A comparative study of the process of acculturation among certain groups of immigrants in the Province of Manitoba

Abstract

The process of acculturation has always presented a challenge for the students of anthropology. It has been studied and discussed in its multiple aspects by many a scholar. They all sought to understand the factors contributing to this process and how this process as a whole works. The present work, too, is an attempt in this direction. This paper deals with Canadian immigrants, but it is not a study of immigration in general, nor is it a study of any particular community of immigrants in the province of Manitoba. Further, this work is not concerned with the problems created by the prejudices and racial conflicts between the majority group and any minority groups... The aim and scope of this work is a comparative study of two groups of people - Hutterites and Romanians - who immigrated to Manitoba prior to 1930 from the agricultural areas of their place of origin. It is an endeavour to set forth the course of acculturation underwent by these immigrants in Manitoba, and, more specifically, to explain why these two groups differed dramatically in their adjustment to Canadian society. It is hoped, also that this work represents a significant addition to the explication of the process of acculturation of immigrants in general. But the primary intention of the author was to restrict his description and analysis to certain specified immigrant groups in their encounter with the new society, and to identify the variables which seem to have determined the accomplished, differential mode of response of these two groups of immigrants in the acculturation process...