Mother helps new immigrants to Canada stand up to discrimination

When Adebola Adefioye moved from Nigeria to Canada with her family, she expected to find a welcoming new home.

But that turned out not to be the case.

Adefioye, who now lives in Sudbury, first settled in southern Ontario five years ago with her husband and three children.

She said her second oldest daughter, who was in Grade 2 at the time, was the only Black student in her class, and was shunned by the other girls at school.

"They would be very nasty words to her, and they said she couldn't join them to play at recess," Adefioye said.

"She would take a jump rope to school to skip at recess. Sometimes she would go to the kindergarten classroom to help the teachers because she was trying to avoid the drama of the playground."

Adefioye said when she spoke with her daughter's teacher, she was told there was nothing they could do, and it would not be possible to force the other children to play with her.

"I didn't understand how a teacher would say she has no strategy on how to deal with anti-Black racism," Adefioye said.

"I thought about different program planning that she could have done because I was also starting early childhood education at Seneca, and we learned a lot of strategies on how to deal with such issues in the classroom."

While her daughter faced racism at school, Adefioye said she had similar experiences at her workplace.

She worked at a childcare centre at the time, but said she eventually quit due to a toxic work environment.

"Sometimes I would say hi to the person I was working with, and she wouldn't respond," she said. "And I felt like I was invisible, kind of. But I continued to work because I needed the money."

While her family faced racial discrimination Adefioye worked with her daughter to help her confidence with self-affirmation exercises.

"She was coming out of the struggle and she was learning to reach out to other people," she said. "That was a big deal for me."