the punctuation in the English is different from the Chinese. This is because written Chinese employs a lot of run-on sentences broken up by commas instead of full-stops. And the word "so" is implied in the Chinese by the syntax, so it is not necessarily needed (though in real life it would probably get used in this case).

Chinese is the most fascinating language in the world. I could also write a post on how the Chinese language shows how the crazy inflections in our Western grammars are totally unnecessary. One of the biggest mind-fucks experienced by every Chinese kid first learning English is the bizarre way that the word "I" changes to become "me" depending on where it is placed syntactically. What's the connection between "I" and "me"? What's the point?

Which, taken to the next level, is what English speakers struggle with when approaching languages like German and Russian, where "I" undergoes even more changes depending on its case.

And that's not even mentioning tense. Why on earth should the word "go" change into "went"? Or "going"? Or "goes"? Or "gone"? What crazy abstractions! Totally mind-boggling when all you really need is "go."

Because honestly, when I say "I tomorrow intend go Toronto," or "I yesterday go Toronto," is there any possible way that you wouldn't be able to understand what I mean? Of course not. Any alien would declare that the grammar in Western languages is totally bonkers, and our new overlords would ban it immediately.

Chinese is the most fascinating language in the world because it's the most logical and rational.

Yep, though figuring out how to indicate tense can sometimes be a challenge - the uses of the character 了 are definitely one of the most difficult to learn aspects of Chinese grammar.

Further, it has a complete lack of numerical agreement for nouns - nouns are either singular or plural depending on context. Plus, due to the large number of homophones, nouns are often marked with what are called measure words, which indicate the TYPE of noun being referred to.

Overall, I'd have to say that Chinese grammar is much simpler than any western language, but with the difficulties involved in learning characters and tones, it's not likely to ever become anything close to a global language.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by dleung

lol, this because I suggested the below statement might be a bit disingenuous?



since a "threat" in BC can be used to garner sympathy for cultural protectionism in Quebec, as evidenced by where all the posts outside the affected region come from:

To be fair Acajack likes to reply in multiple, separate posts

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by Acajack

For all its qualities vaunted on here, even the Anglo-Canadian societal model has some imperfections and a way's to go.

http://torontoist.com/2014/10/election-2014-city-council-still-doesnt-look-like-the-city/

And how would suppressing minorities' freedom of expression in their businesses help this situation?

I don't doubt that xenophobia and racism, whether on an interpersonal level or institutional level, exists in Anglo-Canada.

But I do think there are mitigating factors that need to be taken into consideration. A significant proportion of the immigrants in cities like Toronto and Vancouver recently arrived in the country. At least among East Asian and South Asian groups, they rarely seem to come to the country to want to join city council. Most of them belong to risk-averse professions, like accounting, medicine, or engineering, and encourage (read:pressure) their children to do the same. There is also another class of recent immigrants, and they often have lower education levels, lower language skills, etc. (they may be refugees). This group is also unlikely to aspire to join city council; they tend to go into things like trucking or labor-intensive jobs.

Just look at university student populations and you will see an overrepresentation of East Asians. Is this because universities subject White applicants to interpersonal and/or institutional xenophobia and racism? Probably not. It could have to do with cultural reasons or socioeconomic reasons, as well.

I think you'll need to give it a lot more time to determine the degree to which underrepresentation in governmental institutions is due to interpersonal and/or systemic xenophobia and racism, as opposed to self-selection or other reasons.

Either way, a diversity of diversity in a given city's neighborhoods can help ensure greater ethnic representation.

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

As I have stated before, the vast majority of Chinese see Chinese-only signs as not only stupid but quite offensive.

Even if true, how is it relevant to anything? It isn't your right as a citizen to never be offended by any advertising, however stupid it may be. The nationality of those offended really doesn't matter.

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Just to jump in here: Korea has an alphabet, but Chinese does not. Chinese has "characters." In linguist speak, it has what is called a syllabary. A syllabary consists of symbols that represent a single verbal syllable, but they do not necessarily indicate pronunciation in the direct way that alphabets do.

