The following case scenario captures the experiences of a first generation refugee and her children.

Nooda is a 35-year-old refugee from Syria who arrived in Toronto with her three young children. Her husband disappeared two years ago after being forced into military service by the Syrian government. Nooda grew up within the Alawite religion in a primarily Alawite region of the country that is controlled and protected by the government. This region enjoys its privileged status, because the current ruling party and president of Syria share the Alawite religion. Nooda came to Canada through the support of a private sponsorship group, made up of Caucasian business women who have also sponsored two other Syrian single mothers and their children. The sponsors were very excited to find a newly renovated older home in a predominantly Muslim area that had been divided into three units. Although she repeatedly expresses her deep gratitude to her sponsorship group for the opportunity to be in Canada, Nooda is withdrawn, her affect is very flat, and she shows no interest in building connections with the other women with whom she has been housed. Her sponsors have made several efforts to include all of the newcomers in group events; the children are delighted to play together, but Nooda stays mostly to herself and the other women seem disinclined to engage her.

You are Nooda’s counsellor at a local women’s immigrant and refugee counselling service. She came to the first session with one of the sponsors, who expressed concern about Nooda’s mental health. Nooda’s English is minimal, so you included an Arabic-speaking interpreter in the session.

Work together on a plan for how you would approach this scenario. Consider also your personal and professional experiences and any other academic or professional resources that you find helpful. You will first need to do some research to understand the potential complexities of Nooda’s pre- and post-migration experiences.

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Read the short article by Dina Nayeri from CBC radio’s, The Current: Expecting gratitude from refugees can be toxic. In my own experience as part of a refugee sponsorship group, I encountered some of these attitudes on the part of other sponsors, and I could see how harmful they were to newcomers. Discuss as a group the implications for this expectation of gratitude from newcomers to Canada in terms of our responsibility as counsellors

• to critically reflect on your own attitudes and beliefs about refugees,
• to support newcomers’ healthy acculturation and identity development, and
• to take a pro-human rights and social justice stand in the public and political spheres.

Prepare a short, reasoned, and reflective response (1–2 paragraphs) that you might share with a colleague who makes a comment about the gift Canada offers to refugees and how grateful they should be.

[Permanent link: https://crsjguide.pressbooks.com/chapter/cc7/#gratitude]

Watch this TED Talk by George Takei (otherwise known as Hikaru Sulu from the TV series Star Trek). Looking back on the decisions that were made during the time period about which he speaks, one might ask, “What were people thinking?”

© TEDxKyoto (2014, June)

For a Canadian perspective, check out the A Brief Chronology of Chinese Canadian History (David Lam Centre, Simon Fraser University, n.d.). Understanding the history of various populations in Canada and elsewhere forms an important foundation for culturally responsive and socially just counselling practice. Then engage in the following class discussion.

• If your birthday is between January and June, do a bit of research online about the experiences of various immigrant populations in Canada historically. Answer the question What were people thinking? by considering some of the myths or misperceptions at the time.
• If your birthday is between July and December, focus your research on modern day Canada and answer the question: What are people thinking? as you examine the rationalizations and misperceptions about immigrants and refugees promoted by media, special interest groups, or others.

Compare and contrast your observations.

• How does this dialogue shape what you are thinking about immigrants and refugees and how you might approach these issues at both professional and political levels?
• What is our responsibility, both as individual counsellors and as a profession, to advocate for, or otherwise engage in, systems level change to shape Canadian law in ways that foster social justice and ensure that we do not see an erosion of basic human rights over time?
• At the end of the conversation, share one action step that you can take to change the systemic discourses that marginalize immigrants and refugees.

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There are a lot of great resources on the Internet that support cultural competency development. Take a few moments to find and read a resource that speaks to internalized oppression. You may want to revisit Collins (2020), Professional writing in the health disciplines Section 3.3, for guidelines on selecting credible and scholarly Internet sources. Be prepared to integrate what you learn into the class discussion.

Then, consider the two case scenarios below.

Draw on your knowledge about culturally responsive and socially just counselling practices to inform your dialogue about Samsung and Stella. Consider also your personal and professional experiences and any other academic or professional resources that you find particularly helpful. Work together on a plan for how you might support these clients struggling with internalized oppression. Be sure to incorporate what you learned from the Internet source you selected in the study process.

[Note for instructors: You may want to break the class into two smaller groups or two separate discussion threads, one for each case scenario. Then bring the class back together to debrief and share their insights.]

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Consider the following case scenario of a second generation immigrant.

Luciana is 14-years-old and has attended school in Canada since she was 5. Her family immigrated to Canadian from Argentina when she was 4. Luciana speaks English at home to her sister, Mariana, who is 18 months younger. Her father, Lucas, considers her use of English to be both a barrier that prevents him from being able to understand her thoughts and behaviours and a threat to her retention of her native language. When he demands that she speak Spanish in the home, she interprets this as just another instance of her father attempting to control her and purposely continues to speak English to spite him. The father reacts to her “disobedience” with anger and reissues the order, and the conflict escalates. He has been working two manual labour jobs since arriving in Canada, nine years ago, so that Luciana and Mariana can attend a private Catholic school. Luciana excels in her studies and has lots of friends. For the most part, her friends are Caucasian and monolingual. Her best friends share an interest in fashion, movie stars, and Justin Trudeau; however, they also aspire to careers such as astronaut, computer scientist, and ecologist. She has not talked to her father about her own aspirations to join the Canadian military as a medical doctor.

Critically analyze this case example of multigenerational issues in acculturation. Assume you are a school counsellor, and Luciana’s teacher has asked you to talk with her after Luciana revealed her conflict with her father through a writing assignment. Work together on a plan for how you would approach this scenario.

[Permanent link: https://crsjguide.pressbooks.com/chapter/cc7/#differentacculturation]