Colombian and Mexican youth migration and acculturation experiences: the shaping of identities in Metropolitan Vancouver

This qualitative study explores the acculturation processes and the shaping of identities of 17 foreign-born Colombian and Mexican young adults living in Metropolitan Vancouver, aged 19 to 30 years. The research analyzed both participants’ acculturation processes in the education and employment spheres, and their related shaping of identities, mediated by their ethnicity and class locations. Using a mixture of subject-oriented oral histories and semi-structured interviews, the findings signal that participants shaped their identities based on oppositional but negotiable terms with a predominant Anglo-Canadian identity, as well as with a new developed Latino pan-ethnic identity, where class location played a significant role. Since Latin American immigrants constitute a young and rapidly growing visible minority group in Canada, and there is a few but growing literature focusing on this population, this research makes an important and timely contribution to our knowledge and understanding of youth, identities, and immigration in Canada.