[BRIEF NOTE] On migrant integration
Jul. 29th, 2009 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldNicholas Keung has a Toronto Star article, "'Integration a two-way street'", that bothers me just a bit.
I'm not at all bothered by the article's theme of setting up NGOs to give new immigrants the social capital necessary for them to live up their potential. The thing that I might find problematic with this article, or at least be commented upon somewhere--like on this blog--is that this process of integration isn't relevant only to immigrants from foreign countries. Even though I am a Canadian citizen and speak English, I found Toronto disorienting on first moving here, and would have been rather disorientation and unhappy if I hadn't had contacts in place, that is, if I hadn't earned some social capital in advance.
It's still an ongoing task for me, if certainly not to the same degree as for the people described: Peter Li leaves his neighbourhood to get in contact with English speakers, I post to the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
toronto community asking for new interesting walking routes. That's the kind of thing that almost everyone in Toronto does, I imagine, try to find places that they like and that they can make some kind of home, most preferably in conjunction with other people. We're all immigrants in a way.
Every Wednesday, Peter Li steps out of his Chinatown cocoon for 90 minutes to experience the Canada that thrives beyond the neighbourhood where he lives and works.
It is the only chance he gets to chat with a native English speaker.
Li, 36, isn't the only immigrant who relishes his weekly encounters with "Canadian" volunteers at University Settlement Centre's English Cafe. It's a comfortable place for many newcomers to polish their English skills – and feel like they belong.
"Like many immigrants, I have no Canadian friends," says Li, who came here from China in 2006 and works at a grocery store. "If you can't speak the language well, you feel afraid to open your mouth and talk to others."
[. . .]
Sophie Duan founded a free English culture club last August at a location near Don Mills Rd. and Eglinton Ave. In less than a year, its membership had grown from 25 to 170.
"We are all well-educated. We have solid technical knowledge and English, but it is still difficult to immerse (ourselves) in the work culture and make friends here," says Duan, a medical doctor who left China 12 years ago and now works as a clinical researcher.
"Because of our lack of cultural background and understanding, it's hard for us to do small water-cooler talk," she added.
"There is always this glass wall between ourselves and the mainstream. You can't see or touch it, but it is there."
I'm not at all bothered by the article's theme of setting up NGOs to give new immigrants the social capital necessary for them to live up their potential. The thing that I might find problematic with this article, or at least be commented upon somewhere--like on this blog--is that this process of integration isn't relevant only to immigrants from foreign countries. Even though I am a Canadian citizen and speak English, I found Toronto disorienting on first moving here, and would have been rather disorientation and unhappy if I hadn't had contacts in place, that is, if I hadn't earned some social capital in advance.
It's still an ongoing task for me, if certainly not to the same degree as for the people described: Peter Li leaves his neighbourhood to get in contact with English speakers, I post to the
toronto community asking for new interesting walking routes. That's the kind of thing that almost everyone in Toronto does, I imagine, try to find places that they like and that they can make some kind of home, most preferably in conjunction with other people. We're all immigrants in a way.
