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Sarnia

Immigrants asked about experiences with discrimination

With the number of new immigrants on the rise locally, Lambton County is working to become a more inclusive and welcoming community.

The Sarnia-Lambton Local Immigration Partnership (SL-LIP) is collaborating with Western University to gather information from those who have experienced discrimination.

SL-LIP Project Coordinator Stephanie Ferrera said those interested will be asked to take part in a 90-minute virtual interview.

She said it's part of a provincewide initiative.

"I don't think this is any more important than it would have been years and years ago, I just think people are willing to talk about it more," said Ferrera. "They're willing to share their experiences. We have community members coming forward and wanting to share in how to address the challenges that they're in. We have a number of programs that have been put into place to address racism and discrimination. So, I think we're just more willing to have the conversation now."

Ferrera said participation is completely voluntary, and the information provided will be kept confidential.

"Those that are participating, they can either be invited or volunteer whereas last time it was more of a random selection," she said. "We've offered a gift card for either Tim Hortons or Walmart for participating. The interview itself will take between an hour and an hour and a half so it's quite a commitment."

Ferrera said immigration locally is changing, however it's always been a revolving door.

"Several years ago when we were in the midst of the Syrian resettlement initiative, and more recently we've had a number of families come in from Ukraine. By and large, the largest influx of immigration that we're seeing is from international students entering into studies at Lambton College."

A short pre-screening questionnaire can be found here:

Those with questions about the study, or wanting to discuss the purposes of this research further, can contact lead researcher Victoria Esses at vesses@uwo.ca.

Meanwhile, a total of 363 people completed a similar survey in March of 2021.

Around 66 per cent of respondents had experienced discrimination in one form or another in the past three years, for an average of 4.4 times.

Inappropriate jokes were the most identified form of discrimination (54%) followed by derogatory language (46%) and verbal abuse (32%). Discrimination was most likely to occur in school, a store, or social setting.

The survey found that most victims used "passive coping skills" as a response, and accepted their experience as the way things are.

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