The Media Roundup provides links to recent and archived articles, in both English and French, on immigration and diversity appearing in the national and local news. Some international content is also included. Articles are updated weekly.
Globe & Mail – Helping Refugee Families in B.C. Navigate the Canadian School System
On paper, Abeer Al-kozbary’s job title is multicultural worker – a staffer with the Surrey school district who helps immigrant and refugee children integrate into the Canadian school system. In practice, she is much more. During the day, the Syrian-born Ms. Al-kozbary is bouncing between elementary and high schools, facilitating communication between Arabic-speaking families and school staff, bridging cultural divides and offering new refugee families a sense of familiarity in a new country a world away from their own.
There are shards of history connected to the Chinese in B.C. hidden throughout the province, unknown to most locals. The remains of a leper colony on an island near Saanich. A bone house close to Victoria that was used for decades as a storage spot for the remains of the dead while they awaited transport back to their home country. A Chinatown buried in the forest near a once-thriving mining operation in Cumberland, on Vancouver Island. For Gu Xiong, a prominent Vancouver multimedia artist and someone who arrived here from China more than a century after the first immigrants came to B.C. from the Middle Kingdom, those almost-forgotten sites were mesmerizing – visible symbols of a phenomenon that has preoccupied him during his 26 years here.
Vancouver Sun – SFU Criminology Students Make Waves With Anti-extremism Campaign
It was in September, amid the heat of the U.S. election, that Nathaniel Lam and his classmates had the idea to create an anti-extremism campaign. At the time, they had no idea how relevant it would become in their own back yard.
CBC – After Trump’s Win, More U.S. Students Consider University in Canada
For some college-bound students distressed by the U.S. election of Donald Trump, Canadian universities are calling. Universities from Quebec to British Columbia say applications and website traffic from the United States have been surging since Trump’s victory Nov. 8. Although many Canadian schools had also ramped up recruiting in the U.S. recently, some say dismay over the presidential election has fuelled a spike in interest beyond their expectations.
Applications from U.S. students to the University of Toronto jumped 70 per cent compared with this time last year, while several other Canadian schools have seen increases of 20 per cent or more. Nearly 10,000 people in the U.S. visited the university’s “Future Students” website the day after the election, up from about 1,000 the day before the election. U.S. applications to McMaster University in Hamilton are up 34 per cent so far.
Toronto Star – Refugees Reinvigorate Declining Upstate New York Town
These teens are the new face of Utica, a Rust Belt town in upstate New York. Their presence has helped the working-class city spring back to life, and reverse years of population decline after the factories, textile mills and food processing plants closed. Layla and 400 other refugees have been resettled here every year for the past 35 years. The volunteer-run Midtown Utica Community Center helps them adjust to their new lives.
