4  Resettlement, Racism, and Resilience Lived Experiences of Bhutanese Refugees in the City of Lethbridge

The Interview Process

This chapter adopts a qualitative research method to deeply explore the subjective experiences of Bhutanese refugees in Lethbridge (Kvale and Brinkmann 2009; Whiting 2008; Leavy 2017). While conducting interviews, two categories of people participated from the Canadian Bhutanese Society (CBS) in Lethbridge: those who grew up in camps and those who were born in camps. Both groups are revenue-generating forces in the Canadian labour market. The participants agreed to the request for interviews after I placed posters through the CBS. Since I work as a volunteer within the Bhutanese community in Lethbridge, I approached people individually to see if they were interested in sharing their experiences living in and working for different employers in Lethbridge. Twenty people from the community expressed interest in participating in the interviews. Participants were free to choose either English or the Nepali language during the interview process. An ability to communicate with the participants in more than one language enabled me to understand the variety of their experiences and perspectives. Through the interviews, I realized that participants were eager to share their stories and experiences openly.

There were five participants and five interview sessions altogether. No participants worked in the same workplace. Among them, two were university students, two were factory workers, and one was a businessman. All the participants were male, and they belonged to three different ethnic groups within the CBS in Lethbridge. I believed that the more diverse the participants were, the more their experiences would vary, providing a richer and more diverse collection of stories and insights. I conducted one-on-one interviews, each lasting about two hours. All participants opted to have their privacy protected through anonymity. I therefore assured them that I would encrypt any details they provided and would use pseudonyms. I have therefore referred to each of the five participants as A, B, C, D, and E. This interviewing strategy allowed participants to talk about their experiences openly without worrying that members from the same community would be able to identify them. As a result, they could articulate their thoughts and feelings spontaneously. Since Bhutanese refugees often have traumatic experiences of displacement, I was also aware of the risk of asking questions that might recall their history. No serious issues emerged during the interviews. However, all participants expressed concerns with recording. So instead, I decided to jot down the conversations with the intention of not losing essential information. This study used several locations for interviewing, according to participant preference. Some participants were more comfortable conducting the interviews in their homes, while others wanted to meet in restaurants or Tim Hortons.

These Bhutanese refugees said that they did not speak the Bhutanese language; they spoke Nepali as their first language. The interviews were conducted in the Nepali language based on the preference of the participants. This enabled me to explore their memories of displacement and their present situation in a third-country settlement more deeply. The interview process allowed for a more reciprocal conversation, since participants did not appear to have had met with a stranger previously. I did, however, experience some difficulties with note taking, as simultaneously taking notes and making conversation sometimes made it difficult to fully engage with participants in conversation. I later translated my notes into English, coded them according to themes, and analyzed them according to the issue areas that emerged. The interviews focused primarily on experiences of racism and discrimination, their daily lives, and their resilience in the face of a number of challenges. They were happy with my request to revisit them for more clarification, if needed.

In addition to interviews, I had opportunities to participate in various cultural, sport, and other programs organized by the CBS in Lethbridge. My community involvement allowed me to interact and observe the activities people were engaging in, the opportunities they were given, and the barriers they faced during the process of resettlement in Canada.

Bhutanese Refugees in Lethbridge

Bhutan is a small, mountainous country located in South Asia. It is landlocked and surrounded by two rising world powers: China and India. The northern part of the country borders China, and the rest borders India (Pulla 2016). Some ethnic Nepali had already migrated to Bhutan from Nepal before King Wangchuck, who had come from Tibet and was first crowned in 1907 (Bird 2012), united the country. Bhutanese refugees are primarily descended from ethnic Nepali people and belong to ethnolinguistic groups and various castes that had migrated to Bhutan between 1890 and 1920 (Hutt 2003). People who were part of the mass migration from the eastern part of Nepal to Bhutan between 1890 and 1920 were from peasant families (Pradhan 2009). Traditionally, they were inhabitants of the eastern districts of Nepal, identifying with multiple cultural values within the ethnic Nepali community (Rose 1994). In the nineteenth century, during the time of mass migration, Gurung and Dorjee families in Bhutan were the authorities who permitted Nepali immigrants to settle in the southern part of Bhutan (Rizal 2004).

