Week 15

Hello and welcome to week 15, which looks at some of the challenges that immigrant and refugee families can face.

We'll start off by briefly exploring Canada's immigration policy since it can be a bit convoluted. We'll talk about where it came from and what it purports to do. We'll look at some of the language that we use to talk about immigration and also to think about it, as well as the language we use to talk and think about immigrant families themselves.

We'll examine both the settlement experiences and pre-settlement experiences, and what similarities or commonalities exist. We'll look at immigrant family relationships and then interactions with schools.

To start off, global migration over the last several decades of the 21st century has accelerated, not just in Canada but worldwide. According to the International Organization of Migration, which is a branch of the UN that deals with migration, in 2020 they estimated that about 3.6% of the world's population were migrants—about 281 million people. This figure refers to international migrants and does not include those who may be internally displaced.

For example, if you were in Ukraine, which is one of the areas that Russia has been attacking, and you moved to Lviv on the western side of the country, you wouldn't be counted as an international migrant even though you've had to uproot your life and move elsewhere.

So, 281 million international migrants, and there's a huge amount of diversity among immigrant and refugee families in terms of their demographic characteristics, financial resources, and pre-migration experiences. We'll talk about this a bit more when we look at refugees and even just differences among refugees.

In some ways, I study immigration; that was my area of specialization for my PhD. I'm an immigrant myself, from the States, but I also know that my immigrant experience coming to Canada is vastly different from someone who's fresh off the plane from Myanmar. In both cases, we're both considered immigrants, but I've likely had a much easier time with things like acculturation, financial resources, and figuring out what's where.

Again, there's a huge amount of diversity within the immigrant experience. In some ways, it can feel really difficult to even talk about the immigrant experience, quote unquote, because there is such diversity. Yet, there are some commonalities that can happen.

That's also something to consider when thinking about migration policy: who is migration policy for? Who's considered an immigrant, and who gets left out of the conversation?

With respect to Canada's immigration policy, maybe some of you have heard the saying that Canada needs migrants, and that's true. If we want to keep up with the rest of the world, immigration is vital for sustaining Canada's population growth to counter a declining birth rate and an aging population.

The replacement rate that a country needs to have for a stable population is, on average, 2.1 children born to every woman, with the 0.1 accounting for the fact that not all make it to reproductive age. The latest estimates show that in Canada, it's at 1.33, so we're nowhere near the replacement rate. Without immigrants, again, our population would decline rapidly.

The immigration share of annual population growth is projected to increase from, I think it's actually a little bit higher than 71% now, but it's projected to increase to 100% by 2034. Even by 2030, immigration could account for 100% of the labor market growth.

The system we currently have in place is based largely on the immigration system that was introduced in 1967. Pre-1990, most newcomers were from Britain and the United States. For many years after, both federal and provincial governments tried to deter immigration of non-whites and members of certain religious groups, and they were pretty blatant about it.

The desire to keep Canada British conflicted with the need for labor. So, things like mining, lumber, and railway construction—we just didn't have enough folks from Britain or France coming in to do that. In boom times, both employers and the federal government supported the influx of workers, but during recessions, like the Great Depression, immigration was discouraged.

If this sounds familiar, it's because history does often repeat itself. Canada has also admitted many groups for humanitarian reasons. More recently, we can think about Syrian refugees and Ukrainians, who are technically not considered refugees, but that's a long story.

Even before that, we've been admitting groups throughout Canada's history. There were fugitive slaves who escaped from the U.S. who came to Canada once slavery was banned here in 1833 and then abolished in 1834. The Doukhobors, who were persecuted by the Russians for refusing military service, migrated to Saskatchewan and then to B.C.

In the 1950s, we saw Hungarians come who were fleeing an unsuccessful uprising against their communist government. So, again, there's a long history of taking in humanitarian groups. After the Second World War, and during the Cold War specifically, Canada sought to present a comprehensive system that was no longer based on discrimination and that addressed the country's economic and population needs.

We eliminated racial categories as a basis for selection and introduced a point system to bring fairness to the process. Then we have the 1976 Immigration Act, where regulations were brought forth even more, based on fundamental principles of non-discrimination, family reunion, humanitarian concern for refugees, and the promotion of Canada's socio-economic, demographic, and cultural needs.

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) of 2001 replaced this, but those principles have largely remained the same. In 2015, maybe some of you who follow immigration news have heard about Express Entry, which is all the rage, I guess, or in the news a lot because it is constantly in flux.

