Latin Americans

by Jacqueline Wood

Latin Americans are relatively recent arrivals to the region, but with steadily growing numbers they are becoming a significant group. The first big wave of Latin Americans to arrive were political refugees from Chile. They came following the overthrow of the Salvador Allende government in a military coup led by Augusto Pinochet in 1973. Many of the refugees had been tortured under the Pinochet regime, and although initially wary of others, the Chileans did much to spread the word here about human rights abuses in their homeland. While Chileans were the largest group to come in the 1970s, other South Americans who arrived during this period include Argentinians and Uruguayans.

Another large wave of refugees occurred in the 1980s when the military escalated its brutal war against the people of El Salvador. In 1983 the federal government introduced a special refugee program for Salvadorans, and in 1985 the community held its first public protest in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Other Central Americans who fled severe human rights abuses in their countries during the 1980s include Nicaraguans and Guatemalans.

Father Eduardo Diaz of the Hispanic Catholic Mission in Vancouver estimates that there are now about 20,000 Latin Americans living in the Lower Mainland. This diverse community also includes Colombians, Peruvians, Hondurans, Ecuadorans and Mexicans. The mission operates a number of assistance programs for Spanish-speaking refugees and immigrants, in conjunction with the Hispanic Community Centre. Diaz says they come here with a sense of being Chileans, for example, and not Latin Americans. One of the biggest challenges facing newcomers, he adds, is to feel they belong in Canada and won’t be immigrants forever.

Although this is a loose-knit community, there is a festival in mid-September called Dia Alegre or Happy Day, when the people of several Central and South American countries celebrate their National Day.

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