In the early phase of migration, the royal government of Bhutan managed the settlement of ethnic Nepali in the southern region, which was predominantly dense forest and thereby largely uninhabitable (Rizal 2004). At that time, the government of Bhutan developed agriculture for the purposes of economic growth by using the labour of people who had migrated from eastern Nepal (Hutt 2005). As a result, ethnic Nepali residing in the southern part of Bhutan contributed to the national economy through agriculture (Hutt 2003). However, they integrated very little with the people living in the north, where the residents had different cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious backgrounds.

There are four main dominant ethnic groups in Bhutan: Ngalong, Bhutanese, Sarchop, and Lhotshampa (Pulla 2016). Lhotshampa are diverse ethnically and linguistically, with an ancestral history in Nepal. Ethnic Nepali Bhutanese (Lhotshampa) are predominantly Hindu and—to a lesser extent—Buddhist (Evans 2010). Eventually, some ethnic Nepali residing in the southern part of Bhutan got opportunities to work in government up until the 1970s (Hutt 1996). Subsequently, they achieved significant growth in food production alongside agricultural innovation, which contributed to the fast economic growth of Bhutan. However, their success did not last long because of cultural genocide.

Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, the former king of Bhutan, guaranteed citizenship rights to all people—including ethnic Nepali—in the first Citizenship Act that was passed in 1958. After the king died in 1972, Jigme Singye Wangchuck came into power. In the beginning, he seemed amicable to the Lhotshampa (Rai 2013). Gradually, in the latter part of the 1970s, however, Wangchuck began exercising state power against the Lhotshampa (Rai 2013; Pulla 2016). The perception that the royal government had of the Lhotshampa people in South Bhutan changed, and it began imposing severe restrictions, including banning the Nepali language. In due course, the government of Bhutan conducted a census program in southern Bhutan that identified the Lhotshampa people as non-nationals (Pulla 2016; Rizal 2004; Hutt 2003). The new Citizenship Act that came into effect in 1985 required the Lhotshampa to provide evidence of their tax receipts before 1958. In the end, people were compelled to hold demonstrations for their natural rights in their country of birth.

The Bhutanese monarchy gradually enforced state-sanctioned brutality toward ethnic Nepali people. The Nepali language was banned from schools by completely phasing it out of the curriculum, and the Dzongkha language became mandatory for the Lhotshampa. This became a cultural barrier (Pulla 2016; Rizal 2004; Hutt 2003). Lhotshampas were then restricted from celebrating their festivals and were forced to wear Drukpa dress (Rose 1994; Rai 2013). The state-initiated terror gradually became mercilessly violent: people were arrested and killed, women were raped and ordered to cut their hair short by the Bhutanese military, and houses and properties were burned down (Rizal 2004; Pulla 2016). The situation compelled people to flee their land. Almost one hundred thousand ethnic Nepali became refugees, forced to leave their homes up until 1994. First, they fled to the neighbouring country, India, hoping for shelter.

The Indian government trucked and dumped refugees at Panitanki, on the eastern border of Nepal (Pulla 2016; Bird 2012; Rizal 2004), but with the help of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the government of Nepal responded positively, letting the refugees in and providing seven camps in the eastern part of Nepal. Between March 16, 1996, and March 11, 2000, the United Nations passed resolutions advising the royal government of Bhutan to accept refugees back to their land under the supervision of the UNHCR (Pulla 2016; Hutt 2003; Rizal 2004). The United Nations wanted to bring the royal governments of Bhutan and Nepal together to resolve the problem. The government of Bhutan, however, was reluctant to discuss the issue of refugee repatriation. The government of Nepal organized multiple dialogues with the government of Bhutan to repatriate the Bhutanese refugees to their land, but their efforts could not reach a sanguine conclusion.

The only option for the Bhutanese refugees was a third-country settlement program, since the effort to repatriate them to their own land ultimately failed (Evan 2010; Dhungana 2010). After the dialogue failed to resolve the refugee crisis by restoring refugees to their land in Bhutan, the UNHCR started humanitarian efforts for third-country settlement (Bird 2012; Dhungana 2010). During my interviews with them, all participants expressed reverence and admiration for the UNHCR for their success in establishing third-country settlement. They remembered their past, in particular the fractured identities of the children who were born in the camps in Nepal: they were neither Nepali nor Bhutanese. Being neither-nor was one indicator of their displacement.

