Gender, Generation and Identities in Vancouver’s African Diaspora

Abstract

This paper explores multi-generational shifts in identities and community building among the ‘new’ African diaspora in Vancouver, Canada. Drawing on interviews with adult migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, teen migrants, and second-generation adults, the paper highlights how diasporic identities are gendered, racialized, and place-based. The first generation struggles to remain African, with men focused more on maintaining links with the homeland and women engaged more with strategies of homemaking in Canada. In contrast, second-generation young men develop stronger affinities with the nearby African-American diaspora, while their sisters are more likely to identify with the local African-Canadian community and, like their parents, to dis-identify with the larger African-American diaspora.