As an executive officer on the board of directors for a government-subsidized local immigrant aid society in Québec, Canada, I have the privilege of being part of the hiring (and unfortunately, firing) process for our small staff.
That responsibility has provided me greater insight into the culture of workplace discrimination and how it can be simultaneously so insidious, yet so commonplace and difficult to address even in a more liberal and tolerant social environment like Canada.
First, let me say that the process is currently ongoing, so I'll provide complete anonymity as to the details. We are a small city of about 45,000 people with an equally small immigrant population that is mostly transient. They come here, they generally fail to find work, so they move back to Montréal, or go off to Ottawa. Some who stay buy small businesses like convenience stores in bad locations and struggle to make ends meet living the stereotypical immigrant existence.
Our organization is tasked with two goals. Those goals include giving assistance to newly arrived immigrants to the city and sensitizing the city's mostly homogeneous (white, Catholic, French-speaking) population as to the importance of immigration to the economy and to the society. We also try to address, as best as possible,
the ugly misconceptions about immigrant people through community outreach.
Our organization is fairly new and it has had its growing pains. In 10 years we've gone through a number of directors and a dozen board members for various reasons (salary, unprofessional behavior, professional upgrading, intolerant attitudes, etc.). During that time we've only had one immigrant person directing our organization. Unfortunately, she was a native Spanish speaker whose French was still a work in progress. As a result, she got little patience from the board and eventually, and not surprisingly, she left. Her tenure also left negative attitudes among some on the board about hiring immigrants.
As a member of the board representing the cultural community, I find such things taking place in an immigrant aid society to be shocking and quite appalling and I've consistently made my disappointment known to the rest of the board members.
But, it is what it is. All things considered, it could be worse. Québec is not Arizona. It is, all-in-all, a fairly progressive place. So, this is an example of how even in such places these mindsets continue to persist.
The fact is, in regards to the director position, on every occasion the the position has been vacant, we always receive a pool of qualified applicants who are, themselves, immigrants. Sadly, these individuals never make it to the interview process for a host of reasons that seem very clear to me. Some of those reasons are culturally specific to Québec (the issue of language as part of one's identity is a big one), but many of them are general to North America as a whole. These include:
1) An emphasis placed on hiring people within the professional network of the people on the board.
(Immigrants generally do not belong to professional networks and their social networks are often equally limiting)
2) Unfamiliar names.
(If a name is not pronounceable, strange, or unfamiliar, the resume is most likely going into the trash pile.)
3) Unfamiliar educational achievements.
(If they never heard of a school, or a candidate has a degree from a foreign institution it is suspected as an education having less value.)
4) Unfamiliar life experiences.
(Candidates telling their life stories or interest in the job often recount situations that our board members cannot relate to.)
And, herein, lay the conundrum. The people with whom I work are good people with a personal interest in helping immigrants or they would not be on the board. They aren't racists or xenophobes or what one would consider "right wingers." They do, however, view their role as paternal, helping "those" people come here and live among us. They typically do not see them as their neighbors and friends.
Not surprisingly, during our latest search for a director not a single one of them could find a single qualified immigrant person out of a 60 resumes sent for the posting for our new director. Notwithstanding, as I had gone through them there were at least 10 qualified individuals that I could count and many more who could adapt their education and experiences to the position if given a chance.
All had been passed over.
Finally, after hearing them argue over whether or not to include another local individual with no experience at all working with immigrants I got angry (in a calm way) and told them in no uncertain terms that, I knew they were not bad people, but this was blatant discrimination on their part and I was not going to sit there and allow them to once again hold interviews for an immigrant aid society without at the very least inviting members of the cultural community to have an opportunity.
My response was met with the usual nauseating and ignorant drivel.
"We want the best candidate. I don't want to choose someone just because they are an immigrant. THAT'S discrimination! Look this African woman has nothing on her CV but a Masters degree in social work, telemarketing and and food tasting at Costco!"
And,...
"We need someone who can communicate clearly with our partners, and if they have a heavy accent or cannot speak and write French perfectly, that will not ultimately be helpful to our immigrant and refugee population."
I told them that part of our mandate was to sensitize the population about immigrants and there is no better way to do that than to hire someone who has lived through the experience at the same time providing someone with the best form of integration into Canadian society--a steady and meaningful job. And, by the way--there was a reason for the "African-Canadian" woman to have nothing on her CV but telemarketing and food tasting...people like him won't give her an opportunity.
In the end, my tantrum resulted in 3 immigrant people getting a job interview. They haven't the slightest chance of being hired, but I did what I could.
The worst part is that even in Canada, there was nothing illegal about the thought process that was going on in the minds of my colleagues as they were making their decision as to who to invite for an interview. People are just more comfortable around people who look, talk, and act like them. And, if there isn't someone around when such hiring decisions are made to make them feel uncomfortable about a decision-making process that marginalizes immigrants (or minorities), then they are just going to keep on doing what they do--hiring people that look, talk and act like them and voila, ça continue...
I just wish I was better at convincing my colleagues that they are engaging such discriminatory behavior without alienating them. And, I'm anxious to see what happens on interview day. I hope it will be a learning experience for them, instead of reinforcing their prejudices.
Thanks for reading.