"I arrived with just $1 in my pocket": Narratives of immigrant exceptionalism on X

Narratives of immigrant exceptionalism such as “I arrived with just $1 in my pocket” are commonly used by established immigrants in Canada to signal their personal achievement, their resilience, their claims to legitimacy on Canadian issues, or simply to counter narratives of an unwelcoming place. The convenience of the temporal and seemingly causal communicative form of the narrative, further combined with the social position of the established immigrant, the narratives of immigrant exceptionalism are highly amenable for reproduction. These narratives must be contextualized within the wider discourse of Canadian exceptionalism that allow such narratives to be further reproduced over generations and cohorts of new immigrant arrivals through the creation of the imaginary integrated immigrant. The framing of the narratives of immigrant exceptionalism tells us about the spectrum of meanings that people attach to immigrant exceptionalism, as well as what Canadian exceptionalism means to them. I collected 165 posts from X/Twitter and categorized the tweets into frames. I find that relevant problem frames such as “taking responsibility” and “threat“ stand out, as well as benefit frames such as “solidarity”.