Ethnic groups have conventionally been constructed in ways that homogenize their experiences and erase the many distinctions, such as those of social class and gender, within them. There are commonalities of experience, no doubt, but at the same time there are vast differences that stem from the different identities. The social construction of an ethnic group may emphasize a particular aspect of its identity, such as language or religion (e.g., head scarf), which not only subsumes its other attributes but also blames the victims for the difficulties they encounter in integrating themselves with Canadian society. Yet, as postcolonial feminists argue, women have had to ‘negotiate the precarious balance between the tenacious forces of integration and the desire to maintain a sense of their cultural identity as a strategy of selfpreservation in their country of adoption’

Indian women, like other racialized women, experience racism when white Canadians encounter their ‘difference’ from the norm, whether it is skin colour, different clothing, or an inability to speak English. Everyday racism ‘expresses itself in glances, gestures, forms of speech, and physical movements. Sometimes it is not even consciously experienced by its perpetrators, but it is immediately and painfully felt by its victims – the empty seat next to a person of colour, which is the last to be occupied in a crowded bus; the slight movement away from a person of colour in an elevator; the overattention to the black customer in the shop; the inability to make direct eye contact with a person of colour; the racist joke told at a meeting; and the ubiquitious question ‘Where did you come from?’