Being married to a Japanese in Penticton puts our family in a unique position. There are few mixed couples here and we stand out. I was very aware of this during our first year in Penticton but now we are almost in our third year I have gotten used to it and do not think about it anymore. For example, I used to be very conscious of our crazy conversations as we shopped (Atsuko speaking Japanese to me and I would respond either in English or in Japanese) but now I don’t pay any attention to it at all.
This week I read an interesting article on mixed couples in Canada (white married to visible minority or visible minority to visible minority) and found some very revealing figures. I was not surprised by Vancouver being the leading city with the highest proportion of mixed couples but I am surprised by Calgary being number 3. However, my nephew who lives in Calgary has commented on the large immigrant population in Calgary (25% of Calgarians are visible minorities). I still tend to think of Calgary in terms of the white cowboy on horseback but that image belongs in the 1980s (when I lived in Alberta) and certainly not today.
Another big surprise was discovering there are 1,230 Japanese living in Kelowna (a 1 hour drive north of Penticton). Sure, Kelowna has a much larger population compared to Penticton (Kelowna has 160,000 residents and Penticton has 33,000) but I assumed most of the Japanese in BC live in the lower mainland. How many are in Penticton? There must be less than 20!
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo53f-eng.htm
Here are some interesting facts I found in the article:
-more than 340,000 Canadian children are growing up in mixed-race families
- 5% of children in 2 parent families live in mixed-race households
-between 2001 and 2006 the number of mixed unions grew by 33%
-mixed unions are most common among Canadians 25-34 years old (6.8%)
-BC has the largest proportion of mixed unions (6.4%) followed by Ontario (4.6%) and then Alberta (4.2%)
-Vancouver has the largest share of mixed unions (8.5%) followed by Toronto (7.1%) and then Calgary (6.1%)
-Japanese had the highest proportion of marrying outside their visible minority group (75%) followed by Latin Americans (47%), Blacks (41%), Filipinos (33%)
Sources:
“Number of mixed-race couples on the rise in Canada: Stats Can” http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Number+mixed+race+couples+rise+Canada+StatsCan/2928592/story.html
and
http://beta.images.theglobeandmail.com/archive/00599/21N_Mixed_unions_599481a.pdf