Few days ago, I came across an article that features six stories of Canadian immigrants and their children (Prestwich, 2016). These first-generation Canadians described their experiences of leaving their country and coming to Canada, while their children shared their stories of growing up in Canada as second-generation Canadians. Some of them struggled with their cultural identities and to understand their parents’ practices, whereas others happily embraced their identities and described how it shaped them as a person. Although each individual member in these families had different experience in Canada, all these stories highlighted the importance of family and social networks. Therefore, this post will be discussing about how parents and adolescents differ in their immigrant experience, and how they adapt and adjust as a whole. 

First of all, first-generation Canadians in the stories above left their home countries in hope for better opportunities and lives in Canada (Prestwich, 2016). Although some of them did not have trouble settling and coping in this new country, some faced challenges like homesick, guilt, fear and so on. Despite these, they had to support themselves and their families. From there, we can see that immigrant parents tend to have harder and more stressful experience as they step foot in a foreign country, especially new parents (Stewart et al., 2015). During interviews, refugee new parents from Africa reported being isolated, loneliness and stress due to lack of social networks, which affect their mental health. Besides that, they also reported struggles of integrating new cultural beliefs and values into their own, struggles in adapting to new roles and expectations as parents, as well as the barriers to services and programs like child care, health care, employment and so on.

On the contrary, the testimonies from those second-generation Canadians show that they tend to have a more positive experience in Canada (Prestwich, 2016). Indeed, a study demonstrates the experiences of Chinese-Canadian Youths and how their experiences have positively shaped their future (Shik, 2015). During their first interview, these youths reported experience of loneliness due to separation from social networks, communication barrier and disruptions to their “normal” lives. However, in the second interview ten years later, these individuals shared their ability to adapt multiculturally and to embrace dual identity. That is, they did not feel the need to fit into one particular identity. They coped by exposing themselves to things, places and people that resemble their country. As a result, it expanded their social circles and widened their opportunities.

The experience of loneliness mentioned in both studies above highlighted the important role that family ties and social networks play in the lives of immigrant families (Shik, 2015; Stewart et al., 2015), and I think is true. After moving to Canada for further education, I experienced loneliness when I was placed in a city where I did not know anyone. Eventually, I moved to Peterborough to reunite and attend the same university as friends from my home country. However, the feeling of loneliness did not disappear due to the separation with my family and inability to have holiday celebrations with them.

Through these years, I found comfort through maintaining in constant contact with my friends and family back home, which is consistent with a study that focused on how positive parent-child relationships can play a role in supporting the lives of first-generation immigrant families (Rasmi, Chuang, & Hennig, 2017). Individuals in the study were interviewed about parent-child relationships, perceived acculturation gaps with parents, conflicts with parents and ethnocultural identity. It was reported that individuals perceived an acculturation gap when they and their parents endorsed different culture values, and this gives rise to conflicts with parents and their ethnocultural identity. Nevertheless, it was found that having a strong relationship with parents was related to decrease in these conflicts. Having closer bonds with parents allows individuals to communicate with parents openly, to confront and negotiate different views between them. As a result, this may reduce any possible conflicts which provides individuals a safe and supportive environment to explore the world around them.

Overall, these evidences show that when immigrating, individual members of a family can have different experience but there are ways that they can adapt together. Hence, I think that when supporting immigrant families in adapting, it is best to target the needs of each individual members and the family as a whole. Most importantly, I think that the best way to support immigrants who came here alone is to help them to establish and build their social networks.  

 (749 Words)

References

Prestwich, E. (2016, November 1). Canadian Immigrants And Their Children
            Share Their Family Stories. Retrieved from
            https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/11/01/canadian-
            immigrants_n_12625502.html

Rasmi, S., Chuang, S. S., & Hennig, K. (2017). Seeing eye to eye in arab            
            canadian families: Emerging adult perspectives. Journal of
            Adolescent Research, 32(3), 263–290.
            https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558416630814

Stewart, M., Dennis, C. L., Kariwo, M., Kushner, K. E., Letourneau, N.,
            Makumbe, K., . . . Shizha, E. (2015). Challenges faced by refugee new
            parents from africa in canada. Journal of Immigrant and Minority
            Health, 17(4), 1146-1156.
            https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-014-0062-3

Shik, A. W. Y. (2015). Transnational families: Chinese-canadian youth
            between worlds. Journal of Ethnic And Cultural Diversity in Social
            Work, 24(1), 71–86.
            https://doi.org/10.1080/15313204.2013.838816