ABSTRACT
Imagine yourself on a yellow school bus. You are seated, or standing, or sitting on the floor and the bus, packed, careens through the streets of Montreal. Your guides on the “Going Places” tour are a group of six young women and one young man with some kind of refugee experience, either firsthand or through their parents, who each introduce themselves in turn and then play their audio narrative. These have been crafted through a series of “Mapping Memories” workshops. The youth have origins in Zimbabwe, Palestine, Congo, and Rwanda. Each of their stories is tied to a particular place in Montreal visited by the bus, including the downtown YMCA where the young man first stayed at seventeen as a refugee claimant from Zimbabwe, and a pier in the Old Port where members of the Rwandan community gather annually to commemorate the victims of the Rwandan genocide. In between presentations, the group plays a lively soundtrack, and at one point, during a Palestinian song, the father of one participant stands and dances. Project facilitator Liz Miller-communications professor at Concordia University and participatory filmmaker-explains that “as tour guides, the youth connected the past to the present, personal stories to public spaces, and offered insights into refugee youth experiences” (Miller et al. 2011, 51).
