Becoming the Bridge Between Two Countries: Immigration Grief and Cultural Bereavement
they have no idea what it’s like
to lose home at the risk of
never finding home again
to have your entire life
split between two lands and
become the bridge between two countries
immigrant - rupi kaur
I remember the first time I read the poetry book the sun and her flowers by rupi kaur. I felt such euphoria and relief that someone who looked like me had put together a series of empowering words that could speak to what I felt and what I had seen in my family throughout my life. It felt freeing; like finally coming home. Finally, someone is naming these cultural and immigration experiences that are felt by many. Finally, our voices can be heard. As a woman of colour, I had gotten used to not receiving representation in mainstream media or in my day-to-day life. I had received deeply engrained messaging that I needed to change who I was to conform to my surroundings so I could be ‘just like everyone else’. As a culturally informed and intersectional feminist therapist, I believe in the power of storytelling. I believe that people of colour have been healing ourselves for generations and connecting with our ancestors through oral histories and traditions passed down. When we speak out about the stories that are told to us and about us, we can own and reclaim our narratives.
I am a second-generation, Canadian-born child of immigrants. My grandparents immigrated to Canada from Punjab, India when my mother was two years old, and my father immigrated as an adult, shortly before I was born. Growing up, I often felt really confused about what it meant that my family was from India, yet we were living here in Canada. My family explained that it was to have a better life here than we would back home, and yet I didn’t quite know what that meant. I remember the constant comments growing up that made me feel like I was so different; from classmates asking me where I was from, to telling me to go back to my country. I couldn’t imagine how this could possibly mean having a better life when I never felt a sense of belonging, and often felt that I needed to assimilate to survive. I often mourned never getting the chance to be raised in India, and always wondering what that would have been like.
As a direct result of experiencing prejudice, discrimination and racism for being brown immigrants, my family engaged in a survival strategy that is all too familiar to many immigrant families – we leaned into acculturation and assimilation. I was never taught to speak, read or write my native language of Punjabi from my motherland; I was encouraged instead to be excellent in my English skills. The parts of my culture that I learned were fragmented, often feeling connected through food but losing many other cultural practices, spiritual knowledge, and traditions, customs and rituals. I learned to act and behave in a way that was ‘Canadian’ enough so that I could survive and be successful in school. My family emphasized the importance of getting a good education – reminding me that this was the pathway to having a good life here in Canada. I was raised with the ghosts of my parents’ and grandparents’ past looming over me; hearing stories of how difficult their settlement had been to living in a new country. I heard about how my grandfather was promised job security when being recruited to come to Canada, only to find out upon arriving that this was untrue, and his PhD education was not recognized. I heard about how he could only land low-paying jobs in rural Alberta, getting paid lower than his white colleagues, and experiencing racism and hate crimes from the students he was teaching. I heard about how after my grandfather passed, my grandmother’s education was also not recognized and she could only get jobs through her Indian acquaintances, having to take on three low-paying jobs at a time in order to raise my mom and aunties. I heard about my father getting passed up on every promotion in his job and watching those less experienced than him get promoted ahead of him for decades, being told that it was because his accent was too thick, and no one would understand him. I heard stories of the ways my mother and aunties would be bullied in school for smelling like homemade curry or wearing Indian clothes. I saw my grandmother sigh heavily with melancholy when I recently asked her if she would ever again return to India after fifty-five years of not being there – only for her to respond that no, she does not recognize India anymore and that Canada is her home now. The legacy of the intergenerational trauma of being immigrants carried over and has largely impacted a sense of who I am. Being a child of immigrants often feels like being neither here nor there; just caught somewhere in between the push to assimilate and the pull to connect with and preserve these sacred parts of ourselves that are a part of our cultures and lineages. I felt for a long time that being the wholeness of who I am is not acceptable; that I need to modify who I am depending on who I am with. This experience gave confusing mixed messages that I will not be cultural enough to be a part of my Punjabi Indian community, but I will never be ‘white’ enough or Canadian enough for Western community either, and therefore always feeling othered.
Immigration Grief
The above experiences I have described from myself, and my family members can be some of the resulting feelings of experiencing immigration grief. Immigration can often bring with it a wide range of losses. It can be really challenging for someone to leave behind their homeland and all that they know in search of a new life in a new land, often leading to feeling uprooted. There can be a loss of familiarity and a large adjustment and adaptation process to being in a new place and adopting new ways of living. Many immigrants find that they miss their old life in their homeland; they may be leaving behind family and friends, cultural traditions, and settings that are important to them. Even if someone is fleeing their home country, for example, in the case of refugees escaping war and genocide; there can be many mixed feelings that one can experience. One might feel relief at being away from the danger, however immense grief and suffering at what has happened to their country to cause them to be forced to leave, perhaps even loss of agency, choice, control and hope. Many people find themselves having a very difficult time upon arrival; sometimes having the disappointment of having to redo their education or being unable to utilize their skills. Often folks might find it difficult to obtain status in Canada, hard to connect with appropriate resources for their settlement, health and mental health; often times jumping through many hoops in our systems that are not designed for immigrants to navigate. Many newcomers struggle to survive and find it hard to develop proper networks of social support, often being far away from their usual support systems back in their homeland. In many cases, people lose connection to important aspects of their identities, such as language and culture, and are faced with having to reinvent their identities, which can be confusing and devastating. Immigration grief is a completely normal and natural reaction to the many losses that can come with immigration. Immigration grief can also be the conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior. People often must adapt very quickly to constant changing circumstances, which can overwhelm the nervous system’s capacity to cope and therefore can be quite traumatic for them.
