Filipino Canadians:
a Growing Community
Filipino Canadians:
a Growing Community
By: Rosalina E. Bustamante
From: Polyphony Vol.6, 1984 pp. 168-171
© 1984 Multicultural History Society of Ontario
By: Rosalina E. Bustamante
From: Polyphony Vol.6, 1984 pp. 168-171
© 1984 Multicultural History Society of Ontario
The sixties and the seventies were the decades that witnessed a
great surge in the growth of the City of Toronto. The seventies
saw this great city becoming the chief metropolis and economic
centre for all of Canada. It is very interesting to note that the
influx of Filipino immigration to Canada coincided with the peak
period of the city's growth. It was in the late seventies when
Toronto finally overcame Montreal in size and when (1975-77) the
Philippines was among the first top ten native countries of
immigrants to Canada.
This observation becomes more significant when we look at
immigration statistics and find that more than 50 per cent of
Filipino immigrants every year come to Ontario and that the
majority of them settle in Toronto and its suburbs. There are
about 80,000 Canadian residents of Filipino origin, according to
the latest estimates, and about 35,000 of them reside in Toronto
and its environs.
Available records show that the first Filipino immigrant to Canada
entered the country in 1931. Up to the early 1950s only ten
Filipino immigrants to this country had been recorded. From
1946-64 the number totalled 770. Then in 1965 alone, 1,767
Filipinos entered Canada. Interviews with a considerable number of
these Filipinos, predominantly females, who arrived in the middle
sixties and settled in Toronto, revealed that most of them were
nurses, laboratory technicians, office workers and a few doctors.
Very few among them came directly from the Philippines. The
majority were nurses who were members of the American-Philippines
Exchange Program, whose work visas in the United States had
expired and had heard of the great demand for their work skills in
Toronto. The rapid growth of the population at the time
necessitated the opening of more hospital units and other health
services. The local labour pool could not sufficiently provide for
the demand in hospitals and health clinics . These were the
positions that Filipino nurses conveniently filled.
Thus started the steady growth of Filipino immigration to Toronto
from the United States and in the later sixties and seventies,
directly from the Philippines. The newcomers were mostly young
people, who were professionals, trained in colleges and
universities in their home country, but who could not find the
opportunities they sought in the Philippines. This exodus of
professionals from the Philippines has continued up to the present
time.
A large number of Filipinos who had come to Toronto between the
mid-sixties and early seventies made their homes in the apartments
on Maitland Street, near the main thoroughfare -Yonge Street-in
the downtown. Some preferred the St. Jamestown area near
Sherbourne and Wellesley, while others settled in the southwest of
the city, in the Jameson-Queen-King Streets area. The choice of
area of residence has been influenced by several factors:
proximity to the hospitals and business offices, where most of the
Filipinos worked, and the location of Catholic churches in the
vicinity-St. Basil's Church on Bay Street, Our Lady of Lourdes
Church on Sherbourne and the Holy Family Church on King Street
near Jameson. Most of these Filipinos were young female Catholics
who came from highly protective families in their home country.
The nearness to a Catholic church offered them a certain feeling
of security. These girls banded together for company as well as
for economy. They lived in twos or threes in each apartment unit.
They went to church and to social functions together; they
double-dated with male friends. Many of them have developed
lasting bonds with each other and still bring their families
together for reunions during the Christmas holidays.
Most of these first Filipino immigrants found jobs in Toronto with
relative ease. Used to a frugal life, they were able to live
comfortably and still set aside some money, which they sent home
to their families to help their parents, brothers and sisters. But
there were needs that could not be satisfied materially. Having
come from closely knit families, these young girls suffered from
loneliness and lack of family support, which even a city of bright
lights could not satisfy. It was a strange place with people of
varied cultures. There were very few young unattached male
Filipinos they could go out with. They were quite hesitant and
unsure about going out with men from other cultural groups. They
found that the mores of conduct between the sexes here in North
America were very different from what they were brought up with in
the Philippines. These conflicts in cultural values brought about
emotional problems and entanglements for some of them at the time,
which have left lasting scars.
Filipinos as a people are known for their great capacity to adjust
to situations, no matter how unfavourable. They find a way out of
their problems without complaining. And these Filipinos in Toronto
were no exception. They avoided loneliness by working long hours,
moonlighting. This could easily be done during the late sixties
and early seventies because of the shortage of hospital and office
workers in Toronto.
Then, during their long holidays, many of these young females went
home to the Philippines for a visit and got engaged. Some of them
already had boy-friends in the Philippines before they immigrated
to Canada. They then sponsored the immigration of their
fiancés to this country and got married here according to
immigration laws governing sponsorship. A considerable number of
the immigrant girls had also later married here to men of
different cultural backgrounds.
The seventies, especially the latter half, had been years of
Filipino family immigration to Canada. These were the years that
saw the dramatic increase of Filipino senior citizens in Toronto.
The extended family is a cherished Filipino cultural value, which
includes the grandparents as members of the immediate family.
Hence, Filipino parents in their fifties and sixties have been
sponsored here by their children. Their coming has served two
purposes as far as their children are concerned: they provided
moral support, and they helped in looking after the home and the
children of their married daughters or sons.
Toronto Filipinos, in their quiet and unobtrusive ways, have now
created a niche for themselves in this city quite different from
their earlier lifestyles in the sixties. Mostly married and with
children, they now live in their suburban homes, but still work in
hospitals and offices in Toronto. Male Filipinos are mostly
employed as skilled workers, office employees, key punchers and
computer programmers. Some of the immigrants-both male and
female-have gone up the business ladder and are now holding
positions of responsibility in their work places.