Participants expressed that the liminality of their identities was the measure of every obstacle in the camps in Nepal. The UNHCR reported that “amid hope, fear, and anxiety, a large number of refugees departed from Nepal for eight different countries—the United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom” (Pulla 2016, 81). Followed by a significant number of acceptances in other countries (e.g., 84,819 by the US), Canada admitted 6,600 Bhutanese refugees from the camps in Nepal up until 2015 (UNHCR 2016). On the one hand, the participants indicated that they were happy with the third-country settlement program because their children would have secure lives in the days to come. On the other, they were all confused because they did not know what the new country would be like in terms of a new culture, language, and environment.

Bhutanese refugees are among the largest minority groups in Lethbridge (Tams 2014). Many families of Bhutanese refugees relocated to Lethbridge from different cities in Canada after their friends and relatives had told them that the southern Alberta community was friendly (Klingbeil 2016). The ethnic Nepali who came to Canada through the UNHCR third-country settlement program started arriving in 2008. In the beginning, Bhutanese refugees were scattered to twenty-one communities, including Charlottetown, Fredericton, St. John’s, Saint-Jérôme, Québec City, Laval, Ottawa, Toronto, London, Windsor, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Lethbridge, and Vancouver (UNHCR 2016). According to the participants, these Bhutanese refugees felt lonely and disappointed and started searching for their friends and families across the country (participant A, personal interview, August 10, 2019; participant B, personal interview, August 14, 2019). According to one of two founding members of the CBS in Lethbridge, almost ninety Bhutanese refugees came to Lethbridge directly in 2009 (participant A, personal interview, August 10, 2019).

Family is very important for Bhutanese refugees, and they have a cultural tradition of practicing joint families (Rai 2013). Through these interviews, it became clear that vulnerable people want to be with not only their family but also their broader community to get psychological support in dealing with their traumatic past. The shared memory of displacement and the killing of family members developed their sense of unification and solidarity. In the pre-settlement phase, the two founding members of the CBS, who were already residents of Lethbridge, helped newcomers come to Lethbridge by providing a list of names to Lethbridge Family Services. Lethbridge Family Services managed the entire settlement process by receiving the refugees from the Calgary International Airport in coordination with the two founding members of the CBS (participant A, personal interview, August 10, 2019). Eventually, Bhutanese refugees who had landed in other Canadian communities started relocating to Lethbridge. The participants indicated that the reasons behind their relocation to Lethbridge included family ties, job opportunities, language, cultural attachment to the group, and seniors’ attraction to the landscape (participant B, personal interview, August 14, 2019; participant C, personal interview, August 17, 2019). The open and hilly landscapes remind the seniors of their home (participant A, personal interview, August 10, 2019; participant B, personal interview, August 14, 2019; participant C, personal interview, August 17, 2019)

The first generation of Bhutanese refugees never received a chance to go to school. As a result, they have poor English-speaking skills, making it difficult to compete in the Canadian job market. In Lethbridge, most of the Bhutanese refugees who have no English-speaking ability work for three different companies: Maple Leaf, Cavendish, and Sunrise (participant B, personal interview, August 14, 2019). In the beginning of their job searches, they were helped by interpreters and did not require English skills to be hired by the companies. This was a significant reason for relocating to Lethbridge.

People from the Bhutanese community have also opened small businesses on the north side of the city. These have played a crucial role in helping Bhutanese refugees integrate into the city. As of 2019, more than two hundred families have settled in Lethbridge (City of Lethbridge 2019). Many of them have bought homes and small businesses, such as grocery shops and restaurants, which have helped them create a sense of belonging and integrate socially and culturally. The youth have participated in and organized various sports tournaments such as soccer, volleyball, badminton, and cricket, among diverse communities. People are active in community engagement and volunteerism and represent the community at multicultural events hosted by various ethnic communities as the CBS through music, dance, and food.

Negotiating Racism

The experience of cultural and ethnic genocide often acts as a barrier for Bhutanese refugees. It makes them reluctant to question racism, discrimination, and domination in their new country of settlement because they are afraid of being subject to another displacement or deportation. This fear causes delays in their social integration process. The relationship between this fear and their understanding of deportation, policing, and systemic racism is best expressed by participant B:

Because of fear and lack of language skills, people in our community do not dare to speak; they would rather tolerate bullying and domination in the workplace and elsewhere. When people feel discrimination, the situation becomes a matter of tracing them back to their social reputation and cultural values they had. We have to compromise many things that sometimes make us disappointed, but there is no option for us to convince ourselves. (Personal interview, August 14, 2019)

