‘Tell me why, mama!’ – a case study of a perplexed young immigrant

Abstract

This study explores issues of moral development in the context of social unsettlement (e.g. disconnection, fears, alienation, loneliness) that immigrant people, especially young immigrants, are experiencing in their immigration. Using a combined qualitative and discourse analysis approach, drawing on John Dewey's theory of experience and Emile Durkheim's idea of human agency, this study explores the interplay between the development of moral agency and the tensions and disruptions of immigration. Through describing and analysing a young immigrant's experiences, we focus on aspects of such experiences that bear upon internal conflicts and moral dilemmas of coming to a new culture. We thus seek to demonstrate how such unsettling experience can in fact engage a young person's moral agency to cope with the confrontations of cultural unsettlement in his or her learning environment.

Keywords:

• narrative case study
• immigration
• dilemmas
• human agency
• education
• Canada

Prologue

    My Dream

   My dream is to fly

    Above the sky,

   My dream is to share

    All the care;

   My dream is to pray

    For people everyday;

   My dream is yours

    And yours is mine.

Eleven-year-old Jennie1 was full of hopes and joy when she came to Canada with her family. She wrote her first English poem ‘My Dream’ in an English language class before she entered her elementary school here in Vancouver. But soon she was puzzled by feelings of loneliness, alienation, fear … She continued to keep her poetic diaries, wanting to understand what she was going through. In one of her poetic narratives, she was asking, ‘Tell me why, Mama!’

An understanding of the context and unsettlement

It is common for immigrants, especially young immigrants, to experience disconnection and unsettlement during the years of their dislocation in different cultures, and they may experience the unsettling predicaments and moral dilemmas encountered in the experience of their immigration. Such experience, however, may in turn serve as the condition that requires them to be responsive to their immediate situations and responsible for their decisions and actions. It is precisely this paradox of conflicts and the development of moral agency occurring in the same moment that I want to explore.

Attention to studying immigrant issues in recent years has emphasised the identity reconstruction, language acquisition and practices, civic rights, social inclusion, and so forth (Anderson, 1983/1991; Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford, 1993; Block, 2003; Chiswick & Miller, 2002; Cummins, 2003; Norton, 2006; Norton & Stewart, 1999). Around the issues, few efforts have been made to understand the importance of the self-cultivation and self-overcoming of young immigrants in the face of these unsettling experiences. In this study, which involves describing and interpreting a young immigrant's poetic accounts of her experiences of immigration to Canada, we explore the interplay between the development of moral agency and the tensions and disruptions of immigration and issues of moral development in the context of social unsettlement.

In this study, we seek to understand such aspects of the immigrants' social unsettlement and cultural conflicts such as puzzlement, alienation, loneliness, fear – all of which bear upon a person's internal conflicts and moral dilemmas of coming to a new culture and a new school. This study thus aims to provide a vignette through which we may understand a person's internal conflicts and moral dilemmas in his or her immigration to different cultures and show how such unsettlement can in fact serve as a site for the development of moral agency rather than thwarting it. Apart from joining the ongoing discussion of immigrant issues, we hope that this study can help immigrant population to understand that their experiences in such social unsettlement and cultural conflicts may not only be inevitable in their dislocation but also be necessary for their personal and moral growth, and hence, raising an awareness of human agency that enables them to grow.

Illuminated by existential and social ethics, we draw on the work of John Dewey and Emile Durkheim. Durkheim (1925/1973) asserts that in order to appreciate another's choices and actions in the realm of human agency, it is crucially important to appreciate the conditions under which, and means by which, those choices and actions take place. In connection to Durkheim's view, we thus find it helpful to look at Dewey's (1981, 1991) notion of experience, which is at the heart of his philosophy and education (through his later works: Experience and Nature and Experience and Education). Dewey's emphasis on individuals' experience in education highlights a central ground for developing moral agency. Through a discourse analysis of this narrative case study, we ponder the very question: How can such unsettlements in immigration be overcome and even be transformed to positive experience? In other words, how can the unsettlements a young immigrant experiences in fact serve as a site for the development of moral agency rather than thwarting it?

