Latin American Communities in Canada: trends in diversity and integration.

Armony, Victor

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the Latin American population in Canada based on data extracted from the 2011 census and from a survey conducted in 2013 with an oversample of Latin American immigrants, as well as from other sources. It deals with the ways in which Latin Americans are categorized and how they self-identity in Canada--with the U.S. reality as a point of reference--and with a focus on Latin Americans' cultural attitudes and values in a Quebec-rest of Canada comparative perspective.

Resume

Cet article etablit un portrait de la population latino-americaine du Canada sur la base de donnees tiree du recensement de 2011 et d'un sondage realise en 2013 avec un echantillon d'immigrants latino-americains, ainsi que d'autres sources. On s'interesse en particulier a la maniere dont les Latino-americains sont categorises et a leurs modalites d'auto-identification dans le contexte canadien et nord-americain. On examine egalement leurs attitudes culturelles et leurs valeurs dans une perspective comparative entre le Quebec et le reste du Canada.

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This paper provides an overview of the Latin American population in Canada based on data extracted from the 2011 census and from a survey conducted in 2013 with an oversample of Latin American immigrants, as well as from other sources. The objective is not only to provide an up-to-date description of a population currently experiencing "a burgeoning growth in cultural, artistic, recreational and religious activities, publicized by an also-blossoming set of newspapers, radio shows and websites" (Ginieniewicz 2010a, 501), but also to address some conceptual, methodological, and empirical questions regarding this group in the light of Canada's unique bilingual/bicultural character. In particular, I am interested in exploring the forms of identification and attachment, as well as the cultural attitudes and civic values among its members. Even though the Latino/Hispanic (1) population in the United States has long attracted significant interest--not surprisingly, given its demographic, economic, and cultural relevance in that country--much less consideration has been given to Canada's comparatively small, but rapidly growing population of Latin American origin. Actually, Canada's scholarly output regarding its own Latino/Hispanic minority is scarce, while a great deal of research has been devoted to other immigrant communities in this country, particularly those of Asian and African descent. This relative lack of attention--which may well be in part the result of the perception that Latin Americans in Canada do not constitute a "problematic" group in terms of their integration to the host society (2)--cannot but hinder our understanding of current political, economic, and cultural trends regarding the increasing interconnectedness of the Americas, and particularly the deepening linkages between Latin America and North America. (3)

If a North American perspective needs to take into account a two-country reality, it can be argued that, in fact, there are, not two, but three host societies to consider: Quebec, a highly autonomous political jurisdiction that selects most of its immigrants and develops its own integration policies, offers newcomers and ethnic groups a very different cultural and institutional environment, particularly in comparison with the rest of Canada and with the United States. Let us recall some of the main contrasts: Canada is bilingual at the federal level (English and French have a formally equal status), and eight out of ten provinces, as well as the three territories, are overwhelmingly English-speaking (New Brunswick is officially bilingual), while, in Quebec, French is the only official language, and its public use is widely considered a core civic value and, in some circumstances, an enforced legal obligation (even to the extent of overriding certain constitutionally protected individual freedoms). (4) Canada has a national multicultural policy in effect since the 1970s, while Quebec has established an official "intercultural" policy (closer to assimilationist/secularist European models), linked to a more collectivist, state-centered public culture. Canada has a federal immigration policy based on a points system open to all applicants with an emphasis on economic factors, while Quebec handles the selection of its own "skilled workers" (70 percent of all immigrants) with a similar system but with different weight given to language skills (giving preference to the French language) and other priorities (such as the provincial labour market needs). Overall in Canada, the top country sources of immigration in 2012 were China, the Philippines, India, Pakistan and the United States, while in Quebec the top sources were China, France, Haiti, Algeria, and Morocco. Naturally, given these national origins, the largest minorities in English Canada are South Asian and Chinese, whereas in Quebec the largest are Black, Arab, and Latin American. The most spoken nonofficial languages in English Canada are Cantonese, Punjabi, and Mandarin, while in Quebec the most spoken non-official languages are Arabic and Spanish. In short, on the basis of current immigration trends, even putting aside language and institutional differences, Quebec's very social fabric sets this province apart from all others.

It then stands to reason that a North American perspective should reflect the dual--by some definitions, bi-national--character of Canada. As we know, a comparative approach in immigration studies may be linear (the same group over time), convergent (two different groups within the same context of integration), or divergent (a group with the same origin in two different contexts of integration) (Green 1997). As Holdaway, Crul and Roberts point out, the divergent comparison is the "comparative model with the most potential for highlighting the role of institutions and policy" in that it "allows the researcher to assess the impact of the receiving context while holding constant the characteristics of the group" (Holdaway, Crul and Roberts 2009, 11). However, even if comparing groups across different host societies "sheds light on both the structural constraints and cultural choices framing their migration experience" (Foner 2005,4), the divergent approach is the least common, even in Canada, where immigrant groups tend to settle in two major urban centres, one predominantly English-speaking and fully immersed in the Anglo-American cultural framework (Toronto) and the other French-speaking, culturally and politically removed from the rest of the continent (Montreal). Not surprisingly, the few existing U.S.-Canada comparative studies on immigration were carried out in Canada, and these generally do not incorporate the "Quebec variable"; and the little research that compares immigration in Quebec and in the rest of Canada is almost exclusively carried out in Quebec. (5)

A single article cannot fill the gap; this endeavor would rather require a substantial research program focusing on Latinos in the three distinctive host societies. Obviously, the sheer imbalance between the United States and Quebec (the U.S. population is forty times larger than the Canadian province's) and between their respective Latino communities (more than fifty million people in the United States vs. approximately 150,000 in Quebec) makes any comparison sound incongruous. But if we rather see Quebec as an outlier in the North American context, and by adopting a two-level comparative approach--United States/Canada and English-Canada/French Quebec--the dynamics of identity formation among Latin Americans in North America may emerge under a new light. This paper only constitutes a first step in that direction, with more questions raised than answered. After providing a portrait of the Latin American population in the first section, I will deal with the ways in which Latinos are categorized and how they self-identify in Canada--with the U.S. reality as a point of reference--and I will focus on Latin Americans' cultural attitudes and values in a Quebec-rest of Canada comparative perspective.

LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRANTS IN CANADA

In 2012, 26,865 individuals from South and Central America--the geographical region that the Department of Citizenship and Immigration uses as proxy for Latin America (6)--settled in Canada as permanent residents, a figure that accounts for 10.4 percent of all immigrants admitted that year. Mexico (15 percent) and Colombia (13.7 percent) are by far the main source countries among this population, followed by Brazil (6 percent), Venezuela (5 percent), and Cuba (4.8 percent). (7) The figures by national origins fluctuate over the years: compared to 2003, the number of immigrants from Mexico more than doubled (from 1,738 to 4,032), while those from Argentina decreased six times (from 1,783 to 283). Overall, immigrants from South and Central America are slightly younger than other immigrants: those between 15 and 44 years of age represent 67.8 percent of the total, compared to an average of 62.3 percent for all other regions. Women account for 51.9 percent of South and Central American newcomers, down from 53.5 percent in 2003 but still one percentage point higher than the rest of immigrants (an average of 50.9 percent for all other regions). In 2012, for the first time, Quebec was the main destination for South and Central American immigrants: 11,322 individuals from that area settled there, compared to 9,762 in Ontario. Almost eight out of ten immigrants from South and Central American (78.5 percent) arrived as permanent residents in either province.