St. Jamestown and the Jameson-King-Queen area have remained
favourite settlement areas for Filipinos in Toronto. Crescent Town
and Massey Square in the Victoria Park-Danforth Avenue area and
Thorncliffe Park near Don Mills also have considerable numbers of
Filipino families.
The growth of the Filipino community in Toronto has given rise to
businesses that cater to their needs. Some of them have succeeded;
others have failed to survive. Evidence of the rise and fall of
Filipino business can be observed along the west side of Queen
Street where food stores, craft shops, travel agencies, hair
salons and even a theatre showing Filipino films can easily be
spotted by passers-by. A considerable number of these enterprises
have come and gone. The mobility of the Filipino population in
Toronto has been partly responsible for the failure of some of
these businesses to establish a permanent clientele. Filipino
Canadian businessmen, it appears, also need to promote their goods
to members of other cultural groups in the city if they hope to
succeed in the competitive Toronto market.
Since the late sixties, Filipino Canadians in this city have
formed a variety of organisations. The earliest had been
heterogeneous in nature-as long as one was from the Philippines,
he or she was eligible for membership. As the number of Filipinos
increased, the associations tended to have acquired more precise
membership criteria. Among them have been organizations of
Filipinos coming from the same region or city in the Philippines,
like the Circulo Ilongo, the San Pablenyos, the Bohol Association
of Canada, the Anac Ti Batac Association and the United Aklanon
Association. Graduates of certain universities in the Philippines
have also banded together in associations. There are two groups
from the state university -U.P. Alumni Association and U.P. Club
of Ontario. There are as well the F.E.U. Alumni Association and
the U.S.T. College of Nursing Alumni Association. Filipinos are
generally very loyal to the institution of learning they graduated
from and take pride in being identified with the school, part of
the high value they place on a college or university education.
There are also professional organisations, such as the Association
of Operating Engineers and the Association of Filipino-Canadian
Accountants.
With the growth of the Filipino senior citizen population in the
city in the seventies, organisations have also been formed. Among
them are the Pillars, the Sampaguita Senior Citizens Club, the
Filipino Parents Association of Metropolitan Toronto, the Filipino
Senior Citizens' Club of Metro Toronto and the Filipino-Canadian
Senior Citizens' Centre of Metro Toronto.
While there are quite a number of groups making cultural
presentations now and then, two of them appear to be better
organised and have survived the test of time-the Fiesta Filipina,
which makes the annual presentation in the Manila Pavilion of the
Metro Toronto Caravan, and the Folklorico Filipino, which
thousands of Torontonians have seen during the Philippine Day
celebration at Harbourfront every year. Both groups have toured
Canada and the United States on invitation. The founders and
organisers of Fiesta Filipina have moved to the suburbs, but most
of the members of the troupe are still Toronto residents.
There are three volunteer organizations in Toronto that help
newcomers from the Philippines with the usual problems of newly
arrived immigrants, as well as those who have been here for some
time and still need assistance integrating into the multicultural
community of this city. These are the Silayan Community Centre and
Our Lady of Lourdes Multicultural Centre in the east end of the
city, and the Kababayan Community Centre in the west end.
There are still other organisations that do not fall into the
categories previously mentioned-sports, religious and political
groups. In the First Conference of Filipinos in Ontario, held at
the Holiday Inn in Toronto on November 18-19, 1983, thirty-seven
organisations participated. Seventeen of them were from Toronto,
another seventeen from adjacent cities, and the other three were
from Brantford, Hamilton and Kingston.
Since the institution of martial law in the Philippines in 1972,
Filipino immigrants to Canada have included some who left the
country because they could not tolerate the existing form of
government, or to avoid political persecution. Some members of
this group have settled in Toronto and its suburbs. The atmosphere
of political freedom enjoyed by residents in this city and in this
country as a whole has provided an opportunity for this segment of
the community to air their views about government policies in the
homeland and rally other Filipinos to unite with them in bringing
back a democratic system to the Philippines. The Coalition Against
Marcos Dictatorship/Philippines Solidarity Network has led in this
movement. The recent assassination of Benigno Aquino, who was
considered the most powerful opponent of the incumbent President
Ferdinand Marcos, has added fuel to the fire of the
anti-Philippine government movement among Filipinos in this city.
The sad event seems to have had a unifying influence.
The year 1984 will mark two decades of consistent growth of the
Filipino community in Toronto. It has been a part of the
development of this city during the last twenty years. Filipino
culture and heritage have enriched the city s multicultural
mosaic. While retaining their culture, a majority of Filipinos has
easily integrated into the life of this metropolis.
Comparatively speaking, the Filipino community is one of the
youngest in the city. And just like other cultural groups in
Toronto, they had and still have multifarious problems to
surmount-between them and established institutions in the city, as
well as among themselves. Preoccupied mostly with improving their
individual lifestyles, their civic and political participation
appears to be limited. Slowly the Filipinos in Toronto and its
suburbs are coming together to face the common issues that
confront them. Having failed, on the whole, in their individual
efforts to have their academic achievements and professional
experience in the Philippines recognized in Ontario, they have
started to bind together to form group representations to be heard
on this issue. They have gained minor victories in these efforts,
encouraging them to carry on.
Filipinos brought with them to Toronto two important heritage
traits-patience and perseverance. They will keep on working with
all other cultural groups here to surmount any barriers in their
way. Toronto is indeed a fast-growing city; so is its Filipino
Canadian community.
