



In a survey by the Vancouver Foundation last year, three groups of people who identified themselves as living in their own enclaves felt less connected. These are people aged 25-34, those who live in highrises, and newcomers.

At the request of local Chinese language media outlets, the Vancouver Foundation did a breakdown of the Chinese-Canadian respondents. They found there are more similarities than differences between them and the total sample.

Just like the total sample, only about four in 10 Chinese-Canadian respondents attended a cultural event put on by a cultural or ethnic group different than their own.

And just like the total sample, Chinese-Canadian respondents said the biggest obstacle to getting more engaged in community life is the feeling that they have little to offer.

The main reason Chinese-Canadian respondents gave for not knowing their neighbours better is the same as other respondents -- they seldom see them.

In other words, people are living in silos not because of “ethnic enclaves,” but because we don’t have enough social pathways that lead people to get to know one another. Over one-third of those surveyed said they have no close friends outside their own ethnic group.

Our society prides itself on being inclusive and multicultural. But how can we be that if more than a third of us don’t have close friends from outside our ethnic background and most of us participate only in events organized by our own ethnic group?

Why is it important for us to know one another more? We live in one of the most diverse cities in the world. Not understanding each other’s nuances of habits, behaviour, likes and dislikes will inevitably produce unnecessary misunderstandings and conflicts.

To avoid this, we need to build more social pathways to help people cross cultural barriers.

If a geographically-isolated community is not connected with society we would not label people in those communities as not willing to connect with others. We would build roads and highways to help them to connect. But we blame people who live in their own cultural communities for not trying to reach out. We label their neighbourhoods with the pejorative term “enclave.”

There are many things we can do to build social pathways to connect people of different cultures. We can have a day where every community is encouraged to have an open house in their cultural neighbourhood. In Vancouver, we have an Italian town on Commercial Drive, a South Asian town in South Vancouver, a Greek town on West 4th, a Chinatown on Pender Street, and a Vietnamese town along Kingsway.

What if we had a day where every neighbourhood has an open house and people are encouraged to visit a neighbourhood outside their own cultural communities?

It’s important to create opportunities for people to connect emotionally. Remember how Canadians of all skin colours and backgrounds cheered together and high-fived each other on Robson Street during the 2010 Winter Olympics?

It would be fun to have an international drum festival each summer. Anyone who has listened to the drum beats of more than one culture will be struck by their similarity. Perhaps a drum festival will bring all of us out of our own enclaves and connect us as a community of one.

Tung Chan is Chair, Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 and a director of the Vancouver Foundation.

