At the Age of Twelve: Migrant Children and the Disruption of Multicultural Belonging

Abstract

This paper troubles seductive discourses of Canadian multiculturalism and the centrality of whiteness to national belonging, highlighting how migrant children understand and navigate assimilation. Evolving out of childhood migration stories shared by 12 interviewees in the documentary Twelve, the article addresses the ways ‘childist’ logics are used to separate childhood from the realities of race and racism. In working towards anti‐racist praxis, we address how storytelling challenges adult–child power hierarchies, exposing how childhood continues to be framed as a time of innocence, disconnected from the violence, danger and pain involved in migrating to Anglophone Canada.