Migration
According to Bhugra and Becker (2005), migration includes three stages: pre-migration, migration, and post-migration. This describes the initial decision-making process about migrating from the home country, getting prepared for the move, the process of re-locating to another place, and the process of settling into the host country and absorbing the new societal structures, norms and cultures while balancing it with what one brings culturally from their home country. Each stage of migration can bring its own unique set of challenges, losses and traumas. Migration is an incredibly stressful process that can have a detrimental impact on mental health amongst immigrants. When we are supporting immigrant mental health, it is really important to look at both the micro and macro factors that are contributing to the distress experienced. Often there are a lot of demands and constraints placed on a person as a result of the ways in which systems here in Canada fail to meet the needs of immigrants. The stress, trauma and unresolved grief can take its toll on the mental health of the individual; however, this truly is a systemic issue that must be solved through social justice changes within our society that work to resolve deeply rooted prejudices, policies and practices that harm immigrants.
Cultural Bereavement
Cultural bereavement is a term utilized to describe the grieving experience of the uprooted person or group resulting from loss of social structures, cultural values and cultural identities (Bhugra & Becker, 2005). This leads people to constantly feel that they must reorganize their own self image, which can impact their sense of self esteem. In my experience as a child of immigrants, I am often in a constant state of mourning the loss of my cultural identity and family history; feeling shame about not knowing more about my culture and history, which leads to a constant questioning of who I am and a complex experience of mental distress. I often experience it in waves, feeling it more in certain times, such as when a relative comes to visit and I am struggling to communicate with them due to loss of my language. Many immigrants struggle with cultural bereavement in being so far away from what connects them to their lineage. I have found power in naming this experience as cultural bereavement and naming that this is a grief that can be commonly found amongst immigrants or children of immigrants, and yet it is also something so deeply personal, individual, and different depending on the person’s own lived experience. Cultural bereavement can be isolating and lonely – it is important for us to talk about this experience more and to claim spaces where people can gather to share in this grief and these painful emotions together.
Ideas for Healing Immigration Grief and Cultural Bereavement
1. Name your grieving experience – It can be so healing and powerful to name that you are experiencing grief and loss related to immigration and culture. Sometimes we might think that our experiences cannot encompass grief because we did not lose what we perhaps might typically believe to be a loss, such as a death. Remember that there are dozens of types of losses that one can experience; your experience can be considered a loss to you and it is so valid. When we can name our grief, it can make it easier for us to sit with it.
2. Sit with your grief – All of your emotions are allowed to be here as you are grieving. It is okay to feel sadness, anger, rage, disappointment, fear, shame, guilt, shock, rejection, or any other feelings you may have as a result of your immigration grief or cultural bereavement. Find the outlets that you need to be able to sit with your feelings and attend to these emotions when they come up. Some people find crying, movement or journalling to be helpful expressions of their grief; you can find what works best for you.
3. Storytelling – Our stories from our homelands, ancestors and lineages are so sacred. You deserve to have safe spaces in your life where you can give voice to your stories and name your experiences with immigration grief and cultural bereavement. Find trusted spaces where you can share with people who can empathize and understand. There are community and cultural centres that exist that are geared towards newcomer, immigrant and refugee populations that could be potential supports for you.
4. Find a culturally informed therapist who is well-versed in cultural bereavement – If you feel like you need to talk to a mental health professional about your grief, find someone who you feel comfortable with who can understand your experience. It might be helpful to look for a therapist who is also an immigrant or a child of immigrants, if you would like to have that representation. You can look at their profiles online to determine if their values align with what you are looking for and you can always reach out to them to ask any questions. In particular, you are allowed to ask what their awareness of and experience is in supporting people with cultural bereavement. You are allowed to access supports that feel culturally tailored to you.
5. Join our BIPOC Grief Recovery Support Group – Here at the Grief and Trauma Healing Centre, we have started running a support group that is specifically tailored to the experiences and needs of people of colour, including those experiencing immigration grief and cultural bereavement. You do not have to do your grieving alone, and you are allowed to share space with other grieving people. You can be a part of an inclusive, accessible and culturally informed grief group where you can examine what you’ve been taught about loss, explore your beliefs about grief, and complete a set of actions that will enable you to move forward in your life with hope.
6. Utilize cultural and/or spiritual practices for healing – Spend time connecting with your culture/spirituality/faith if that feels relevant for you. You are allowed to lean on what connects you to a greater sense of meaning and purpose in your life. This can be an opportunity to connect with intergenerational and ancestral wisdom within your family, your community, or your lineage.
Experiencing immigration grief and cultural bereavement can be difficult, painful and overwhelming. You are not alone in the challenges you are experiencing and you are deserving of healing and finding supports for your grief that are helpful for you. My hope is that this blog post can be a starting point in naming and normalizing this experience so that our communities can heal and be empowered.
Resources
Bhugra, D., & Becker, M. A. (2005). Migration, cultural bereavement and cultural identity. World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA),@4(1), 18–24.
Kaur, R. (2017). The sun and her flowers. Simon & Schuster.
Blog Written by Reena Samra
Reena is a Registered Social Worker, Certified Grief Recovery Specialist® and EMDR Clinician.
Reena holds a Bachelor's degree in Social Work and a Master's degree in Clinical Social Work with a Trauma-Informed Practice Specialization from the University of Calgary. She has eight years of experience working with a diverse range of trauma survivors. She works from a trauma-informed, intersectional feminist, anti-oppressive, social justice-oriented and anti-racist framework, striving to decolonize mental health.
Having experienced many complex traumas and losses in her life, including her mother having a stroke in 2021 that took away her health and abilities, The Grief Recovery Method provided her with tools to process her painful life experiences and heal her broken heart.
Reena values building authentic, kind and trusting therapeutic relationships.
To learn more about Reena or to work with her click here.