BaoXu | 06-18-2010 02:34 PM | The largest source of Immigrants to Vancouver is the Philippines http://www.vancouversun.com/3145070.bin?size=620x400 Quote:
Starting in the late 1980s, waves of immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China and India changed the ethos of this city forever. Our neighbourhoods, our skyline, the food on our collective tables, the languages on our streets, the festivals in our malls, our families and, really, how we see ourselves, all transformed.
Now, our largest source of newcomers is the Philippines, a tiny smattering of islands in Southeast Asia.
At the mom-and-pop level, you can see this dramatic change.
Take Park Village off No. 3 Road in Richmond, for example. It's your basic Asian strip mall, born during the heyday of Hong Kong migration to Vancouver. It's still home to a core group of small Chinese businesses: Great One Supermarket, Tai Hing Congee and Noodle House and, in the corner, Happy Date Restaurant, a cheap-and-cheerful Hong Kong-style diner. But the new kids on the block are Manila Express and Cargo and Ailing Mary Filipino Restaurant and Bakery.
Inside Great One Supermarket itself, there's a resident Chinese herbalist and most of the signs advertising the weekly specials are written in Chinese.
However, the most dynamic aisles, the ones that have recently changed and grown the most, are the two dedicated to a host of Filipino sauces, spices, cake mixes, baked goods and frozen packages of all sorts, from stuffed monkfish to sweet and hot longaniza sausages.
This shift is due, in part, to the way Canada has systematically changed the way it attracts newcomers. Instead of focusing solely on immigrants with high levels of education or money to invest, Ottawa and the provinces are now seeking workers with specific skills. Filipinos are stepping up to fill the demand. They have been coming to Canada via an array of newfangled federal and provincial programs.
Past waves of Filipino migration to Canada were smaller and the groups less diverse.
In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a compact set of mostly professionals, many of them fleeing martial law under the Marcos regime.
In the 1990s, Ottawa's Live-In Caregiver program drew mostly women, who typically arrived on their own for jobs as domestic caregivers for children, the elderly and disabled.
This Filipino influx is intimately connected to mainstream Canadians.
If you pick up furniture in a warehouse, grab coffee, check into a hotel, call the nanny, do renos, get an X-ray, sit on clean stadium seats, need power restored in a snowstorm or seek help for a payroll problem, you have likely met a few of these newcomers.
In total, there are about 500,000 Filipinos in Canada and more than 100,000 in B.C. As this community grows, it is becoming part of the mainstream fabric. Just as Lunar New Year and Vaisakhi are celebrated as Vancouver events, this year, for the first time, city hall has given a green light to Pinoy Fiesta 2010, a Filipino street parade, to happen along Main Street in August.
Starting today, The Vancouver Sun looks at the Filipino diaspora in B.C.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Filipino...#ixzz0rFLQCsCn | I like Filipinos. They are nice, loving people. By the way, I have never eaten Filipino food before. Where's a good place to get Filipino food? |