About 46 percent of South and Central Americans arrived in 2012 as "economic immigrants", 26.7 percent under the category of "family class", and 17 percent as refugees. While the absolute number of immigrants from South and Central America admitted as "family class" has remained relatively stable over the last decade, the number of refugees from that area has increased by 43.7 percent (3,712 to 4,567), while the number of "economic immigrants" has swollen by more than 68 percent since 2003 (7,313 to 12,342). South and Central America was the source area for 19.8 percent of all refugees admitted in Canada in 2012 (compared to 14.3 percent in 2003), and 7.7 percent of all "economic immigrants" (6 percent in 2003). In other words, this area provides proportionally more refugees and less "economic immigrants" than the average for all regions, but that configuration is changing due to the faster growth pace of the latter category than the former. In spite of the higher share of the "economic" category among South and Central American newcomers, the proportion of immigrants with 13 or more years of schooling (i.e., with trade certificates or post-secondary diplomas) steadily decreased between 2003 and 2012 (and the percentage of individuals with 9 or less years of schooling rose from 18.7 to 30.2 percent during that period). However, this trend towards a lower level of education among immigrants to Canada concerns other source areas as well (for example, the percentage of immigrants holding a Bachelor's degree fell among immigrants from all regions over the last decade; and such decrease was actually less pronounced among South and Central Americans).

Quebec's own Department of Immigration provides detailed data for that province and uses similar geographic criteria as its federal counterpart (8): South and Central America (including the Caribbean) was indicated as the origin for 52,796 immigrants between 2009 and 2013, a figure that represents one out of five newcomers from all regions of the world during that five-year period. However, Haiti is the main national origin among them (18,619), a country to which the conventional definition of "Latin American" would not entirely or unquestionably apply. If we exclude that group, South and Central Americans would account for 34,177 individuals, or 13 percent of all immigrants to Quebec between 2009 and 2013. That is still a significantly higher proportion than in the rest of the country (the main source country would now be Colombia, with 10,646, followed by Mexico, with 5,618). Also, South and Central Americans who settle in that province are more likely to be selected under the "economic" category: over 55 percent of all immigrants from that region were admitted in 2012, 9 percentage points higher than the national average. There is no clear explanation about the relatively (and apparently increasingly) stronger pull that Quebec exerts over Latin American immigrants (compared to the rest of Canada as a whole), particularly among those who are able to make a choice about their destination on account of their qualified-worker status. The language and cultural factor may play a role (a question that I will address later in this article), as well as the recruitment campaigns carried out by the Quebec government in several Latin American countries during the 2000s (particularly in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico) targeting professionals and university-educated potential candidates (Charbonneau 2011).

Data from the 2011 census show that, among foreign-born Canadian residents who declare a Latin American origin, the ten main nationalities are the following: Colombian (61,300), Mexican (59,960), Salvadorian (38,260), Peruvian (22,115), Chilean (19,760), Brazilian (15,965), Cuban (13,105), Venezuelan (12,615), Guatemalan (12,480), and Ecuadorian (11,080). Such distribution reflects the arrival of successive waves of immigrants due to particular "push" factors (i.e., the conditions in the country of origin) and also the changes in asylum rules and the special measures introduced by Canada and Quebec's governments on humanitarian grounds (for example, regarding Chile after the 1973 coup, or El Salvador during its civil war in the early 1980s) (Gosselin 1984; Simmons 1993). Thus, of those born in Chile, only 12.1 percent arrived in Quebec and 16.8 percent elsewhere in Canada after 2001. Similar figures for Nicaragua (8.4 percent in Quebec and 9.2 percent in the rest of Canada), Guatemala (13.3 and 15. 7 percent), and El Salvador (10.3 and 16 percent) point to the fact that most immigrants from those countries settled during the previous decades. As Ginieniewicz and McKenzie (2014) point out, "unlike in the USA, until the 1990s most Latin Americans arrived in Canada as refugees" (Ginieniewicz and McKenzie 2014,267). On the other hand, more than seven out of ten Colombians, more than six out of ten Cubans, and more than half of Venezuelans now residing in Canada arrived after 2001, most of them settling under the "economic" category. (9)

The length of stay--considering groups on the basis of national origin--seems to have an effect on the prevalence of low income among immigrants from Latin America: "older" groups (Chileans and Salvadorians) show lower levels of poverty (16.9 and 18.2 percent respectively), while "younger" groups, such as Colombians and Mexicans, display higher levels (30.7 and 25.2 percent respectively). In Quebec, all groups show higher levels of poverty than in the rest of the country, but the gap is even wider among Colombians and Mexicans: 42.6 and 35.2 percent respectively. The prevalence of low income among immigrants in Canada, regardless of origin, is 18.3 percent, compared to 13.6 percent among non-immigrants (a gap of less than 5 percentage points). In Quebec, the difference between immigrants and non-immigrants is considerably larger: 15 percent versus 25.8 percent, a gap of more than 10 percentage points. This "Quebec effect" on immigrants--a disproportionately higher incidence of poverty--seems to have an even bigger impact on the more recently settled groups.

The same effect occurs regarding the unemployment rate: among those who declare a Mexican origin in the National Household Survey, the unemployment rate is 10.7 percent nationally, but it reaches 15.6 percent in Quebec; among those who declare a Colombian origin, the rate is 11 percent nationally and 13.7 percent in Quebec (compared to a low 6.2 percent among self-declared ethnically "Quebecois" in Quebec). In contrast, those who declare a Chilean origin show lower levels of unemployment both in that province and in the rest of the country (between 9.2 and 9.4 percent). The fact that those who declare a Salvadorian origin display a pattern that follows the "younger" communities' (unemployment rate of 10.5 percent at the national level and 12.4 percent in Quebec) could be linked to ethnicity: more than half (52.5 percent) of self-declared Chileans do not identify themselves as an ethnic minority (the default category being "White"), while only one out of six self-declared Salvadorians (17 percent) do not identify themselves as an ethnic minority. Of course, another factor at play could be the level of education: 57 percent of self-declared Salvadorians do not hold a postsecondary certificate, diploma or degree, compared to 44.3 percent of self-declared Chileans and 45.3 percent of self-declared Mexicans, while the figure is still lower (39.6 percent) among self-declared Colombians.

This data suggests the existence of varying economic trajectories on the basis of national origins, and we can speculate--though we cannot prove--that ethnicity and social background complicate the well-known reality of recent immigrants' delayed catching up with the general population average (in spite of rising standards of immigrant selection) (Cousineau and Boudarbat 2009). However, it is possible to observe that, beyond the inter-group variation, there is a consistent "Quebec effect" on all of them. Among self-identified Latin Americans who are at least 15 years of age and earn an income, the 2010 average amount declared in the National Household Survey was $30,654, a figure that is 8 percent below the average income of all individuals living in Canada who belong to a "visible minority" ($33,322), and 27 percent lower than the average income of non-minority individuals ("White"). Latin Americans have the lowest average income among minority groups, from 3 to 4 percent below Arab and Black individuals to around 11 percent below Chinese and South Asian individuals. Indeed, in Quebec, all minority groups perform worse in terms of income (they earn about 17 percent less than the Canadian average). However, Latin Americans in that province are somewhat worse off than others: their income is 18.8 percent lower than their own group's national average, and the gap is even wider among those holding a university degree (23 percent, compared to a 16 percent difference for all minority individuals). All these results tell a clear story: that of a growing migration stream from Latin America to Quebec that comprises a higher proportion of qualified economic immigrants who experience the full extent of the unfavorable "Quebec effect."