Experiences of racism, discrimination, and otherness are common issues. Language is one of the most notable barriers for Bhutanese refugees working in different factories in Lethbridge. The absence of English seems to have obstructed them from having face-to-face communication in their workplace. Coworkers might not understand their experiences, and given the language barrier, they are often understood to be rude and unsocial. Bhutanese refugees are unlikely to complain about this kind of discrimination because they are afraid of being fired and cannot articulate what they want to express on account of a lack of English language skills. This puts them in a double bind. Working in Lethbridge factories thereby creates a compromising situation. As participant C explains,

We have to encounter a lot of domination and harassment from coworkers. They unnecessarily order us to do extra work. There is a union, but the executive members of the union are all white people. There is no single person in administrative positions that is a person of colour. We never dare to apply for the higher position jobs because we know we never get hired. (Personal interview, August 17, 2019)

This narrative points to the systemic nature of workplace discrimination in Lethbridge. Discriminatory and white-dominated workplace structures limit the positions available to refugees and racialized people during hiring and promotion processes. Systemic racism in the workplace has created multiple forms of discrimination in which the people from dominant groups exercise power over minority groups. The decision to not apply for positions they think they are eligible for is linked to their everyday experiences of racism over time. As participant C articulates,

People of our community are not encouraged to apply for higher positions regardless of their years of experience working in the same company. At the same time, they have doubts and fear of being fired even if they are promoted to senior positions because they always think of the consequences if they lack in required performance. There is another fear of not getting a job after, and they remember their predicaments with the mortgage and the support they have to provide for seniors and children. It hurts when people say “you are refugees”; such expressions are frequently heard from our white coworkers that make us frustrated and disappointed, escalating the sense of our people to be more vulnerable. [. . .] We also had houses, properties, jobs, and social prestige in Bhutan, but the politics of displacement decayed all those things. I was harassed many times by coworkers complaining about my food; those situations always made me conscious when being at the same table during lunch breaks. (Personal interview, August 17, 2019)

These participants clearly describe forms of othering, domination, and discrimination in their lived experiences. They describe their co-workers’ rejection of the values of diversity and multiculturalism that are espoused in Canadian law. These examples of workplace discrimination indicate that there is a significant gap between people’s experiences and what is written down in Canadian human rights laws and equity and labour policies.

Racial biases and discrimination are not only limited to workplaces and union halls. They also appear in academic settings in Lethbridge. Participant D expresses how racism was endemic to their entire educational experience, beginning in junior high school:

When I was in grade nine, I fought with a white boy after he continuously bullied and poured water on me. He also abused the word refugee. That offended me a lot. How did the boy learn the word refugee and abuse it at school? What will the impact of such practices be on schoolchildren during their social integration within Canada? Is this not the seed for the source of frustration that leads the victim to commit a crime if this kind of activity frequently happens at school and other places? After completing high school and some courses at Lethbridge College, I joined the University of Lethbridge. They were all white besides me, a Brown person, in some of the classes. I experienced a sort of anxiety, and I was uncomfortable, and I was afraid of whether these feelings would affect my commitment to complete the program. I wanted to ask questions but could not due to the fear that people in the class would not understand me because of my accent. That could remind me of someone pointing out my accent at the university. Moreover, white students were the priority in every aspect—for instance, questioning, answering, and speaking in class. (Personal interview, August 12, 2019)

Participant E describes their experience of the university admissions process as follows:

It took me quite a long time to learn English and Canadian culture, but not until it was time for me to join the University of Lethbridge to pursue my post-secondary education did I come to know that my skin colour had already said more about me than my transcript and reference letter ever did. That’s when I realized, perhaps, I didn’t belong here. When the university asked me where I was from, then my honest answer was like how any of my Canadian friends from Chinook High School in Lethbridge responded. That didn’t seem to suffice or sufficiently explain my divergence to them. Not until I said I was born in Nepal, not until I labelled myself as a foreigner, did their faces brighten. I was immediately asked to provide them with my language proficiency certificate just because English was not my first language. I came home in great sadness knowing that my friends were accepted while I was being put on as “pending” because I didn’t score what they thought “not neutral” students should score in the English 30–1 diploma exam to be able to communicate effectively, even though my overall grade for that class was 78 percent, well above my “neutral” friends who had just been accepted to the university. I immediately came to realize that Brown was equal to “different.” How else would I have understood when the people and system, especially ones that are considered most talented and educated, of the country that I am a legal citizen of labelled me as an outsider? Then and there, I was again the victim of this systemic academic racism. Not until I came back to my high school to talk to my teachers about what had just happened, and then they decided to step in, was I even listened to. I still ended up going back to high school for an extra year to finish my English class, but not until I scored what the system wanted me as “different” from the “neutral” student to score did they even look at me, when they saw me [his non-white name]. But do I really have to be better than my other friends to get the same opportunity, to be viewed as equally qualified? (Personal interview, August 15, 2019)

