Inside the mosaic

Abstract

© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2006. The majority of recent immigrants to Canada have chosen to settle in large cities and immigrants have become an integral part of the country’s urban experience. How the presence of immigrants shapes the urban structures, and social processes of large cities, and how these structures and processes affect immigrants’ ability to adapt to their new surroundings, are the dual foci of Eric Fong’s Inside the Mosaic, a collaborative and detailed assessment of immigration in Canada from some of the field’s top minds. Focusing on Toronto, the contributors explore residential patterns, physical environment, family structures, social networks, and health. Their findings clearly demonstrate that the relationships of immigration with urban structures and group processes are multi-faceted, and that the integration process of today’s immigrant groups is complex. Toronto has benefited greatly from successive waves of immigration, but this has never negated the difficulty faced by the city in making adjustments to accommodate newcomers, nor the difficulties faced by immigrants in creating new lives. Inside the Mosaic is an essential tool for understanding the struggle faced by both the city and its new residents, which will bring clarity to a subject that has historically been fraught with divergent views.