Such a statistical portrait, accurate as it is, describes a construct, that is, an aggregation of individuals on the grounds of national origin and ethnic self-identification (stemming from categories that could be effectively contested). Ginieniewicz and McKenzie rightly point out that "diverse migratory statuses, difficulty in determining the 'Latin Americanness' of an array of generations and self-categorization have made it difficult for scholars, government agencies and community organizations to reach an agreement on 'who qualifies as a Latin American'" (Ginieniewicz and McKenzie 2014, 263). While describing Latin Americans in Toronto as "a diverse group not only in terms of nationalities but also class, ethnicity/race, culture, political affiliation, religion and demographic characteristics", Veronis states that "Latin Americans' socio-economic position in Toronto is relatively disadvantaged when compared to the average population: they have lower levels of income and homeownership, and higher rates of poverty, female-headed households and high school dropouts" (Veronis 2010, 177). Ironically, in order to establish such facts about this particular population, the researcher needs to start with a clear notion of "who qualifies as a Latin American." Interestingly, several studies published in Latin America about Latin American immigration and integration in Canada in recent years (Comuzzi 2013; Neira Orjuela 2011; Burgueno Angulo 2004) refer to that population as a self-evident reality. Even though they acknowledge its diversity and sometimes make internal analytical distinctions (by taking into account nationalities, gender, background, etc.), they never question its common Latin American identity. In terms of Brubaker's approach to ethnicity, their focus is on a category rather than on a group: categories are part of institutional and cultural processes that organize social life without the "existence of ethnic groups as substantial entities" (Brubaker 2002, 167).

Conversely, most Canadian researchers interested in Latin Americans are concerned with their "groupness": "how people--and organizations--do things with categories" and eventually become a "bounded collectivity with a sense of solidarity" (Brubaker 2002, 169). Using qualitative approaches, they examine their concerted actions and participation, observe this population's apparent "need to address their internal differences in their struggle for belonging" (Veronis 2007,462), and refer to both "the existence and history of a rich and multilayered landscape of Latin American organizations" (Landolt et al. 2011, 1259) and the increase of "intra-group tensions, competition and conflicts" (Veronis 2010, 188). In this perspective, rather than conforming to a mainstream, legitimized, supposedly shared "cultural heritage" (Landolt et al. 2009), Latin Americans in Canada would create "new or re-affirmed identities sometimes joined and certainly decentred national and regional identities" (Landolt and Goldring 2009,1243). If many Latin Americans have managed to "successfully ... develop networks and consolidate the position of the community at the grass-roots level" (Ginieniewicz 2010a, 512), pan-ethnic initiatives--such as the Hispanic Development Council, founded in the 1970s--have declined and "collaboration and dialogues among differently organized Latin American groups dwindled and competition ensued" (Landolt and Goldring 2009, 1234). Even within the same national origin group, fragmentation prevails: for example, among Colombians in Toronto, "there is little formal collaboration or informal overlap across agendas or organizations" (Landolt and Goldring 2010, 452).

The evident heterogeneity of the Latin American population is compounded by its lack of spatial concentration in the main urban centers. In Toronto, according to Veronis (2006), Latin Americans "are dispersed throughout the city with no significant clusters" (Veronis 2006, 1656). Quantitatively negligible in that city--they "constitute only 4 percent of the immigrant population and are thus a minority among a diverse set of ethno-racial minorities" (Landolt et al. 2011, 1236)--geographically scattered and with no common organizational structures, Latin Americans in Toronto are difficult to grasp as a community. The situation in Montreal is similar, even if proportionally they constitute a larger minority (one out of ten immigrants residing in the province): no Latino "ghettos" or barrios have emerged in the city (Burgueno Angulo 2004), and no truly cross-national, cross-sectorial collective has materialized. Thirty years ago, Gosselin (1984) observed what he described as a "lack of unity" of Latin Americans in Quebec, even as he listed several Spanish-language publications, as well as some political, social, and cultural associations in Montreal created by Latin American immigrants in the 1980s. He also underscored their dispersion throughout the city and suburbs at that time, as well as their relatively nonproblematic integration (and their acceptance by the local population), which led him to conclude that the Latin American community "doesn't actually exist." Recent initiatives, such as Quebec's Latin American Chamber of Commerce, seek to become rallying places for this population, but its truly community-building impact remains to be seen.

IDENTIFICATION AND ATTACHMENT

The first and foremost question about a minority under study (other than the more fundamental issue of its very existence as a social fact or as a conceptual or methodological construct) is how to define its membership. In the case of ethnic groups, there is a wide scholarly consensus on the importance of avoiding any form of primordialism (i.e., ascribing fixed identities to groups and assuming that individuals are determined by their membership in groups) and on the centrality of self-identification (on theoretical as well as ethical grounds), but this creates the challenge of establishing objective parameters in order to describe social realities (Chandra 2006). If identification is a subjective choice and identities are social fabrications, what can legitimately be said about any given identity-based group? Brubaker proposes a "cognitive turn in the study of groups in order to avoid "analytical groupism" (a tendency to conceptualize racial, ethnic, and national groups in substantialist terms): "Race, ethnicity, and nationality exist and are reproduced from day to day in and through such perceptions, interpretations, representations, classifications, categorizations, and identifications" (Brubaker 2009, 39). A cognitive understanding of ethnicity (as opposed to any form of static objectivism") involves the analysis of moving "ethnic boundaries", which emerge and shift through situated interactions and representations, as well as through institutional practices (Brubaker 2009, 29).

In the United States, a massive literature deals with the issue of Latino identity. Should "Latino" be considered a "race" or an "ethnicity"? Which are the defining features of that identity? These are extremely contentious topics and I do not mean to dwell on them in this article. However, I will summarily review here some studies that suggest that, even if membership to the Latino population is accepted at face value (something that most U.S.-based empirical research does), "Latino-ness" is far from being a one-dimensional phenomenon." (10) First, there is the multiple, and sometimes competing, loci of attachment: Latino immigrants made to choose between their identification with the United States and their country of origin showed that "their [U.S.] American identity is not their first preference [but] this is not translated, however, into a desire to return" (Fraga et al. 2010, 133-134). Not only does attachment to the country of origin not seem to interfere with the will to integrate into the host society, but the maintenance of a sense of national-origin identity does not impede the acquisition of and attachment to a pan-ethnic identification as well" (Garcia 2012, 207). Furthermore, dual nationality among Latin American immigrants in the United States "might indeed foster both political and economic assimilation in the receiving country, rather than impeding it or raising issues of divided loyalty (Mazzolari 2011, 147). If, on the one hand, these findings show that being Latino often means retaining a foreign nationality (legally and emotionally), while at the same time integrating into the United States by way of becoming a member of a pan-ethnic minority (thus becoming "Latino" rather than "Latin American"), on the other hand, some studies reveal the strong incentives to assimilate or to appear assimilated by shedding off the Latino identity: "More than 2 million persons of self-acknowledged Spanish or Latin American ancestry answer 'No' when asked if they are themselves 'Spanish/Hispanic/Latino'" (Emeka and Agius Vallejo 2011, 1549). Actually, among Latinos, a higher percentage of those who speak only English at home report that they are White or Black (Rodriguez 2000), thus adopting the U.S. binary racial view instead of keeping a more culturally-driven definition of their ethnic status.

