Why is Canada's Latin American population so relatively new?

[Capsicum]

Yes, I know obviously any ties between Latin America and Canada would pale in comparison to those between the United States and Latin America as a region, whether it's Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba or elsewhere in the Spanish-speaking New World.

But how new Latin American immigration is to Canada still strikes me as stark in comparison to the US.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.c...tin-americans/

According to this article, the Latin American presence in Canada is nearly all a post 1970s phenomenon, with less than 3000 people of that origin before 1970.

Was the US so much of a draw for Latin American migration that very little influence made it north of the 49th parallel? Did pre-1970s Canada have any explicit policies against Latin American immigration (even Latin Americans of European descent) the way it did against non-European groups like Asians and Africans?

Even groups like Black Canadians, Asian (Chinese and Japanese) Canadians seem to have a more comparable history with tens of thousands of people in the years of the 19th century already, so to have only thousands of Latin Americans in Canada as late as 1970 seems surprising.

[mistercorporate]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Yes, I know obviously any ties between Latin America and Canada would pale in comparison to those between the United States and Latin America as a region, whether it's Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba or elsewhere in the Spanish-speaking New World.

But how new Latin American immigration is to Canada still strikes me as stark in comparison to the US.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.c...tin-americans/

According to this article, the Latin American presence in Canada is nearly all a post 1970s phenomenon, with less than 3000 people of that origin before 1970.

Was the US so much of a draw for Latin American migration that very little influence made it north of the 49th parallel? Did pre-1970s Canada have any explicit policies against Latin American immigration (even Latin Americans of European descent) the way it did against non-European groups like Asians and Africans?

Even groups like Black Canadians, Asian (Chinese and Japanese) Canadians seem to have a more comparable history with tens of thousands of people in the years of the 19th century already, so to have only thousands of Latin Americans in Canada as late as 1970 seems surprising.

Before the 60's, Canada had only nominal immigration of non-whites, based on need and not desire, as the white population was still quite small. For example, blacks who fought with the loyalist side vs the US in the 18th century, Chinese who provided much needed labour for railway construction in the sparsely settled West of Canada, and Indian soldiers and lumberjacks in BC, both in the 19th century. The real boom in non-white immigration was in the 1960's onwards, when Canada was firing on all cylinders and desperately needed English (especially)and French speaking immigrants to fill vacancies in industry (scientists, tradesmen) and government services (doctors, accountants). This is what held back Latin American immigration as for the most part, it is the region with one of the lowest levels of English/French proficiency. Greeks, Italians and Jews were allowed in even without English, but they were as coloured as Canada was willing to go without official language skills. We consider many South Americans and even some Arabs as white now, but that wasn't the case just a few decades ago, when even subtly Mestizo or tanned South Americans were considered coloured. Anyway, from what i noticed, Latin Americans generally prefer to migrate to pre-existing Latin societies and communities in North America. Places like Miami, LA and NYC.

[WhipperSnapper]

All they do is bitch about how uptight Canadians are.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

All they do is bitch about how uptight Canadians are.

In my experience, Latin Americans can be bemused by our reserve but in general admire our "first world" qualities while being critical of their own self-described "third world" tendencies. These things are not uniform across the region, however. A Chilean or Uruguayan, for example, would tend to "get us" better than someone from, say Venezuela or the Dominican Republic. That said, there are substantial cultural differences that make "culture shock criticisms" pretty common in both directions.

[Acajack]

All of the ones I know here are pretty happy.

Many many have mentioned that Quebec is a pretty good fit for them in terms of mindset and demeanour.

And the feeling is mutual as I'd say Latin Americans are widely viewed in Quebec as being almost the ultimate "model minority" (not that that American term is really used here, but it would fit them to a T if it was).

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

All of the ones I know here are pretty happy.

Many many have mentioned that Quebec is a pretty good fit for them in terms of mindset and demeanour.

And the feeling is mutual as I'd say Latin Americans are widely viewed in Quebec as being almost the ultimate "model minority" (not that that American term is really used here, but it would fit them to a T if it was).

I find that they have generally integrated well across the country. Among the larger groups, Chileans have done very well. Salvadoreans, although hard-working, have been a bit more challenged economically, at least among the first generation. I don't think we've completely escaped the Central American gang issues (I know there were some issues in Vancouver a number of years ago), but it's nothing like what happens in the States.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Why is Canada's Latin American population so relatively new?

