What ethnic groups does Canada have?
Ethnic groups refer to a specific group of people sharing a common heritage and culture. The members of the group tend to identify with each other through similar linguistic, cultural, religious, and behavioral traits.
There are over 100 various ethnic groups residing in Canada. Most of them have retained their respective languages and cultures. Canadian government’s policy of multiculturalism provides encouragement to various ethnic groups of Canada to preserve their distinctive heritage and also share that with Canada’s remaining population.
Canada consists of primarily two founding ethnic communities. They are the British and the French. British Canadians have mostly exercised dominance over Canada. However the French Canadians were no less successful in maintaining their distinctive culture and language mostly in the Quebec region. During the 1960s, the French minority population put pressure on the government to avoid French culture and language from being overthrown by the English society. As a response to this plea, the government of Canada took on its shoulder the responsibility of devising ways to prevent discrimination against the different ethnic groups. Other Canadian ethnic groups are Germans, Ukrainians, Italians, Chinese, Dutch, Indians, Aboriginals, Jewish, Moroccans, African Americans, South Asians, Latin Americans, Greek, Arab.
In contrast to Canada, the United States of America is a place where usually ethnic identities are lost under larger American dominance.