A methodological approach to the inquiry

Participant

Jennie immigrated to Canada with her family at the age of 11. She entered Grade 7 at Thunderbird Elementary School. Later, she entered Burnaby South Secondary. She had a habit of keeping diaries, and very often keeping them in poetic forms. Jennie's two poems (‘My Dream’ and ‘My Dear Mother’) were praised at Burnaby South Secondary. Before she came to Canada, Jennie was a praiseworthy child in Chengdu, China, where she originally entered her preschool and primary school. She was active in class, at school events and in extra-curricular activities.

Poetic narratives

Jennie's poetic narratives are the main data for this study. Three poetic pieces are selected for discussion: I am a little immigrant, ‘Tell Me Why, Mama!’ and A Place to Find Myself. The first two poems were written when Jennie was at Thunderbird Elementary, and the third at Grade 8, at Burnaby South Secondary. Jennie kept her writing in both Chinese and English. The three poetic stories collected here are English in original, and Jennie revised them before she handed them over to us. Jennie is sympathetic and willing to share her stories and agrees that her real name be used. These original poetic texts provide us with dependable and consistent context for our discourse analysis.

Discourse analysis

These poetic narratives are treated with a combined analytic strategies: Text/Discourse Analysis (Creswell, 2007; Riessman, 2007), Description and Interpretation (Creswell, 2007). In this process, we use Creswell's method of themes and/or Riessman's discourse analysis to classify the narrative texts into three ‘Themes’, focusing on what was ‘spoken’ or written in the poetic narratives. The analysis is through describing Jennie's life stories, her immigrant experiences and also through interpreting the large meaning of her poetic stories (Creswell, 2007, p. 156).

We present and analyse these discourses chiefly in two ways: (1) we present Jennie's original poetic stories, which provides us with reliable, dependable discourse and (2) these poetic texts are treated through a mixed strategy, alternating over text description, conceptual analysis and thematic discussion of Jennie's immigrant experiences. We will also be checking with Jennie by reading to her our presentation, description and analysis of her narrative accounts, following Creswell's (2007) validation strategies (e.g. ‘Member Checking’ and ‘Rich, Think Description’, pp. 208–209).

Towards a framework for understanding the unsettlement

Theme 1: puzzlement, loneliness and moral dilemma

    I'm a Little Immigrant

  When i first laid my feet

  on the clean soil of Canada,

  i bid good-bye

  to my innocent childhood;

  when i first breathed in

  the fresh air of Canada,

  i rejoiced at embracing

  free choices and bloomers.

  I'm a little immigrant,

  ready to accept a new life;

  hopes, dreams, goals,

  and endless imagination

  filled my mind and vision;

  yet, sundry faces, tongue-twisters,

  and infinite loneliness

  placed barriers across my living.

  I'm a little immigrant,

  needed to start after all

  from everything fresh,

  in scarceness yet in abundance;

  in a living that has my mother only,

  i learned to be lone and lonely,

  that way i can alone stab my feet

  firmly into this new soil.

  I might have given up,

  by hiding myself away

  in a forgotten corner;

  i might have run away,

  leaving my dreams dangling

  in the free air;

  i stood upright, looking

 both forward and backward.

  ‘But life does not take Deserter!’

  a voice yelled to me from the inner.

  i then opened up slowly

  to the door of the outer;

  i learned to drink in deep draughts

  from a new window of cultures

  and swallow them down

  little by little …

In this autobiographical narrative poem, Jennie expressed her feeling as a young immigrant of 11 years, six months after her arrival in Canada. In the process of writing, she developed an understanding of the ways she organised or responded to an entirely new circumstance and to the challenges of the cultural differences and language barriers, and her living situation with her mother – ‘my mother only’. As a young immigrant confronting confusions and conflicts, she contemplated her initial attempt to escape ‘by hiding myself away in a forgotten corner’, or ran away ‘leaving my dreams dangling in the free air’. Then, she seemed to look at her situation critically and reflected upon the unfavourable situation, responding, ‘But life does not take Deserter!’ A voice came to encourage her from her innermost self – which manifests the human agency and moral orientation a young person possesses.

