Ethnic balance is wrong
We went with the family across the border over to New York (specifically Long Island) for a few days last week. One of the things that I noticed most was the ethnic balance. It seems that there are only whites, blacks and Latinos. With English being the dominant language and Spanish sometimes being spoken not too loud.Of course, every city and place has its own ethnic distribution. I remember moving from Montreal to Toronto and thinking how white and English Toronto was. Then I moved to the Cornwall area and while it was nice to have an English / French mix, the truth was that it was more of a division than mix (as well as the Catholic / Protestant divide) - not to mention, that if you hadn't lived there for 300 hundred years, you were an outsider.
I like Ottawa for its diversity. It is predminantly an English city with a strong French presence (thanks to Hull just across the river). But other ethnicities are present too. There are Africans and Asians, Middle Easteners and Latinos. It is very common to hear non-English and non-French speech in the city.
In New York (Long Island), there was hardly an Asian to be seen and I don't think I saw one Middle Eastern / Arabic person. Aside from Chinese spoken in a Chinese restaurant and some overheard Polish at a museum and the whispered Spanish among the Latinos, English was the only thing I heard.
Image borrowed from here.
Comments
Yeah, we had a good time.
chris: thanks! Although, to be honest, I have no idea what I am doing - aside from sharing my thoughts.
Ottawa sure is a lot more diverse than when my parents grew up there!
I couldn't get the spider pic!
kaymac: eek, eek ... not sure how to respond to your post - since, I don't want to be defensive about mine. I think anyone who has grown up in a relatively large city (I can't be any more precise than that - I grew up in Montreal) is definitely going to be exposed to different cultures. And I wish more people had this opportunity. Not the exposure to a limited culture (too often, I notice that people congregate within their own community / culture, creating a ghetto), but in a truly integrated community. I was fortunate that my parents chose not to associate with the Polish community.
MOI: what is it with women and NY? It is a big city, with lots of stuff, but having lived in Montreal and Toronto I am not that impressed by big cities.
There is nothing to get about the spider picture, I just needed something to keep my blog from being so terribly idle (as it has been the too long while).
I'm about to make my first trip to Toronto (my husband has a conference there). Even if it seems white and English, as you say, it will be fresh in my eyes. I'm looking forward to going north of the border.