Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Toronto and Immigration


Immigration is defined as the movements of the population to other countries; in this case y will talk about the massive Toronto immigration during the last fifty years due to politic causes or as a result of the studies of the immigrant population.

By any measure Toronto is an incredibly multicultural city. A snapshot of Toronto as it enters the millennium would reveal a sprawling urban complex of approximately 4 million people. It is one of the world’s major immigration-receiving areas. According to the 1996 Canadian census, while just over 17 percent of all Canadians were born outside of Canada, that figure rises to an unprecedented 42 percent of those in Toronto who were born outside Canada. Factually three-quarters of all household heads in Toronto were either born outside of Canada or have at least one parent who was. And that inflow of immigration has come from every corner of the globe.

Toronto have always welcomed the immigrants, they suppose a reactivation on the economy of the city ,but in the most precarious times they had to carry out the hardest jobs, nevertheless with time the integration of the immigrations became much more completed without any kind of social tension.

During the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century, the Irish immigrants who had followed the British to Toronto were followed by many other immigrant groups in the late nineteenth century: Germans, Italians, and Jews from various parts of Eastern Europe; later Chinese, Russians, Poles, and many other eastern Europeans. By the latter half of the 20th century, refugees and immigrants from many other parts of the world were the major source of immigration.

The causes of this immigrations depends on the political status of the immigrant`s country, for example many Italians immigrate because of the dictadure of Benito Mussolini and many Germans will have immigrated because of the pressure practice by the Hitler and the Gestapo, the same happens with the Jews and other immigrants.
The core advantage is an increase on the number of workers increasing the production and also there is a secondary advantage, a multicultural society which is very attractive for the tourist.

On the other hand we have the negative part this, sometimes their rules and they culture impact with the way of living of Toronto leading to a social tension, moreover they can be not consider at first as a part of the nation but as intruders that compete against the natives for jobs.

Closer to the city core, there have been confrontations and even shootings involving police and youth, particularly Black youth and so-called Asian youth gangs, this is an example of ethnical confrontation, this is an example of the result of the impact between two cultures in the same society.

Although Toronto has millions of immigrants, experts point out that the city can afford even more immigrant population. Factually Toronto has an exterior image of been a city always open to new horizons providing these type of people all kind of facilities to keep going with their life and is necessary to include the amazing stability they have reach between the national culture and the one of the immigrants.

Words by Gonzalo de Gracia; photos by Marianna Bédard

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