Adler University Library: Social Justice Resource Guide: Immigration Stories

Immigration First Person Storytelling

Podcasts

I'm More Than the Immigrant You Had in Mind

I'm More Than the Immigrant You Had in Mind: celebrating voices of identity, resilience, and belonging.

Episode 5: Dani Cardenas: Bringing a Little Spice
Dani Cardenas, originally from Colombia, shares her two-year journey in Canada, filled with challenges, growth, and discovery. As a temporary foreign worker, Dani faced the duality of immigration: what she came to do and the struggle for belonging.

Episode 8: Clarissa Cecillia 'Issa' Mijares: Dancing Through Life
Issa Mijares shares her journey of rebuilding her identity after relocating from Manila, Philippines, to Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Episode 13: Yasmeen Barakat: Here I Am
Yasmeen Barakat, a Palestinian-origin scholar, recently arrived in Canada in January 2024, marking the beginning of a transformative journey as a racialized settler, a person of colour, an Arab, a Palestinian, and queer. In this episode, Yasmeen shares her journey of navigating cultural shock, the complexitites of identity and her academic path.

Immigrantly

Immigrantly: Cross-Cultural Conversations

Jokes That Go There: Lana Salah on Comedy Without Apology
In this deeply human and sharply funny conversation, Palestinian American comedian Lana Salah is in conversation for an unfiltered exploration of comedy, identity, loss and truth-telling in a world that often prefers silence.

Why We Don't Act & How to Change That
In conversation with philosophers Alex Madva & Michael Brownstein, co-authors of Somebody Should Do Something from MIT Press. The episode unpacks the gap between good intentions and meaningful action, exploring why moral inertia is so common, how cynicism can masquerade as realism, and what it really takes to move from awareness to impact.

Many Roads to Here

Many Roads to Here: The Immigrant Story

What Colour is Freedom
TK grew up in exile in his own home country of Rhodesia. Under white minority rule, Black people weren't allowed in certain schools or movie theatres, and it could even be dangerous to be out after dark. To find safety, TK would need to give up his successful law career and start over, in a brand new country, in a brand new life.

Call Me Dr. Olive Bukuru
When Olive Bukuru was six months old, she and her family fled their home country, Burundi, in search of a safe life. They ended up in a refugee camp in Tanzania, where Olive fell in love with learning and became determined to pursue her education, something that was not encouraged for girls in the area.

Migration Conversations

Migration Conversations: A Canadian Migration Podcast with Prof Jamie Liew

Social Justice Interventions
Speaking with four lawyers who intervene in the courts on behalf of community organizations, learning about intervention and why it is an important entry point for community organizations to converse with the courts.

Using Love for Transformative Change
Meet award-winning writer, performance artist and community healer Kai Cheng Thom. She discusses how love can serve as a framework for transformative change and how, even in the face of hate and denialism, compassion and love are what she has for everyone, including those who may not reciprocate her feelings.

Writing, Identity and Rats
Meet Carrianne Leung, Jenny Heijun Wills and Lindsay Wong, all award-winning authors in Canada. We discuss the craft of writing, the fluidity and complexity of identity as writers, and how migration and diasporic experiences inform their work.

Modern Immigrant

Being the Eldest Daughter of an Immigrant Family with Paola Ricardo
Paola is a psychologist who works in the Bronx community. Having immigrated from Colombia at 14 years old, she has always been in charge of her family.

Katerina Kurteeva's Immigration Journey from Ukraine
Can you imagine the culture shock of a 16-year-old travelling to Canada for the first time by herself?

Documentries & Movies

Becoming Labrador

2019 | 1 hour 10 min | Rohan Fernando, Tamara Segura, Justin Simms

In the stark Labrador interior, a growing number of Filipino workers have recently landed in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, travelling halfway around the world for jobs they hope will offer their families new opportunities and a better life. Becoming Labrador follows these individuals as they carve out a place for themselves in Labrador while navigating the unexpected costs of living far from their families.

