[LINK] "Brazilians integrate on own terms"
Feb. 5th, 2009 11:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldThe Toronto Star's Lesley Ciarula Taylor took a look today at Toronto's Brazilian-Canadian community.
Brazilian-Canadians, as Multicultural Canada points out constitute a young and relatively small population in Canada, and the volume of immigrants remains small: "Even among South American nations, Brazil, with almost half the total population of the continent, has averaged less than 5 percent of immigration, and only since 1989 has this figure gone above 8 percent. The low rate of immigration reflects several factors: the general disinterest of Brazilians in emigration; a lack of knowledge about Canada as a target country for those able to migrate; the absence in Canada of a large Brazilian community that would encourage the migration of family members; and the lack of perception in Canada of Brazil as a country in crisis and a legitimate source of refugees." That said, Wikipedia estimates that, including illegals more than twelve thousand Brazilian-Canadians may live in Ontario alone. I've certainly noticed something of a Brazilian cultural imprint on the larger Portuguese-Canadian community, between things like soft drinks, music CDs, or support for soccer teams.
Most estimates of Toronto's Brazilian community say half of its 10,000 to 12,000 people are illegal. Far smaller than the long-established Portuguese community that surrounds it, Little Brazil on Dundas St. W. from Ossington to Lansdowne is a network of businesses run out of private homes, churches renting space, bars where contractors troll for day labour and a solitary drop-in centre.
Felipe Scarpelli, a 23-year-old musician and graphic designer, and Sandro Miranda, a 39-year-old journalist, started PanTV (pantv.ca) exactly one year ago to help Brazilians integrate with Canadians and help Canadians understand Brazilians because they saw the regular methods weren't working. With no funding and only themselves to produce, write, interview, shoot and edit segments in English and Portuguese, they've seen their audience shift from mostly Portuguese speakers to 40 per cent English.
"Everybody is smiling on the government immigration websites and they have their full family with them," says Miranda, who like Scarpelli, came as a student eight years ago. "They don't talk about the invisible wall, the culture shock."
PanTV runs news, music and current affairs shows.
"Many Brazilians stay in Brazilian spaces with Brazilian media and Brazilian restaurants. They are scared or intimidated by the long, cold winters." says Scarpelli. "We wanted to open the doors, integrate the cultures. There is still a big, big gap between new communities and Canadian society."
Within days of arriving on her husband's temporary teaching permit nearly five years ago, F.A. found a job as a graphic designer for a Portuguese company, a common route despite tensions with their former colonial rulers.
Brazilian-Canadians, as Multicultural Canada points out constitute a young and relatively small population in Canada, and the volume of immigrants remains small: "Even among South American nations, Brazil, with almost half the total population of the continent, has averaged less than 5 percent of immigration, and only since 1989 has this figure gone above 8 percent. The low rate of immigration reflects several factors: the general disinterest of Brazilians in emigration; a lack of knowledge about Canada as a target country for those able to migrate; the absence in Canada of a large Brazilian community that would encourage the migration of family members; and the lack of perception in Canada of Brazil as a country in crisis and a legitimate source of refugees." That said, Wikipedia estimates that, including illegals more than twelve thousand Brazilian-Canadians may live in Ontario alone. I've certainly noticed something of a Brazilian cultural imprint on the larger Portuguese-Canadian community, between things like soft drinks, music CDs, or support for soccer teams.