Although it is still based on this general system where you get points and then you get admitted to Canada based on whether or not you have enough points. It's linked to labor market needs, particularly what's called the NOC, or the National Occupational Classification.

You don't have to know this for the exam, but I obviously have a lot of experience with this. If you want to get in under certain Express Entry categories, and there are dozens of categories, you have to have a job or you get more points for having a job that requires more experience.

As an academic, I would be an NOC tier one. I think tier zero is for managers, tier one is for a lot of research and stuff like that. There are different levels of experience, and you get points based on whether your work or the occupation that you're in is considered skilled or not.

You get points for things like your age—if you're in your 20s, you get the most points, and then it starts to decline. If you're in your 30s, you get less; in your 40s, even less. You get points based on your education, your English language abilities, your French language abilities, your foreign work experience, and whether or not your job has said that they need you and they can't find anyone else to replace you.

It's called a Labor Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), which is also very controversial. You get all these points, you go into a pool, and then periodically there will be draws saying, "Anyone with a score of 506 or above is invited to apply," or "Anyone with a score of 503 or above is invited to apply." That's kind of how it works for the Express Entry category.

But there are other categories as well, like spousal visas or refugee visas. There are two main components of the Canadian refugee system: the refugee and humanitarian resettlement program and the in-Canada asylum program.

I just want to add a point of clarification because I don't think the media does a good job of distinguishing the difference between a refugee and an asylum seeker. A refugee in Canada is someone for whom the government has vetted, whether that's the United Nations or the government of Canada.

They've gone through and done the paperwork, and either the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) has looked at their profile and said, "Yep, you are indeed a legitimate refugee," or they've come to Canada as an asylum seeker. This means they're not a refugee yet, but they come to Canada through various channels.

They go to the Canadian government and say, "I would be persecuted if I were to go back home. I want to be or I am a refugee." The Canadian government has to verify those claims or not. So those people are called asylum seekers because their status hasn't yet been verified.

I think it was not too long ago that there were news reports saying that refugees were sleeping on the streets of Toronto. It wasn't refugees; it was asylum seekers. There's a big difference in terms of the rights that one is afforded.

Asylum seekers are afforded certain rights and privileges, like the ability to work, but they have to apply for a work permit, and that can take months. They don't have access to housing and social services and all these newcomer supports that refugees have.

Refugees are still not well off by any means, but they do at least have a lot more formal support systems in place. Asylum seekers, again, because their claims haven't been verified, have a lot less support, and that's why I think they're more likely to wind up homeless.

Most newcomers arrive in Canada as families, but the role of the family in the process of settlement can get neglected in settlement research. We tend to look at individuals and economic migrants and how that plays out, again sort of neglecting the role of the family itself.

So then, who are Canada's immigrants? I've talked a little bit about refugees, but according to the 2016 census, almost of the nearly three million economic immigrants that have arrived in Canada since 1980, about 59% were accompanying family members.

We added another 750,000 between 2016 and 2021. Most arrivals to Canada nowadays are from non-European countries, with India, China, and the Philippines topping the list. Population growth from immigration is largely concentrated in and around metropolises.

It should also be noted that refugees form a very small percentage of this group. There were, I think, 485,000 new permanent residents in 2020, and refugees composed about 50,000 of that 485,000. Again, I'm not going to ask you for specific numbers on the exam, but just know that it is a small percentage.

So then, we've got these different groups coming in. How do we think about them? How do we talk about them? There's this question of how we actually, you know, what do we do with them?

The family, like I said, is a central reason for immigration, and it's also a primary resource and a potential constraint in the adaptation process. Families can help with acculturation, which is generally defined as the process of learning the elements of the culture of the host country.

There's this thing called the ecological framework, which offers a more comprehensive understanding of acculturation. In this dynamic model of the ecological framework, emphasis is placed on ever-evolving human activity in response to the new sociocultural environment.

Acculturation is not static; it's not like it just happens one day. You wake up and you've acculturated, and that's it. It is ongoing and constantly changing, and there are all these different variables to think about and consider. It's not linear either.

Maybe we're going along just fine, and then there is a setback or a change of pace, and we're like, "Actually, you know what? I don't like this anymore. I want to go back home," or whatever. It's a dynamic process.

Broadly speaking, there are four different acculturation strategies. Again, this refers to how a group adapts or doesn't adapt, or how an individual adapts or doesn't adapt to a new place.

