ABSTRACT
The term ‘family’ is recognised around the world but what it means is subject to various interpretations that acquire significance when people migrate across international borders. Similarly, when the term ‘integration’ is applied to migrants it acquires different meanings, based on various contexts and perspectives. Migration scholars have studied legal, socio-cultural, political, and economic implications of family migration and the subsequent integration of migrant families in destination countries. This chapter will examine some of the interwoven strands from this tapestry of knowledge in some detail. We begin by highlighting how families are differently conceptualised in immigrants’ countries of origin and destination and how this shapes familial roles and relationships upon migration. We consider what sociocultural, economic, and political integration means to immigrant families, especially from China and South Asia, and how family members facilitate or impede each other’s integration in the destination country. This will be juxtaposed with how institutional decisionmakers in Canada interpret immigrant integration and reflect it in their policies and practices in the fields of health, education, and the criminal justice system. The chapter concludes with suggestions on how both immigrant families and their integration should be reconceptualised to create more equitable societies.
