Resettlement Essay ⋆ Essays on Controversial Topics ⋆ EssayEmpire

The Oxford English Dictionary definition of resettlement, to “settle or cause to settle in a different place,” implicitly recognizes that moving can be voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary movers are generally called immigrants; involuntary movers are called refugees.

Resettlement countries are typically preoccupied with selecting those immigrants most likely to make a contribution to the country and with establishing the legitimacy of refugee claims. They pay comparatively scant attention to what happens after opening their doors.

Resettling in a new country is ever-changing and, according to some authorities, a lifelong process. The process involves establishing economic and social independence, creating capacities to build a future, establishing family and community networks, and developing tools, such as language, that make participation in the larger society possible.

Although a general consensus exists that integration is the end goal of successful resettlement, differing definitions of the term create confusion. Governments, typically preoccupied with the economic and demographic benefits of immigration, define integration as the realization of human capital. Canada’s gross annual immigration level equals roughly 0.7 percent of its total population. The comparable U.S. figure is about 0.3 percent. Both countries experience net economic benefit: over the course of a lifetime, the average immigrant family pays more in taxes than it consumes in services and benefits. Economic class immigrants (to use the Canadian term, which corresponds to “employment-based immigrants” in the United States) tend to be remarkably successful: men achieve economic parity with native-born Canadians within 2 years, and women within 5. Selecting immigrants on the basis of human capital attributes such as education and employable skills is part of the explanation. However, selection is no guarantee of success. Despite their generally high levels of education and job skills, about one-third of immigrant families live in poverty for at least a decade before they begin to achieve economic parity with persons born in the United States and Canada.

About 1 in 4 new settlers enters the United States or Canada as an economic immigrant. Others, including “family class” immigrants and refugees, integrate more slowly and, on the whole, encounter even more bad luck and blocked opportunity than their economic class counterparts.

Service providers are more concerned about factors such as linguistic ability and health, not only because they are intrinsically important, but because they help ensure successful resettlement. Proficiency in a resettlement country’s language is, for example, one of the most potent predictors of economic integration. According to the 2000 U.S. census, 21 million people did not speak English “very well.” Language training is obviously important, but, in the United States, less than half the demand for English-language training is being met. On the whole, immigrants are in better health than native-born residents of Canada and the United States. However, the health of some immigrants deteriorates significantly over time, probably because of a combination of predisposition and exposure to unhealthy diets, new environmental pathogens, and adopting sedentary habits. Immigrants resettling in North American and Europe are at high risk for tuberculosis, a disease that compromises their own health and poses a significant public health challenge. Immigrants and refugees underutilize preventive and curative health services, thereby further compounding their health risks.

Civil rights advocates tend to focus on social integration, which encompasses topics such as equity, identity, and civic participation. About 1 in 5 visible minority immigrants reports significant encounters with discrimination during a five-year period. Blacks report an even higher rate: 1 in 3. Experiences with discrimination tend to increase ethnic identification and to militate against the development of national identification.

The politics of identity has assumed increasing prominence in a post-September 11 world. Concerns center on topics such as whether encouraging retention of heritage cultures and permitting more than one nationality militate against the evolution of civic nationalism. Canada, with its long-standing multicultural “mosaic” policies, and the United States, with an avowed “melting pot” ideology, are frequently cited as natural experiments for studying the effects of national values on integration. Immigrants in Canada are more likely than their U.S. counterparts to become citizens, more likely to acquire some knowledge of the country’s official language(s), more likely to form friendships that cross ethnic lines, and more likely to participate in politics. These findings are, however, far from definitive statements about the relative benefits of multiculturalism. Below the level of official policies, immigrants and minority groups in Canada and the United States face similar public misunderstandings and challenging experiences.

Although poverty, lack of linguistic fluency, and discrimination are enormous resettlement challenges, a deficit model that focuses only on stresses cannot do justice to the complexity of the resettlement process, and it certainly cannot explain why resettlement stories are more likely to be narratives of success than of failed integration. As one example, poverty is probably the single most powerful social predictor of children’s mental health and behavioral problems. However, despite the fact that immigrant and refugee children in Canada are almost 3 times more likely than their native-born counterparts to live in poverty, they have fewer emotional and behavioral disorders. New settlers’ personal and social resources are an important, but poorly understood, part of the explanation. During the early years of resettlement, immigrants with access to a like-ethnic community of significant size enjoy better mental health than immigrants who lack this apparent advantage. Emotional support and the maintenance of self-esteem are likely explanatory mechanisms.

People everywhere are on the move. Existing research and knowledge can and should help make resettlement as painless as possible for immigrants and refugees and help ensure maximal benefit for receiving countries. Newer trends, such as transnationalism, and concerns about how immigrants transform the societies in which they settle, together with the persistence of problems such as immigrant poverty and societal discrimination call for an ongoing interplay among research, enlightened policy, and informed public debate.

Bibliography:

Beiser, Morton. 1999. Strangers at the Gate: The “Boat People’s” First Ten Years in Canada. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Beiser, Morton. 2005. “The Health of Immigrants and Refugees in Canada.” Canadian Journal of Public Health 96(suppl. 2, March/April): S30-S44.
Hiebert, Daniel. 2006. Beyond the Polemics: The Economic Outcomes of Canadian Immigration. Working paper series no. 06-15. Vancouver, BC: Vancouver Centre of Excellence, RIM, Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis.
Reitz, Jeffrey, ed. 2003. Host Societies and the Reception of Immigrants. San Diego, CA: University of California, Center for Comparative Immigration Research.
Renshon, Stanley A. 2005. The 50% American: Immigration and National Identity in an Age of Terror. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 2005. Trends in Displacement, Protection and Solutions.” Geneva: UNHCR, April 2007.

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