Public intellectual Alden Habacon is among a growing trend of observers who argue that “identity is dead.” While Asian Canadian identity and culture were once the primary agenda items, many no longer view them as the heart of Asian Canadianism. As Habacon asserts, “We've out-grown the mosaic model of multiculturalism. . . hybridity is also an outdated concept.”
New Diversity In the New Canada
Diversity, according to these young, educated, mostly stationed in urban centres in Canada, argue that none of the previous models of cultural diversity can account for our unprecedented ability to negotiate our identities and navigate the cultural spaces.
Not only have people of different ethnicities value their ancestry differently, the mainstream Canadian society has changed significantly as well.
Cultural Navigators and the Rise of Cultural Schema
Habacon, in establishing an online webzine called Schema which captures the “urban cool” of the latest news and trends of Canadian ethnic society, contend that for this generation, identity is fluid and changes with environment. Although for such “cultural navigators” as Schema has coined, ethnicity might be the first thing one sees in a Canadian, it's not the only thing. Regardless, this new and changing definition of ethnicity does not mean ethnicity is discounted and irrelevant. Rather, it is other cultural influences that defines ones experience – and hence, identity – in mainstream Canada.
Complex Web of Cultures and Identity Politics
While arguing that identity politics is outdated and anachronistic, Habacon proposes a new model for cultural identity, or “schema,” where one envisions individuals as dynamic identities that move through a complex web of cultures. Because of this new phenomenon, cultural Navigators view themselves as the product of these networks, available to them through a host of influences, which includes a mixture of immigration, family roots, and residency in other cities of the world.
The New Canadian Diversity of Ethnic Cool
As a result, new youths explore this unique evolution and experience of Canada's diversity, and with it the cultural and materialistic items associated with them, which includes food, music, art, film or comic books – items which the young, urban youth seek out, enjoy and produce as part of their diverse daily lives. The new Canadian schema dubs this new phenomenon as, “ethnic cool.”
Cultural Navigators as Cultural Ambassador
Canadian cultural navigators not only desire this new form of cultural modernism, particularly in the arts, media and public life, they swim in it. They are mobile, young, educated, value their ethnicity, but are not ultimately not defined by it. As a result, what we are witnessing is a new Canada that looks substantially different from the old Canada.
