Black Diasporic Youth: Experiences of Ethiopian and Somali Canadians

Join Dr. Mary Goitom and Dr. Ahmed Ali Ilmi to explore how Black diasporic youth in Canada navigate racism, identity, and belonging.

YouthREX is excited to host this webinar with two interrelated presentations by Dr. Mary Goitom and Dr. Ahmed Ali Ilmi on how Black diasporic youth in Canada navigate anti-Black racism, identity, and belonging across local and transnational contexts. Their research findings illuminate how diasporic youth exercise agency, resilience, and world-building in the face of systemic barriers, and raise important questions on how we can create supportive spaces that centre Black youth, validate hybrid cultural identities, and recognize transnational connections as sources of strength.

Dr. Goitom on Changing Forms of Transnationalism: Rethinking Transnationalism through the Second-Generation

Dr. Goitom’s work on Ethiopian diasporic communities looks at how second-generation youth engage with cross-border connections and community ties, ancestral knowledge systems, and imagined futures as part of their settlement and citizenship experiences. Dr. Goitom is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Work, York University. Her community-based research explores migration, mobilities, diasporic connections, transnational processes, and social relations grounded in Ethiopian epistemologies and larger African traditional knowledge systems.

Learn more about Mary’s research:

• “Unconventional Canadians”: Second-Generation “Habesha” Youth and Belonging in Toronto, Canada (2017)

Dr. Ahmed Ali Ilmi on Challenging Islamophobia and Anti-Black Racism

Dr. IImi’s research explores how Black/African Muslim youth in Toronto construct a unique cultural identity that merges their Islamic values with their Somali heritage, centering on the term Say-Walahi (“swear to God”). His findings illuminate how youth navigate both Islamophobia and anti-Black racism in their schools and communities and the importance of rethinking how the educational system can centre the identity of Black Muslim youth in the classroom and in urban education research. Dr. Ilmi is an Assistant Professor (Teaching Stream) in the Department of Global Development Studies at the University of Toronto, Scarborough. His research spans race and ethnicity, African studies, critical development studies, diaspora and transnationalism, and the ethics of community research. In recognition of his community-engaged scholarship, he received the 2024 African Scholars Community Development Award.

Learn more about Ahmed’s research:

• Say-Walahi Diaspora Youth, Islamophobia and Anti-Black Racism: Implications for Education (2025)

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We will use Zoom for this webinar.

Youth Research and Evaluation eXchange (YouthREX) is a province-wide initiative based at the School of Social Work at York University. Our Mission is to make research evidence and evaluation practices accessible and relevant to Ontario’s grassroots youth sector through capacity building, knowledge exchange, and evaluation leadership. Our Vision is an Ontario where shared knowledge is transformed into positive impact for all youth.