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Growing Up Where ‘No One Looked Like Me’: Gender, Race, Hip Hop and Identity in Vancouver

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Abstract

This paper examines how youth whose parents came from sub-Saharan Africa negotiate racialized forms of masculinity and femininity in Vancouver, Canada. The study is based on interviews with second generation African-Canadian men and women, and explores gendered and racialized dimensions of growing up in neighbourhoods where they were usually the only African and Black children. In this context, the second generation engages with representations of Black masculinity and femininity widely circulated through American popular culture, especially through hip hop, constituting a dominant frame of reference among adolescents that contributes to the great popularity of African-Canadian teenage boys, while girls find it much harder to fit in.

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Notes

  1. Metro Vancouver includes the City of Vancouver and the smaller municipalities of Burnaby, Coquitlam, Langley, North Vancouver (City and District), Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Richmond, Surrey, and West Vancouver.

  2. As a point of comparison, in 2006 783,800 people identified as Black in the Canadian census, 60 % lived in Ontario and 24 % in Quebec [18]. The 2006 census recorded 352,200 people who identified as Black in Toronto (7 % of the population) and 169,100 in Montreal (nearly 5 % of the population) [37, p. 5, 14, 27–30]. Of all African-born immigrants who arrived in Canada between 2001 and 2006, 37 % went to Montreal, 22 % to Toronto, and only 4 % to Vancouver [36, p. 25].

  3. As Myers argues, discourses of exotica help to reproduce racialized and gendered inequalities by reinforcing sexual hierarchies of desirability [26].

  4. Some Black women hip hop artists continue to contest the narrow stereotypes about women found in much commercial rap [15, 30, 41].

  5. Interviewees’ parents came from Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leon, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, and Togo.

  6. Participants were recruited through a number of strategies: advertizing in The Afro News, distributing flyers at churches, cultural organizations, and dance clubs, posters at local campuses, and referrals from other research participants.

  7. For the purposes of this paper, the second generation includes those born in Canada as well as those sometimes called the 1.5 generation, those born abroad but raised in Canada.

  8. Two participants in this research identified as Muslim, 4 identified as agnostic or atheists, and the rest identified as Christian.

  9. Heteronormativity refers to common assumptions that everyone is, or should be, heterosexual, in contrast to the actual diversity of sexual orientations.

  10. They also ranged in age from 19 to 28, 1 was Canadian-born, 2 arrived in elementary school and 2 in high school.

  11. Performance of rap masculinity in high school was symbolically expressed through dress, music, and attitude. No one discussed involvement in any kind of street life or gang activity.

  12. Unlike women, men did not use this term with reference to themselves; however their descriptions of girls/women pursuing them because they are Black signifies an exoticization of Black male bodies.

  13. Only three men recalled any problems with teachers: a teacher who disliked immigrants (Jack), one who criticized a girl for dating him (Luke), and one who “talked down” to him (Rylan). Jack was also unhappy being in ESL for 2 months.

  14. Some men, such as Bob (quoted earlier), noted stereotypes that Black men are not perceived as smart. However, this was raised in the context of stereotypes among peers and in popular culture, and not in interactions with teachers.

  15. Unfortunately the province of British Columbia does not collect high school completion or post-secondary data by visible minority status or ethnic origin.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding this research, all those who participated in the study, and Veronica Fynn, Sanzida Habib, Jeannie Morgan and E.J. Shu for their conscientious work as research assistants.

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  1. Department of Sociology, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Gillian Creese

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Creese, G. Growing Up Where ‘No One Looked Like Me’: Gender, Race, Hip Hop and Identity in Vancouver. Gend. Issues 32, 201–219 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-015-9138-1

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