From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Brazilians/Robert W. Shirley
The first regular immigrants to Canada entered with assured economic positions. They came either as relatives of Canadian citizens or as landed immigrants with jobs in Canadian firms. Economic growth and industrial expansion have created employment opportunities for Brazilians in Canadian cities and resulted in a “functional” group of immigrants that includes students and teachers. The Brazilian consulates and private firms such as the national airline, Varig, have also provided work. The conditions of employment often required developed skills and, in Brazilian terms, elite education, and most of this group has come from the more prosperous and developed regions of Brazil in the south and southeast, the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Rio Grande do Sul, although some have been from the northeast. Brazil has received between 0.4 and 0.7 percent of the temporary-employment visas issued each year, averaging 561 short-term and 637 long-term contracts annually. This number has also increased, peaking in 1990 at nearly a thousand.
Immigration records date from 1962. Of legal immigrants, 54 percent have been dependants of Canadian citizens or landed immigrants. Most independent immigrants before 1976 were male factory and construction workers, and these types began to arrive again in large numbers after 1986. Nearly 1,500 Brazilians took clerical, sales, or service jobs in Canada, a little less than half of them women. The statistics also show 2 financiers and 75 entrepreneurs entering the country, as well as 342 managers, administrators, and officials in slowly increasing numbers. A surprising number (1,273) of professionals have arrived since 1962, about 15 percent of them women. These include several hundred engineers and other scientists, 56 in the social sciences, about 70 religious leaders, and about 100 each in medicine, education, and the arts. Immigration in the sciences and religion has been steady since the 1960s, but in the other fields it has increased greatly since the late 1980s. Curiously, few sports figures have emigrated to Canada from Brazil, perhaps reflecting different interests in the two nations.
Those settlers who arrived before 1986 integrated easily into Canadian society, their numbers were small, and most were already acculturated to North American life. Few Brazilian shops, organizations, or services existed in the country, and those that did were strongly enmeshed in Canadian society. The surge of new immigrants, refugees, and illegals who came after 1986 changed this picture dramatically. For the first time, individuals were entering the country without the necessary language skills or support from relatives or employers in Canada. Most of these newcomers had to find work in the informal sector, frequently with Portuguese-speaking firms because of their language limitations. At first they were often employed in construction and the cleaning industry or as waiters in restaurants and in other petty service positions. Some, especially those who had entered the country illegally, were exploited by the firms that employed them. They assumed that they had none of the legal guarantees of workers in Canada with regard to the minimum wage, health and safety protection, and other support. Cases have been reported of demands for extra hours of work, pay below the minimum wage, and sometimes even unpaid wages. Reporting their employer, they feared, could lead to expulsion. Further, they sometimes found that the anticipated larger salaries in Canada were an illusion, since the cost of living was much higher than in Brazil.
The entry of this group of unsupported immigrants unfortunately coincided with a massive recession in the Canadian economy, especially in central Canada. The new immigrants were hard hit by this crisis. The kinds of work that they had been able to find, sometimes illegally, in construction, cleaning, restaurants, and small Portuguese shops rapidly vanished. Dozens of small businessmen went bankrupt. As a result, many of the new immigrants were suddenly unemployed, and they found themselves far from their traditional networks of support and with much of the Canadian social safety net unavailable to them since they were in Canada illegally. Without a visa they could work only clandestinely and were at the mercy of their employers. Stories of exploitation abound in Canada’s Brazilian community.
Many of these immigrants suffered real psychological anguish. Lonely, far from their families and communities, working extremely hard to maintain a standard of living in many cases inferior to what they had left in Brazil, they recalled Sundays spent playing soccer and listening to Brazilian music. Thousands of them, possibly more than half, gave up and returned home. A number were expelled. Those who stayed usually maintained their contacts with their kin and communities at home. Many of the new immigrants interviewed in Toronto were trying to earn the money to buy a house, land, or a car, or to set up a small business in Brazil. They planned to return to their home towns in a matter of a few years. The recession of the early 1990s in Canada simply speeded up the process. Many of the more ambitious immigrants moved on to the United States. The fact that immigrants have been required to work at two or three jobs and ten to twelve hours a day is not new to these people. The Brazilian reputation of a leisurely lifestyle comes mainly from the old agrarian elite, where many people did not work because others laboured for them. In contrast, the Brazilian working class and the functional middle classes work extremely hard. Thus the demands made on them in Canada do not seem extreme.
Enough immigrants have remained in Toronto, whatever their status, to influence the culture of the city. The older, well-integrated community rarely showed its ethnic qualities, but the new one is overtly Brazilian. Since 1989 a number of new businesses have opened up to meet its needs. Many of these are associated with more established Portuguese firms, since in business the two communities work closely together. Half a dozen remittance companies have established branches in Toronto and elsewhere across the country to help middle- and working-class Brazilians send money back to family and friends, a pattern that at times resembles the classic support networks of Caribbean communities. These companies also serve as communication centres for Brazilians in Canada. Remittance networks reflect the origins of the new Brazilian immigrants. Money can be sent to most of the larger state capitals of Brazil, and several smaller towns in the region of Ipatinga, Governador Valadares, and Teofilo Otoni are also served. In this way, grassroots economic links between the two counties have been established to a limited extent, although Canada does not offer the business climate to attract wealthy Brazilians. Only two “financiers” are listed in the immigration records. Incomers tend to be attracted by the social support services that the country offers, rather than by investment opportunities. The size of the community in Toronto therefore remains relatively small, and many recent applicants have been young people with families.
Other Brazilian-oriented businesses have had mixed success. Restaurants have opened and closed, but interest in Brazilian cuisine is limited. Wealthy Brazilians prefer international fare, and the poorer, who might prefer Brazilian dishes, cannot afford to eat out. Many North Americans find the traditional food based on rice and beans unappetizing. Those restaurants that have survived usually offer music and a tropical atmosphere as well as food. Small Brazilian delicatessens and food shops have been more successful, often by appealing to Portuguese, Spanish-American, and Caribbean customers. A decline in the number of Brazilians in Toronto has considerably reduced the clientele of these businesses, but by attracting the more established groups, many have managed to stay in operation.
Growing business links between Canada and Brazil have created new institutions in both countries. After diplomatic ties were established during World War II, consulates were opened in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. A Brazilian-Canadian chamber of commerce was formed in Toronto and São Paulo in 1972, the Banco do Brasil has offices in Canada, and São Paulo and Toronto signed agreements to become sister cities in 1985.