A person can assimilate to a country, which means they adopt the host society's culture at the expense of their own cultural identity. They're like, "Yes, I'm Canadian now. Forget about India, forget about China, forget about where I'm from. I am Canadian; that's it."

I was speaking to a doctor the other day, and I noticed that he had an accent. So I asked where he's from, and he said he's from Russia. I asked him where in Russia, and he said he hasn't been back in years. He said, "I'm Canadian now," basically shunning my attempts to ask about St. Petersburg.

There's also integration, which is maintaining some aspects of one's culture of origin while adopting elements of the host society's culture. We'll talk more about this in just a few slides; that's why there's an asterisk.

Then there's separation, which is maintaining all of one's cultural identity and rejecting the culture of the host society. You know, "I'm here now; I don't like it. I think my home country is actually better, but I'm stuck here for various reasons, so I'm just going to be in my bubble and keep living my life as I did back home."

Finally, there's marginalization, where we reject both the cultures of the home and the host society. Adaptation refers to immigrants' capacity to successfully engage with the host country's institutions.

How well are they able to engage with schools, workplaces, and the broader community? Obviously, we want immigrants to adapt, but their success in this depends on acculturation strategies and host culture policies.

Sometimes, when the subject of funding for settlement services or settlement agencies is brought up, which we'll talk about later, there's always someone who says, "Why are we funding newcomers? Why can't we fund Canadians?"

Well, Canada needs migrants, and they're here. We want them to be successful; we want them to adapt. People need help in that. They need help forming connections and understanding what's where and how to get what they need.

If we just let them flounder, we're setting them up for failure, and I don't think we want that either. So again, adaptation is really important, but it's not just up to the individual to adapt; it's up to the host society to help.

In Canada, within the context of an official policy of multiculturalism, integration is what we ultimately want. Assimilation is okay, but we don't necessarily ask that you completely reject your own cultural identity. We want you to pick up on some Canadian things, but you can also retain aspects of your former identity.

This integration is a two-way process. It's not just that immigrants integrate themselves into Canada; Canada also accepts immigrants. But note too that there's not a lot of clarity and distinction between what constitutes assimilation and what constitutes integration.

The boundaries between them are not hard and fast. It is possible to blend two or more at different points. Yes, there's this official policy of multiculturalism, and we want integration, but where does that integration end and where does assimilation begin? It's a bit hard to say.

For myself, there are definitely some things about the U.S. that I've kind of rejected. I've been like, "Nope, not me, don't like it, don't want any part of it." But when it comes to the Fourth of July, I love it. It's so fun—fireworks, hot dogs, barbecue—it's like three days after Canada Day, so it's just one big party.

Controversially, I will still cheer for the U.S. hockey team in the Olympics, which makes my friends hate me, but I think it's funny. I've embraced Canada; I've rejected a little bit of the U.S., but not all of it. So where would I fit in on that spectrum?

Maybe some of you, either as immigrants yourself or your parents are, can see similar things. There are some aspects of Canada that they really don't like, and they're like, "Nope, I'm not doing that. That's not okay with me. I'm going to stick to how we do it in my home country."

But then there are other parts that they embrace, like, "Yes, this is cool; I want to do it." The boundaries between them are not hard and fast, but we do want people to come and adapt to Canadian society. They don't have to reject everything about their home society.

A crucial point to make in terms of how we think about immigrant families is that, like I mentioned, there's a lot of diversity in this. We need to think about it intersectionally. Hopefully, at this point in your sociological careers, you've come across the term intersectionality.

Just in case, intersectionality is a frame of analysis that enables a comprehensive understanding of the structural roots of the experience of marginalization. Critical race and critical race feminist theory examine how there are multiple interlocking systems of domination that shape people's lives.

It's not just that you're an immigrant and all your experiences will be the same; it can also be shaped by your age, race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, religion, and able-bodiedness—lots of things.

At an analytical level, this involves an examination of some of the subjective experiences. We're looking at the micro-level experiences within broader social structures. We can contrast some of the systems that privilege and the systems that oppress different groups of people.

To understand the quote-unquote immigrant experience, we have to look at these interlocking systems of power that make it better for some and worse for others. We can also think about transnationalism. All migrants are transnational, but transnationalism itself is a process in which immigrants, as well as their social institutions, engage in regular and sustained involvement in economic, political, social, cultural, or personal practices across national borders.

