Gatekeepers: Reshaping Immigrant Lives in Cold War Canada

by Franca Iacovetta

An in-depth study of European immigrants to Canada during the Cold War, "Gatekeepers" explores the interactions among these immigrants and the "gatekeepers" - mostly middle-class individuals and institutions whose definitions of citizenship significantly shaped the immigrant experience. Iacovetta's deft discussion examines how dominant bourgeois gender and Cold War ideologies of the day shaped attitudes towards new Canadians. She shows how the new comers themselves were significant actors who influenced Canadian culture and society, even as their own behaviour was being modified.
Generously illustrated, "Gatekeepers" explores a side of Cold War history that has been left largely untapped. It offers a long overdue Canadian perspective on one of the defining eras of the last century.
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Genres: History, Canada, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 2006

Reviews

[Katie]

A twofold study around the immigrant and gatekeepers' experience in Cold War Canada, Iacovetta's text outlines the various means by which "gatekeepers" (in this context, meaning the variety of groups, individuals, and forces that interacted, directly or not, with newcomers to Canada) intervened into the lives of newly arrived immigrants, and the ways these practices served to help shaped them into "model and modern Canadian citizens". In bringing displaced persons, Canadian officials and gatekeepers sought to combine modern democratic ideals with containment, as they encouraged immigrants to keep the "savory" aspect of their culture, while conforming to Canadian/Western capitalist ideals around consumption, families, and sexuality.