Group Maintenance and Ethnic Commitment

Immigration has always been an emotional experience; it affects individuals at both the social and the psychological levels. One of the primary concerns of the Bangladeshi community in Canada is to preserve its cultural and social heritage, but, being small and new, it was slow to realize the importance of such cultural maintenance. Currently, families and cultural organizations share this responsibility. In addition to speaking Bengali at home, socializing with other Bangladeshi families, marrying within the community, or bringing their spouses from Bangladesh, members of the group maintain regular contact with relatives by long-distance telephone and by letter, and they send money to family in Bangladesh. They keep themselves abreast of developments in the homeland by reading Bengali-language newspapers and magazines, which are available from local Bangladeshi grocery stores.

A monthly Bengali newspaper, Deshe Bideshe (Home and Abroad; Toronto, 1991– ), caters to the needs of Canadian Bangladeshis. It has a circulation of five hundred. A group of Bangladeshis in Montreal began its own monthly newspaper, Probashibangla (Bangalee Abroad; Montreal, 1994– ); it has a circulation of two thousand. The process of creating community solidarity through the celebration of cultural and religious festivals and the maintenance of social and cultural practices has created hope for the Bangladeshis in Canada, where they have been striving hard to make their second home.