Putting Family First
Putting Family First illustrates how the family context can be mobilized to facilitate the successful integration of newcomers. In the process, it provides a ground-up perspective that gives voice to newcomer families and community partners and offers important guidance to practitioners and policy makers in Canada and beyond.
When migrants reach their new home, we often interpret their settlement and integration as an individual process driven largely by the labour market. But family plays a crucial role.
Putting Family First is the fruit of a four-year academic–community partnership to investigate the experience of immigrant families settling in Canada’s main immigration gateway, Greater Toronto. Contributors explore the entire integration trajectory of immigrant families. This fluid process extends from newcomers’ initial reception to their deep involvement in and attachment to their receiving society. Chapters examine the interrelated themes of the policy environment, children and youth, gender, labour markets and work, and community supports, making insightful connections between concepts such as neoliberalism, resilience, and social capital. This expansive, interdisciplinary volume addresses the complex relationship between family and integration from a range of perspectives, applying rigorous academic research to solve practical problems.
This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international migration and settlement studies, anthropology, geography, political science, planning, psychology, social work, sociology, and other interdisciplinary fields. It will appeal to immigration and integration policy makers, practitioners, activists, and community organizers.
Analysis of settlement and migration tends to focus on individuals. This book shifts the discussion by focusing on families, which are at the heart of many aspects of migration. In a crowded academic field, Putting Family First highlights new and important aspects of settlement and integration.
Every immigrant family has its own stories, good and bad. It is my great hope that what this book brings to light will assist every member of every new family welcomed into the fabric of our extraordinary society so that the good outweighs the bad – for every immigrant, for every family, and for every Canadian.
Harald Bauder is a professor of geography and the director of the Graduate Program in Immigration and Settlement Studies at Ryerson University. He is also the founder of the Ryerson Centre for Immigration and Settlement. His books include Migration Borders Freedom and Immigration Dialectic: Imagining Community, Economy, and Nation. Bauder is also a recipient of the Konrad Adenauer Research Award and a senior research fellowship from the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies.
Contributors: Mehrunnisa Ahmad Ali, Assel Baitubayeva, Fabiola Limón Bravo, Tania Dargy, Diane Dyson, Erika Gates-Gasse, Maria Gintova, Sepali Guruge, Charity-Ann Hannan, Corinne Hart, Mia Hershkowitz, Ana Leticia Ibarra, Omar Lujan, Skylar Maharaj, Beth Martin, Erin Mulvale, Henry Parada, Andrea Robertson, Ezekiel Roos-Walker, Jesse Root, John Shields, Reena Tandon, Vappu Tyyskä, Marc Yvan Valade, Shuguang Wang, Karline Wilson-Mitchell
Foreword / Olivia Chow
Preface
Introduction / Harald Bauder, Mehrunnisa Ahmad Ali, and John Shields
Part 1: The Myth of the Self-Sufficient Immigrant
1 Immigrants Are Family Members, Too / Beth Martin
2 Neoliberalism and the Framing of Contemporary Canadian Immigration Policy / Jesse Root, John Shields, and Erika Gates-Gasse
3 Community Support for Immigrants and Their Families / Shuguang Wang and Skylar Maharaj
4 A Systems Approach to Immigrant Families and the Labour Market / Diane Dyson, Ezekiel Roos-Walker, and Charity-Ann Hannan
5 Looking beyond Class, Culture, Race, and Ability in Family Safety / Karline Wilson-Mitchell and Andrea Robertson
Part 2: The Family Advantage
6 The Five W’s of Migration and Settlement Decision Making / Sepali Guruge, Mia Hershkowitz, and Corinne Hart
7 How Families Shape Settlement Trajectories / Mehrunnisa Ahmad Ali, Marc Yvan Valade, and Tania Dargy
8 Immigrant Women’s Roles in Family Settlement / Mehrunnisa Ahmad Ali and Assel Baitubayeva
9 Children, Youths, and Resilience / Henry Parada, Ana Leticia Ibarra, Erin Mulvale, and Fabiola Limón Bravo
10 Social Capital, Newcomer Youth, and Family Resilience / Marc Yvan Valade and Vappu Tyyskä
11 The Economic and Labour Market Dynamics of Family Settlement / John Shields and Omar Lujan
12 Settling on Services / John Shields, Maria Gintova, Sepali Guruge, Reena Tandon, and Mia Hershkowitz
13 The Family Advantage / Marc Yvan Valade and Karline Wilson-Mitchell
Conclusion and Policy Recommendations / Harald Bauder
Appendix: Methods / Marc Yvan Valade and Maria Gintova
Index
