3.2.3. Searching for Identity: A Cultural Struggle

On the theme of 'searching for identity,' youth talked about challenges in finding a balance between their heritage and Canadian culture, and the impact it had on their evolving identity. Youth were undecided on whether to keep the culture of their countries of origin, adopt Canadian culture, or come up with their own culture. The struggles felt like a "*push and pull*" with youth grappling with the desire to please others (e.g., other Canadians) or their families. Youth shared what it meant to struggle with how to navigate two cultures:

"*How do I adapt myself with the Canadian people? What, how do I behave in a manner that gives pride to all immigrants in Canada and to Canadians and to my family? I have not faced something that may be very rough or very rude to myself or from a Canadian citizen or from other refugees like me. I feel comfortable but I face challenges. I do not succeed, as I desire.*" (24-year old Congolese Male)

Youth who lived in other countries for three years or more or lived in multiple countries expressed more complexity in describing their identity. Their comments about the complexity of their identity were similar to the ones shared here by a 20-year old Congolese male:

"*We went to Rwanda, Zambia, like a lot of countries. People would always look at me and ask, 'What are you? Are you a Congolese? Do you speak Swahili?' I would respond, 'No I am everything you know'.*" (20-year old Congolese male)

Upon coming to Canada, the youth were on a path to acquiring Canadian citizenship, adding another layer on their identity:

"*Mostly I ask my mom, I asked her 'What am I?' and she told me, 'You are half Canadian, half Kenyan, half Somalian, because we came from Somalia but I was born in Kenya.'*" (14-year old Somalian male)

Language was an important part of their identity and a source of struggle for the youth. When youth arrived in Canada, they felt a need to keep their traditional language skills from their African countries of origin even though they were no longer in those countries. As a way of maintaining their heritage, youth felt compelled to communicate in their native languages with their friends and relatives from their societies of origin. However, youth found limited opportunities to speak their African dialects with people in Canada considering English or French are the official languages of Canada.

Another form of struggle with a new culture arose in youth discussions about finding friendships that reflected their identity. Because of migration, youth separated from their

friends in their societies of origin and found the need to make new ones in Canada. Almost all youth talked about seeking and keeping friends who shared similar behavior, which was an important aspect of their identity. However, while finding friends was critical, youth struggled with identifying peers that made them feel comfortable. A 16-year-old female from Congo underscored the difficulty she and other youth faced as a young person trying to make new friends in a new sociocultural environment. In her interviews, she kept reiterating *"it is difficult to make friends here. Canadians are different from people in Germany and France*." Her response highlighted one of the many challenges that refugee youth face when seeking to form new friendships, seeking people they could identify with, as well as find a sense of belonging and acceptance amongst their peers.

Youth felt indifferent and did not identify with the culture around making friends in Canada. In their perspectives, the culture around making friends with newcomers in Canada was different from what they were used to in their birth countries. In Canada, youth felt they could not approach their neighbours or strangers to create friendships:

"*You cannot go to someone's house you know. When I came here, I learned that one needs to give everybody his or her space. You do not go to people. So it was really hard. When you go to school you see everybody is cool you know, they have their friends, like everybody is with somebody, they will not go to someone who is alone. Like nobody really cares about you apart from the teacher.*" (19-year old Congolese female)

Despite the struggle to develop or find their cultural identity, youth found ways of learning and establishing themselves.

#### 3.2.4. Learning the New Culture

The theme of 'learning the new culture' refers to youth experiences of being acquainted with and adapting to different cultures in Canada. Youth needed to find ways to adapt their own culture to the cultural practices at their new country. Youth felt the need to learn the cultures in order to integrate. Youth talked about experiences of learning about the Canadian culture through patience, silence, and careful watching of people's behaviours. One of the youth expressed his experiences as follows:

"*In my first two months, I was a very quiet kid in school. I was just analysing everything, how people act, because our cultures are very different. I was trying to understand the behaviours of Canadians, how, why, and what they are like.*" (20-year old Burundi male)

