Accomodations by Punjabi Families for Punjabi Student S in Edmonton

The Panjabi Hindu
Family in Ontario:
A Written report in Adaptation

By: Saroj Chawla

From: Polyphony Vol.12, 1990 pp. 72-76
© 1991 Multicultural History Society of Ontario

This report is an insider's wait at the issues of adaptation and coping in ii generations of Punjabi Hindu families in Ontario. The caste of Hindu civilization retention and the extent of adaptation to Euro-Canadian means, depends on the individual family's preferences, and the differences in attitudes between the start generation immigrant Panjabi Hindu families and their Indo-Canadian children.

As a result of the 1947 division of India, well-nigh all of the Hindu and Sikh population in areas of the Punjab that became part of Pakistan migrated to Republic of india. The Punjabi Hindu trader, ambassador, clerical worker, or professional settled in Indian Punjab and Delhi, only others too migrated to other parts of Bharat in search of a livelihood. Some migrated to the African continent and others to even more afar shores like Canada.

This paper discusses the lives of the Punjabi-Hindus in Ontario in terms of their family life cycle. The material for this paper was collected through informal interviews, observations, and participation in religious and cultural activities. All informants have been given pseudonyms. The word of the Panjabi-Hindu family in Ontario revolves effectually the concept of adaptation manifested in two extremes: a high degree of cultural retention and a high degree of cultural accommodation. The following two examples will explain the differences in the two types of accommodation.

Mr. Kashi

Mr. Kashi came to Canada equally a student in the late 1960s. In the mid-1970s his younger brother joined him as a loftier schoolhouse student. From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, the ii brothers tried to showtime a small concern. In the early on 1980s they sponsored their parents and a younger brother. Past the mid-1980s their extended family unit could have been living in a small town in Punjab, India. The ii brothers with their wives, four children, an unmarried brother, and their parents alive in a six sleeping accommodation house northward of Metro Toronto. The two brothers manage three stores, the father acts every bit a financier and coordinator of the business, and the younger blood brother attends a community college. The marriages of the two brothers were arranged with young women from a minor town in Punjab, and the youngest blood brother is engaged to a young woman from the same town. The three women-mother in law and two daughters-in law-manage the house. The senior couple spends six months of the year in Republic of india and six months in Canada. Mr. Kashi, his brother, and his father are economically successful and well adapted to Canadian society, but culturally they retain traditional family norms, nutrition (vegetarianism), and religious observances; the three married women observe the annual fast (karva chauth) for the wellbeing of their husbands, and the three yr-erstwhile son's birthday was celebrated with the performance of "havan" (fire sacrifice).

Mr. Amar

Mr. Amar immigrated to the Canadian prairies in 1963, and six months afterwards his married woman and ii children joined him. In 1966 he moved to Ontario, where his two younger children were born. His wife remained at home and took intendance of the children. When the youngest went to school total-time, she joined the labour force as a clerical worker. Every bit a family, the Amars made no conscious attempt to retain the Panjabi-Hindu culture they had brought with them. The husband and married woman spoke Punjabi betwixt themselves, but the wife adopted Euro-Canadian attire when she joined the piece of work force. No conscious effort was made to persuade their children to speak Punjabi or to dress in Hindu-Punjabi way. In the terminal twenty-5 years only one trip was made to India. The daughters joined health related professions after completing their university education. In the mid-1980s two older daughters married Euro-Canadian men.

In the mid-195Os simply a very few Punjabi-Hindu families were living in Toronto. Normally these families were those of students who came to Toronto for postgraduate studies, such as medicine and engineering. According to one informant, in 1956 there were not more than 8 Panjabi-Hindu families in Toronto. At that place were no places of worship, and these Punjabis, mostly professionals, met in each other'due south homes and participated in intellectual rather than religious meetings. By the late 1960s, subsequently the change in immigration policy, a large number of young immigrants of Panjabi-Hindu groundwork fabricated Ontario their habitation. Nigh of these immigrants were single men who joined the labour force every bit accountants, teachers, or members of other white-collar occupations. Professionals like engineers and doctors went through the complicated procedure of getting their qualifications recognized. Married immigrants were either childless or, if they had children, they were in their pre-teens.
By the mid seventies most single men had made the journey back to India to get married; the marriages were through advertisements in Indian newspapers or with the help of friends and relatives in Republic of india. Many of these young men had dated Euro-Canadian women, but in about cases when the relationship had become serious and might have led to marriage, the parents living in India intervened. The young man abruptly left for Bharat and returned accompanied past a helpmate. In i informant's judge the pct of mixed marriages (Euro-Canadian and Indian) was not more than than iii per cent. Upon their inflow in Canada, many immature wives joined the labour forcefulness as white-neckband workers.

From the mid-1970s to the early on 1980s, the Punjabi-Hindu population grew rapidly, though the families remained pocket-sized. Nearly young Punjabi-Hindu men and women did not have more than three children, and many of them found one child plenty responsibility.

By the mid-1980s two developments took identify in the community. Outset, immigrant children who had been in their pre-teens at the time of immigration and who were now adolescents or adults joined the labour force, enrolled in universities, or married. In particular more young women than men married. The second development was that in many cases grandparents joined the immigrant family unit. More men than women sponsored their parents. These two developments created a strain upon family relationships.

As the children reached boyhood and adulthood, their parents became anxious about the scholastic functioning and career choices of young men and Canadian order's accent upon dating, likewise as the wedlock prospects of young women. Dating was considered a more serious problem for young women then for young men. Parents exerted both overt and subtle pressure to channel their sons into careers like police force, medicine, and engineering science, whereas some parents did non encourage mail-secondary education amidst their daughters. The daughters tended to consummate grade thirteen, enter the labour force as secretaries, and have their marriages arranged in India, though sometimes the bodily spousal relationship ceremony took place in Ontario.

