Our home is here: Fredericton's immigrant stories inspire a more diverse community
Research team says sharing newcomers stories gives people the opportunity to connect with each other
Bianca Prajescu has a story to tell.
And she's sharing it as part of Our Home is Here: A Community Conversation, put on by the Promise of Home, a research-based project that helps newcomers share whether Fredericton feels like home to them.
Prajescu said that when her family immigrated to Canada from Romania, she had to deal with bullies because she could not speak in fluent English tell her teachers what was going on.
"There was miscommunication and my teacher thought that I was the one bullying a kid in my class. And I was really frustrated," she said.
She had to learn to fight for herself at a young age, she said, while trying to be accepted and make friends.
Gül Çalışkan, lead researcher of the project and a sociology professor at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, said the group aims to address issues around education, health, settlement, workplace experiences and discrimination, by inviting participants to focus on newcomer stories.
"The goal is to take these stories to the community and have reflections on what we learn from the stories," said Çalışkan.
Some of the policy-related suggestions that emerged from the event include improving city transit services, including adding Sunday service, improving the availability of housing in safe areas with good transit or walkability scores and improving the visibility of immigration services online.
Sophie Lavoie, who is also on the research team, said storytelling is an essential aspect of their work because decisions are made top-down, and many government decisions don't reflect the lived experiences of newcomers.
"It's such an important project for our community because it aims to increase the diversity in the province," said Lavoie.
Participants were allowed to view the collected stories at the gathering and share their thoughts, experiences, and recommendations.
People such as Green Party Leader David Coon and Coun. Eric Megarity attended the event, along with stakeholders from Ignite Fredericton, Public Health, the Capital Region Integration Network and other groups.
Home is shared hospitality
Deborah van den Hoonaard, a St. Thomas University sociology faculty member who participated in the research, defines home as somewhere she can offer hospitality and people will accept it.
"In Fredericton, when you come from somewhere else, people don't invite you to their home and they often don't accept your invitation," she said.
"I don't think they're unfriendly on purpose. I think they really don't know how."
Born and raised in New York, van den Hoonaard and her husband, Will, moved to Fredericton in September 1979. The family had a tough time transitioning into their new community, she said.
She did not immediately feel at home until she built relationships with people from the Baha'i community and others who were looking to be seen and accepted in the community.
Van den Hoonaard said the most challenging thing during their transitioning stage was the discrimination against people for their race or religious belief.
"People who are from here, whose families are always from here, they don't see you if they don't know who your father is," she said.
"We were lucky because we had English already, and we didn't look that different."
She said Fredericton has been her home for 45 years now, and she hopes the community can create more opportunities within the school system where children from different backgrounds can work together.
Çalışkan, says as the province continues to witness a significant increase in its immigrant population, she hopes they can get more funding to be able to carry out the project in other cities in New Brunswick.
As for Prajescu, she said she is grateful to have found people she connected with and hopes that conversations from the gathering can help create a community with no divide.
"I want people to realize that everyone deserves to be in a community where they can be treated with respect and not be pushed aside," she said.
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