Youth adapted to the culture in Canada by tapping into their experiences and understanding of what could help them to navigate different cultures. Youth went to schools where they learned English, found fellow Africans, formed friendships, and learned from them. Youth were better prepared, a little older, and had experiences that could act as reference points for their adaptation and in navigating cultures in Canada:

"*When we came here, oh my God, I had that feeling for the second time of my life of coming to a new place and living a new life. However, this time, I was older and better prepared. I was like wow, everything looked different, I went to school, and it was better than the school in Cameroon. I really adapted well because usually for newcomers when you go to school and do not know how to speak English, you are not going to make any friends, unless there are some other African that are going to take you and you guys start hanging out. It is sort of like in Africa because in Cameroon, when you are a new student, people come around you, hey what is your name and stuff like that.*" (20-year old Burundian male)

In addition, in Canada, their teachers or immigration counsellors taught youth. Youth were made aware of other cultures, were asked to be respectful, open minded, and willing to learn. Younger siblings were taught about the way of life and how to adapt in Canada by their older siblings. One of the youth shared his experiences of teaching his siblings about Canadian way of life:

"*I am teaching my brother and sister how to live here. Before they do anything, I ask them to think about their actions and evaluate whether they are good or bad. To ask, 'Can I do it; if I do it can I be responsible for it?'*" (20-year old Burundi male)

In learning a new culture, youth believed age at immigration and time spent in Canada played an important role. By the time of carrying out our study, youth had lived in Canada for between 1 and 16.5 (average of 4.87) years. Youth felt that those who immigrated at a young age were more likely to learn faster about the Canadian culture with ease compared to older youth. Youth learned to develop their own culture by blending multiple cultures. For example, a youth from Sudan shared his experiences of coming to Canada when he was young and believing that age played an important role.

"*I grew up here, so I know more but when I came, the experience was just different. English wise, the lifestyles, what I see it is just as if 'oh I got myself blended in this.' The good thing I was happy about is that I came here when I was young, and this was great for me you know, I could do a lot of stuff.*" (25-year old Sudanese male)

In addition to their experiences, youth made recommendations for other refugee youth to live in neighbourhoods where other newcomer youth lived. Living in such neighbourhoods could help them to find ways to learn and blend with the Canadian culture at their own pace.

#### **4. Discussion**

Our study examined the adaptation experiences of first-generation African refugee youth upon their migration to Canada. From youth's discourse, their experiences focused on how they navigated Canadian and cultures from their African countries of origin. Youth shared their struggles and opportunities they experienced in their integration process. Accordingly, we identified the themes of 'disruption in the family,' 'our cultures are different,' 'searching for identity: a cultural struggle,' and 'learning the new culture.'

Research examining the migration journey and the effect on youth adaptation in receiving countries [3,38,39] is increasing. Much of the work focuses on post-migration challenges that highlight language proficiency, inter-generational conflicts, educational challenges, and difficulties in navigating different cultures and stops short of describing how youth navigate these challenges [38,39]. Our study findings compliment this body of knowledge by highlighting that youth's migration experiences play a key role in guiding how they navigate different cultures and adapt in their final destination countries.

Youth in our study described their adaptation experiences in Canada and made suggestions on the need to get used to multiple cultures. Upon migrating to Canada, youth faced difficult experiences of navigating between cultures but learned to live with them. In their integration, youth utilized their experiences of living with new cultures in their migration journey to navigate living with the Canadian culture. While facing different cultures that could be perceived as similar experiences irrespective of where youth migrated to, cultural aspects that youth needed to adjust to be nonetheless different. For instance, youth needed to adjust to the culture around parenting or food when they arrived in Canada.