Some Latinos even display a context-sensitive self-definition that may affect the results of the very studies that target them: "possibly, Hispanic respondents gave different answers in a personal interview (quite probably conducted by a white interviewer) than they gave on the census questionnaire" (Martin et al. 1990, 563). The effect of "racial" hierarchies in U.S. society is felt at the interpersonal level, as in the case of interviews conducted by "White" researchers, but it also plays a role in collective settings: "There is more bilingual maintenance in places where bilinguals have high status and Hispanics have political power" (Linton 2004, 301). The negative representation of Latinos as "illegal immigrants" in the media and the assumption that they do not speak (and do not learn) English contributes to stereotyping (Markert 2010) and may induce some Latinos to respond with varying strategies at their disposal: self-denial/self-effacement, affirmation/confrontation, or choosing an alternative self-categorization (along racial, linguistic, or even religious lines). These few observations, along with those stemming from hundreds of studies on Latinos carried out in the United States, are extremely useful in the Canadian context: not only do they enlighten us on the complexity of the phenomenon under study, but they also remind us of the dangers of importing categories from a different society (Armony 2011). Should we even use the labels "Latino" or "Hispanic" in Canada, or are they too U.S.-specific, unescapably embedded in a reality where "the question of what role race may be playing should always be part of political science inquiries (King and Smith 2005, 89)? Certainly an analysis of the Latin American population in Canada must find its own footing, not by refusing to establish parallels with the American context when they are legitimate, but by making clear which (Canadian-specific) societal dynamics are at play.

The complex character of the Latino identity--in which language, nationality, and ethnicity coalesce with varying intensities and effects (Oboler 1992)--and the fact that it does not clearly fit the historical binary racial order in the United States (not to mention the impact of the problem of residency status faced by many Latino immigrants and the public perception about it) led to remarkable and sometimes puzzling adjustments in the official methodology used in that country. In 1970, the U.S. census included a specific question, asking "whether a person's 'origin or descent' was Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, Other Spanish, or none of the above" (Lee and Bean 2010, 44). The reference to "origin or descent" contrasted with the long-standing question on "color or race", thus establishing two distinct, but not mutually exclusive approaches to ethnicity. Interestingly, those who self-identified as Hispanics or Latinos, were "more likely than any group to choose the 'some other race' option" in the 1990 census, and they were also the group more prone to mark a multiracial "White-Other" identity in 2000, when the multiple-race option was added to the census (Lee and Bean 2010, 44). Moreover, 15 percent of those who identified themselves as Hispanic/Latino did not mark any national origin, a trend that some authors explain as the rise of a "panethnic identity": the merging of groups who have had previously distinct ethnic or national identities into a single meaningful category "stemming from shared backgrounds, structural commonalities, incorporation into U.S. society, and the need to unite politically" (Diaz McConnell and Delgado-Romero 2004, 309). On the other hand, in the 2006 American Community Survey, 6 percent of those who declared a Latin American ancestry did not identify themselves as Hispanic (Emeka and Agius Vallejo 2011). This amounts to more than 2 million individuals who have moved away from their Hispanic identity into a "state of ethnic neutrality", even if by the same token they adopt racial self-representations (mostly, but not only, as "White"). While some scholars, as well as most advocacy groups, deplore the methodological distortions created by confusing or inconsistent ethnic/racial labels and they denounce what they consider to be an under-estimation of the actual demographic weight of the Latino population, others propose to "raise the threshold" and focus on how individuals identify with "meaningful social units" in order to "achieve a more accurate, less biased count of those who consider themselves to be Hispanic" (Hitlin et al. 2007,605). In this view, "'Hispanic' is as real a group as 'Black' or 'White'", not as primordial identities but as socially constructed groups in a racialized social space: being Latino is a "lived experience", "a central organizing category for structural and interpersonal patterns on interaction" in that social space (Hitlin et al. 2007, 603-604).

But what then about Canada? The previous discussion highlights the substantial distance between the two North American realities regarding their respective Latino population. Politically, economically, and culturally, and especially when considered on historical and demographic grounds, Canada's Latin Americans occupy a very different place in this country's social configuration. While this obviously means that Latinos' patterns of identification and integration are bound to evolve in extremely diverging ways on both sides of the border, it is nevertheless possible to draw some empirical parallels and, by underscoring national particularities, to gain a better theoretical insight into the dynamics and tensions at play in the construction of a broader Latino identity in North America. Let us start, then, with some very basic facts and figures (from the 2011 Canadian census): there are 544,380 Latinos in Canada (single and multiple Latin, Central and South American ethnic origin responses), or 1.6 percent of the country's total population (up from 1.1 percent in 2006). In the United States, there were 50,477,594 Hispanics in 2010, or 16.3 percent of the total population. (11) If we take the narrowest definition possible and consider a "Latin American" any person born in a Latin American country, we observe that, in 2011, this group represented 5.7 percent of all immigrants in Canada, certainly a rather small proportion. However, this community displays a growth rate roughly three times higher than the overall immigrant population (49 percent vs. 12.9 percent between 2006 and 2011, 47 percent vs. 12.7 percent between 2001 and 2006, and 32 percent vs. 10 percent between 2001 and 2016), due to the growing (both absolute and relative) number of Latin American immigrants, mostly from Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and El Salvador, who have settled in Canada during the last decade and a half. Also, it is worth noting that Latin Americans represent almost 11 percent of immigrants in Quebec, proportionally twice the size of this community at the national level. Given this influx, the portrayal of the Latino population in Canada with respect to national origins reflects a much wider diversity than what is observed in the United States: in that country, 63 percent of Hispanics declare a Mexican origin, 9.3 percent a Puerto Rican origin, and 3.5 percent a Cuban origin, while in Canada the three main nationalities--Mexican, Colombian, and Salvadorian--represent each, respectively, 17.8 percent, 14.2 percent, and 11.9 percent of the total Latino population. To get a sense of how fast the face of the Latino population in Canada is changing, let's consider again that 8 out of 10 Colombians living in Quebec in 2011 arrived after 2001 (7 out of 10 in the other provinces). In brief, Latino Canadians are a relatively newly settled group, very diverse in terms of national origins, and rapidly growing, particularly in the French-speaking province of Quebec.

But, as we already asked, should we even talk about "Latinos" in Canada? Aren't we comparing "apples and oranges", as Bloemraad (2011) puts it regarding the seemingly hopeless project of linking the Hispanic populations on both sides of the border? Given the hotly debated issue of how to count Hispanics/Latinos in the United States and, more controversially yet, how to define their ethnic or racial status and distinctiveness, it would be wise to examine the definitions and methods that are available in the Canadian context. Statistics Canada uses two different questions to establish ethnic or racial background: the first is "What were the ethnic or cultural origins of this person's ancestors?" and allows the respondent to write one or several answers (with no proposed categories, but only some quoted examples such as "Canadian", "English", "French", "Chinese", "Italian"); the second aims at collecting information "to support programs that promote equal opportunity" and offers the following options (in this order): "White", "Chinese", "South Asian", "Black", "Filipino", "Latin American", "Southeast Asian", "West Asian", "Korean", "Japanese" and "Other". These groups are defined by the federal government as "visible minorities." (12) Both questions allow for multiple responses and are based on self-identification. The number of Latin Americans can thus be established through the declaration of ancestry, by aggregating all the answers that refer to Latin American nationalities (Mexican, etc.), ethnicities (Mayan), and panethnic categories (Latin American, Hispanic, etc.), or through self-definition as "Latin American" in a question that focuses on vulnerability to discrimination (implicitly referring to race, although the word is not used). Unsurprisingly, as is the case in the United States with the ambiguity between ethnicity and "race", answers are not always consistent: more people declare Latin American ancestry than a Latin American identity in the sense of membership in a racialized minority. But the aggregation made by Statistics Canada is also problematic, as Central and South American origins are lumped together, while excluding the Caribbean. Therefore, Cubans and Dominicans, while Spanish-speaking and culturally Latin American, are excluded from the Latin American ancestry definition, whereas people from Belize and Guyana are included. Two other approaches can also be used in order to count Latin Americans in Canada: place of birth and mother tongue. Table 1 shows the different figures I obtained by using various definitions and the comparison between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

