The Stories of Us
Where it began. What it taught us. How it lives on.
Our Origin Story
In 2017, we started with a design challenge: What would it look like if there was a library filled with stories by and for Newcomers?
The Stories of Us became our answer.
We started with conversations with English as Second Language (ESL) teachers and Newcomers in English-learning classrooms, book clubs, and conversation circles.
In 2017, we piloted a storytelling workshop and applied for funding from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) for a Service Delivery Improvement funding to develop a more effective way of learning English.
Our theory was that learning English through writing your own story and reading the stories of Newcomers would motivate and connect learners to their own journeys.
ESL teachers shared with us that they were often reliant on stories geared toward English-first readers, usually for toddlers to be able to get the appropriate English-learning level for their adult learners. This was not ideal.
Alternatively, they were struggling to find reading materials that were relatable to Newcomer experiences.
We worked alongside adult ESL teachers, community partners, and storytellers to create something that didn’t exist: learning resources that reflected the actual lives of the people using them. Stories told in both English and the author’s first language. Stories of migration, identity, culture, and the complicated, beautiful work of belonging somewhere new.
We believed, and still believe, that if we could just get the right stories into the right hands, something would shift. We weren’t wrong about the power of stories. We were naive about how much more the work would ask of us.
What We Were Practicing
The Stories of Us was never just an ESL library. Looking back, it was our first serious attempt to practice what we now name as our core skills:
Telling the Truth — We invited storytellers to tell their stories in the language they happened in. We resisted the urge to sanitize or simplify what people actually experienced.
Weaving the Micro and the Macro — Each personal story was also a window into policy, displacement, resilience, and the structural conditions that shape a newcomer’s life in Canada.
Holding Contradictions — Settlement journeys are simultaneously jarring, exciting, challenging, and joyous. We tried to hold all of that, rather than flattening it into something more palatable.
Practicing Curiosity — We came in genuinely wondering what participants would share and let that wonder guide the work.
What It Taught Us
The Stories of Us revealed something we’ve carried into every project since: how we gather stories matters as much as the stories themselves.
We learned that storytelling without care can become extraction. That templates and frameworks, however well-intentioned, can inadvertently make people feel assessed rather than seen. That the process of telling your story, being witnessed, validated, reflected back, is itself the work, not just a means to an end.
We also learned that if you create a space where people feel genuinely safe, what emerges goes far beyond what you planned for.
These lessons live in everything we do now, in how we design research, how we facilitate, how we coach, how we enter into any partnership.
Our Participants
Where It Lives Now
The Stories of Us is no longer an active program. But it is very much alive.
You’ll find it in Migration as Practice — our migrant-first gathering space that grew directly from this work. You’ll find it in the way we center Newcomer and Youth voices in every project we take on. You’ll find it in our commitment to research that doesn’t extract, facilitation that doesn’t rush, and storytelling that doesn’t sanitize.
The library itself — stories in Arabic, Armenian, Bengali, Chinese, Filipino, French, Hindi, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Somali, Spanish, Turkish, and more — remains a resource for ESL educators, LINC instructors, and anyone who wants to encounter Canada through the eyes of those who chose to be here.
Generously supported by
This project was made possible by the vulnerability, generosity, and trust of every storyteller who chose to share a piece of their journey with us. We carry that with us.
