Learning about Immigrants and Refugees

Having just written a book about my family’s immigration experience, I started looking around for other novels about the topic to recommend for further reading. I’ll include a small smattering of recent reads at the end of this post. But I’d first like to mention a nonfiction book for young people: Finding Home, The Journey of Immigrants and Refugees by Jen Sookfong Lee. Filled with pictures and interesting facts the book has ageless appeal but might be especially appealing to middle grade students.  Immigration is a universal experience that has been around … literally … forever. I was raised in the Christian tradition where Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden. The first refugees! My mother’s family became homeless because of communism in the former USSR.  My own parents started over in a new country when they were in their mid-thirties because of war.

Over the last six or seven years I’ve supported newcomers to Canada through weekly conversation settings. Becoming fluent in English in a safe café setting, helps newcomers become more confident in an alien culture. All have slightly different motivations for starting over. My South Korean student wanted to escape the stress of perfectionism in her country of birth. My pre-invasion Ukrainian student wanted a better life for her two daughters. My post-invasion Ukrainian student wanted peace and safety. My Iranian friend wanted freedom to be a woman ... equal to a man. My Iraqi friend wanted religious freedom. My Russian friend wanted prosperity and freedom of expression. My Chinese friend wanted to stop being in a rat race.  

My parents wanted a house, a garden and the opportunity to go fishing. They wanted to have kaffee and kuchen on a Sunday afternoon with friends. Friends … I think that’s what all newcomers to Canada want more than anything. To be included and to share a smile, a coffee, a tea or a glass of wine. 

Here’s a few more books I've been reading:

For Youth: 

Belonging by Nora Krug (graphic novel)

From Anna by Jean Little, MG

Uncertain Soldier by Karen Bass, YA

The Land Beyond the Wall: An Immigration Story by Veronika Martinova Charles

For Adults:

In Other Words: a memoir by Norbert Ruebsaat

Being German Canadian edited by Alexander Freund

Next-Generation Memory and Ukrainian Canadian Children’s Historical Fiction: The Seeds of History by Mateusz Swietlicki

Land Deep in Time, Canadian Historiographic Ethnofiction edited by Weronika Suchacka/Harmut Lutz

The New Girl by Cassandra Calin (graphic novel)

Call Me Al by Wali Shah and Eric Walters 

Finding Home: The Journey of Immigrants and Refugees by Jen Sookfong Lee

Dandelion: by Jamie Chai Yun Liew