Historically, immigration flowed from the "old world", Europe/Asia/Africa, to the "new world", the Americas. Latin America had traditionally been a region which received immigrants rather than exporting them. That's why it didn't happen 200 years ago. Clearly, after about 1960 migration patterns changed to reflect increasing economic disparities within North and South America.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Architype

Historically, immigration flowed from the "old world", Europe/Asia/Africa, to the "new world", the Americas. Latin America had traditionally been a region which received immigrants rather than exporting them. That's why it didn't happen 200 years ago. Clearly, after about 1960 migration patterns changed to reflect increasing economic disparities within North and South America.

That's true, countries like Argentina and Brazil got lots of immigrants in the 19th and earlier 20th centuries. Additionally, migration between Latin American countries, just from poorer ones to richer ones, was and still is a thing, such as from Paraguay to Argentina.

In terms of migration from Latin America to Anglo-America, I'm guessing the major factor is the long history of the US-Mexico migration corridor never having spilled over to Canada, either due to policy or economics. Movement between the US and Mexico has been going on for well over a century, going back to the Mexican-American war, where the border shifted. Mexicans fleeing the 1910-1920 revolution, as well as labor migration (eg. the Bracero program) in the 1940s and 1960s are part of this long history. Then, there are other Latin American sources of immigration to the US that are legacies of the Spanish-American war, such as Puerto Rico being part of the US, and additionally the Cold War, such as the "wet foot, dry foot" policy towards Cuba. I think for a fair part of the 20th century, the US was also fairly open to migration from the Western Hemisphere.

So my guess as to the major factors why Canada and Latin America are less connected by migration, some which others have already mentioned:


-Canada being more restrictive to Latin America in the 19th or 20th century, while the US was more open to Western Hemisphere migration even as it restricted Eastern Hemisphere

-Canada not bordering any Latin American country by land or water

-Canada not having been involved in much military conflict or intervention in Latin America, which would lead to refugee and migration links (eg. Spanish American war, Cold War)

-The US already being so economically dominant, and intra-Latin American migration being also common, there was little incentive to go further north.

-In the later decades with the points system, English and French speakers were favored

-Cultural differences between Latin America and Canada, or relatively smaller preexisting Spanish-speaking community to begin with, relative to the US

[Andy6]

I don't really see why anyone from Latin America would have wanted to come to Canada - a cold, mostly Protestant country with which they would have had little connection and whose agriculture would be foreign to them (people who came to Canada were mostly motivated by hopes of becoming farmers -- there really wasn't much else that Canada was known for).

To get here, they would have to go through the U.S. first: why would they have kept going all the way to Canada when whatever opportunities we offered would have been present in abundance in the U.S. anyway?

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Andy6

I don't really see why anyone from Latin America would have wanted to come to Canada - a cold, mostly Protestant country with which they would have had little connection and whose agriculture would be foreign to them (people who came to Canada were mostly motivated by hopes of becoming farmers -- there really wasn't much else that Canada was known for).

True, but there were also Catholic immigrants such as the Irish and Italians who assimilated into French-speaking Canada, rather than Anglo-Protestant Canada. I know Quebec itself lost people by emigration to the US, but it still had Catholic immigration into it. Latin Americans could have in theory joined the Italians and Irish, and like the Italians, they would speak a Romance language which would make assimilation easier there.

Also, with regard to climate and foreignness -- the Asians of the 19th and 20th century who were from warm parts of the world were even more foreign to Canada and non-Christian. In theory just as there were Chinese, Japanese or Punjabi Indian labor migrants mining, farming and building railroads in western Anglo Canada, there could have been Mexican labor migrants out there too. And though farther than it would have been for Mexicans to reach the US, it would have been a geographically closer migration than for the Asians.

Originally Posted by Andy6

To get here, they would have to go through the U.S. first: why would they have kept going all the way to Canada when whatever opportunities we offered would have been present in abundance in the U.S. anyway?

Right, but that could be said about other immigrant groups -- the Irish, Poles, Italians etc. likely found the US a more prosperous, desirable place to immigrate than Canada, yet still immigrated to both countries more proportionately, while Latin American immigration is much, much more lopsided in favor of the larger country.

[isaidso]

Latin Americans overwhelming emigrated to the US rather than Canada due to geography and the high profile of the US globally. If Canada had a land border with Mexico we would have been an end destination for a good chunk of them over the last 100 years.

If you're latin American and have made in north to the US there's little impetus to go one step further to Canada. Most would know very little about Canada so why bother when they've already made it to a wealthy nation. Canada was 'a bridge too far'.

