04.06.08
Most Japanese Canadians are Canadian-born.
If you ask an Asian in Canada, “Where are you from?”, the person may be take offense at being assumed a foreigner because of her race, or she may be happy to tell you about her motherland. Foreign-born and native-born Asian Canadians are different. They should not be lumped together and treated the same.
Although you cannot tell if an Asian individual is foreign-born or Canadian-born by looking at his physical features (being born and raised in a Western country does not change small, slanted eyes into large, round eyes), we have data on Asian Canadian visible minorities as an aggregate and where they are from.
2 in 3 Japanese are Canadian-born:
1 in 4 Chinese are Canadian-born (”Canadian-Born Chinese” or “CBCs”):
1 in 3 South Asians are Canadian-born (so-called “Canadian-Born Confused Desis” or “CBCDs”):
On average, 3 in 10 visible minorities were Canadian-born. The breakdown of the Canadian-born percentages across the individual visible minority groups are shown below.
| Visible minority group | Percentage Canadian-born | Canadian-born occurrence |
|---|---|---|
| Japanese | 63.2 | 2 out of 3 |
| Black | 44.3 | 9 out of 20 |
| Southeast Asian | 31.2 | 1 out of 3 |
| South Asian | 29.3 | 1 out of 3 |
| Arab | 27.0 | 3 out of 10 |
| Filipino | 25.6 | 1 out of 4 |
| Chinese | 25.5 | 1 out of 4 |
| Latin American | 21.1 | 1 out of 5 |
| Korean | 15.0 | 3 out of 20 |
| West Asian | 14.8 | 3 out of 20 |
(The “Canadian-born occurrence” column is an extrapolation from the percentage, not explicitly listed in the analysis series article.)
Sources:
- Statistics Canada. 2008. Canada’s Ethnocultural Mosaic, 2006 Census. 2006 Census. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 97-562-X. Ottawa. Released April 2, 2008.
YASPY Chick said,
April 6, 2008 at 8:47 pm
That’s probably why Japanese Canadians have a much higher out-marriage rate. Though I don’t think Chinese marriages to non-Chinese are as rare as stats seem to say.