Less Preferred Workers and Citizens in the Making: The Case of Greek Domestic Workers in Canada in the 1950s and 1960s

This chapter draws upon the article, 'The Temptations of New Surroundings': Family, State and Transnational Gender Politics in the Movement of Greek Domestic Workers to Canada in the 1950s and 1960s' in Tastsoglou. It explores the social construction of Greek immigrant female workers as 'suitable' workers in domestic service in Canada, by the Greek and Canadian authorities, as well as ICEM, as revealed through the archival documents. The chapter investigates the interplay of gender, ethnicity, and class at the particular socio-historical time in Canada in such a construction. It discusses the implications of this construction for the citizenship of these immigrant women. Based on the archival government documents, Greek migrant women are being constructed as suitable domestic workers through the intersection of gender, race/ethnicity, and class. Post-World War II immigration practices placed Greece among the most important sources of Canadian immigration, surpassed only by the United States, Britain, Italy, and Portugal.