The Immigrant Education Society reflects on child language brokering in new book

What is child language brokering? Adult newcomers often rely on their children to translate for them – known as child language brokering. Kevin Fleming explains.

The Immigrant Education Society (TIES) is celebrating the launch of a new book that delves into child language brokering among newcomer families.

Child language brokering is when children act as language and cultural intermediaries for their families during their settlement and integration into a new country.

The book was compiled in part by TIES' own Katerina Palova, Dr. Anusha Kassan (University of British Columbia) and Halley Silversides (University of Calgary).

Titled Beyond Translation: Exploring Child Language Brokering in Alberta's Culturally Diverse Landscape, the book is the culmination of five years of data gathering by interviewing more than 50 parents and their children.

"We talked to many newcomer families, we actually did the interviews and surveys with them in English, French and Arabic," said Palova.

"We spoke also to settlement practitioners, health care practitioners, some school staff as well as part of the of the delivery."

"The little bit of research that's been done on this topic has come mostly from the U.S., and a little bit from the east side of Canada," said Kassan, primary editor.

"We really wanted to localize this research to Alberta, so all of the surveys we did were province wide and then also to Calgary specifically."

The team found that sometimes children are exposed to content that is not developmentally appropriate and too sensitive, like legal and medical information of their parents, and suggested it could be impactful to the psychological development of a child.

"We've heard many criticisms when it comes to involving children in heavily sensitive contexts, and oftentimes, the families have no other choice than to ask their children or relatives for help," said Palova.

"But we also saw that we can mitigate these consequences if handled well."

Palova says the researchers hosted workshops for the families participating in the study and spoke to parents and children separately and then together to provide them with some tips and tools of how to prepare before they get into a sensitive situation.

"We hope that through these initiatives, more programing will be created and also more awareness, because language brokering is not going away," she said.

"Sadly, here in Alberta, we are struggling to provide interpreters and translators from our other official language, which is French, so how can we actually support language groups from all the newcomers that are coming into the country if we cannot even ensure that French translation is in place."

Kassan says not all the findings are negative.

"It's a nice surprise to see families come closer together," she said.

"And to see children reflect on their immigration experience and recognize that them brokering the language is really a way of giving back to the family, because they recognize how much sacrifice went into this whole process of coming to Canada."

Kassan says the last few chapters in the book can be used by newcomer families and agencies who help them transition into a new country.

"The final chapters are about knowledge mobilization so there are some resources there, there's some toolkits that folks can use to really help prepare families for this entire process," she said.

"To me, the reality is families are going to do this, they have no choice, it's a necessity so if they're going to do it let's support them in doing it optimally."