The Icelandic Voice in Canadian Letters

Carol A. Stos is an assistant professor of Spanish at Laurentian
University.

This book’s title notwithstanding, in Daisy Neijmann’s final
analysis, there is no longer an Icelandic voice in Canadian letters.
Canada’s official multiculturalism policy, a policy “based on
assimilationist cultural assumptions,” perpetuates the anglo-Canadian
status quo: writers who work from an ethnic (marginal) perspective risk
being ghettoized and being read and critiqued by standards different
from those applied to mainstream literature. Consequently, contemporary
Icelandic-Canadian writers are choosing to conform to the establishment
norm, abandoning a literary exploration of their heritage and thus
losing their distinctive voice.

Neijmann’s thesis should be straightforward, but there are confusing
currents in her work. In the initial chapters, which describe the
historical and literary background of the original Icelanders, their
emigration to Canada, and the gradual, inevitable melding of the
memories and influences of their Icelandic past with the experiences of
their Canadian present, she argues convincingly that “Canadian
literature of a different ethnic background has a valuable contribution
to make to the anglo-Canadian tradition.” She seems to be building a
case for the ethnic (hyphenated-Canadian) voice, particularly when she
asserts that “marginality and ethnicity have become fashionable
concepts in Canadian literary criticism” and, furthermore, that
“Canadian writers have come to accept marginality as their
identity.” What could be more (mainstream) Canadian than a search for
identity—and is that not an overwhelming theme in ethnic-Canadian
writing?

Yet Neijmann also asserts that “once the label ‘ethnic’ has been
attached to a work of literature, it is no longer eligible for the label
Canadian.” She argues that “institutionalized multiculturalism”
focuses on the visual and “colourful” past, rather than on
appreciating “other” values and their integration into the Canadian
experience and identity. This emphasis causes Icelandic-Canadian writers
to revert to their community’s traditional strategy for
self-preservation: “public assimilation and private ethnicity.”
Although Neijmann has argued that this is precisely how the
Icelandic-Canadians have always maintained their distinctive identity,
somehow it is also now tantamount to losing their voice. In the end, the
Icelandic-Canadian voice does seem to be lost, but one is not entirely
certain where or how.