THE CANTONESE-SPEAKING STUDENTS AT NORTHSIDE
المؤلف:
Tara Goldstein
المصدر:
Teaching and Learning in a Multilingual School
الجزء والصفحة:
P10-C1
2025-09-22
228
THE CANTONESE-SPEAKING STUDENTS AT NORTHSIDE
Although other recent sociolinguistic ethnographies on adolescent language use have investigated the language practices of many of the different linguistic groups in one school,1 the study at Northside focused on the language practices of one group, the Cantonese-speaking students who were born in Hong Kong. The reason behind my choice to limit the scope of the research project in this way had to do with the recent high enrollment of students from Hong Kong who used Cantonese at school. The students' language practices brought issues of multilingualism into high relief for the staff at Northside and they were hoping that the research project might bring new insights.
Between the years of 1991 and the first 4 months of 1996 (the most recent statistics available), 48, 535 people, about 11% of the city's population, had immigrated to Toronto from Hong Kong.2 As explained by historian Paul Yee, around the mid-1970s, Canada began making efforts to attract foreign business immigrants who could bring in capital and entrepreneurial skills to help the Canadian economy. These efforts were particularly successful with Hong Kong Chinese who were beginning to worry about their future. When the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, it was expected that the Chinese Communists would invade Hong Kong. They had long denounced the "unequal treaties" of the 19th century and never formally recognized Britain's control of Hong Kong. However, China made no military advances toward the colony. In 1966, Chairman Mao Zedong started his cultural revolution because he thought China was slipping back toward capital ism. He purged the army and government of his opponents and established the Red Guards, teenagers who attacked authority figures such as teachers, professors, writers, and artists. In 1966, Red Guards invaded Macau, the Portuguese territory across from Hong Kong, and plastered it with posters.
A few months later, violent demonstrations against British rule took place in Hong Kong, inspired by the Red Guards. There were strikes and bombings, and martial law was imposed. The economy came to a halt. In July, 300 Chinese soldiers crossed the border and killed five Hong Kong police officers. Property values dropped sharply and so did trade and tourism. But China needed the foreign currency channeled through Hong Kong's trade activities, and by the end of the year, order was established. However, the riots made Hong Kong residents worry about a Communist takeover. Many looked for ways to emigrate and Canada became a popular destination. Yee reports that Hong Kong lost 67,000 of its people to Canada in the period of 1972 to 1978, and 130, 410 between 1988 and 1992. Direct investment from Hong Kong grew from $10 million in 1967, to $426 million in 1986, and to $2.3 billion in 1991.
In 1984, China and Britain reached an agreement to transfer Hong Kong back to Chinese rule in 1997. Under the agreement, it would become a "special administrative region" with much control over its government, except for foreign policy and defense. It is intended that Hong Kong retain its capitalist economy within China's socialist system for 50 years after 1997. However, uncertainty about the quality of life under Chinese rule have led many people of the educated middle class in Hong Kong, who have enjoyed high incomes and want to keep their freedom and lifestyle, to leave Hong Kong.3 Many of the 48,500 middle class people who immigrated to Toronto from Hong Kong between 1991 and the beginning of 1996 settled in several suburbs outside the city and enrolled their children in suburban schools like Northside.
1 See, for example, Monica Heller's (1999) study on the use of French, English, and Somali in a French-language minority high school in Toronto and Ben Rampton's (1995) study on the use of Creole, Panjabi, and Stylized Asian English in an English school in South Midlands, England.
2 See Statistics Canada: www.statcan.ca (search "Hong Kong immigration").
3 See Yee (1996).
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