Life history research: A contribution to processes of adult learning ...

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Immigration: The Power of a Transition Immigration can be a powerful catalyst for self-transformation because it causes the reorganization of immigrants’ sense of who they are. Immigrants relate to the new context in different ways; they may choose to separate, assimilate or integrate to the host society (Walters et al., 2007). If they choose to separate from the main stream they may cling nostalgically to the past and refuse to become part of what is new. If they choose to assimilate, they may tend to remain detached from their ethnic communities in the country in order to merge with the main group in society. If they integrate they will choose a combination of elements of both cultures in the recreation of their new lifestyle and sense of self. The fact that immigrants have choice in the way they relate to the new context points to the interplay between individual agency and the shaping forces of the context, both in their native country and in the new one. In adulthood, this interplay defines a person’s sense of identity. As Giddens (1971) says, identity has a prominent position within the debate about the relationships between structure and individual agency. Oftentimes, people think the learning that immigrants experience is exclusively related practical matters such as language or professional training; yet, immigration involves learning how to cope in the new culture from a cognitive, attitudinal and behavioral perspective (Rong & Brown, 2002). When I first arrived in Toronto I spoke English; I was very familiar with grammar and vocabulary; I studied English in a Mexican classroom for seventeen years. Knowing the structure of a language though, does not mean that one knows its nuances well enough to communicate with the same ease with which one uses the mother tongue. In spite of my language skills, I did not know how to navigate social situations with the right words and phrases when I first arrived in Toronto. Seven years later, I am still learning. Crosscultural experience involves awakening, transformation of identity and overlapping of cultural meanings, landscapes and languages (He, 2002 in Koehne, 1995). Learning to communicate with others and find a place at the university required much more than the language skills offered in bilingual education classrooms. Host countries must consider these dimensions of the immigration experience when designing educational contents to easy immigrants’ transition into their new country. Understanding the changes in sense of self and lifestyle that come about as a result of immigration implies the observation of the individual and the social, the realms of family and culture, the psychological and the sociological. The exploration of one took me to the other, back and forth, in order to understand the complexity of (re) developing a self that lives in two different cultures. There are many aspects to this duality: personal ones such as the sense of self and self-worth, and social ones, such as cultural identity and the politics that surround it. The study focused on both the personal and the social, as they relate to the (re)formation of an individual identity in relationship to the context in which the life is lived. At the center of this exploration lies to notion of the genealogy of discourse: the way power structures manufacture particular subjectivities that individuals internalize and transform into the truth about themselves (Foucault cited in Koehne, 2005). We are the product of all the stories we have heard and lived, and of many that we have never heard (Taylor, 1996). The biographical study of immigrants’ lives offers the possibility to uncover and explore these stories. Through the life stories of four women, I explore the question of the role of agency in the face of various possible identity discourses for immigrants in the Canadian context. In Canada, Papalotl, Adela, Gloria and Erica each saw their lives take turns they would not have expected in Mexico. They all spoke about limiting boundaries Mexican culture imposed on them in different areas of their lives: professional development, parenting practices, or decision-making in general. The four women connected limitations in these and other areas of their lives to gender-related values that are part of the Mexican cultural context. Immigration to the “Developed World”: Motivations The quality of the four women’s experiences in Canada is very different; the differences stem from the
motivations that led them to immigrate, as well as from their location in Mexican society. Papalotl and Adela emigrated seeking personal growth; self-expression and answers that they did not find in Mexico and hoped to find by moving into a new context. It was not that someone or something in Canada would have the answer, but that being in Canada would create the space for the answer to become apparent. Erica by contrast, had a much more pragmatic approach; she went to Ottawa looking for better financial opportunities. She had a stable job in her field in Mexico but she and her husband believed they would find even better opportunities in Canada. Gloria came to Canada for the first time in the 1970s, seeking both relief from burdening social pressure for becoming a single mother in Mexico, as well as educational opportunities for professional advancement. I came to Canada looking for a safe space to do selfexploration. My experience was semi-structured. I went to graduate school and simultaneously found time to explore other aspects of my life that were important to me, such as expressive art and meditative practices. The interplay between structural conditions and individual choices is present in each one of these lives. For each one of the women, agency involved individual decision-making, as well as the creative orchestration of cultural elements (Lester cited in Ruiz & Sanchez Korrol, 2005). Papalotl, Adela, Gloria and Erica negotiated identity and location at every step of the way. Despite Erica’s or Gloria’s desire for a brighter financial future, none of us—myself included—were economic migrants. We all had access to jobs that provided enough money to live and certain career development perspectives yet, we were all looking for “something else” that did not translate exclusively into higher financial gains. After listening to the stories, I realized that the four women’s decisions to immigrate revealed deeper values and ways of living. In the context of the developed world, Richard Florida (2002) has spoken about place as the social organizing unit of our time. None of these women had a strict necessity to leave Mexico. None of them suffered from violence or political prosecution yet, they all felt they needed to find a different place to live. For career-ambitious women like Gloria and Erica, who looked for the best place to thrive professionally, Oakville and Ottawa were highly appealing. For Adela and Papalotl, whose interests gravitate towards social and cultural work, Toronto was an attractive city. Toronto’s diversity generates tolerance towards difference, as well as community work aimed at supporting immigrants and fight issues that arise in the context of a multicultural society. In this sense, Toronto was an ideal place for me as well. Immigrant Women: Who Defines Our Identities? The well-known Chicana writer Gloria Anzaldua described the conflicts of living in the borderland between two or more cultures accurately. She writes about mestizas being the product of two cultures, having yet to embrace a third one. Embracing the third culture, in this case a possible version of Mexican culture in Canada, implies making a synthesis of the previous being, knowing what one wants to keep and what one does not, in order to create the new self. In this context, the creation of an identity is involved in a game of mirrors—the way I see myself versus the way others see me based on their social location. Interestingly enough, Canada’s identity as a nation is also part of a game of reflections with a status as a white, settler nation, and its imagined self-identity as a nation of immigrants that, at the same time has a difficult history as the colonizer of various aboriginal communities (Epp, Iacovetta & Swyripa, 2004). Anzaldua (1987), who lived in the United States, spoke about knowing how to be a Mexican from an Anglo point of view. Among people in the developed world, there is a stereotype of Third World women as poor, submissive and uneducated (Thobani, 1998). Increasingly, immigrants to Canada come from developing countries (Statistics Canada, 2006); a lot of women enter the country and are seen through the lens of this preconception. Socio-economic differences in the country of origin are oftentimes unseen by people in Canada who tend to imagine all Mexican women under a similar socioeconomic category. The participants in this study do not fit into traditional stereotypes of Latinas, as they are, in varying levels and degrees, educated, progressive women. Those women are not a representative majority in the country but their realities are very different from the stereotypes of the typical “Third World woman” that is
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