Navigating Sense of Self and Community through Multimodal Storytelling: Experiences of Children and Youth with Refugee and Immigrant Experiences in Clarkston

• In Event: Community and Social (Re)Integration after Conflict and War through Education

Proposal

In the first eight months of fiscal year 2023, nearly 31,800 refugees resettled in the United States—which is more than any year since 2017 (Migration Policy Institute, 2023). Among these people crossing borders to find new homes, the majority are school-aged children and youth under the age of 18 who are entering the U.S. education system. Existing literature suggests that youth growing up in refugee and immigrant families resettling in a new country often lose familial or cultural connections to help them find a sense of identity and belonging amidst displacement. The imminent realities of lost connections, pressure-cooking ‘assimilation,’ and ‘double consciousness’ often prohibit youth from exercising agency to integrate various narratives they face in navigating their sense of self (Itzigsohn & Brown, 2020).

According to Schaffer and Smith (2004), “People who are forcibly uprooted are often powerful storytellers whose narratives can offer new perspectives based on lived experience.” However, their stories are often “[marginalized] or [manipulated]...framing refugees in terms of victimhood and other simplified tropes in pursuit of [humanitarian or advocacy organizations’] own programming and funding agendas (Schaffer & Smith 2004, as cited in Strekalova-Hughes & Wang, 2019, p.2). Providing space where refugee- and immigrant-background youth are able to integrate and narrate their own stories free of external agenda is critical. Additionally, it is crucial for such spaces to encourage a holistic view of their journey, as “overemphasis on refugees’ pasts can position them as victims who need help” (Daniel, 2019). It is through storytelling that youth with refugee backgrounds may experience belonging through continual navigation and (re)construction of identity across past, present, and future, informing them of what they wanted to and could belong to (Farzana, 2007).

Despite the importance of storytelling, there is a lack of space or opportunity in schools or communities, where newcomers can share about their experiences and backgrounds as ‘refugees’ (Paw et al., 2022). Instead of processing experiences and sharing their stories, these children and youth strive to adapt to new sociocultural environments through the acquisition of language and culture. At home, due to the burden of financially supporting and relationally maintaining transnational families, most parents and guardians often struggle to provide space for dialogue with their children (Grace, 2017). They experience a “continuum of precarity” as they “[cope] with residual trauma, interrupted schooling, and the pressures of poverty” (McWilliams and Bonet, 2016).

Drawing on semi-structured interviews with nine youth with refugee and immigrant backgrounds in Clarkston, Georgia, this study addresses the following research question: To what extent does storytelling enable youth with refugee and immigrant experiences in navigating their sense of self and community? In addition to the interviews, we will also present the analysis of the storytelling project (e.g., creating writing, songwriting/music, and visual arts) in which youth participants individually worked throughout a storytelling camp. The weeklong summer camp aimed at providing a platform where youth can facilitate active listening, connecting, and sharing stories. Interweaving frameworks of youth agency and narrative identity, this study examines the role of non-formal educational space in enabling youth with refugee backgrounds to exercise varying degrees of agency in creating their own narratives through multimodal storytelling.

Preliminary findings from this study illustrate that when trust and safe space is established, youth rose up to the occasion and shared their stories, inspiring and connecting with each other organically. Since many refugee-background youth define identity in terms of relationships and communities they belong to, such endeavor for self-expression is most effective when it takes place in a communal setting. Moreover, the youth reported that the source of the sense of safety, comfort, and relatedness came from the fact that the intervention (storytelling summer camp) was designed and implemented by young adults with refugee backgrounds from the same community as participants. By highlighting the experiences of these youths, this project aims to offer educators, practitioners, and policymakers opportunities to consider how they can actively create (in)formal spaces for children and youth from refugee backgrounds to better navigate their sense of identity and community in their new social milieu.

Authors

• Jihae Cha, The George Washington University

• Sarah Oh, Peabody College (Vanderbilt University)