On the theme of disruption in the family, youth talked about separation from their parents and the effect it had on their adaptation in Canada. Research examining disruptions in the family because of parental migration reveal experiences of economic challenges, emotional problems, and poor health [40–42]. Where family cohesion is present, Filipino adolescents felt supported, had great academic ambitions, and mental health [43]. In our study, family disruptions often took place during times of war with some of the youth never reuniting with their parents. In order to provide support to immigrant and refugee youth with a history of family disruptions, health, and social service providers in receiving countries need to help the youth attain smoother integration experiences. The service providers could connect them with welcoming families from their ethnocultural groups where they could form supportive relationships.

On the theme of our cultures are different, youth highlighted the culture around families, parenting, and food as areas where cultures from their societies of origin and Canadian differed. From youth's perspectives, in cultures from their societies of origin, there is a sense of togetherness or familism while in Canadian culture; there is a sense of individualism. When discussing about the culture around parenting, youth felt their parents were strict and authoritarian while Canadian parents were easy going. Arab immigrant adolescents in Ontario, Canada shared similar perspectives and felt that their experiences led to intergenerational conflicts and acculturation stress [44]. However, the Arab immigrant adolescents believed their parents meant well and cared about their future despite the conflicts while youth in our study felt their parents did not want to adapt to Canadian culture or were concerned about their families' reputation. In future, research that examines African parents' experiences of parenting in Canada is needed to inform strategies to help parents and their children adapt to Canadian practices.

Refugee youth in our study had recently migrated to Canada and their perspectives on differences between cultures were in contrast to perceptions by second-generation youth in Toronto [45,46]. The youth in Toronto expressed a sense of belonging that could have been possible because of parental influence and living and attending schools in multicultural neighbourhoods. To navigate the cultural difference, newcomer youth and their families should be encouraged to take part in activities and events that bring youth from multicultural neighbourhoods together. Such activities could include taking part in ethnocultural and national activism organizations [47]. Service providers could also place emphasis in promoting cultural awareness between newcomer and non-newcomer youth to promote better navigation between cultures.

On the theme of searching for identity, youth faced challenges in negotiating their identity when straddled between two cultures. Youth construct their identity based on their pre-immigration experiences, parents' identities or culture, personal characteristics, and their environment [46,48,49]. Youth with a history of living in multiple countries struggle and have more complex ways of describing their identity, which can lead to poor mental health [10,49–51]. Therefore, when refugee youth arrive in Canada, it is critical to learn about their migration experiences and histories of living in other countries in order to help them adjust to their new way of life that could shape their identity. Youth's experiences are synonymous with feelings of 'othering' which can create tremendous pressure to conform to Canadian culture and identity and poor mental health. Identity struggles can be worsened by government policies that infringe on youth's culture, religion, or identity (e.g., a ban on the use of hijabs by the Quebec policymakers) [17,52]. To promote youth's health, migrant settlement organizations and communities needs to create environments that encourage youth to identify with and maintain ties with their native culture. The organizations need to support youth to establish stable social support systems (e.g., friendships or strong family ties) and focus on training programs that support youth's sense of identity, mental health and wellbeing [53].

On the theme of learning the new culture, youth in our study shared experiences of how they learned and shared knowledge with others. Similarly, unaccompanied minors in Ireland adjusted to life in their new country by learning [28]. While youth in our study often took upon themselves to find ways to integrate, they needed a supportive environment. Similarly, Somali youth in United States expected others (e.g., the government) to help them to integrate [11]. Kennedy and MacNeela [21] found that youth blended with cultures in their resettled countries by learning from peers from their ethno cultural communities. Therefore, to promote youth adaptation, initiatives that promote different ways of youth learning such as learning through social interactions, as well as support from mentors, social service providers, and community members could be beneficial. Helping youth to understand and appreciate living with multiple cultures is warranted.

Youth in our study emphasize the challenges experienced in navigating between cultures and the impact on their settlement and adaptation in their destination countries. Despite those challenges, researchers elsewhere have found that a strong foundation in

one's original culture and identity can help youth in their adaptation process. Youth can benefit from parental influence and maintaining connections with their culture as they adapt new cultures [46,54]. In the wake of increasing immigration between countries, it is critical to understand and support refugee youth's adaptation efforts.