In a more globalized world, Canada started to emerge out of the American shadow and became an option they'd never considered before. The latin Americans who come to Canada tend to be more educated and skilled than those that opt for the US. It may be just my perception but they're more interested in Quebec than other immigrants.

Honestly, I surprised so many still head to the US. Why go where you're not wanted?

[casper]

The Portuguese and Brazilian community in Canada are more strongly integrated than one would have expected. It is an interesting dynamic to look at how these two group integrate from a social and business perspective.

Part of that is driven by sharing the same language and cultural institutions. Stats Canada estimates the Portuguese Canadian population at 429,000 while the Brazilian Canadian population is 56,000.

The Portuguese Canadian community started in the 1940s and 1950s. The number of Brazilians back then was extremely small.

Today I think the number of Brazilian immigrants has picked up over the last 15 years and are become an increasing part of that linguistic group.

[Capsicum]

A lot of the reasons given for the discrepancy in migration between the US and Canada are understandable. Of course the US itself has a near tenfold difference in total population relative to Canada but I still just find the difference among Latin Americans on either side incredibly stark.

A few million Hispanic Americans already lived in the US before 1970. If the first article whose link I put in my OP is correct, only 3000 Latin Americans were in Canada before 1970! Literally a thousandfold difference. Today, there's somewhat over a half million Latin American Canadians and somewhat over 57 million Hispanic Americans, so a hundredfold difference now.

I can't think of any other immigrant group with such a lopsided migration pattern between the two countries (African Americans with colonial roots are not considered immigrants, of course). Most immigrant-origin groups have only several or tens of times more people on either side of the border, not a hundredfold difference.

For example, for many European groups like Irish, Germans, Italians, today there's a few tens of millions of Americans who trace their roots to each of these groups. In Canada, it's a few million. About a tenfold difference.

For Asian groups, like the Chinese, Canada has proportionately more but the US has more in absolute terms. There are currently a few million Asian Canadians to the under twenty million Asian Americans. The difference is only a factor of four or five. In the late 19th and earlier 20th century, the population of Asian immigrants was maybe about tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. Again, only a few times difference.

It's only with the Latin Americans where one side had, if the data is right, up to the 1970s, literally only thousands and the other side had literally millions.

[kwoldtimer]

Keep in mind that, until well after the second war, Canada had little official presence in Latin America, was doing nothing to promote or facilitate immigration from Latin America to Canada, and that transportation links were minimal. This only began to change with the influx of Chilean refugees in the Pinochet years.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

...

Right, but that could be said about other immigrant groups -- the Irish, Poles, Italians etc. likely found the US a more prosperous, desirable place to immigrate than Canada, yet still immigrated to both countries more proportionately, while Latin American immigration is much, much more lopsided in favor of the larger country.

No, it's not usually the same, other immigrant groups did not go through the US first to come to Canada as Latin Americans might typically do. Most of the European immigrants came straight to Canada deliberately. At least it's a different thing psychologically to "trek" north from Latin America, and not even cross an ocean to a relatively different hemisphere. I think you are looking for political, sociological or cultural answers to your question to prove a point, but they may not tell the whole story which is rooted more in geography and history.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by casper

The Portuguese and Brazilian community in Canada are more strongly integrated than one would have expected. It is an interesting dynamic to look at how these two group integrate from a social and business perspective.

Part of that is driven by sharing the same language and cultural institutions. Stats Canada estimates the Portuguese Canadian population at 429,000 while the Brazilian Canadian population is 56,000.

The Portuguese Canadian community started in the 1940s and 1950s. The number of Brazilians back then was extremely small.

Today I think the number of Brazilian immigrants has picked up over the last 15 years and are become an increasing part of that linguistic group.

The Brazilian population, though small compared to the Portuguese/Azorean population in Toronto, generally move into Portuguese neighborhoods.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Docere

The Brazilian population, though small compared to the Portuguese/Azorean population in Toronto, generally move into Portuguese neighborhoods.

It is interesting how that happens. They become one ethnic community to an extent.

I don't think you see the same dynamic with immigrants from Spain and Spanish speaking South America.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by casper

It is interesting how that happens. They become one ethnic community to an extent.

I don't think you see the same dynamic with immigrants from Spain and Spanish speaking South America.

I can't think of any city in Canada that has an identifiable "Spanish" (i.e. from Spain) community. Even with the economic crisis of recent years, I don't think we attract even 1,000 immigrants a year from Spain.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Docere

The Brazilian population, though small compared to the Portuguese/Azorean population in Toronto, generally move into Portuguese neighborhoods.

Yup, and Brazilian businesses are common in Little Portugal and St. Clair Ave.