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Ethnic elites, the influential business owners, teachers, and newspaper editors within distinct ethnic communities, play an important role as self-appointed mediators between their communities and “mainstream” societies. In Ethnic Elites and Canadian Identity, Aya Fujiwara examines the roles of Japanese, Ukrainian, and Scottish elites during the transition of Canadian identity from Anglo-conformity to ethnic pluralism. By comparing the strategies and discourses used by each community, including rhetoric, myths, collective memories, and symbols, she reveals how prewar community leaders were driving forces in the development of multiculturalism policy. In doing so, she challenges the widely held notion that multiculturalism was a product of the 1960s formulated and promoted by “mainstream” Canadians and places the emergence of Canadian multiculturalism within a transnational context.

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The Canadian Social History Series is devoted to in-depth studies of major themes in our history, exploring neglected areas in the day-to-day existence of Canadians. The emphasis of this innovative series is on increasing the general appreciation of our past and opening up new areas of study for students and scholars. The editor of the series is Gregory S. Kealey, Provost, Professor of History and Vice-President (Research), University of New Brunswick. A leading historian of the Canadian working class, Dr Kealey was the founding editor of Labour/Le Travail. Ukrainian immigrants to Canada have often been portrayed in history as sturdy pioneer farmers cultivating the virgin land of the Canadian west. The essays in this collection challenge this stereotype by examining the varied experiences of Ukrainian Canadians in their day-to-day roles as writers, intellectuals, national organizers, working-class wage earners, and inhabitants of cities and towns. Throughout, the contributors remain dedicated to promoting the study of ethnic, hyphenated histories as major currents in mainstream Canadian history. Topics explored include Ukrainian-Canadian radicalism, the consequences of the Cold War for Ukrainians both at home and abroad, the creation and maintenance of ethnic memories, and community discord embodied by pro-Nazis, Communists, and criminals. Re-Imagining Ukrainian Canadians uses new sources and non-traditional methods of analysis to answer unstudied and often controversial questions within the field. Collectively, the essays challenge the older, essentialist definition of what it means to be Ukrainian Canadian. Rhonda L. Hinther is the Western Canadian History curator at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Jim Mochoruk is a professor in the Department of History at the University of North Dakota.