Introduction

Abstract: Canada, Australia, the UK, and the US have a considerable number of minority immigrants and many more continue to move there. The social make-up of these immigrants has changed from earlier times - there are more from Asia, Africa, and the Middle-East moving to these countries. These immigrants, in spite of their education and experience from their home countries, often have a difficult time finding jobs and settling in, let alone trying to be leaders in their field. They need help in securing a place in the community, finding a job that they are trained for, and then becoming leaders in their organization. This is minority leadership and it is different from cross-cultural leadership. There are also differences between a first generation immigrant minority leader and leaders from the second or third generation immigrant population. While the last two identify themselves with what is their native culture, first generation immigrants are still torn between their native culture and the new culture in which they live. This may not be true of all immigrant minorities - some seek and find opportunities and flourish quickly, others take a long time, and many just focus on their children's futures.

Key words: minority leaders, minority leadership, crosscultural leadership, visible minorities, minority leadership literature, Australia, UK, United States, Canada, diversity

In the fall of 2009, when I was still the Virtual Reference Librarian at the Saskatoon Public Library (SPL) in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, I had the opportunity to attend the Leadership Development Program organized by the City, funded by my employer (for me) and offered through the Edwards School of Business, University of Saskatchewan. It was an eight-week session (one evening a week) covering a range of topics from Understanding Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Encouraging the Heart, and being a role model as a leader. The program was taught by various facilitators and attended by people from various job fields - a physician, a soup-kitchen manager, police officer, manager of a senior home, City workers and myself, the only librarian.

I am fascinated by the idea of leadership in the Western countries and our obsession with it, but was also disappointed that none of the facilitators could tell me anything about ethnic-minority leadership. This is Canada, a multicultural country, where in 2002 there were 3 million visible minorities who represented 13 per cent of the non-aboriginal population aged 15 years and older (Statistics Canada, 2003). In 2006, 5,068,100 individuals called themselves visible minorities (Statistics Canada, 2010).

What is ethnic-minority leadership?

Ethnic-minority leadership is different from cross-cultural leadership. Cross-cultural leadership issues generally focus on a leader from the Anglo-Saxon culture learning about the nuances of the cultures they have to do business with to be successful and profitable. It focuses on this leader's ability to incorporate the kaleidoscopic nature of the cultural variables into their everyday business activities. Ethnic-minority leadership is about identifying potential candidates from minority groups within Anglo-Saxon cultures to become leaders in whatever field they are in and providing them with the support and training necessary. This could mean upgrading their education, technical, language or leadership skills, or simply encouraging them to live up to their fullest potential at work and recognizing them for their contributions.

Who are visible minorities?

The Employment Equity Act (1995) defines visible minorities as "persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour" (s.3). The Commission for Racial Equality, a public body from the UK that deals with racial discrimination and which has merged to become the new Equality Human Rights Commission, states that "visibility is a vague term that could refer to a number of things including phenotype [observable characteristics] accent, dress and name" (Office for National Statistics, 2007). These statistics include visible minorities of all generations.

So, why focus on these new immigrant visible minorities?

Note that the terms ethnic minorities, visible minorities, new immigrants, immigrants, are all being used interchangeably and they all mean minorities living in majority white countries.

In 2005, the Toronto City Summit Alliance, a coalition of civic leaders that focuses on many initiatives in the City including DiverseCity in Toronto in Canada, reported, "Immigrants already provide 60 per cent of our population growth. By 2020, they will supply 100 per cent" (Siddiqui, 2005). Statistics Canada (2005) adds that "roughly one out of every five people in Canada, or between 19 per cent and 23 per cent of the nation's population, could be a member of a visible minority by 2017 when Canada celebrates its 150th anniversary . Canada would have between 6.3 million and 8.5 million visible minorities 12 years from now." Canada is not the only country experiencing immigration growth with a focus on visible minorities. Australia, another multicultural country similar to Canada, also reports a growth in its immigrant population. Immigration has also been a significant factor in contributing to Australia's population growth but has been more volatile. In 1993, immigration contributed about 23.1 per cent to population growth and in 2008, this rose to 59.5 per cent (Australian Government, 2009). According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the immigrant landscape has changed in Australia as well. It is not just immigrants from English speaking countries that arrive to live in Australia; in 2007, of the 647,000 immigrants "the majority (76 per cent) were born in other than main English speaking countries." People born in the UK contributed to the largest group of overseas-born Australian residents, closely followed by China, India and Italy, in that order, in large numbers.

In the United Kingdom, in 2001, 4.9 million (8.3 per cent) of the total UK population was born overseas and an estimated 223,000 more people migrated to the UK in 2004 (Office for National Statistics, 2005). BBC news reported that "people born in Asian or African countries accounted for 40 per cent and 32 per cent respectively of all applications, the principal nationalities being Pakistani, Indian and Somalian" (News, 2006). In the United States, where multiculturalism is not a clearly established policy at the federal level, "slightly more than half (53 per cent) of resident non-immigrants were citizens of Asian countries" (Baker, 2010). The United States also has a healthy Latino and African-American population who are visible minorities. People have always migrated to the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, but recently the social make-up of immigrants coming to these countries has changed. It is no longer Europeans moving between countries, but the non-Caucasians from different countries that come from different age groups, with different levels of education, economic background and status (refugees) that constitute the new immigrant population in all these countries and they are the very visible minorities.

Table I.1

Regions of birth, proportion of Australia's population - selected years at 30 June

Source: ABS: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/0549A6756B213B25CA25776E00178A59?opendocument

Considering the number of visible minorities that live in these countries, especially here in Canada, it is baffling and perhaps even shameful that there was not much literature on minority leadership. After all, many of these minority immigrants would or could have been leaders in their profession or their community at some point in their lives.

Focus of this book

This book will focus on visible minorities as in those who are non-Caucasian and have certain obvious characteristics that set them apart, such as accent, dress, etc., who work in the field of libraries and information sciences. Although visible minorities of all generations will find this book useful, first generation visible minorities will find it particularly useful and relevant to their work experiences. This is because, even though the second and third generation visible minorities are visible minorities, they do not see themselves in the same way as do first generation minorities who are trying or struggling to fit in. In spite of the differences in physical appearances, if any, second and third generation visible minorities are citizens of the country that their parents or grandparents emigrated to and have assimilated into the culture of the country in which they were born, in terms of education and cultural and professional experience. Because of this, they do not face the same challenges that first generation visible minorities do. One major challenge that first generation visible minorities face is the cultural differences between themselves and their new host country. The book does not focus on Aboriginal populations or smaller populations who have lived within a country for many generations, such as French Canadians in Canada, but touches on challenges faced by African-American populations in spite of having lived in the US, the UK or Canada for...