Every single one of the Chinese characters in existence for the Chinese spoken languages is pronounced as one syllable (by contrast, this isn't always the case for the Chinese characters used in Japanese, known in Japanese as "kanji"). Chinese characters are like square building blocks. You put them beside each other to build sentences.

Often what would be a word (a surprisingly tricky concept to nail down definitively) in English is given in Chinese as two characters together. This happens a lot because Chinese has fewer sounds than most other languages, so there are a heckuva lot of homophones to contend with. This is probably also why Chinese has tones. You have to distinguish between different lexical units somehow, and this is how Chinese does it.

A famous example Chinese language learners always come across:

"Mama qi ma, ma man, Mama ma ma."
媽媽騎馬，馬慢，媽媽罵馬。

Literally: "Mother rides horse, horse slow, Mother scolds horse."
Translated properly: "Mother is riding a horse. The horse is slow, so Mother scolds the horse."

With the tones:

"Mama1 qi2 ma3. Ma3 man4. Mama1 ma4 ma3."
媽媽騎馬，馬慢，媽媽罵馬。

Without the tones it would just sound like "ma ma ma ma ma ma....", and then where would you be?

You can see that the character for "horse," 馬, shows up in three of the other characters. Not only does Chinese have a lot of homophones, but the written language combines a lot of the characters together to come up with new characters.

For example, the character "horse," 馬, is combined with the character for "woman," 女, to form the character for "mother": 媽. The horse-馬 is the cue for pronunciation ("ma"), and the woman-女 is a "radical" that provides a cue for meaning.

No, this is not suggesting that Chinese people think mothers are female horses!

You'll also notice that the character "ride," 騎, has horse as a radical instead of as the main body of the character. This character is therefore not pronounced as "ma," but has a different pronunciation: "qi." The horse radical provides a cue for meaning. Horses run, which is why a lot of characters with the horse radical involve movement.

You'll also notice that the punctuation in the English is different from the Chinese. This is because written Chinese employs a lot of run-on sentences broken up by commas instead of full-stops. And the word "so" is implied in the Chinese by the syntax, so it is not necessarily needed (though in real life it would probably get used in this case).

Chinese is the most fascinating language in the world. I could also write a post on how the Chinese language shows how the crazy inflections in our Western grammars are totally unnecessary. One of the biggest mind-fucks experienced by every Chinese kid first learning English is the bizarre way that the word "I" changes to become "me" depending on where it is placed syntactically. What's the connection between "I" and "me"? What's the point?

Which, taken to the next level, is what English speakers struggle with when approaching languages like German and Russian, where "I" undergoes even more changes depending on its case.

And that's not even mentioning tense. Why on earth should the word "go" change into "went"? Or "going"? Or "goes"? Or "gone"? What crazy abstractions! Totally mind-boggling when all you really need is "go."

Because honestly, when I say "I tomorrow intend go Toronto," or "I yesterday go Toronto," is there any possible way that you wouldn't be able to understand what I mean? Of course not. Any alien would declare that the grammar in Western languages is totally bonkers, and our new overlords would ban it immediately.

Chinese is the most fascinating language in the world because it's the most logical and rational.

Thanks for the post and putting in the effort to explain that, very interesting contribution to this thread

I might even say the 33 pages of BS to lead to this may have all been worth it

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Richmond-News reported about the Richmond mayor's debate and the issue of the language signs came up.

Malcom Brodie the existing mayor thinks "better education" is a better option while Richard Lee endorses a by-law against Chinese-only signs as he sees it as a reasonable limitation on business operation. Yes, the existing Caucasian mayor doesn't want any restrictions and the challenging Chinese descent mayoral candidate does.

As I have stated before, the vast majority of Chinese see Chinese-only signs as not only stupid but quite offensive.

That's great, but the Chinese community does not have exclusive authority to determine the language policy of Richmond, B.C.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by dleung

since a "threat" in BC can be used to garner sympathy for cultural protectionism in Quebec, as evidenced by where all the posts outside the affected region come from:

I have an interest in language issues and policy, whether in BC, Latvia, Catalonia, Quebec or South Florida.

