Hispanic (Hybridity) in Canada: The Making and Unmaking of a Diaspora

Abstract

Ethnic media are powerful, and yet overlooked, spaces that immigrants and ethnic minorities establish to address issues that are not discussed in the dominant host society media. With the international migration of over five million people each year from majority to minority world nations, the emergence of ethnic media in countries around the world has increased significantly; however, relatively little is understood about the ways in which these spaces are used by immigrants and ethnic minorities. This thesis adds to a relatively new area of study in sociology, international development, and alternative media studies and investigates the ways in which Spanish-language ethnic media acts as a ‘Third Space’ where Hispanics disseminate, negotiate, (re)construct, and (re)articulate new notions of hybrid Hispanic-Canadian identity, an identity that operates against, and engages with, multiple-forms of difference and exclusion within Canada. A qualitative discourse analysis of 18 articles from Spanish-language ethnic media source El Correo Canadiense reveals the ways in which Hispanics in Canada negotiate hybridized identity by using ethnic media as a space to create a discourse that acts counter-hegemonically to Canadian mass-media. The findings also reveal the ways in which Hispanics are aiming to engage Canadians in the process of de- and re-constructing preconceived notions of what it means to “be Hispanic” in a transnational context.