The on-going journeys of immigrant counsellors to self-understanding

1. The on-going journeys of immigrant counsellors to self-understanding by Eun Jin Kim Ph.D. Candidate, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa Career Practitioner, Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers (EMCN)

2. Multicultural counselling and therapy (MCT) • The culture-bound nature of counselling theories • The importance of cultural considerations in therapeutic conversation • Despite the increased emphasis placed on the integration of race, identity and multiculturalism in the counselling literature, less emphasis has been placed on the racial and cultural characteristics of counsellors, in particular of racially non-dominant ones.

3. Research process • Purpose: exploring immigrant counsellors’ experiences and their influences on their sense of self • Data collection: Three interviews (approximately 1 hour-long interviews and follow-up interviews) and materials (e.g., writings, photographs, etc.) • The main characteristic of qualitative research: a qualitative research design “evolves and changes as the study takes place” (McMillan, 2000, p. 252). • Expanded research focus to other cultural factors such as ethnicity, language, gender and religion

4. Data analysis and representation • Transcribing raw data from the interviews and collecting documents • Identifying key events with regard to cultural identity in the participants’ life-course experiences (e.g., childhood, education and employment) • Constructing the findings as stories • Doing a cross-case analysis

5. Table. Participants’ backgrounds

6. Trevor Chen Born in Hong Kong International student Voluntary choice Small town living Active acculturation No language barrier Counselling mostly in English Mainstream culture José Gonzales Born in El Salvador Refugee Escape Big town living Close connection to Latin culture Language barrier Counselling in Spanish only Strong Latino identity Findings: Complex and situated identity

7. Trevor Chen Born in Hong Kong International student Small town living Active acculturation Counselling mostly in English Banana: yellow outside, white inside Monica Ho Born in Hong Kong Independent Immigrant Big town living Close connection to Chinese culture Counselling in Mandarin and Cantonese as well as English Strong Chinese identity Findings: Complex and situated identity

8. Trevor I can be a banana; yellow outside but white inside. I am Asian and have yellow skin but my values inside are quite white • Monica I still have a very strong Chinese background. I look like a Chinese; I am Chinese and have no problem with being a Chinese person.

9. Monica

10. Identity in a process of negotiation • Identity cannot be viewed as fixed and coherent; rather, it is “in a constant process of negotiation” among multiple selves (Halbertal & Koren, 2006, p. 57). • For immigrants in particular, there are on-going tensions and negotiations between two cultures—the host culture and the culture of origin.

11. Trevor My son decided to take a graphic design diploma in a private institution and not to come back to university. It tookme a while to accept that. Because like I have three degree, a BA, a Master and a PhD. And all my cousins will go to university. They may even go to medical school. They may go to grad school. So my son could be the first in both sides of the family that might not even have a university degree. So it took me a while to accept that.

12. The complexity of conceptualizing racial identification Sandra This will sound strange to you. I’m much closer to [Aboriginal people] than I am to the Caribbean community. There are Trinidadians and Jamaicans. They don’t mix with each other. I’ve been to Guyana. That’s another thing. When I was invited to Guyanese dinners or dances, it was a different feeling. Agwu (2009): simple racialization cannot depict the complexity of identity.

13. On-going journey to self-understanding • Individuals identify themselves with cultural subgroups which best fit in a given situation (Clément, Singh and Gaudet, 2006) • A linear and monolithic approach to identity hardly captures complex and situated identity; contextual understandings are useful for exploring complex and situated identity ((Hipolito-Delgado, 2009; Robinson-Wood, 2009). • The fluid characteristic of identity easily provokes conflicts and tensions for individuals, especially when incompatible values or beliefs from different cultural subgroups meet. Therefore, identity cannot be viewed as fixed and coherent (Halbertal & Koren, 2006. • Identity is not a product of adding new culture to prior culture; rather, it is “an interweaving product of several cultures through translating and negotiating cultural differences” (Park, 2005, p. 208).

14. On-going journey to self-understanding Identity should be seen as fluid rather than fixed. Besides, there are times when inconsistencies and conflicts are present in one’s identity, which leads us to negotiate between conflicting discourses from different cultural subgroups. This negotiation process never really ends as each individual is engaged in different cultural subgroups. It is “a journey into the multiple layers of different selves” (Park, 2005, p. 19).