Hollow from the Inside: Experiences of Racialized Immigrant Fathers When Their Child Dies
Abstract
Understanding the meaning of loss for racialized immigrant fathers and addressing their experiences in a culturally competent manner is important in an increasingly ethnoculturally diverse country like Canada. Culture, customs and rituals influence fathers’ grief and culture impacts how individuals discuss death and dying as well as how they perceive the death of a child. This qualitative research examines the experiences of racialized immigrant fathers who experienced the death of a child. Charmaz’s (2010, 2014) constructivist grounded theory was the methodological approach in this research and was applied to develop the theoretical framework grounded in this research: Hollow from the inside - the death of a child served as a reinforcing process for ongoing loss linked to racialized immigrant fathers’ experience of immigration. Findings suggest that for racialized immigrant fathers their migration experience compounds their losses in unexpected ways when their child has died.