The difference between the number of people with a Latin American origin as calculated by Statistics Canada and the number I recalculated on the basis of 19 nationalities, Latin American aboriginal identity, and generic Latino origin may not seem particularly impressive (only about 6,000 individuals) at the national level. However, when the figure is split between Quebec and the rest of Canada, we see that the effect of the recalculation has a very different bearing in each context: 20,000 more Latin Americans "appear" in the French-language province, an almost 15 percent increase. Although this surge is partly due to the statistical effects of aggregating multiple responses, at least 10 percent of the increase is explained by the addition of individuals who declare a Cuban or Dominican origin. Conversely, the 6 percent decrease in the case of Latin Americans in English-speaking provinces mostly results from excluding the Belizeans and Guyanese from the count. By analyzing separately Quebec and the rest of Canada, we also see that the relative weight of those who declare Spanish as their mother tongue is affected by the place of residence: almost a third (32.1 percent) of Canadians who have Spanish as their "first language learned at home in childhood and still understood by the individual" (as defined by Statistics Canada) live in Quebec, but the proportion of immigrants born in Latin America in that province is 28.5 percent (if we exclude Portuguese-speaking Brazilians). The 5-percentage point gap could be evidence of a higher rate of first language retention of Spanish among Latin Americans in Quebec. (13) A similar phenomenon emerges by taking into account the dual reality of Canada and their self-perception as members of a "visible minority": immigrants who were born in a Latin American country and live in Quebec represent 27.8 percent of the total Latin American immigrant population nation-wide, but they account for 30.8 percent of all first-generation "ethnic" Latin Americans in the country. This 3-percentage point difference may point to a stronger sense of belonging to a "minority" within the French-language province.

Data from the 2006 census show that two-thirds of individuals who indicated a Latin American ethnic origin (in the question about ancestry) also identified themselves as members of the Latin American community (in the question about "visible minorities"). (14) The other third was distributed as follows (under categories defined by Statistics Canada): 29 percent "not a visible minority", 2 percent "Black", 1 percent "Aboriginal", and 2 percent "multiple visible minority." But these proportions vary widely when national origins are taken into account. Immigrants who declared a Central American national origin (Salvadorians, Nicaraguans, Guatemalans, Hondurans) are more prone to see themselves as members of the Latin American minority (80 percent or more), and those from the Southern Cone (Paraguayans, Brazilians, Argentinians, Uruguayans) generally do not identify themselves as such (43 percent or less). Venezuelans and Mexican are somewhat in the middle (51 percent to 53 percent). Another difference emerges from the comparison between first-generation Latin Americans (foreign-born) and their offspring (the so-called second generation): while 83 percent of Latin American immigrants declare themselves minority members, only 56 percent of second generation Latin Americans identify as such. It goes without saying that these results are impossible to compare to data from the United States. The concepts and social representation (of "race", "Latino", etc.) are extremely different, as are the policy and methodological approaches to ethnic diversity deployed by government agencies in either country. But maybe that is precisely the point: one could argue that the two realities are so far apart that no parallels can be reasonably drawn regarding the Latino population in Canada and the United States. In this sense, the contrast may still be useful as a way of exploring the diverging forms of Latino-ness developing in the North American context. However, it is also possible to speculate that the Latino reality in the United States is so massively important--and becoming more so in the near future--that Canadian Latinos will eventually gravitate towards the U.S. model of panethnicity. If Anglo-American multiculturalism and even the racial-relations perspective gains ground in English-speaking Canada, what will happen with Quebec's Latinos? Will they follow the continental trend, will they assimilate into the Quebecois society, or will they create a different mode of diasporic identity?

As Brubaker posits, a cognitive perspective on ethnicity considers identities as "ways of seeing the world" which are generally framed by "powerfully entrenched cultural representations," and he argues that "the promise of cognitive approaches is precisely that they may help connect our analyses of what goes on in people's heads with our analyses of what goes on in public" (Brubaker 2004, 46). Partial as they may be, quantitative surveys may reveal some facets of those "ways of seeing the world" that prevail among a given group. That is why, in order to conduct an inquiry about the attitudes and opinions of Canada's Latin American population, the Association for Canadian Studies, in partnership with the Universite du Quebec a Montreal, carried out the Survey on Canadian Latin Americans, the first of its kind. (15) A set of questions on modes of identification and attachment showed that Latin Americans tend to define themselves less by their religion and more by their province and city of residence, and by their ethnic origin and language than other immigrants (Table 2). Also, results revealed that Latin American immigrants are prone to define themselves less by their Canadian identity and more by their country of origin than other immigrants (Table 3). Interestingly, immigrants born in Latin America express lower feelings of attachment to Canada, with even lower scores when they reside in Quebec (where attachment to Canada among the native-born population is already significantly lower) (Table 4).

Undoubtedly, these results should be analyzed with caution. (16) On the one hand, more survey data should be collected in order to verify these preliminary findings. On the other hand, this survey targeted foreign-born Latin Americans, so the results only refer to first-generation immigrants. However, they indicate some specific features of the Latin American population in Canada that are worth pondering. Latin Americans seem to display particular tendencies, consistent with the phenomenon of multi-layered identities (language, ethnicity, place of residence) and with a weaker attachment to the host country's national identity. Thus, the Latino identity in Canada appears to follow some of the trends observed in the United States: strong and persistent identification with national origins, but not in contradiction with attachment to the locus of settlement. Additionally, these survey results suggest that there is indeed a divergence among Latin Americans in Canada depending on their presence in Quebec or in the rest of the country. If that is the case, it becomes all the more important to develop divergent comparisons within Canada, specifically taking into account its bicultural character.

CULTURAL ATTITUDES AND CIVIC VALUES

The question about what unites and what separates North and Latin America on cultural grounds leads to another one: What happens when the two Americas integrate in the same land? Or, rather: when a piece of Latin America comes to settle in the North? In the United States, there exists a vast literature devoted to Latino cultural orientations in that country, usually conceptualized "in comparison to a White American standard" (Carter et al. 2008, 3). For example, Acevedo (2009) argues that, compared to non-U.S. Hispanics and to African Americans, research shows that "U.S. Hispanics and White Americans share similar attitudes towards family issues" (Acevedo 2009,408). Other studies, however, point out that "ethnicity-specific forces" among English-proficient Hispanics--i.e., well-integrated into U.S. society--may explain some persisting value orientations regarding marriage and fertility (Akbulut-Yuksel et al. 2011). According to Carter, Yeh and Mazzula (2008), scholars in the field of Latino cultural values and racial identity "characterize Latinos as interdependent, collectivistic, and family-oriented, whereas white Americans are viewed as independent, individualistic, and self-focused" (Carter, Yeh and Mazzula 2008,3); quoting Ruiz (1995), they refer to "the strong emphasis on relationships in Latino cultural values [which] also extends beyond family lines to friendships and networks beyond relatives". Not surprisingly, such culturally driven worldviews may translate into specific public opinion orientations. The results of a large comparative analysis of Latino public opinion "suggest that Latinos have unique policy orientations, although not in every instance. [...] These orientations are in the liberal direction, and Latinos are relatively conservative only in their relative opposition to assisted suicide and divorce" (Leal 2008, 41). Furthermore, advertising and marketing targeted to Spanish-language audiences in the United States tend to prominently use "familialistic themes", both recognizing the importance of those values for Latinos and reinforcing common stereotypes about the Hispanic population (Oropesa and Landale 2004).

