Salvadorans in Canada

By Jose Manuel Ortiz Benitez *

Central American migration to Canada is a relatively new phenomenon. Until the 1960s, Canada’s nasty climate, geographic position, and unacquainted culture kept latinos away from Canadian borders.

Canada's efforts to generously accommodate thousands of Cuban and Chilean refugees in the 1960s and 1970s would make Canada a more attractive option for future immigrants from Mexico and Central America.

According to official Canadian statistics, in 1961 there were only 15 Salvadoran legal immigrants in Canada, none woman.

In December 1987, there were 22,283 Salvadorans living legally in Canada, and thousands were suspected to be working in the underground economy.

Although Salvadoran immigrants were already the largest group from Central America, Salvadoran women were still unseen in the Canadian statistical literature. In the 1980s, most, if not all, of the Salvadorans in Canada were refugees, young, middle aged, single males.

That would change in the years ahead.

Too soon after the signing of the 1992 Peace Accords, things in El Salvador started to get violent and ugly again. But this time it was not the old warfare between military and guerrillas forces, it was a new wave of horrifying, equally destructive, violence in poor and marginalized communities in large urban areas.

Gang actors arrived in El Salvador in the early 1990s. Terror gangs MS 13 and MS-18 quickly emerged and spread across El Salvador.

Gang members are feared and respected, for one simple reason: they smuggle, exhort, kidnap, torture and kill for money or just for pleasure.

Since their creation in Salvadoran soil, MS 13 and MS-18 have produced dramatic daily death figures, suffering, instability and a sense of permanent panic and hopelessness across the Salvadoran people.

In the post-war era, many Salvadorans still risk their lives running desperately through neighboring borders to escape gang violence, economic misery and natural disasters. Up to 200,000 fled to Mexico, 500,000 fled to the United States, some 30,000 fled to Canada between 1994 and 2002.

Gang violence has hit hard on Salvadoran families, and women have certainly taken their fair share. In 2003, there were 328 women killed, in 2004, 262 and in 2005, 314, according to figures from Attorney General's Office.

In the winter 2002, a raped and mutilated body of an unknown young Salvadoran woman was found wrapped in a plastic bag, decapitated. Her missing head was found in December 9th, 2002, seating on a public bench below the winged Statue of Liberty of El Parque Libertad, in the metropolitan area of San Salvador.

Marian Isabela Rivas, a 17-year-old teenager was found dead, mutilated with evident signs of torture, on December 4, 2002, in a ditch in Soyapango, San Salvador. The word "venganza" had been gouged into her thigh.

Rather than getting apprehended and controlled, gangs in El Salvador have flourished and gone from being a national violence problem, to a regional political conflict in Central America and Mexico. The situation has reached a crucial point.

Left Salvadoran party FMLN’s candidate Mauricio Funes was elected president in March 2009. His main priority then was: controlling daily death figures produced by gangs from national prison cells. His main priority now 18 months later is still the same: reducing gang-related crimes and death counts.

President Funes has ordered the National Army to take over national prisons and patrol the streets of the 10 most violent niches in El Salvador. Since then, homicide rates have slightly improved from 12 to 9-10 each day. But the problem remains: it is still one of the highest in the world and this dreadful fact still forces people to flee north.

Immigrating to Canada sounded like a nice option for the Rodriguez family. They immigrated to Toronto, Canada, in the summer of 2003 through a visa program for skillful workers from the Canadian Embassy in San Salvador. Rosa is the household’s main economic contributor. She says that the family is doing great in Canada. Her daughter Maritza, 18 years old, is attending college and Sebastiancito, 8, has quickly adapted to his new friends and teachers in middle school.

The reality for most Salvadoran families in Canada, however, is still fussy and troubling. Social integration, career advancement and educational achievement continue to be unmet challenges for the Salvadoran community in Canada. On the other hand, indifference and, sometimes, denial from local, mainstream canadians, are still an issue.

There are about 75,000 Salvadorans living in Canada and the new comers are no longer the usual young, middle aged, single males. Salvadoran women are taking the lead in the dangerous migrating adventure to the north. In recent years, Salvadoran women have been the most numerous clients of the Toronto agency New Experiences for Refugees, an organization founded in 1983 to assist Latin Americans to adapt to Canadian society.

Despite the danger of the journey, the rachitic opportunities abroad, the mixed sentiments from nationals at destiny, and the regime change in power at home, Salvadorans continue to flee El Salvador in awesome numbers : over 400 a day. A slight majority are now women.

In 2009, Salvadoran women were responsible for sending 70% of the 4.5 billion dollars to the Salvadoran economy through family remittances.

To this day, Salvadoran immigrant women have no voice or vote, nor other representation in any of the state institutions in El Salvador.

Salvadoreños en el Mundo, an organization of Salvadoran immigrants, will hold a three-day Convention at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada, from November 17 to November 19 to gather support, recognition and a pinch of “sympathy” for the effort and sacrifice made silently all these years by Salvadoran women abroad.

Other articles by this author Here- Jose Manuel Ortiz Benitez is Editor of Salvadoreños en el Mundo

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