How do we integrate economic migrants from China into British Columbian secondary

schools more effectively?

Over the course of the last decade, there have been an influx of families from China

moving to Canada. Some figures even go far as to suggest that in the context of historical

trends, the number of Chinese born teenagers emigrating to Canada has quadrupled. This

increase has been for economic, health and family reasons. In the context of economics,

wealthier Chinese nationals have wanted to protect and also grow their money by investing

in either businesses and property overseas. Compared to China which is subject to sudden

rule changes on an arbitrary basis, the Canadian financial system is much more stable and

so money is safer. In terms of health, many Chinese cities are severely polluted. Suppressed

by governments, the level of pollution has led to a health crisis and a drop in life expectancy.

While the most severe cases are in rural China (as in the case of cancer villages), those rich

enough are choosing to leave. Although areas have been decimated by both the logging and

the oil sands industry, Canada is still very much an appealing place to live in terms of the

general environment. Family reasons are a combination of the first two reasons, and also

because of historical immigration to Canada that has established connections. In the current

climate, Chinese families are moving to Canada. While at first Chinese families moved to

Metro Vancouver and/or Richmond, due to limited and increasingly expensive housing they

are now beginning to settle in smaller less expensive towns and cities such as Nanaimo for

example. The increased presence of Chinese families moving to these smaller places has

been a noted rise in rents and house prices. While being open to conjecture, reactions to

Chinese families moving into neighbourhoods has ranged from benign to racist.

Within secondary schools, and this is something I have experienced first hand, some

Chinese students are experiencing racism from their white Canadian peers. This manifested

itself in written messages on Chinese students bags, muttered comments in the school
corridor and more explicit use of racist language. The parental response to this was

immediate and was illustrated by several phone calls to the school administration. The

causes of racism are manifest. These range from the abstract fear of the Other, to pervasive

myths about either laziness or being good at a particular subject.

Some solutions to this problems would include more cultural integration. During my time at

the secondary school, there was little to no integration between Chinese and not just white

Canadian, but also other Asian groups which included South Korean, South Asian and

Filipino. An example of this was at lunchtime whereupon a vast majority of Chinese students

would eat their meals in the same room. Further to this, walking around the school were

small groups of Chinese only students. Whether this separation had contributed directly to

the racist incidents is open to conjecture, but in any situation when groups based on ethnic

lines do not integrate there is certainly the potential for misunderstandings. The solutions to

this lack of integration are multiple, but one is the creation of cultural integration groups. A

focus could be on getting Chinese students to participate in extracurricular activities with

other groups in order to get them to better integrate with Canadian students via integration

with Canadian culture. However, while this is a staple of international private schools, these

kind of programs are next to non-existent in Canadian public secondary schools.

One of the main issues in secondary schools is the language barrier. In contrast with

international high schools who provide language lessons prior to a student committing to the

mainstream curriculum, the emphasis in public secondary schools is that Chinese students

who have moved to BC from abroad need to find their own ESL schools. However, this is not

straightforward because on top of their school work, students are also having to learn a new

language. Another issue that due to the lack of ESL teaching infrastructure, students are not

getting the best level of ESL education. The language barrier inevitably leads to the student

retreating into their ethnic peer group and not integrating with other groups. The solution to

this problem is difficult as schools are balancing budgets and spending extra money on ESL
lessons for students despite the obvious benefits is not a priority. What ultimately creates a

vicious circle is that within Chinese culture the notion of saving face is so pervasive that

students are not actively seeking help. One possible solution to this is a constant monitoring

of new Chinese students progress. In this way, any issues could be more effectively dealt

with. However, as with separate ESL classes for struggling students this is restricted by both

financial and staffing limitations within Canadian public schools.