‘I Began to Think More Like a Canadian’: How Second-Generation South Asian and Chinese Canadians Confront Racism by Becoming Conservative Voters

Elcioglu, Emine Fidan. 2025. “‘I Began to Think More Like a Canadian’: How Second-Generation South Asian and Chinese Canadians Confront Racism by Becoming Conservative Voters.” Ethnic and Racial Studies.  

Why would the children of immigrants back a party that has branded their communities as “queue-jumpers” and “security threats”? This article shows how second-generation South Asian and Chinese Canadians sometimes turn to the Conservative Party not in spite of racism, but as a strategy to manage it, using conservative identity as a way to edge closer to whiteness and middle-class privilege. In doing so, it unsettles the assumption that experiences of discrimination naturally push racialized groups toward progressive politics, revealing how exclusion can paradoxically fuel exclusionary allegiances.

Media coverage in: 
The Walrus (Aug 2025) 
CBC-Radio Canada (April 2025)

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