Earth to Mouth

2002 | 41 mins | Yung Chang

Near Newcastle, Ontario, lies Wing Fong Farm, an 80-acre farm specializing in succulent Asian vegetables, which are destined for Chinese markets and restaurants. It is here that Lau King-Fai (or Ma) has come to spend the rest of her days with her son. Shot over the course of a complete farm cycle - from tiling, to planting, to harvesting, to rest: Earth to Mouth is a meditative look at life on the Wing Fong Farm.

Finding Freedom: The Endless Pursuit of an Elusive Dream

2023 | 60 min | Alan Goldman

Revealing the grim challenges faced by refugees seeking asylum. With mobile phones provided by the filmmakers, the four main characters reveal truths about their lives now, all while in detention.

Living Undocumented

2019 | 6 Episodes | Aaron Saidman, Anna Chai

Telling the stories of eight undocumented families who face deportation in 2018 during the (first) Trump administration.

Spoilers are redundant; we all know how these stories typically unfold. Many people were deported. Those who were not remain in limbo; there were no happy endings.

Where I Belong

2007 | 45 min | Arinze Eze

Arinze Eze was born in Canada and raised in Nigeria, and he shares the story of his struggle to balance his African traditions and new Canadian home. An engineer by trade, he returned to his birthplace after 20 years, where he started a new career in the arts and falls in love. All is well until his parents come for a visit. How will they react to his new life?

American Born Chinese

2023 | 8 Episodes | Kelvin Yu | (Fantasy, Action, Comedy)

The series is based on the 2006 graphic novel American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, who drew inspiration from his own adolescent years in the 1990s, incorporating elements from Chinese folk tales and mysticism found in the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West.

Farha

2021 | 1 hour 32 minutes | Darin J. Sallam (Drama)

Farha is a 14-year-old girl who lives in a small village in Palestine, 1948. Girls her age are traditionally married off or spoken for, yet Farha wants to continue her education despite traditions and the restrictions of schooling in her village for boys only. However, her dreams are shattered when violence erupts in her village. A distinct tale of conflict and hope, turning a coming-of-age story into a profound trauma of displacement and survival.

Minari

2020 | 1 hour 55 minutes | Lee Isaac Chung (Drama)

A Korean-American family relocates to an Arkansas farm in pursuit of their own American dream. Amidst the challenges of this new life in the strange and rugged Ozarks, they discover the undeniable resiliency of family and what really makes a home.

The Namesake

2006 | 2 hours | Mira Nair

After moving from Calcutta to New York, members of the Ganguli family maintain a delicate balancing act between honouring the traditions of their native India and blending into American culture. Although parents Ashoke and Ashima are proud of the sacrifices they make to give their children opportunities, their son Gogol strives to forge his own identity without forgetting his heritage.

Riceboy Sleeps

2022 | 1 hour 57 minutes | Anthony Shim (Drama)

In the 1990s, an immigrant single mother raises her teenage son in the Canadian suburbs, determined to provide a better life for him than the one she left behind in South Korea.

Small Axe

2020 | 5 Installments | Steve McQueen (Drama)

A British Anthology series consisting of five films that tell distinct stories about the lives of West Indian immigrants in London from the 1960s to the 1980s. "If you are the big tree, we are the small axe."