This participant’s experience indicates that language has been an influential part of the structure of racism in terms of its use as a means of categorizing and racializing people. Despite having enough years of study in a Canadian high school to get accepted to the university program, he was nevertheless asked for language proficiency evidence soon after revealing that he was from Nepal. His years of study in a Canadian high school and the overall score he attained were not sufficient evidence for his ability or competence in English. Systemic racism appears to have ensured his initial rejection. This kind of discrimination might be one reason that Bhutanese refugee youth often do not pursue higher education.

This discrimination is also intergenerational. Upon arrival to Canada, despite wanting to learn English, some participants revealed their parents were put in another unworkable double bind where they were structurally prevented from doing so. The following participant not only reveals a desire to build and be part of the broader community in Lethbridge but also offers solutions to the structural barriers faced by their family:

When my parents, brother, and I initially moved to Canada from the refugee camp, we were sponsored by the government of Canada and helped by the Lethbridge Family Services—immigrant services—to settle here. We were provided with different orientations about cultural norms and practices with help from interpreters. Soon after, we were referred to different institutions to learn the English language. Having to struggle to find a spot, my parents finally got to go to the classes, but after a few months, even before they realized that they had learned anything, it was time for them to start finding a job [. . .] but you are already labelled “lazy” living off of the public’s money. Relentlessly, my parents started looking for a job and soon began working to support their family, as my brother and I were still minors and their responsibility. They had the option to either start working or continue to go to school to learn English and become homeless. Now, having lived in this country for almost ten years, my parents still struggle to speak the language. Yet people say my parents were never interested in learning English and they only care about their own country and language. But I say to them, this isn’t about my parents; it’s about the systematic racism and oppression that restricted them from reaching their potential. They still have a minimum-paying job, and they still live cheque to cheque. They never had the opportunity to rise above because they never had a chance to learn the language, not then, not now. Now, this isn’t the story of just my parents; many refugees have similar experiences. People in our community are sometimes misdiagnosed with mental health issues because of this language barrier. I wish some places would provide language classes, not daylong courses, but rather a compressed hour or two class at different times. This program would provide opportunities for language learning to struggling people to attend those classes at different times to improve their language ability. (Participant E, personal interview, August 15, 2019)

Participant E further articulates how structural barriers contribute to the inability to obtain higher education. In this case, the inaccessibility of social programs for the elderly compounds the already existent barriers that young people face in accessing higher education:

One of the hardest things for our people is to get approval for AISH [Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped]. Youth are compelled to go to work rather than school, since they have an obligation to support their family financially. Regardless of the difficulties of taking care of their seniors, youth are more interested in going to school. Although the fear of policing in our people increased when a member of our community was shot dead by the Lethbridge Police in 2012, many youths from our community go the Lethbridge College to earn a diploma in criminal justice policing. (Personal interview, August 15, 2019)

As expressed by the participant, in addition to elder care and other family responsibilities, many students from the CBS community have joined the policing program at Lethbridge College. Bhutanese refugees have bitter experiences with police, from Bhutan to Nepal to Lethbridge. In addition to extrajudicial killing and arrest at the hands of police in Bhutan, they were also limited to the camp boundaries controlled by the Nepalese, and finally, in Canada, they are also among the racialized groups that have experienced fatalities at the hands of police. Many in the community believe that it is imperative for Bhutanese refugee youth to get integrated within the Lethbridge Police to mitigate the fear and support building relationships between the Lethbridge Police and the Bhutanese community.

