At Fuelling Immigrant Futures: Data, Insights, Democracy, we witnessed the scale and complexity of North America’s multicultural fabric. Canada now counts one in four residents as foreign-born, while in the US it is one in seven, a living testament to the layered realities shaping our societies.
Transformation Catalyst Sponsor Vividata’s Mike Fragomeni (Megan Layfield, Pasquale Pellegrini and their teams) brought the numbers to life through Canada’s largest consumer study the Survey of the Canadian Consumer (SCC), and their multicultural research spotlighting vibrant South Asian, Chinese, and Filipino communities. Their research revealed powerful truths: South Asians, often arriving alone and reuniting with family later, struggle most with integration (33%), compared with Chinese (23%) and Filipino (22%) newcomers who tend to arrive with families earlier. Festivals, cultural branding, and community-centered promotions emerge as powerful bridges for belonging—particularly resonant among South Asians, and deeply influential across Chinese and Filipino communities as well.
But the story extends beyond festivals and markets. Global immigrant remittances already exceed $860B annually, according to all the data shared by Legacy Futures Sponsor Remitly’s Mary Grace Gauto, demonstrating a staggering show of commitment to families and futures abroad. Yet closer to home in North America, Generation1.ca’s study of our members reports that half of internationally educated immigrants work below their qualifications. The barriers are steep and familiar: high living costs, limited job opportunities, weak professional networks, credential recognition struggles, and the heavy toll of isolation and discrimination. Generation1.ca’s Global Industry Skills Study 2025 – Immigrant Futures Wave reveal these findings as a reminder that talent, when left unrecognized, becomes one of the world’s most wasted resources.
Cultural background continues to shape how newcomers adapt. Leger’s Lisa Covens revealed that 65% of newcomers say retail helps them adjust to life in Canada. Talk about retail therapy! Particularly in beauty and grocery aisles, cultural background influences shape newcomer consumer preferences and loyalties significantly. Community recommendations largely fuel this adaptation, even as nearly a third of newcomers still report barriers to good customer service due to their immigrant status.
An important fact in all this, to note is that financial security, above all else, remains the greatest source of stress to Canada’s newcomers as Securian Canada, our Inclusion Sponsor reinforced in their latest report revealing the vast numbers of immigrants that remain uninsured or underinsured, corroborating our own GISS2025 findings on top barriers for newcomers that included high costs of living, limited jobs in their field and credential recognition, isolation, discrimination (colleagues toping the source of bias list) and supports needed for immigrants to succeed in the coming 3-5 years.
What emerges is not only a story of struggle, but one of resilience and plurality. Many immigrant communities come from cultures steeped in debate, social traditions and internal diversity—traditions that can seem to mirror American ideals of open conversation and dissent however are distinctly characterized by their own intellectual heritage unlike what they encounter in Canada. All these and more contribute perhaps to their greater political engagement and connectedness with civic and political issues among established immigrants, according to research by Elections Canada on New Canadian electors and voters. Even if new arrivals fare very slightly lower than native-born Canadians on voter turnout, it is the Indigenous voters that lag behind in voter turnout, pointed out Christopher Adams, of St Paul’s College at the University of Manitoba who also joined us in person discussing issues to consider when targetting special populations like multicultural voters. Quantitative data may reveal the broad patterns, but it is qualitative voices that add nuance, depth, and truths numbers alone cannot capture. Together, they form a blueprint for trust, equity, and leadership in the immigrant journey.
Volunteering for this event opened my eyes to see how https://t.co/ylPcZD0Apz has helped a lot of immigrants in Canada. Thank you for all you do, thank you to all the speakers, sponsors and participants too 🙏🏾. https://t.co/A5J6eAcN6k
— Tobi 🧑💻 UI/UX Designer (@Kaykeed_) August 22, 2025
Community-rooted member and public-facing organizations like Generation1.ca make research participatory by ensuring respondents see the real impact of the insights they help create. As our Legacy Futures Sponsor Remitly reminded participants, research on newcomers must be translated into action for them—placing immigrants at the heart of the opinions and attitudes that shape their journey. At Generation1.ca, that is our commitment: through initiatives like these and the upcoming Future Ready Innovators open-access credential, our career fairs, case competitions where we will host our Fuelling Immigrant Futures sponsors again but this time in online stages and accessible virtual employer booths to network with and inspire the immigrant workforce. All these platforms and forums connect and inspire top global talent while turning industry insights into meaningful change—for immigrant employers, newcomers themselves, and the wider community invested in this culturally significant group.
The conversation doesn’t end here. Even bigger moments are ahead from our Fall 2025 Virtual Career Fair & Case Competition Prosperity by Design: Leading with AI, Talent and Trust on September 26, Friday to a powerful November 4 in-person showcase you won’t want to miss. From insight to action, the journey continues with more interesting turns and twists ahead as our momentum only grows, conversations deepen, and real change happens. We are proud to have distributed over $50,000 in scholarships and dedicated 8,000 volunteer hours annually to settlement services that advance the professional development of our communities—made possible through the generous support of our partners and sponsors across academia, industry, and the public and private sectors. Join us and grow the impact! Reach out to me at arundati@generation1.ca if you are interested in supporting these initiatives.
Thank You for Fuelling Immigrant Futures with #Success! – https://t.co/lflJOWlU9C
— Arundati Dandapani (@itadnura) August 21, 2025
Thank you to our speakers, sponsors, participants, partners, attendees! @remitly @VividataCanada @ESOMAR @Securian#Data #Insights #Leadership #Immigrants #CulturallySignificant #Generation1.ca pic.twitter.com/WAsX7Nr3Jb
This was such an enlightening read, showcasing the resilience and uniqueness of immigrant communities in North America. I particularly found the insights about the struggles and triumphs of different cultural groups fascinating. Can you share more about how the event addressed the barriers newcomers face in the job market and what solutions were proposed to support their integration and success?