It's not just that you move to Canada and completely do nothing with your home ever again. Most immigrants still retain some ties to home, whether that's cultural ties—dressing a certain way or eating certain foods—whether that's going home and visiting, or staying in touch with friends and family, or staying up to date on news.

There's a lot of back and forth, whether virtually or in a more literal sense. There are also a variety of family arrangements that can be created by transnationalism. Your book talks about astronaut families, where one parent stays behind in the home country or sometimes goes back and forth, while the other parent settles in a new country with their children.

There are parachute kids, who are sent to another country to stay with relatives or attend boarding school, and they grow up there without their parents. There are left-behind children by transnational parents, where the parents go to a new country and the kids stay behind with grandparents and other relatives.

There are satellite babies, who are born in the U.S. or Canada and sent back to their parents' home country until the parents become financially stable. Then the kids are brought back, usually once they're of school age or so.

Transnational parenting differs from traditional parenting in that it involves a physical absence together with a social presence. In the video that you'll watch later in class, there's some transnational parenting going on and some complications that clearly arise from this.

When mom has been in Canada for a while and her son hasn't, there's some confusion, to put it gently, that arises. Transnational parenting can also be strongly gendered, with higher parenting expectations placed on migrant mothers than migrant fathers, as they have a differential influence on the children they left behind.

Transnational care for the elderly is also a growing phenomenon, especially given the increasing life expectancy in the context of globalization. These are some of the ways that we can think about immigrant families and some of the things to keep in mind when we're talking about or researching migration and immigrant families.

Now, I want to segue into looking at what it looks like before someone actually comes to Canada—the sort of pre-migration experience. First of all, the process of migration is stressful for all newcomers.

Maybe you can remember how stressful it was even if you moved and had to go to a new school. You had to pack up your whole life and move somewhere else where you didn't know anyone. You didn't know who was what or what was going on, and it's stressful.

It's always going to be stressful, even if it's for a good thing—coming to go to school or to grad school, or coming for a new job. It's exciting, but it still requires a huge deal of planning and preparation, as well as tremendous losses of connections with friends and family in the home setting.

Notably, refugees also have vastly different pre-migration experiences than other immigrants, and the associated stress can be particularly challenging. Even within that, the pre-migration experiences can still be vastly different.

Forgetting refugees, let's look at refugees in London. London actually does take in a fair number of Congolese refugees. I spent a year working in partnership with CAMH (the Center for Addiction and Mental Health) along with the London Cross-Cultural Learner Centre, which is the refugee resettlement agency here in London.

I was working on a project looking at refugees' mental health, and I met a lot of Congolese refugees. When the resettlement workers and I would get what's called a NATAT—a Notice of Arrival Transmission, which is the official notice from Ottawa saying, "Hey, you've got this family coming in from this location," we would look at what country they were actually coming from.

If they've been a refugee in another country, we would consider that. For example, if they fled the Congo and were in Tanzania, we know that if they're coming from Tanzania, they probably don't know how to speak English.

Congo is a French-speaking country, and even then, a lot of them are from Eastern Congo, far away from the capital, so they may speak Kinyarwanda or Swahili, but they're not likely to speak English.

If they're from Uganda, in some cases, there are camps in Uganda, but a number of the refugees I met just lived in Kampala, the capital. They could work and go to school, and Uganda is also an English-speaking country, so they've probably picked up some English here and there.

When I was there, we got a group of an extended family of 28 people from Namibia. They had been in a village or camp called Ocir, which is not like a camp but just a small village with a population of 6,000. They were allowed to work and do whatever there, and there was a school, but this family had been there for 22 years.

There were kids aged zero to 20 who had spent their whole lives in Namibia. They were still technically refugees, but they didn't really have any trauma that they had necessarily experienced. Maybe their parents did, but it was years ago at that point.

In contrast, some of the other refugees I met, like a woman from Libya who had been living in Niger, had seen some things. She didn't talk about it, but she alluded to it, and you could just tell talking to her that she had the thousand-yard stare; she'd seen things.

So, again, there are vastly different experiences even among Congolese refugees in London, Ontario. Long story short, displacement disrupts normality, including the level of normality that families can maintain, including schooling for children.

Some camps will have schools; others won't. Most refugees wind up in a camp, and then the UN vets them and says, "Okay, Canada, you've said you can take 50,000 refugees this year; here's five."