Building Community: Sustaining a New Life

There is no set of circumstances that agonized participants more in every moment of their lives than losing their language, land, cultural values, and social status. Storytelling about displacement and experiences in the refugee camps was described by participants as part of building resilience through the maintenance of cultural continuity, interconnectedness, shared histories, and community. Participants described the act of storytelling as a central way that the survivors of the ethnic genocide made younger generations aware of the importance of preserving language, cultural practices, and traditional norms. Participant B narrates the importance of the stories told by their parents:

My families and I are happy in Canada. It has given us life with a new settlement. The government of Bhutan threw our lives into the garbage; many of our relatives lost their lives in fighting for the natural rights to become citizens of their nation. I do not remember anything that happened in Bhutan during the time of the ethnic genocide because I was two years old when my parents fled to Nepal; however, I listened to the stories from my parents. Lives in the camps were complicated in every aspect. Canada brought us here and gave us opportunities to resettle in a new home, so we are happy about the humanitarian efforts that Canada practiced. I landed in Canada in 2009 with my family. I directly came to Lethbridge. (Personal interview, August 14, 2019)

Participant E describes the role of the CBS in advancing and supporting both cultural continuity and programs for Bhutanese youth in Lethbridge, all things that contribute to the resilience of those who have fled their countries of origin to both escape genocide and protect future generations. Despite the fact that the youth are more responsible for taking care of their elders, they also play a crucial role in community building:

CBS is the umbrella organization of our community. There are several different religious groups in our community in Lethbridge. All these groups have made the community strong. Participating in organizing sports tournaments, such as volleyball, soccer, badminton, and cricket, has helped youth integrate into different communities in western Canada. Our youth gather and volunteer for sports at the Boys and Girls Club every Sunday evening. One of the CBS board members teaches karate class every Friday and Saturday at the Boys and Girls Club. There are almost forty students admitted, including students from different communities as well. CBS frequently organizes cultural programs and movie showings that have helped our seniors develop cultural ties by meeting their friends and relatives. Celebrating festivals and inviting relatives is one of the most important cultural values of our community. (Participant E, personal interview, August 15, 2019)

Regardless of the different forms of discrimination and racism they have experienced in Canadian workplaces, academic institutions, and elsewhere, no participants or their families said they were unhappy in Canada. The typical reaction of participants to this question of happiness was a sense of gratitude to the Canadian government. In terms of the degree of their happiness, those who were born in Nepal (two participants) miss it terribly. According to the participants who were born in camps in Nepal, the place of people’s birth is an imperative factor; people’s sense of belonging is often attached to their birthplace. Participant E narrates, “I was born in camps in Nepal. Nepal was my home, and I missed Nepal so much.” In this sense, the generation who was born in the camps in Nepal articulates it as their birth country and depicts their affection toward it. Therefore, the identities of people change in terms of migration, mobility, geography, time, and situation:

Besides our experiences of discrimination and harassment in the workplace, I am happy in Canada, but I was happier in Nepal. I was born in Nepal and came to Canada, Lethbridge, in 2009. I am very happy with the Canadian government for bringing our community and letting us settle here. I was one of the top five students in Nepal. From my childhood, my goal was to acquire higher education, but the situation was unpredictable because of displacement. I miss Nepal every time, especially during the festivals. (Participant D, personal interview, August 12, 2019)

Final Thoughts

Lethbridge has attracted immigrants from around the world. The experiences of the Bhutanese refugees interviewed for this chapter have led me to conclude that better strategies need to be developed to deal with racism in Lethbridge. More specifically, both policy and practice must address the different facets of the lives of refugees, including their values and beliefs. This chapter shows that one-size-fits-all programs do not work. Instead, listening to those who are impacted the most is imperative to developing policy, practice, and programs that work for those attempting to access them. Changing the eligibility requirements and hours of various social programs, including AISH and language programs, and developing community policing strategies that involve the Bhutanese community were identified by different participants as meaningful starting points to achieve these ends.

Racism has an enormous impact on Canadian socio-economic and socio-political reality. The range of different kinds of racism—from the direct forms experienced by factory workers and students to the systemic forms that led to police violence and fatality, that determine university admission criteria, that prevent hiring and promotion, and that create impossible double binds for those who require social services and language courses—continue to create social and institutional barriers for racialized refugee populations across Canada. As shown in the narratives of all participants, refugees are particularly vulnerable to experiencing “circumstances such as fear of losing their jobs, inadequate social support, and lack of institutional sanction for reporting racist incidents to militate against confrontational responses to discrimination” (Noh et al. 1999, 194) because of the fear of deportation. Anti-racism should therefore begin not only with a commitment from everyone to fight racism wherever they are situated in the world today (Stanley 2000), but this also needs to be done with a commitment to listen to those who experience racism in all its intersecting forms.

References