Many studies on Latino values and identity in the United States implicitly convey the notion that a set of cultural orientations is "imported" by immigrants and their descendants, and that those orientations may persist or weaken from one generation to the next. Sometimes, the representation of a cultural dichotomy or even a contradiction (along the lines of the two opposing Americas) surfaces indirectly in their appreciation of the integration process of Latinos in the United States. This does not mean that their authors are oblivious to the fact that the very idea of a common, well-defined and stable "Latin American culture" is highly debatable. Some of them take into consideration the contrasts between the various Latino communities (Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans, Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, etc.), as their respective demographic and socioeconomic configuration, even their identity and history, is different (Diaz McConnell and Delgado-Romero 2004). Several scholars develop comparative studies between Latinos and other minorities (particularly African Americans and Asians), and some examine the Latino population through the prism of the racial structure and dynamic that underlies their society. A few even explore the reciprocal effect of acculturation: the "Latinization" of American culture (Cohen 2005). Thus, they will focus, for example, on differences between "White" and "non-White" Latinos, or even on the correlation of skin tone among Hispanics and the level of discrimination they experience. (17) While it seems obviously futile to attempt to fully grasp the U.S. Latino cultural identity because of its extraordinary heterogeneity and its multi-layered evolution as a key component of American society, I argue that the challenge of pinpointing its core value orientations is worth the effort, as long as this pursuit is framed by the assumption that any element of a "Latino identity" is the negotiated or imposed result of a confrontation between different cultural outlooks.

This perspective bears a strong effect on any research about the Latin American population in Canada: if the "Latino identity" is not simply a remnant of cultural baggage brought from abroad, but a complex, often contested and ever evolving outcome in a specific sociopolitical and cultural context, then the Latino question, when raised in Canada, must certainly be examined in the light of the cultural background of immigrants, as well as in terms of the influence of the U.S. Latino reality, while also taking into account the dualistic nature of Canada. In brief, a "Latino" individual or group in Canada is to be seen as culturally shaped by their culture of origin (as a nationality and as a pan-ethnic Latin American identification), their English Canadian or French Quebecois society of adoption, and the wider North American environment in which U.S. Latinos--themselves quite different from non-U.S. Latin Americans--play an increasingly pivotal role. This section of the paper, even if based on reliable quantitative data, only offers a glimpse into the relevance of investigating an aspect that should be obvious to any researcher and, still, does not attract sufficient attention from scholars in the field of immigration and integration studies: (18) the fact that minorities are shaped differently by their societal context, and that U.S. Latinos, English Canadian Latinos, and French Quebecois Latinos share common traits--some probably stemming from their Latin American background and others being a North American disaporic construct--but they may also diverge in their values and attitudes. The survey on Canadian Latin Americans contains several questions that can help us start such exploration.

Two questions in the survey aim at measuring the importance of in-group relations among immigrants. The first one asks the following: "In the past year, how often did you get involved in activities with members of your ethnic or religious group?" The results show that approximately half of the foreign-born population declares to have "often" or "occasionally" participated in in-group activities during the previous year. But, among immigrants in general, there is an almost 10 percentage-point difference between those who live in Quebec (40.8 percent) and those who live in other Canadian provinces (55 percent). Latin Americans appear to follow that pattern (44.4 percent vs. 51.7 percent), but the size of the subsample does not allow us to confirm a statistically significant difference. The second question regarding in-group ties prompts respondents to state if they agree with the following statement: "Most of my friends share the same background as me." Given the results, both place of residence and origin seem to influence the self-described behavior of immigrants, but less so in the case of Latin Americans: they appear to have weaker in-group ties than other immigrants regardless of place of residence (28.3 percent of them "strongly" or "somewhat" agree, compared to 49.7 percent of non-Latin Americans) and immigrants in general display weaker in-group ties in Quebec than in the rest of Canada (38.4 percent vs. 51.5 percent). A possible explanation for these results is that Quebec's more assimilationist model of integration effectively dissuades immigrants from maintaining strong links with their cultural communities. Conversely, this could be seen as the effect of multiculturalism in English Canada, where attachment to particular identities is often encouraged. But, if that were true, then Latin Americans would seem more reticent than the other immigrants about the multiculturalist invitation to sustain in-group ties. Data from the U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health is consistent with Latinos' proclivity to socialize across ethnic boundaries: interracial friendship is higher among Latino students than among Whites, Blacks, and Asians (Mouw and Entwisle 2006).

The hypothesis of an underlying affinity between Latin Americans' cultural background and Quebec's predominantly French public culture seems also validated, to a certain extent, by the answers given to two questions about civic values. The first asked participants to indicate their level of agreement with the following statement: "There should be a complete separation of Church and State". Although the differences are only slightly statistically significant (with a confidence level higher than 90 percent but lower than 95 percent), the results show that immigrants in Quebec tend to agree more frequently than immigrants elsewhere in Canada, and Latin Americans hold the strongest views about the need of separation between Church and State. The second question of this type submits the following statement to the participants: "A country in which everyone speaks the same language is preferable to a country in which people speak different languages." This is a particularly sensitive question in Canada, as bilingualism and the strength of the French language in Quebec are usually considered core societal values. The place of residence seems to influence immigrants' views on language diversity (i.e., they seem to follow Quebec's mainstream public opinion, which rejects a single language for the entire country), but the Latin American immigrant population displays a consistently less favorable preference for a single language even outside Quebec. Again, this could be interpreted as evidence of some sympathy towards the French-speaking minority in their struggle against assimilation into the English-speaking world, an issue that may resonate with Latin Americans' views on North American Anglo dominance.

The survey questions that focus on the opinion about other minorities' perceived trustworthiness also show some interesting results. When asked about their view of Jews, 72.5 percent of the immigrants in the sample find them to be "very" or "somewhat" trustworthy, with no statistically significant differences between Latin Americans and the other immigrants, or between immigrants in Quebec and in the rest of Canada. There is, however, a 10 percentage-point difference with their nonimmigrant counterparts (82.7 percent of Canadian-born respondents hold a positive view of Jews). Attitudes regarding Muslims follow a slightly different pattern. On the one hand, only 63.3 percent of non-immigrants consider Muslims "very" or "somewhat" trustworthy (55.3 percent in Quebec and 65.4 percent in the rest of Canada), compared to 77.7 percent of immigrants in general who have a favorable opinion of them. On the other hand, Latin Americans stand closer to non-immigrants (and in particular, to Quebecers), with positive views of Muslims at a lower level (63.2 percent). These results are consistent with findings about U.S. Latinos: Jews and Muslims are viewed less favorably by them than by the public as a whole (Jews: 44 percent vs. 77 percent, Muslims: 27 percent vs. 54 percent) (19), while Latin Americans in Canada tend to align with the group that holds the less favorable opinion of the two religious minorities--immigrants on Jews, and non-immigrants and Quebecers on Muslims.