Iceland has said they can take 10; here's two. The UN sorts that out generally, and then there are the asylum seekers who are in Canada, and then Canada decides that way.

There's this disruption, and people may end up in all sorts of different places. Schooling is a big issue as far as immigrant and refugee settlement in Canada.

As I said, we've got the London Cross-Cultural Learner Centre, which helps refugees specifically, but there are other newcomer settlement services like LUSO and the Southwestern London Neighborhood Resource Centre that also offer settlement services.

This refers to having information and orientation sessions, language training, help establishing new social networks, workshops on mental health, employment, housing, and all sorts of things. Maybe there will be cooking classes where you can learn how to make a pizza or something.

Different social groups, like social groups for women, arts and crafts groups, and sports groups, are all designed to help with integration and understanding Canadian society. Employment and housing are really big ones.

When I talked to the refugees about their mental health, we largely focused on the stressors they were having in Canada, as opposed to trauma from back home. The things that kept coming up over and over again were, "I don't know how I'm going to find housing."

The stipend they get from the government is just nothing. Finding housing is really difficult, and finding a job is really difficult. That was their stress. They want to contribute; they want to get a job; they want to support their family, but how?

Entry into the labor market is a pressing need for almost all new migrants, and unfortunately, racialization remains a big issue. Folks will still hire based on skin color rather than qualifications.

This isn't just something we're making up; there have been studies that have shown this. One study titled "Why Do Some Employers Prefer to Interview Matthew but Not Samir?" found that English-speaking employers in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver are about 40% more likely to choose to interview a job applicant with an English-sounding name than someone with an ethnic name, even when both candidates have identical education, skills, and work history.

Another possible explanation for this discrepancy and the difficulty that immigrants could have is that they have less social capital. They have fewer professional and personal networks that they can mobilize in their quest for employment.

Maybe some of you have gotten a job because your parents worked there, or you know your friend worked there and they were like, "Hey, come join me here." Or you know someone who knows someone. Not having that is not a personal deficiency, but it happens because immigrants leave behind their established social networks.

I was thinking the other day about my car having difficulties. If I were back in Indiana, I would call my dad because he knows a guy—a car wizard who works miracles. But here in London, I don't really know a guy.

I have friends, obviously, and I've lived here for a number of years, so I ask them, "Who do you go to?" But if you were new, you wouldn't know any of that. You'd have to do a Google search, maybe, and it's kind of the same thing for housing and jobs. It's a lot easier when you know people.

Access to adequate and affordable housing is vital to newcomers' success and integration into the host country. The unavailability of adequate housing is a significant challenge for everyone, let's be honest.

But it's especially a challenge for newcomers who may not know the place, may not speak the language, may not understand how to get from point A to point B, and may not understand how to vet a place. Again, it's one of the key stressors.

Race remains a huge variable in the housing market, with one-third of visible minority populations, which includes refugees and asylum seekers, living in precarious housing. Settlement challenges continue to contribute to this stress.

Imagine living your life in your home country, taking care of yourself, having a nice job, and being able to support your family and kids. Then something happens beyond your control, and now you find yourself in a place where all the signs are written in squiggles.

You don't have any clue how to speak the language; you don't even know how to take a bus. It's kind of infantilizing in a sense; you have to learn how to do everything again, as a child would. It can be very stressful, especially for adults who may have already been established back in their home countries, having to relearn basic things.

Settlement services, for refugees and non-refugees alike, can be difficult even when you're not a refugee. These settlement agencies provide much-needed services to newcomers to help them adapt to life in Canada. They explain the rules, how to catch a bus, what norms are expected, and how to access the healthcare system.

These services are designed to facilitate the full and equitable participation of all newcomers in Canadian society. These settlement services tend to be nonprofits, funded mostly by the federal government, and to a lesser extent, by provincial governments.

They have an official designation; it's not just someone saying, "Hey, I want to help newcomers; give me money," and people say okay. There's a whole series of steps that they have to go through, particularly with refugee resettlement.

Newcomers across Canada, minus Quebec—because Quebec is always different—are given a standard settlement experience. They have to have an orientation that addresses 16 different things, from healthcare to housing to jobs to social norms.

They have to have help finding housing, getting a social insurance number, and things like that. It is standardized, and these settlement agencies provide that. They can also offer social programs that connect newcomers to one another, providing a sense of belonging and support among community members.

While the majority of immigrant and refugee families may approximate the North American model of a nuclear family, there is also great diversity among newcomer families. In some immigrant communities, extended family is still very much the norm.

