International Students as Perpetual Outsiders

Promise of Home is a participatory action research project that uses a narrative approach to examine conceptualizations of home and belonging among newcomers in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. In its first two phases (2019–2023), the project workshopped 30 newcomer testimonials to analyze their stories and determine grassroots insights for policy development in better facilitating integration. With four institutions of higher learning in the city (1/6 of the population), the project attracted international students. Researchers created two forums (a panel and a workshop) to better understand international student integration. Participants discussed their concerns and raised issues of racism, microaggressions, (inter)cultural misunderstandings, and systemic issues such as deficient academic, municipal, federal, provincial, and institutional supports. We conducted unstructured observations, asked a set of structured questions, and took extensive notes; this chapter’s thematic analysis is based on ethnographic field notes. Students’ experiences were triangulated with immigration policies and data collected for the larger project. Taking as a case study the discussion of the above-mentioned panel and workshop, this chapter will examine and analyze recent developments in international student experience in our province.