Immature men were able to affirm themselves more immature women. They resorted to such strategies equally stalling their parents' marriage proposals, or marrying a young woman of Indian origin who was in North America. In i case the swain married a young adult female of similar sub-caste from Edmonton, Alberta. The bride's family came to Toronto to solemnize the wedlock, which was celebrated according to the contemporary New Delhi blueprint of holding "Ladies' Sangeet" (a gathering of women to sing marriage songs) a day before the wedding. The spousal relationship anniversary was followed by a reception in a hotel. In the second example, the young man met the young woman from Bombay in Toronto. She was visiting her father'south sister in Toronto, and had advertised for a groom in "Republic of india Abroad", an Indo-Canadian newspaper. The ii young people met over dinner in a eating house, and the immature woman's Toronto aunt fabricated arrangements for the matrimony ceremony.

Marriages arranged with grooms from Bharat carry the danger of function reversal and office conflict. The wife has grown up in Canada, may have a job, and knows more virtually Canada. The groom has yet to become knowledgeable about this land and may have to struggle to find a suitable chore. At least ii such marriages take ended in separation. Co-ordinate to a social worker, Punjabi-Hindu parents with adolescent or unmarried children find this phase of their family unit cycle strenuous. This is the period when the husband may start blaming his married woman for bringing up the children the wrong style.

The Punjabi-Hindu family were faced with a 2d pressure when the grandparents immigrated. The effect of this development was felt most by the women and children of the family unit. The adult female of the family had lived a relatively autonomous life in her nuclear family's own apartment or house, and in the absence of grandparents, the children had not learned to exist deferential to older people. The grandparents, however, brought with them the traditional expectations of behaviour between parents-in-law and children and grandchildren and grandparents. Family relations became tense over problems such as the failure of the daughter-in-law to wear the traditional "saree" or "salwar-kameez" at dwelling, or to find religious or quasi-religious injunctions-for example, observing vegetarian Tuesday or whatever other day of the calendar week considered holy by the grandparents. Grandparents accused their grandchildren of being rude and outspoken and criticized them for not speaking Hindi or Panjabi at dwelling, and not using the respectful class of "you" when addressing their parents and grandparents. The grandparents were offended past their grandchildrens' addiction of translating English expressions into Punjabi or Hindi. An innocuous expression such as "Don't issues me," when translated literally into Hindi or Punjabi sounded very rude. The mothers-in-constabulary felt insulted if their daughters-in-law attended dinner parties and their hosts specified that seniors were non welcome. Where daughters-in-constabulary were in the labour forcefulness, their mothers-in-police force were frustrated by existence reduced to the position of babysitters.

The satisfaction or dissatisfaction virtually life in Ontario among the third generation depended upon their lives in India, their economic and personal autonomy in Ontario, and their willingness to adjust to Canadian guild. For example, the Kashi grandparents were satisfied with their role because gramps Kashi exerted considerable economic influence. Since the two daughters-in-law were not in the labour force, there was less external influence in the home. Neither did grandmother Kashi feel she was reduced to a babysitter. Since these grandparents spent half of the yr in India, the Kashi parents and children got some relief from tensions that sometimes resulted from the presence of the grandparents.

In another case, the grandfather was satisfied with his life in Canada only the grandmother was lonely and homesick. Mr. Vani, a retired regular army officer, spent his time playing bridge, line-fishing, painting the Canadian outdoors, and instructing his grandchildren in swimming and outdoor and indoor games. The grandfather and grandchildren conversed in English language, and thus tensions over deferential modes of spoken communication and address were minimal. Withal, Mrs. Vani felt isolated. In her late fifties and in ill wellness, she missed the like shooting fish in a barrel familiarity of her social and extended family life in Bharat. Mrs. Bura, on the other hand, who lived with her married daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, felt quite comfortable in Toronto. While her daughter was at piece of work, she took public transport to dissimilar parts of the city for shopping and sightseeing.

Though the Punjabi-Hindu customs is young, deaths have had an impact on families. Mr. D. lost his son in an accident, and Mr. One thousand.'due south son, a vivid young lawyer, committed suicide. Mrs. S. suffered from cancer, and in its advanced stage she insisted upon visiting India. Her husband and daughter accompanied her; she died within six weeks of her arrival. Two years later, Mr. S. married his deceased wife's cousin. Mrs. M.'south mother died in a Toronto hospital within two months of her arrival in Canada. On these sad occasions cremations were arranged, and a priest from one of the temples conducted the funeral rites. On the tenth or thirteenth solar day later the decease, family and friends gathered in the bereaved family's house for the performing of the burn down sacrifice, "havan." The mourning for the deceased was, however, brief and more subdued in Ontario than information technology would have been in Bharat.

Punjabi-Hindu families have brought a cultural pattern with them, but the pressures of earning a livelihood in Ontario and the cultural influences of Canadian society take acquired them to adapt to the new environs. At the same time, all the same, some families have made a conscious effort to retain part of their civilization. The patterns that the individual families take followed vary from a high degree of cultural retentiveness, as exhibited by the Kashis to a high degree of cultural accommodation, as shown in the case of the Amar family unit. The choices which families have fabricated were afflicted by the presence or absence of grandparents in the family and the participation of women in the labour force. The desire to retain traditional ways is clearly accentuated when the children marry. In this case, however, immature men have been more successful than young women at evading some of their parents' pressures for cultural retention.

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Source: https://archives.studentscommission.ca/magic/mt31.html

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