In the case of Aboriginals, there is no observable difference between immigrants and non-immigrants' attitudes in general (about 73 percent of the population hold favorable views), but immigrants in Quebec, including Latin Americans, display even more positive opinions (83.8 percent find Aboriginals "very" or "somewhat" trustworthy, compared to 75.6 percent among non-immigrants in Quebec, 71.3 percent among immigrants in the rest of Canada and 72.6 percent among those born in Canada). Even though these results do not point to a particular trend (and I cannot offer a definite explanation here as to why the three minorities elicit varying responses among different groups), the data seem to show that attitudes--and to be more clear, prejudices--can be both shaped by people's original background and by the adopted society's cultural orientations. That is, Latin Americans appear as "typical" immigrants in their display of a higher level of mistrust towards Jews than their Canadian-born counterparts, but they stand out by joining non-immigrants in their relative mistrust towards Muslims. This begs the question: Is this evidence of an element of prejudice against non-Christian minorities stemming from their Latin American cultural background?

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

A five-country study on multiculturalism carried out in 2010 that included Argentina, arguably the Latin American country most similar to Canada and the United States in terms of diversity and immigration history, showed that unfavorable views on Jews were comparatively more frequent in that South American country. (20) The fact that Spain displayed an even higher proportion of negative opinions about Jews tends to support the usual idea of an enduring strain of anti-Jewish sentiment in predominantly Catholic countries. But Argentineans in that same survey were clearly more favorable towards Muslims than Americans and Canadians. Of course, Argentineans alone do not represent Latin American culture as a whole. However, it is possible to speculate that immigrants in North America may tend to adopt their host society's more adverse attitudes towards Islam. In other words, it would seem that anti-Jewish bias is "imported" from the home culture while anti-Muslim bias is acquired from the host culture. But, if that is the case, it is important to notice that even within the same host country, Latin Americans may align with diverging opinions depending on their place of residence, as is the case of attitudes towards Aboriginals in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, a phenomenon that, if anything, further supports the idea that there is no Latin American core system of values that would survive intact the process of immigration and integration. Figure 1 shows the multiple levels involved in any comparison regarding Latin Americans in different societal spaces, and the (supranational/subnational) system within which the boundaries of a plural Latino-ness are shaped: "It could be argued further that identity itself is a relation--or set of relations and interrelations. [...] Social identities are in motion in multiple ways, not only in relation to other groups and their enactment of selves but also in relation to the dynamics of geographic place" (Dolby and Cornbleth 2010).

CONCLUSION

Obviously, any profile of a population--based on census or survey data, as is the case in this article--inevitably masks its heterogeneity. In the United States, scholars and political pundits regularly address the question about the existence of a "Latino public opinion" or a "Latino constituency", even if the magnitude of its internal diversity is, by any measure, staggering (Leal 2008). Latin Americans in Canada--admittedly a "younger", much smaller and, on all accounts, a far less salient group than the U.S. Latinos--are not a homogeneous population either. They have settled over several decades, through so-called "waves" (Landolt and Goldring 2009). Between the 1970s and the 1990s, most immigrants from Latin America came to Canada for political reasons (i.e., fleeing military dictatorships in South America and civil wars in Central America). However, since the 1990s, and even more clearly during the following decades, most Latin Americans in Canada have been admitted under the "economic category": 70 percent in 2012. (21) This means, in general (in terms of majority and average, but certainly not as a uniform reality for the whole group), that they have been granted permanent residency on account of their prospective "employability" as "skilled workers" in Canada, a condition evaluated on the basis of their level of education, demonstrable work experience in "eligible occupations", and sufficient knowledge of official languages, among other factors. While no information exists about these immigrants' socioeconomic status in their country of origin, it is safe to assume, given the class structure and ethnic stratification present, with varying degrees, in all Latin American countries (O'Connor 2007), that they tend to be of middle class, urban extraction, and possibly of non-indigenous or non-African descent (as opposed to a rural, indigenous or Black background). This definitely marks a contrast with the situation of most Latinos in the United States. Even though Latino Canadians' more middle-class origin does not necessarily translate into a higher socioeconomic status in the host society (as we saw, Latin Americans show a higher prevalence of low income than other immigrant groups and, interestingly, this gap is much wider in Quebec), we can realistically expect that their understanding of "Latino-ness" will be affected, not only by their nationality, but also by their socioeconomic and ethnic background (including their self-perception as members of the middle class in their country of origin), their legal and symbolic standing in the new country (as permanent residents, chosen through a point-system meritocratic scale) and, last but not least, by the model of integration in place in the host society.

How and to what extent does public culture (admittedly a very wide concept that spans many aspects, from society's moral order to the foundations of its institutional design, from national myths to cultural attitudes) constrain newcomers in their process of self-identification and attachment? In other words, how and to what extent is Latino acculturation in the French-language province of Quebec different from Latino acculturation in the English-language provinces of Canada, and what is common to all Canadian provinces when compared to Latino acculturation in the United States? And what is common to all North American Latinos? Should we even use the same label to imply that all these groups share a common identity? Or conversely, could we envision an up-and-coming North American Latino identity, which would be distinct from a Latin American identity, but also a new form of trans-American (as in hemispheric) sense of belonging? These are extremely broad and complex questions that cannot be answered in this article, but they should not be ignored either.

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NOTES

(1.) I use here the two terms commonly applied to the U.S. population of Latin American descent. Although this may imply that they are interchangeable, I am aware of the debate and connotations surrounding the manner in which this group is named. But for the purpose of this paper, and particularly when referring to the United States, I will mostly employ the word "Latino" (some authors prefer the gender-specific "Latina/o", but Canadians are less familiar with it). For a discussion on the Hispanic/Latino label and its association with identity issues, see Gracia (2000).

(2.) In a piece about marketing strategies that target ethnic communities, the Globe and Mail called Latin Americans "Canada's 'invisible' minority" on account of their "low profile" (Houpt 2011).

(3.) There are hardly a dozen scholarly articles published in English about Latin Americans in Canada in the last ten years. Most of them deal with political participation, transnationalism, or mental health, and are authored by a few Toronto-based scholars. See: Bernhard, Landolt and Goldring (2009), Ginieniewicz and McKenzie (2014), Ginieniewicz (2007; 2008; 2010a; 2010b), Goldring (2006), Landolt and Goldring (2009; 2010), Landolt, Goldring and Bernhard (2011). In this otherwise highly informative literature, Quebec's distinctive reality is either covered extremely briefly or--most often--not at all.

(4.) The most notorious example is Quebec's Charter of the French language, adopted in 1977. Some of its provisions regarding the ban on English and other languages in commercial signing were deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada, but they were maintained when the Quebec government invoked the "notwithstanding clause" that allows provinces to override some fundamental rights (such as freedom of expression).

(5.) For example, Bloemraad compares the political integration of immigrants in Canada and the United States and describes a "North American naturalization gap" between the two countries. Although she refers to Quebec nationalism as part of the Canadian political landscape, she does not offer any analysis regarding Quebec's specific context (only in passing she mentions, in the book's conclusion, that immigrants "might become more rapidly politicized in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada", with no further explanation or discussion) (Bloemraad 2006,246). Writing about "Latin American Canadians and Politics", Ginieniewicz writes (in a footnote) that "the particular characteristics of the Quebecois society might influence the patterns and levels of engagement of immigrant communities" and warns that "for this reason it is important to be cautious with extrapolations of any kind" (Ginieniewicz 2010a, 513).