Go ahead and sue me.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

And how would suppressing minorities' freedom of expression in their businesses help this situation?

I don't doubt that xenophobia and racism, whether on an interpersonal level or institutional level, exists in Anglo-Canada.

But I do think there are mitigating factors that need to be taken into consideration. A significant proportion of the immigrants in cities like Toronto and Vancouver recently arrived in the country. At least among East Asian and South Asian groups, they rarely seem to come to the country to want to join city council. Most of them belong to risk-averse professions, like accounting, medicine, or engineering, and encourage (read:pressure) their children to do the same. There is also another class of recent immigrants, and they often have lower education levels, lower language skills, etc. (they may be refugees). This group is also unlikely to aspire to join city council; they tend to go into things like trucking or labor-intensive jobs.

Just look at university student populations and you will see an overrepresentation of East Asians. Is this because universities subject White applicants to interpersonal and/or institutional xenophobia and racism? Probably not. It could have to do with cultural reasons or socioeconomic reasons, as well.

I think you'll need to give it a lot more time to determine the degree to which underrepresentation in governmental institutions is due to interpersonal and/or systemic xenophobia and racism, as opposed to self-selection or other reasons.

Either way, a diversity of diversity in a given city's neighborhoods can help ensure greater ethnic representation.

I wasn't suggesting for a second that it was evidence of racism or xenophobia. But some people do talk in terms of near-perfection a little too easily and quickly.

As for the question of time in the country, well I grew up and went to school all in Ontario with lots of people from all over the world who are contemporaries of mine and of American politicians like Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley, so I am not sure that only being in the country for a short period is really the explanation we are looking for.

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I wasn't suggesting for a second that it was evidence of racism or xenophobia. But some people do talk in terms of near-perfection a little too easily and quickly.

As for the question of time in the country, well I grew up and went to school all in Ontario with lots of people from all over the world who are contemporaries of mine and of American politicians like Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley, so I am not sure that only being in the country for a short period is really the explanation we are looking for.

I don't think anyone is arguing that Anglo-Canada is perfect. However, it makes no sense to adopt a policy that would further imperfect it.

American immigration policy is drastically different from Canadian immigration policy as it relates to Indians.

The US has a per-country cap on immigration that is not sensitive to the amount of people that live in a given country. This means that people who originate from very populous countries, like India and China, have much greater difficulty coming to the US.

What this ultimately means is that people in India who want to come to the US cannot just normally immigrate. They must obtain either a work visa, or a student visa and then a work visa, before they can apply for immigration and obtain a green card.

If you look median household income in the US, Indian Americans have the highest (~$88K); far more than Whites, and slightly ahead of certain other Asian American groups.

Comparatively, many of the Indo-Canadians are Punjabis who came during the Khalistan crisis in India as refugees. If we expand it to South Asians in general, the next largest contingent, Sri Lankan Tamils, also came as refugees during the Sri Lankan Civil War.

Perhaps the degree to which the Asian economic migrants pressure their children to join risk-averse professions is less than the degree to which low education level, low income, blue collar groups, for whatever reason, are underrepresented in governmental institutions. So changing the mix could produce more political figures.

Another point is that America has a much more universal narrative that immigrants can easily engage with. The US national mythology is one based on universal aspects (upward mobility, freedom, rights, etc.). Comparatively, it almost seems inauthentic to participate in Canadian politics as an immigrant or a person of recent immigrant origin. Canada has certain aspects, even if they're nominal, that makes it seem like an ethnic state; the monarchy is one example.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I have an interest in language issues and policy, whether in BC, Latvia, Catalonia, Quebec or South Florida.

Go ahead and sue me.

High post count alert! Clearly you have a hidden agenda.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

That's great, but the Chinese community does not have exclusive authority to determine the language policy of Richmond, B.C.

Aren't they about half the voters over there? They obviously don't have "exclusive authority" but they clearly have significant weight in all municipal affairs.

