Kiana Kishiyama remembers feeling scared when, at the start of her first undergraduate class in beginner’s Mandarin, her teacher looked at her and said, “You need to speak to me after class.”
“And I’m like, what, I’m in trouble already?”
It turned out that the teacher believed that Kishiyama, who was adopted from China by a Canadian couple, was just being modest about her language skills.
After hearing Kishiyama speak a single phrase in Mandarin, the teacher quickly changed her mind.
“It was like I had to prove my lack of language proficiency. I was a bit irked,” said Kishiyama, with a laugh.
Adoptee identity and language of origin
This was just one of the experiences that led Kishiyama, one of the two McGill finalists in the 2025 SSHRC Storyteller Challenge, toward a master’s program in the Faculty of Education. Her research looks at how the process of learning their languages of origin can play into the construction of a sense of identity for international adoptees. SSHRC stands for Social Science and Humanities Research Council, a federally funded body.
“What some of the of the participants in my study mentioned is that learning their language of origin has helped them imagine a self that they could have been,” said Kishiyama, who took classes in both Japanese and Mandarin as a child. (Her adoptive father is of Japanese ancestry.)
“It’s like, they’re speaking a language that they could have actually grown up speaking and learning about a culture that they could have grown up in, the culture of birth family members they are biologically connected to. I know that some people have thought about it as a sort of healing process.”
Diversity is in the eye of the beholder
Jeffrey To, a PhD student in Psychology, is the second member of the McGill community to be chosen as a finalist from among the 161 entries this year. His research investigates the multiple definitions and perceptions of diversity, equity and inclusion.
“As an Asian person, I’m a member of a ‘diverse group’. So, I’ve always been very intimately aware of issues around diversity. I’ve also experienced why it’s so important to be seen as a person beyond the colour of your skin or your culture,” said To.
He went on to say he believes it is common nowadays in politics, even in science, for people to talk about the concept of diversity without ever really stopping to define what it means.
“Are we talking about diversity of appearance, diversity of culture or of ideas? What my research shows is that diversity is not objective, or a single thing. Instead, it’s very much in the eye of the beholder.”
Sharing research through video storytelling
Applicants to the annual challenge are asked to tell the story of their research in either a three-minute video or audio clip or a 300-word infographic. Kishiyama and To each chose to make a video and are excited about how using video storytelling techniques can allow them to reach a much wider audience than can a typical academic paper.
To said he had initially been reluctant to enter the Storytellers Challenge because he felt that learning to make a video would be too time-consuming. But new AI video-editing techniques changed his view.
“The process of making the video was actually the part I loved the most because it kind of reminded me of when I was a child and writing stories and making fan fiction of different characters on TV. It was so refreshing. It’s also a way to make your ideas accessible to a much wider audience. I think when we publish in these prestigious journals, there’s an average 12 people who read the work. But if I posted a video like this on TikTok, even if 300 people watch it, that’s a lot of people!”
The next step for the two McGill finalists will be to present their research stories live at the Science Writers and Communicators of Canada (SWCC) conference in Fredericton, N.B. on June 13, 2025. Each of the 25 finalists will be judged on their live storytelling skills and could win an additional $1,000. Each finalist has already won $3,000.
“Even if I don’t get into this award, it doesn’t matter because it will still have been valuable for me to learn to express my ideas in a video format in a way that’s understandable to the general public. I’m learning so much,” said Kishiyama.
To echoes this sentiment, “I’m so excited. And I’m kind of nervous too, because I’ll also be ‘competing’. But ultimately, you know, it’s all about the learning experience and connecting with people who are like minded.”
Read more about the SSHRC Storytellers Challenge