When we got that group of Namibian refugees, there were 28 of them. They weren't all one family as we would define it—like mom, dad, kids—but they were extended family, and they all sort of knew each other. They didn't all end up living together because no house is going to accommodate 28 people, but they tried to find housing close to one another.

These extended family living arrangements are important, but they can also be really challenging for children, parents, and grandparents, especially in a society like Canada where the traditional nuclear family is the norm. It's next to impossible to find a place that would support 28 newcomers.

Now, I want you to head to the link and watch the first 15 minutes or so—up to the 15:27 mark. I believe it's a documentary produced in the centennial year, 2017, so it's getting a little older now, but I think it's still really relevant.

It's about a family from the Philippines that migrated to Canada. As you're watching it, ask yourself the following questions: Number one, the honeymoon phase appears to be over. What happens now? How might this change or strain the family's dynamics?

Nota bene: that's what NB stands for—just something to take note of. The remainder of the documentary won't be tested; just watch up to the 15:27 mark. But I do encourage you to watch the award-winning documentary in full.

It did win several awards, and a lot of what happens to the Bono family, a lot of what they experience, I think are pretty common occurrences among migrant families. Maybe it'll help you make sense of your own family's experience or your friend's experience.

One of the many good things that the video highlights is that the migrant experience is not just one thing; it's not just good or bad, or positive or negative. There's a lot of emotions involved.

For newcomers, even those who choose to come to Canada specifically, there's this experience of a deep sense of loss. So much so that there's actually been developed what's called the ambiguous loss theory. We feel this sense of loss, but what have we actually lost? What is it that we're missing specifically?

It's really intangible and hard to pin down. So then, how do we mourn this while also moving forward? Findings indicate that parents have changed how they operate in the world, particularly in their child-rearing practices.

They've become more tolerant of freedom and independence, saying, "Okay, I can't control my kids as much as I would like to." There are different forms of time management and modifications in discipline.

It's a lot less socially acceptable in Canada to spank your kids or use other forms of physical violence, so that can get changed or modified. There are also role reversals, especially when it comes to something like language, where kids, because their brains are more plastic, can pick up on languages a lot quicker.

Sometimes, because they're in school, they pick up on social norms a lot quicker, and they end up serving as the interpreter or translator for their parents, both in a literal sense and in a cultural sense.

For example, they might go with their parents to medical appointments and explain what the doctor says. That's not usually a role that kids are in, but that role reversal happens, and that can create a lot of changes and challenges.

For a substantial number of immigrant parents with dependent children, negotiating the Canadian sociocultural context can have major challenges, but there can also be a lot of opportunities. Different studies have demonstrated that the experiences of deskilling, credential recognition, underemployment, and unemployment can challenge men in particular.

It can challenge their self-esteem and sense of masculinity and fatherhood. One of the refugees I met was a guy from Afghanistan who was a doctor back home. For him to get those credentials recognized in Canada would take years and thousands of dollars.

He can't even be a nurse because of the strict protocols we have in place. He said, "I understand that I can't be a doctor, but I just want something that speaks to that knowledge that I have." I could sense that it was really frustrating for him.

For immigrant women, especially racialized women, they can also experience barriers to labor market participation, like the devaluation of their credentials and certain stereotypes that may hinder their progress. Patriarchal relations are often challenged, not always changed, but sometimes.

For many newcomer parents, connections with their home countries, while sometimes complicated, can also be a great source of comfort and strength. Migration also provides opportunities for families to demonstrate strength and resilience.

For immigrant parents, migration can act as a catalyst for positive change in their relationships, parenting, family roles, and household arrangements, particularly with respect to changing gender roles.

The new sociocultural context in a host country like Canada can have a profound influence on parenting practices and gender roles. Traditional gender-based notions, where the father is the breadwinner and the mother is the homemaker and caregiver, don't always work in Canada.

In terms of practicality, we need two breadwinners to support our family now because of the high cost of living. In this regard, women can respond better to some of the challenges of settlement, and many women do take employment as a means to support their family.

Transnational parenting can also be complicated because family separation is common among all migrants, but especially refugees, asylum seekers, and irregular migrants. Sometimes, when it comes to refugees, they'll be in a camp, and they'll tell you, "Okay, we can send you and your kids along, but you'll have to bring your mom once you're there."

