Abstract
Many immigrants and refugees arriving in Canada resettle in the gateway cities, including Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. The Canadian government attempts to redistribute refugees across the country to reduce large metropolitan centers’ pressures to provide resources for newcomers and to revitalize small cities’ economies. However, there is a lack of literature on refugees’ challenges and successes while resettling in small cities. This paper is a historical case study of Vietnamese refugees’ resettlement experiences in Peterborough, Ontario. It explores how the Peterborough community responded to the arrival of Vietnamese refugees and analyzes the factors that influenced the participants’ decisions to stay in Peterborough or relocate to other cities. The participants’ experiences revealed that, the Peterborough community’s initial warm reception was important for building social networks, but the availability of employment and the ability to support their families were more significant factors in influencing their decisions to move. Keywords: Vietnamese refugees, resettlement, integration, reception, Peterborough, redistribution, mobility, community, settlement services
Highlights
I contacted one of the Vietnamese refugees in Peterborough and asked if he could connect me with other refugees who resettled in Peterborough when they first arrived in Canada
I referred to the different categories and dominant themes to analyze the successes and challenges faced by the participants during their resettlement experiences in Peterborough
This study aims to analyze how Vietnamese refugees perceived the Peterborough community’s initial approach to their resettlement and considers why they decided to, based on their integration experiences, stay or leave Peterborough
Summary
Despite the Canadian government’s attempt to distribute immigrants and refugees across the country, newcomers continue to concentrate in the gateway cities. Maddie Macnab (2018) explained that, in Peterborough, local organizers sometimes drew parallels to the Peterborough community’s welcoming response to Indochinese refugees to galvanize support for Syrian refugee resettlement efforts Another concern regarding the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Canada was their large concentration in the gateway cities and the increasing pressures on those cities to accommodate their needs for housing, employment, and other newcomer support services (Friesen, 2017). This paper’s research questions are how did public officials, community groups, local organizations, and individual residents in Peterborough respond to the arrival of Vietnamese refugees and why; and how did their response affect the refugees’ resettlement and integration experiences? The paper will look at how the Vietnamese refugees perceived the community’s initial approach to their resettlement and will ask why, based on their integration experiences, they decided to stay or move away from Peterborough
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