This reaction and response to her facing the puzzlement and moral dilemma as a struggle as an admissible function of her understanding rationalised her to think of change of her relations with the outer world – a new limiting context, ‘i then opened up slowly to the door of the outer’. This process is cultivated through her identity shifting and interaction with differences in new cultures, as described in the lines below:

   When i first laid my feet

  on the clean soil of Canada,

  i bid good-bye

  to my innocent childhood;

It was not difficult to discern that she struggled between ‘endless imagination’ and ‘infinite loneliness’ but made the decision upon the choices of the new and free land – Canada, the country to which she was immigrated. Seeming to stand at the crossroads, ‘looking both backward and forward’, she faced the ‘barriers of my living’, and if she wanted to stand firmly on the new land, she had to, as she declared, learn ‘to be lone and lonely’, because she appreciated her conditions and turned to her own agency (Durkheim, 1925/1973). Then, bravely she affirmed that life does not take deserter. Upon this, she was moving towards a way of change:

   i learned to drink in deep draughts

  from a new window of cultures

  and swallow them down

  little by little…

Theme 2: alienation, fear and moral struggle

    Tell Me Why, Mama!

  Canada started as a place

  replete with strange things:

  strange cultures,

  then strange languages,

  and strange faces.

  Then Thunderbird Elementary –

  a place I was afraid to enter

  and eager to leave.

  They all glared back at me

  every day in my passing by.

  Yes, i was an outsider, but

  can I see the best of the game, Mama?

  Living through loneliness

  was my everyday routine:

  i had no friends

  not to say having any fun,

  but cold shoulders.

  As they despised my ‘hellos’

  and scorned my much said words,

  I smiled still, but no smiles back.

  Have I learned the needed words –

  vast emptiness and enough loneliness?

  Yes, i wanted so much to go back

  to where i came from, Mama.

  Counting my tears at night

  was a way to fall asleep;

  biting my lips,

  clenching my fists,

  I had enough.

  Am i going to live with an impaired soul?

  no, i won't be vanquished! said i.

  If i can't shade the setting,

  i will then shade my old self,

  and blend the two into the new.

  For how can i hastily retreat, Mama,

  before i even have a chance to dream?

The alienation, the fear and the pressure constantly challenge our thinking, even for a preadolescent girl. Realising that she was marginalised as ‘an outsider’ constituted her questions about her positioning of and interaction with her situated reality: ‘but can i see the best of the game, Mama?’ She bit her lips and clenched her fists, and implored, ‘… i wanted to go back to where i came from’. Such experiences may have provided Jennie with a central ground for her to critically see her circumstances and to find a way to overcome the problem (Dewey, 1981, 1991).

   …

  I had enough.

  Am i going to live with an impaired soul?

  no, i won't be vanquished! said i.

  if i can't shade the setting,

  i will then shade my old self

  and blend the two into the new.

  For how can i hastily retreat, Mama,

  before i even have a chance to dream?

It is the expressive power of language of being oppressed or marginalised that may be found in the above poetic discourse of an 11-year-old girl in expressing herself in relation to the limiting reality. It is evident that she shifted and struggled between interrogating her identities as ‘who I am’ and ‘what I should become’. She questioned what is normally taken for granted as in ‘how can I hastily retreat, Mama, before i even have a chance to dream?’ This is because, following Dewey (1981, 1991), we human beings have capacity of making moral choices in true engagement with our conditions and experiences. We are able to grasp and gather ourselves in the darkness, making meaning through narrating our lived experience. Jennie's poetic expressions, on the one hand, acknowledge and appreciate her limiting conditions (Durkheim, 1925/1973) and, on the other, demonstrate her motive in seeking to find exits of understanding between her existing self and reality. Within her moral struggle, Jennie was determined that she would not give up.

