Facilitating Immigrant Children’s Bicultural Identity Development in Play Therapy


| REGINE K. CHUNG, PHD, LMHC, CAS & AHOU VAZIRI LINE, PHD, LPC, RPT™, CSC, NCC


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n our increasingly globalized world, international migration continues to be a common phenomenon across diverse cultures. In 2020, the global migrant population reached 281 million, a threefold increase from 1970. International migrants accounted for 22% of Oceania's population, 16% of North


America's, and 12% of Europe's. Furthermore, Asia experienced a 74% growth in its immigrant population from 2000 to 2020, adding 37 million to the population (McAuliffe & Oucho, 2024). The United Nations predicts that international migration will be the primary driver of population growth in high-income countries such as the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom in the coming decades (McAuliffe & Oucho, 2024). For play therapists worldwide, these demographic shifts underscore the importance of examining their practice and readiness to work with immigrant families and children.


16 | PLAYTHERAPY December 2024 | www.a4pt.org


Generally, the term 'immigrant' refers to an individual who lives in a country other than their country of birth, often for reasons such as  them to leave their home countries. These individuals may also be described as "migrants," "foreign-born," or "international migrants" (Bolter, 2019). The term ‘immigrant’ can also extend to the children of immigrants, who are native-born and have not migrated themselves. These children are often labeled as second- or third-generation immigrant children. For instance, as of 2022, around 17.6 million children in the U.S. had a parent who was an immigrant, comprising 26% of the total population of children under 18 (Batalova, 2024).


Children from immigrant and refugee backgrounds face a wide range of challenges given their diverse experiences. These challenges


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