The Icelandic Canadian - 01.08.2009, Síða 36

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 62 #3
development of dual identities. Scholars
such as Daisy Neijmann, for example,
focus on the role of Icelandic Canadians in
the growth of proto-multiculturalism such
as author Johann Magnus Bjarnason,
(1866-1945) whose writing focussed both
on the stories of Icelandic Canadian themes
and as well as their Ukrainian Canadian
and Metis neighbours. This, she writes, is
evidence of an early Icelandic Canadian
vision of a “completely new and multi-cul-
tural” third space for migrants and the
“muted and nameless, those who lived on
the margins of Canadian society.” As
Anne Brydon cautions in her discussion of
Icelandic-Aboriginal relations and the con-
struction of Icelandic Canadian myth,
however,
Social and ideational forces have
shaped and selected the memories on
which Icelandic-Canadian histories
counter A/ise
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have been based, and their nostalgic
narration glosses over less palatable
behaviours and events . . . the stories
of other nations and ethnic groups are
accessed sporadically, as long as they
fit into the myth of the historic
unfolding of the new identity.
Although the roots of Icelandic
Canadian privilege predate Halldorson’s
election, Katrina Srigley asserts that histo-
rians must also be particularly mindful of
shifting definitions of race and ethnicity
within the interwar period as they per-
tained to new opportunities for women.
Changing employment patterns as well as
displays of ethnic loyalty during the World
War One all contributed to the fluctuation
of Anglo-Canadian white privilege that
extended categories of “whiteness” and
privilege to previously unwelcome
English-speaking Italian and Jewish
women but continued to discriminate
against Black Canadian and Aboriginal
women. Interwar ethnic representatives
such as Halldorson, then, do not represent
the uniform progress of ethnic communi-
ties as a whole within Manitoba, however,
her election, popularity, and successful
integration of Icelandic elements into her
mainstream political campaigns again sig-
naled a broader degree of Anglo-Canadian
tolerance and appreciation of the Icelandic
culture and community.
It is within the critical framework set
forth by Srigley and Brydon that
Halldorson’s work must be assessed. As a
female Icelandic-Canadian MLA in the
interwar era, her work appears as part of
the broader negotiation of Icelandic
Canadian identity, yet her career was also
profoundly shaped by the restrictive cul-
tural atmosphere of Palmer’s “wilderness
of discrimination” and the parameters
which defined Icelandic Canadian privi-
lege, most notably Canadian nationalism.
Yet Halldorson herself also contributed to
discourses of Nordicism and Icelandic
privilege. Rather than creating an unlimited
third space for other migrant and ethnic
groups in Manitoba, her vision of Icelandic
Canadian inclusion focussed on the cre-
ation of a limited extension, rather than a