Northern passage: American Vietnam war resisters in Canada

Hagan's study contributes to our historical knowledge of Canada's role in the Vietnam War period and of the tenor of Canadian-U.S. relations during that era, as well as to the burgeoning literature on contemporary social movement theory. First, Hagan--himself a draft resister who moved to Canada and ultimately became a professor at the University of Toronto--provides a rich account of the life paths and ultimately the impact of Americans who found themselves in exile in Toronto during the Vietnam War. Second, he provides a refreshing reminder of a dramatically different time in Canada-U.S. relations, a high point of Canadian nationalism when welcoming American draft resistors contributed forcefully to attempts by the Canadian government to demonstrate its policy autonomy and sovereignty from the United States. Finally, his case study is an interesting and successful application of the increasingly popular political process theory on social movements. The research is supported by an eclectic array of data, which includes archival research, lengthy interviews with a hundred American war resisters living in Toronto, census data and access to other organizational and government files. Convincingly, Hagan argues that American Vietnam War resisters made a rational decision to exploit changes in the spring of 1969 to Canadian immigration law made under the then Trudeau government, changes which would allow Americans to now be admitted to Canada without concern for their military status. Moreover, further changes to Canadian immigration law continued through the early 1970s to provide new opportunities for Americans to take refuge, claim citizenship, or work for amnesty for fellow resisters. Once in Canada, war resisters were supported by a plethora of indigenous mobilizing structures in the form of organizations and resources in the new American immigrant community in and about the University of Toronto environs. These groups included the Toronto Anti-Draft Program; AMEX, the organization and news magazine begun for resisters; as well as the numerous shops and businesses in the so-called "American ghetto" (70). Finally, more complicated but life-altering cultural framing processes that involved resisters variously redefining themselves as activists, exiles, expatriates, and ultimately Canadian citizens, overlay with the emergent political opportunities and indigenous organizations to create much more sustained patterns of social and political activity.