Narrowing the gap by widening the conflict: Power politics, symbols of sovereignty, and the American Vietnam War resisters' migration to Canada

In this article, I consider how a second face or dimension of covert politi cal power was used to deny legal immigration status to Vietnam War military resisters who sought refuge in Canada during the early years of the larges t politically motivated migration since the American Revolution. Recently d eclassified historical records and interviews with former politicians and a dministrators reveal that the Canadian Immigration Department and its minis ter misled the public in advancing an official myth about the evolution of this migration. Until successfully exposed by persistent and innovative inv estigative journalism, the backstage use of political power kept American V ietnam military resisters who were seeking to legally immigrate defensively framed in a symbolic package that defined them as culturally unsuitable. S everal thousand American military resisters lived illegally in Canada until conflict about their plight was successfully broadened and transformed int o an effective collective grievance and claim under Canadian immigration la w. Once the gap between Canadian immigration law and its practice was fully exposed, the conflict about this policy grew rapidly to include a number o f cultural elite groups and a master framing of these American servicemen a s unexpected symbols of Canadian sovereignty. A fully elaborated explanatio n of the collective transformation of sociolegal grievances into successful legal claims requires combined attention to the macrolevel interaction of political power and cultural symbolism.