That is who we are”: The cultural expressions of food, language, dress and ethnic events – and [social] identity (re)negotiation among Ghanaian immigrants in Toronto

Ghanaians, like other Africans in global dispersion, do not sever ties with their country of origin, Ghana, but instead maintain familial ties in multistranded ways. Some studies demonstrate how these ties are interwoven into the daily lives of Ghanaian immigrants in Canada. This paper contributes to the broader literature by demonstrating how Ghanaians use innate culture to (re)negotiate their identification in Toronto. A visible minority group in Canada whose experiences are often categorized within other identities and whose cultural history, unlike other minorities, has engendered little research. I argue, using in-depth interviews of fourteen Ghanaian immigrants in Toronto, that sustaining Ghanaian identity undergirds most Ghanaian cultural interactions. In particular, the study found that Ghanaian immigrants in Toronto maintained and (re)defined their identity through intra- and inter-group cultural expression of food, language, dress and ethnic events in Canada.