多元文化政策對於加拿大少數民族來說，是一項當權統治階級者以多民族社會管理文化多元的統治手法，以官方手段在一個國家內部強制推行不同文化之間的尊重與寬容。本論文藉由探討加勒比海裔加拿詩人Dionne Brand於2005年的小說What We All Long For來重新認識與構思加拿大的多元文化政策，同時從作者筆下的黑人角色、越南移民、散落在東南亞各地的難民營、以及身處加拿大的移民角色之間的互動，刻劃出貼近人與人之間真實互動的多元民族與多元文化之間的互動與共同記憶。
本論文的第一章整理出關於加拿大多元文化的歷史背景,並在文獻探討中歸納出本論文的理論架構，共區分為三大項—女性主義的介入、白人的多元文化理論、以及重思多元文化—並在此三者的相互影響之下試圖連結、填補、縫合加拿大多元文政策下所造成的空缺與隔閡。第二章所呈現的是Dionne Brand所刻劃的黑人文化與社群。跟隨著Dionne Brand所描繪出來的黑人生活與移民歷史，我探討黑人的過去與現在將如何與加拿大的移民史作連結、黑人女性的自主性、以及多元文化的法令政策對黑人所帶來的衝擊與影響。在第三章中，我接著探討小說中另一條發展主軸—越南裔加拿大移民者與離散在東南亞各地難民營的角色Quy—如何穿梭於加拿大與東南亞兩地之間，著重於離散移民者如何透過不同的時空背景因素，共同來到加拿大開創自己的家園並努力地生活在當下的每分每秒。我接著探討，Dionne Brand如何透過細膩的生活細節的描述，塑造出多元文化的精隨—離散民族之間相互影響、跨民族、跨文化與國界的親密互動與記憶場景。第四章的結論指出Dionne Brand所運用的小說形式，巧妙地運用第三人稱與第一人稱敘述方式，交叉使用下留給讀者足夠的空間想像發揮。本章節最後指出加拿大多元文化政策對台灣的過去、現在、未來能有多大的啟發。台灣面臨著外來移民、外籍勞工、外籍新娘與日俱增的現狀，再者早期台灣已有不同族群文化一同居住在這塊土地；本論文藉由重思多元文化，將「文化」回歸於族群之間密不可分的日常生活中，點點滴滴累積而成的生活經驗，而台灣正因為不同族群的注入更為豐富且多采多姿。

This thesis has attempted to reimagine multiculturalism by investigating how the recent fiction of Dionne Brand represents the culturally dynamic process of multiculturalism. It has investigated the significant vibration of cultural differences represented in Dionne Brand’s novel What We All Long For (2005). In this novel, Brand presents the overlapping stories of second-generation youths who are living in the downtown Toronto and searching for their longing in this cosmopolitan city. The story circles around four characters with different races, cultures, and class backgrounds, with a particular focus on Tuyen, who is a lesbian avant-garde artist and the daughter of Vietnamese parents who have never recovered from losing one of their children in the crush to board a boat out of Vietnam in the 1970s. As a counterpoint to the stories of these four characters, Brand adopts a first-person perspective to tell the story of the fifth main character, Quy, who survives in various refugee camps and also in Thailand underworld. With the narrative shifts between Canada and the refugee camps back in Thailand, Brand represents a diasporic world that is parallel with the contemporary longings of the novel’s characters in Toronto. In what ways can characters with different cultures respond to their roles as representative multicultural others¬¬¬¬¬—and how could they assert themselves in this city? The critical project of rethinking the influence or impact of multiculturalism upon people with different diasporic experiences or genders is central to rediscover the very formation of multicultural nationhood in Canada, and contributing to this critical project is one of the main objectives of this thesis.
There will be four chapters in this thesis. Chapter One will investigate the notion of “multiculturalism,” which includes not only an official dominant strategy in attempting to recognize and manage cultural difference within the nation but also more complicated debates provoked by the term “multiculturalism” and arguments brought up among writers and critics in this field. Here, more advanced issues pertaining to the term “multiculturalism” will be included: the problematical heterogeneity of diasporic issues as they intersect with multiple considerations of cultures and nations. In this respect, the introductory chapter will discuss Brand’s significant contribution to diasporic discourse in relation to the contours of multicultural development in Canada. Chapter Two will investigate Brand’s black writing with a focus on specific debates involving critics such as Rinaldo Walcott and George Elliott Clarke. In the context of multiculturalism, how and in what ways can Brand’s black writing articulate what Walcott calls “an attempt to provide some grammars for thinking blackness in Canada” (“Introduction” 13)? Chapter Three will investigate Brand’s representation of Vietnamese diasporic time and space, including life in multicultural Canada as well as Quy’s refugee life in Thailand’s underworld. This chapter will ask: how would the collision of different diasporic times and spaces represented in the novel help us to address what Brand, following Wilson Harris, calls the “layers and layers of experiences” (“Imagination” 144) as different diasporic subjects meet and interact in a “multicultural” space? Chapter Four will conclude this thesis and speculate upon how representations of diasporic agency would be able to relate to the project of creating a more realistic and life-respecting expression of existence in the context of dominant multiculturalism. This thesis attempts to open further thinking about Brand’s writing to understand the on-going struggles over—and transformations of—cultural debates concerning multiculturalism in Canada.

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