The 2021 Qu茅bec census indicates that there are 44,000 Filipinos living in Montr茅al. Community workers report how immigrant Filipino youths are wrestling with poverty and substance abuse, with almost 60% of them not being able to speak French (Jonas, 2022). In general, immigrant youth face intersectional vulnerabilities when settling in Canada, along with challenges in transitioning from childhood to adulthood (Gyan et al., 2023). This is especially true for queer newcomers who are hesitant to divulge or explore their identities due to fears of discrimination and violence (Marshall, 2021). My qualitative project, situated in the field of literacies research, responds to the urgent need to investigate the lived realities and challenges faced by these youth. There is a pressing demand to extend literacies research beyond the walls of classrooms to address real life issues faced by immigrants. As a queer immigrant and French language learner in Qu茅bec, I will contribute to addressing these concerns by engaging these youth in collaborative multimodal writing and storytelling. Multimodal writing is powerful because it engages learners in the use of digital tools to construct texts in multiple semiotic modes, including writing, image, and sound, and the activity matches their literacy practices in out-of-class environments (Hafner, 2015). Critically interrogating their lived realities and centering their voices will inform youth community centers on what types of programmes they could craft and implement and improve their existing ones. Also, although scholarship on the literate lives of marginalized youth is proliferating in Canada (e.g., Tabi & Rowsell, 2018), there is a clear gap in research that seeks to bridge the affective dimensions and processes of youth鈥檚 literacies, queerness, and diasporic identities and experiences.
This inquiry is led by Cris Barabas and supervised by PhD Committee: Amir Kalan (黑料不打烊; Supervisor), Bronwen Low (黑料不打烊; Member), Korina Jocson (York, Member)
cris.barabas [at] mail.mcgill.ca