(6.) "South and Central America" includes all countries and jurisdictions in the hemisphere except Canada and the United States. Obviously, some of them would never be considered as part of Latin America, however defined: Barbados, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, the Falkland Islands, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, etc. Most figures published by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration cannot be broken down by source countries. But the "South and Central America category is a good proxy for Latin America, as most immigrants in that category come from Spanish-speaking countries and Brazil. However, it is worth mentioning here that Haitians and Jamaicans are counted under "South and Central America" and together represent 28.7 percent of immigrants from that area. Although they do not fit the usual "cultural" definition of Latin America (Iberian language and colonial heritage), they share many features with the Latin American countries.

(7.) I focus on immigrants who settled in Canada as permanent residents. Therefore, I exclude from the analysis temporary residents (including foreign workers, refugee claimants, and international students). Among temporary residents, there were 7,944 Mexican and 3,719 Colombian refugee claimants, as well as 23,683 Mexican, 3,989 Brazilian, and 2,817 Guatemalan foreign workers present in Canada in 2012.

(8.) The Department's official name is Ministere de l'immigration, de la Diversite et de l'Inclusion. The information was made available in May 2014. Data from 2013 is preliminary.

(9.) However, about one out of four Colombians admitted to Canada between 2006 and 2010 was a refugee.

(10.) As Ginieniewicz and McKenzie argue, "findings from the USA cannot be automatically extrapolated to Canada", but they are "relevant to provide a useful framework" (Ginieniewicz and McKenzie 2014, 270).

(11.) According to the U.S. Census Bureau, "Hispanic refers to people whose origin is Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Spanish-speaking Central or South American countries, or other Hispanic/Latino, regardless of race". See: http://www.census.gov/population/hispanic/.

(12.) Question 17 (in the long form questionnaire) asks: "What were the ethnic or cultural origins of this person's ancestors?" and includes a note stating that "an ancestor is usually more distant than a grandparent." Question 19 (also in the long form) asks: "Is this person:?" and explains that "This information is collected to support programs that promote equal opportunity for everyone to share in the social, cultural and economic life in Canada." The categories are those of the recognized visible minorities ' ("persons who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in color and who do not report being Aboriginal"), according to Canada's Employment Equity Act of 1986.

(13.) This is consistent with findings by Jedwab and Armony (2009) regarding a higher rate of language retention among young Montrealers whose mother tongue is Spanish (and a higher prevalence of trilingualism) when compared to those living in Toronto.

(14.) This cross-tabulation is not available for the 2011 census data. Statistics Canada uses the following criteria for "Latin American": "This category includes: persons who gave a mark-in response of "Latin American" only; persons who gave a mark-in response of Latin American" only with a non-European write-in that is not classified as visible minority, n.i.e. [not included elsewhere] (e.g., Afghan, Cambodian, Nigerian); and persons with no mark-in response who gave a write-in response that is classified as Latin American. Some examples of write-in responses classified as "Latin American include Chilean, Costa Rican, and Mexican" (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/concepts/definitions/minority01minorite01a-eng.htm).

(15.) This survey was carried out by Leger Marketing via web panel as part of a larger poll of 2,000 Canadians conducted in February-March 2013. It included an oversample (N=193) of Latin American immigrants and allowed for comparisons between Latinos and non-Latinos, as well as between immigrants in Quebec and in the rest of Canada. Jack Jedwab, the executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies, directed the survey. The oversampling of Latin Americans was funded with a SSHRC grant held by the author of this article.

(16.) In Table 4, the differences between Latinos in Quebec and in the rest of Canada fall within the sub-samples margin of error.

(17.) "Research provides evidence of significant socioeconomic inequalities between light and dark Latinos within the same ethnic groups that cannot be explained by differences in human capital or resources" (Roth 2010).

(18.) Focusing on the issue of political engagement, Black (2011) argues that "the field of immigrant and minority political incorporation remains greatly underexplored" in Canada and calls for more "comparative research of the Canadian and American cases ... to enhance understanding of political incorporation in one or both countries". Even if he refers to the "two historically hegemonic European origin groups, the British and the French" and to the fact that, in the province of Quebec, "the French [are dominant]", Black only considers a comparison at a national level, thus de facto erasing Quebec's specificity as a host society for immigrants (Black 2011, 1164). In other words, "Canada" means, in practice, English Canada." Interestingly, Bloemraad (2011), in the same special issue, makes the following plea (in a footnote): "English-speaking researchers would do well to read more about the situation in Quebec to evaluate whether immigrants in that province have a qualitatively different experience" (Bloemraad 2011, 1153).

(19.) According to data from Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project (www.pewhispanic.org).

(20.) In that survey, 35 percent of Argentineans said that Jews "do not share our values", compared to 42 percent in Spain, 26 percent in Germany, 25 percent in Canada, and 23 percent in the United States (Armony and Zuleta Puceiro 2010). See also Jedwab (2011).

(21.) This does not mean that political asylum is no longer a relevant factor in current immigration trends from Latin America. Colombia stands out in that regard, with 4 in 10 immigrants from that country being admitted under the "protected persons" category (in 2011).

VICTOR ARMONY is Professor of Sociology at Universite du Quebec a Montreal (UQAM). He is the former editor in chief of the Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (2004-2011). He has co-edited with Stephanie Rousseau a volume on cultural diversity, inequalities and democracy in Latin America (Brussels, P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2012). He has also published work that deals with nationalism, language, and ethnic diversity in Quebec: Le Quebec explique aux immigrants (Montreal, VLB, 2007 and 2012).

TABLE 1. Latino Canadians: Various Definitions

                           Total    Quebec    Rest of
                           2011               Canada

Latin American Origin *   544,380   137,255   407,125

Latin American Origin--
recalculated **           538,365   157,000   381,365

Born in Latin America
(19 countries) ***        411,500   114,390   297,110

Spanish as Mother
Tongue ****               410,670   131,850   278,820

Latin American
Minority                  381,280   116,380   264,900

Latin American
Minority-first            300,990   92,605    208,385
generation only

* Latin, Central and South American origins. Single and
multiple ethnic origin responses.

** Aboriginal from Central/South America (except Maya),
Argentinian, Bolivian, Brazilian, Chilean, Colombian, Costa
Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Ecuadorian, Guatemalan, Hispanic,
Honduran, Maya, Mexican, Nicaraguan, Panamanian, Paraguayan,
Peruvian, Salvadorean, Uruguayan, Venezuelan, Latin Central
and South American origins n.i.e.

*** Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru,
Uruguay, Venezuela.

**** Single responses. Source: Census 2011.

TABLE 2. Rank in Order: "Most Important
to How You Define Yourself" (percent)

                                          City/
                    Canada    Province     Town

Latin Americans      34.7       11.9       9.3
Other immigrants     39.0       5.9        5.3

                   Ethnic
                   origin/
                   Ancestry   Religion   Language

Latin Americans      15.0       13.5       15.5
Other immigrants     8.6        33.5       7.6

TABLE 3. Of the Following: "You Define Yourself As" (percent)

                                 Canadian     Canadian
                                first but     and from
                                also from    country of
                    Canadian    country of     origin
                      only        origin      equally

Latin Americans       9.3          24.9         28.5
Other immigrants      12.7         35.5         25.5

                      From
                   country of
                     origin        From
                   first but    country of
                      also        origin         No
                    Canadian       only        answer

Latin Americans       26.9         7.3          3.2
Other immigrants      17.8         4.3          4.1

TABLE 4. Feel Very/Somewhat
Attached to Canada (percent)

                      Total
                     Canada               Rest of
                    (weighted)   Quebec   Canada

Latino immigrants      90.0       85.7     91.7
Other immigrants       95.4       95.6     95.4
Total immigrants
  (weighted)           95.1       94.5     95.2