Theme 3: strangeness, self-overcoming and transformation

    A Place to Find Myself

  Canada continues as a place,

  Full of strangers still, yet also friends.

  I find myself, old and new,

  In a place that is still novel.

  I cup and hug the warm sunshine,

  And smell and inhale the kind air.

  I retrace my lost dreams

  In the calmly-flowing Fraser River –

  ‘Mother River’ of our British Columbia;

  In which I also regain myself.

  Then I say I'll stay in the place,

  Full of strangers still, yet also friends.

  I find myself, former and fresher,

  In a place that is further.

  I say ‘Hi’ to welcoming trees,

  And dance to different melodies.

  I accept the mixture

  In the time indeed prolonged,

  ‘I love Canada!’ to my mother I said,

  It braves me to be once again myself.

Our way of knowing and becoming allows us to write ourselves into our existing beings, as illustrated in the above narrative poem, and to provide us with an inherent means of understanding of the world. It also allows us to both comprise our experience and reinforce our recognition of ‘change’, which is explicitly explored in Jennie's poetic writing presented above. Through ‘Full of strangers still, yet also friends’, Jennie recognised that it took some time to be adapted to a new place, as she wrote ‘In the time indeed prolonged’. In the process of her adaptation and change, she seemed to extend herself between conflicts such as ‘I find myself, old and new’ and ‘I find myself, former and fresher’. Even if the situation continued to be ‘novel’, ‘further’ and challenging, she developed, though gradual, a fondness for her landed country – Canada.

   I cup and hug the warm sunshine,

  And smell and inhale the kind air.

  I say ‘Hi’ to welcoming trees,

  And dance to different melodies.

She invited the power of language, poetic narrative in this case, to express her need to retrieve her lost identity, in which she demonstrated her understanding of what it meant to live and to claim her new self as:

   I retrace my lost dreams

  In the calmly-flowing Fraser River –

  ‘Mother River’ of our British Columbia;

  In which I also regain myself.

It is not to deny that experience, whether smooth or disruptive, allows one to reach a deeper understanding of oneself, others and the surroundings, by placing oneself in one's own living that one has encountered, inevitably and necessarily. Jennie's immigration experiences extend both Jennie's understanding of unsettling circumstances and her development of human agency that have enabled her to face up to her internal conflicts and moral dilemmas of coming to a new culture. Through this living and growing process, Jennie has come to terms with her trying situations, she finally said,

   ‘I love Canada!’ to my mother I said,

  It braves me to be once again myself.

Conclusion

The three narrative poems, presented, described and analysed, have given voice to the contemplation closely engaged with the reality of young immigrants who come to a new culture and to a new school, thus enhancing an awareness of their circumstances. This narrative research has pointed to some of the ways that describe the dynamics of lives of new immigrants in Canada (and perhaps, by extension, the North America) and that may indicate the interventions underlying marginality or oppression in the ordinary interactions with diverse aspects of immigrants' everyday lives. Through analysing Jennie's poetic narratives, we have also shown that the development of one's moral agency can be cultivated as Dewey and Durkheim assert. We suggest that this study runs counter to much current thinking in moral education; rather, it calls us educators to rethink our assumptions about educating for moral agency. We suggest that the future study of this narrative research be expanded, for example, by adding interview to data collection and by including strategies as prolonged engagement with Jennie to collect data and/or to use triangulation for different forms of life stories (e.g. Jennie's life stories in prose form, or in drawings, etc.), referring to Creswell (2007, pp. 207–208). This single case-based narrative research may also be broadening to a multiple case-based study.

Notes

^1. The participant in this narrative case study is also one of the authors in this qualitative inquiry. For the purpose of discussion, we use the real name in the study. We find that this ‘participant–researcher’ participation method better serves to meet the goal of this research as well as to maintain the rights and truthfulness of the research participant.