No reasons are given, but you can bring her once you're there. The decision and the guilt that they face can be tremendous. Even for myself, I'm not a refugee; I'm fine. I'm here as an economic migrant.

During COVID, I couldn't go home because of rules and my work permit status was in flux. I didn't want to travel because it felt unsafe, so I couldn't see my parents for a year and three or four months. The guilt I felt was enormous.

I knew it hurt my parents not to be able to see me. I know they understood why I wasn't coming home, but at least with my brother, they could meet up in a parking lot somewhere. He lives three hours away from them, but they drove to Chicago to see him and wave at him.

We couldn't even do that; we could just have our little Zoom calls. I remember feeling so guilty and asking myself, "Why am I here? Why am I doing this? Do I really need to be in Canada?"

Yes, especially right now, but that's a small example. I could see my parents if I needed to; I could theoretically get in a car and drive home. For some people, they literally cannot, and the stress associated with that can be tremendous.

For kids, youth represent a significant portion of the immigrant population in Canada. Pre-migration experiences can be varied but very difficult. Things like war, natural disasters, violence, forced labor, and targeted persecution can lead to forced migration.

The two cultural models—the culture of the home country and the culture of the host country—may not always explain acculturation strategies and adaptation for all youth. Even for all adults, I know a friend of mine, a coworker, who was once a Congolese refugee.

She fled to Uganda and lived there for years before coming to Canada, so she identified as much with Ugandan culture as she did with Congolese culture and Canadian culture.

Many older adults arrive in Canada through the family reunification class, which has been temporarily suspended, although you can still get five-year visas for your parents. As Canada's population is aging, there's a great deal of interest in the protective factors for healthy aging among older immigrants.

We want to take care of all of Canada's elderly, including newcomer elderly. We know that bringing in parents, for instance, can be expensive; they can have a number of healthcare expenses.

But having parents close by can be really helpful for a person. It can reduce stress levels, help with child-rearing, and assist with our own integration. There's this balance that Canada has to strike: we know that having more family for people is better, but how do we take care of them?

Loneliness among older adults has also become an area of concern. Maybe your kids move to Canada, and they're out in the workforce, or they had to move to another city for various reasons.

What do we do about the loneliness epidemic? All families experience conflict; immigrant and refugee families are no exception. Conflicts like child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, and other abuse are certainly concerns if and where they are reported.

Immigrant families have a number of risk factors in common with non-immigrant families. It's hard to take a blanket approach and say there are these risks for immigrants but not for Canadian-born Canadians.

Whether or not there's intimate partner violence, for instance, obviously that happens in a lot of Canadian families, but it also doesn't happen in a lot of Canadian families, and that's the same with newcomers. In some places, it happens; in some places, it doesn't.

Higher immigrant density and ethnically diverse neighborhoods can be protective factors unique to immigrant and refugee families. It can be really stressful, as we talked about, being in a new place.

Being surrounded by others who know who you are and what you're going through can be helpful. Even if they're not your immediate family members, they know what it's like; they know where you're coming from. They know your norms, they cook your same food, and they speak your language.

That can provide a sense of relief; you don't have to explain yourself. Women, as I said, are more likely than men to experience intimate partner violence. That's true for Canadian women as well.

The acculturation process after immigration, as well as women's entry into the labor market, can challenge the power hierarchy within families, leading to some breakdowns and challenges. Elder abuse can also take different forms, with various risk factors in the post-migration context that can combine to affect elder abuse in complex ways.

Finally, the participation of newcomer parents in the school system can also be really uneven. We can't take a blanket approach and say this is how newcomer parents interact with schools.

We categorize four different levels of parental involvement. We have cultural survivors, who are able to meet their family's basic needs but don't have time for much else.

If their kid is acting up in school, they can't do much about it because they're working two jobs, learning English, and taking care of everything else. All they can do is make sure there's food on the table each night.

Cultural learners feel a bit more able with the school system; they're engaged in learning about things. Maybe they attend parent-teacher conferences with the help of a translator.

Cultural connectors can encourage other learners and survivors to become involved. They're like, "Yes, I know how this works; you should come and check it out too."

Cultural leaders are the most vocal advocates. Maybe some of you are familiar with what are called SWIS workers—Settlement Workers in Schools. They're people assigned by settlement agencies to help newcomer children.

They do the Lord's work, but they can only do so much. They can help with this process as well. That's what we've got for this week.

No discussion question this week; it'll be posted next week. I'll talk to you then.