Getting Used to the Quiet

Book excerpt: At a time when Canadian governments are encouraging the dispersion of immigrants throughout the provinces in an attempt to reduce clustering in large metropolitan areas, studies of immigration outside urban centres are rare - and studies of immigrant youth even rarer. In Getting Used to the Quiet, Stacey Wilson-Forsberg looks at the integration experiences of immigrant adolescents in one small city and one rural town in New Brunswick's St John River Valley where the youths find no earlier immigrant communities with shared cultural backgrounds. Emphasizing themes including social capital, social networks, and citizen engagement, Wilson-Forsberg highlights the teens' gradual involvement in their new communities as they confront the challenges of dealing with an unfamiliar environment, learning a new language, and reaching out to their New Brunswick-born peers. In-depth interviews with over thirty teens give readers new insights into the integration process. Focusing on a crucial and underexplored area of immigration studies, Getting Used to the Quiet is a valuable resource for understanding the ways in which newcomers join unfamiliar communities and how the communities, in turn, respond to their presence.