And this is a municipal issue; regardless of what Richmond decides, it only involves Richmond, not all of Anglo Canada. Every other place is free to decide for itself what it wants to do... needless to say, in many cases, this issue doesn't even exist.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Chinese is the most fascinating language in the world because it's the most logical and rational.

Japanese is also very logical and rational...

I remember my first serious contact with the language in my early uni days... one of my good friends was a true Japanophile and had started to learn the language, so he eventually shared with a bunch of us (he admired very much the language's very logical character; he was a physicist like all of us) what he had managed to learn...

We actually mocked him because he had always held the Japanese culture and civilization in very high esteem, so we were amused to find (and did point out to him) that his refined Japanese people were actually speaking like what we expected from the most cliché stone age cavemen.

("I yesterday go Toronto" is a very simple/logical way to speak but you gotta admit it also sounds caveman/retarded compared to what we're used to...)

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Yep, though figuring out how to indicate tense can sometimes be a challenge - the uses of the character 了 are definitely one of the most difficult to learn aspects of Chinese grammar.

Further, it has a complete lack of numerical agreement for nouns - nouns are either singular or plural depending on context. Plus, due to the large number of homophones, nouns are often marked with what are called measure words, which indicate the TYPE of noun being referred to.

Overall, I'd have to say that Chinese grammar is much simpler than any western language, but with the difficulties involved in learning characters and tones, it's not likely to ever become anything close to a global language.

Yeah, the initial learning curve for written Chinese is steep. You can't just sound out new words and easily find them in the dictionary (knowing how to search for characters in the dictionary is an ordeal in itself, even for me at times).

And some people just cannot grasp the tones no matter how long they study the language. Exhibit A: Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook guy, who is learning Chinese. Just the other day he did a Q&A session in Chinese in China, and his tones were so bad that he sounded ridiculous, and it was a strain to understand what he was saying.

Originally Posted by geotag277

Thanks for the post and putting in the effort to explain that, very interesting contribution to this thread

I might even say the 33 pages of BS to lead to this may have all been worth it

Wow, thanks. I'm blushing.

Originally Posted by lio45

Japanese is also very logical and rational...

I remember my first serious contact with the language in my early uni days... one of my good friends was a true Japanophile and had started to learn the language, so he eventually shared with a bunch of us (he admired very much the language's very logical character; he was a physicist like all of us) what he had managed to learn...

We actually mocked him because he had always held the Japanese culture and civilization in very high esteem, so we were amused to find (and did point out to him) that his refined Japanese people were actually speaking like what we expected from the most cliché stone age cavemen.

("I yesterday go Toronto" is a very simple/logical way to speak but you gotta admit it also sounds caveman/retarded compared to what we're used to...)

Don't worry, I'm not pushing for reforms to spoken English. Hip-hop culture is simplifying English speech anyway. Actually, it's fascinating that lower income black American speech replicates Chinese in its lack of a copula verb. "He good," "She nice," "I washin' the car right now" etc. It's the same thing in Chinese.

The problem with Japanese is that the Buddhists brought Chinese characters to Japan with nary a thought for how they would work with such a completely different and unrelated spoken language. So you've got pronunciations of kanji that are 100% impossible for a Chinese speaker to understand. With context I can often understand a glimmer or more of something written in Japanese due to the kanji ("kanji" itself literally means "Chinese characters"), but sometimes the meanings in Japanese are slightly different from Chinese, and that throws me off. And then you've got the other two alphabets added into the mix that I totally don't understand at all.

Japanese is a bizarre mash of writing systems. It's not really all that logical.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

That's great, but the Chinese community does not have exclusive authority to determine the language policy of Richmond, B.C.

I agree. I was simply using it to show that this kind of policy has very little support in the Chinese community itself. If 99% of the Chinese population agreed with it that still wouldn't make it right in my eyes but it dispels this idea that somehow someone who doesn't agree with Chinese-only signs is a racist.

This is really only a big deal for the CAUCASIAN mayor because he wants to get re-elected and thinks a negative comment about Chinese-only signs will cost him votes. I think this issue really bothers the Chinese of Richmond because those few signs get attention and then any Chinese person is caste with the same stick as not wanting to assimilate into Canadian culture.