Books

Akim Aliu: Dreamer
Publication Date: February 7, 2023

This honest, engrossing graphic memoir tells the story of professional athlete and activist Akim Aliu's incredible life as a hockey prodigy in Canada. Akim Aliu ― also known as “Dreamer” ― is a Ukrainian-Nigerian-Canadian professional hockey player whose career took him all around the world and who experienced systemic racism at every turn. Dreamer tells Akim's incredible story, from being the only Black child in his Ukrainian community, to his family struggling to make ends meet while living in Toronto, to confronting the racist violence he often experienced both on and off the ice. This is a gut-wrenching and riveting graphic novel memoir that reminds us to never stop dreaming, and is sure to inspire young readers everywhere. "With honesty and courage, Akim Aliu's Dreamer will inspire readers of all ages to move confidently in the direction of their future." - Colin Kaepernick
Hotline
It’s 1986, and Muna Heddad is in a bind. She and her son have moved to Montreal, leaving behind a civil war filled with bad memories in Lebanon. She had plans to find work as a French teacher, but no one in Quebec trusts her to teach the language. She needs to start making money, and fast. The only work Muna can find is at a weight-loss center as a hotline operator. All day, she takes calls from people responding to ads seen in magazines or on TV. On the phone, she’s Mona, and she’s quite good at listening. These strangers all have so much to say once someone shows interest in their lives–marriages gone bad, parents dying, isolation, personal inadequacies. Even as her daily life in Canada is filled with invisible barriers at every turn, at the office Muna is privy to her clients’ deepest secrets.
Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American
Publication Date: March 8 2022

After spending her early years in Wuhan, China, riding water buffalos and devouring stinky tofu, Laura immigrates to Texas, where her hometown is as foreign as Mars—at least until 2020, when COVID-19 makes Wuhan a household name. In Messy Roots, Laura illustrates her coming-of-age as the girl who simply wants to make the basketball team, escape Chinese school, and figure out why girls make her heart flutter.
Made in China
Publication Date: February 2, 2021

In 2012, an Oregon mother named Julie Keith opened up a package of Halloween decorations. The cheap foam headstones had been five dollars at Kmart, too good a deal to pass up. But when she opened the box, something shocking fell out: an SOS letter, handwritten in broken English. “Sir: If you occassionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persicuton of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.”
The note’s author, Sun Yi, was a mild-mannered Chinese engineer turned political prisoner, forced into grueling labor as punishment for campaigning for the freedom to join a forbidden meditation movement. He was imprisoned alongside petty criminals, civil rights activists, and tens of thousands of others the Chinese government had decided to “reeducate,” carving foam gravestones and stitching clothing for more than fifteen hours a day.
Hard Is the Journey: Stories of Chinese Settlement in British Columbia's Kootenay
In Hard Is the Journey, award-winning historian and researcher Lily Chow exposes the difficult history of Chinese Canadians in the Kootenay, shedding light on the stories of those who risked everything and often lost their lives in building the Canada we know today. Bravely, she unearths the racism of early newspapers that portrayed Chinese immigrants as dirty, sinister, and lethargic people not fit to live in BC. Through painstaking research, she exposes stories of injustice and exploitation, such as the history of the Chinese labourers who completed the deadly work of blazing the Dewdney Trail from Hope to Kootenay only to be dismissed, without any compensation, as soon as the project was completed.
Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist)
In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger. When she discovers she is pregnant–and that her lover is married–she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations. Profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty.
We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story
Publication Date: May 17 2022

In this honest, inspiring and relatable memoir, newly minted superhero Simu Liu chronicles his family’s journey from China to the bright lights of Hollywood with razor-sharp wit and humour. When Simu Liu’s parents move from China to America and then Canada, they leave him in the care of his grandparents. When he is four, they bring him to Canada. Life as a Canuck, however, is not all that it was cracked up to be; Simu’s new guardians lack the gentle touch of his grandparents, resulting in harsh words and hurt feelings. His parents, on the other hand, find their new son emotionally distant and difficult to relate to—although they are bound by blood, they are separated by culture, language and values. As Simu grows up, he plays the part of the pious child flawlessly—he gets straight A’s, wins national math competitions and makes his parents proud. But as time passes, he grows increasingly disillusioned with the path that has been laid out for him. Less than a year out of college, at the tender age of twenty-two, his life hits rock bottom when he is laid off from his first job as an accountant. Left to his own devices, and with nothing left to lose, Simu embarks on a journey that will take him far outside his comfort zone into the world of show business.