Quite the opposite is true as Chinese Canadians Canadianize very quickly easily within one generation. Overwhelmingly most Chinese want to be viewed as just Canadians and they see these Chinese-only signs as not helping their cause.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

I don't think anyone is arguing that Anglo-Canada is perfect. However, it makes no sense to adopt a policy that would further imperfect it.

American immigration policy is drastically different from Canadian immigration policy as it relates to Indians.

The US has a per-country cap on immigration that is not sensitive to the amount of people that live in a given country. This means that people who originate from very populous countries, like India and China, have much greater difficulty coming to the US.

What this ultimately means is that people in India who want to come to the US cannot just normally immigrate. They must obtain either a work visa, or a student visa and then a work visa, before they can apply for immigration and obtain a green card.

If you look median household income in the US, Indian Americans have the highest (~$88K); far more than Whites, and slightly ahead of certain other Asian American groups.

Comparatively, many of the Indo-Canadians are Punjabis who came during the Khalistan crisis in India as refugees. If we expand it to South Asians in general, the next largest contingent, Sri Lankan Tamils, also came as refugees during the Sri Lankan Civil War.

Perhaps the degree to which the Asian economic migrants pressure their children to join risk-averse professions is less than the degree to which low education level, low income, blue collar groups, for whatever reason, are underrepresented in governmental institutions. So changing the mix could produce more political figures.

Another point is that America has a much more universal narrative that immigrants can easily engage with. The US national mythology is one based on universal aspects (upward mobility, freedom, rights, etc.). Comparatively, it almost seems inauthentic to participate in Canadian politics as an immigrant or a person of recent immigrant origin. Canada has certain aspects, even if they're nominal, that makes it seem like an ethnic state; the monarchy is one example.

Your last point is a very good one.

That said, it's not just about Indo-Canadians. Almost all visible minority groups in Toronto and in many GTA municipalities appear to be under-represented on municipal councils. Look at Brampton city council. Does this look like the city council of a municipality that is 70% visible minorities?

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by rousseau

And some people just cannot grasp the tones no matter how long they study the language. Exhibit A: Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook guy, who is learning Chinese. Just the other day he did a Q&A session in Chinese in China, and his tones were so bad that he sounded ridiculous, and it was a strain to understand what he was saying.

I saw that. His vocabulary wasn't bad, but I found aside from his tones his general pronunciation was also pretty terrible. Still, I've got to give the guy props for trying - not a lot of people, especially people as famous as Zuckerberg, would be even willing to try doing what he did.

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Your last point is a very good one.

That said, it's not just about Indo-Canadians. Almost all visible minority groups in Toronto and in many GTA municipalities appear to be under-represented on municipal councils. Look at Brampton city council. Does this look like the city council of a municipality that is 70% visible minorities?

Largely because Brampton has many recent immigrants, and many of them are blue collar, low education, and low income. How well are lower classes represented in city councils in general?

It's also interesting that Asian Canadians dominate university enrollment. This under-representation of Whites in Canadian universities is concerning.

My point being that simply citing statistics doesn't provide any insight into why the numbers are the way they are. To cite them as evidence for some imperfection is fruitless without trying to make sense of it. Again, no doubt that there are institutional and interpersonal factors involved, but the degree to which that exists cannot be established by merely citing statistics.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Your last point is a very good one.

That said, it's not just about Indo-Canadians. Almost all visible minority groups in Toronto and in many GTA municipalities appear to be under-represented on municipal councils. Look at Brampton city council. Does this look like the city council of a municipality that is 70% visible minorities?

I feel like this is a problem with municipal councils rather than an overall racial problem. All three of Brampton's MPPs*, and two out of three of Brampton's MPs, are Indo-Canadian.

*that's the Ontario term for what most other provinces call MLAs, for all you non-Ontarians out there

Visible minorities make up 25.9% of the population of Ontario, and 16.8% of Ontario's parliamentarians. An underrepresentation but not a huge one. It's similar to the under-representation rate of women (35% of Ontario parliamentarians are female).