From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Goans/N.k. Wagle
In Toronto and Montreal, informal “village” associations act as friendship and quasi-kin circles for both established Goans and new immigrants. These “village unions,” as they were called in India, came into existence as part of the large-scale immigration of Goan Christians to Bombay in the late nineteenth century. One of their main purposes was to celebrate the feast of the patron saint of old home and thus renew the immigrants’ solidarity ties with their native village. The institution of the village union was replicated by Goan Christians in Pakistan, in East Africa, and now in Canada, where these groups are referred to as “socials,” “organizations,” or “associations.” In Toronto, there are fourteen loosely structured associations that routinely celebrate the feasts of the village unions’ patron saints, as well as other religious events in the city. Announcements of village feasts are posted in Goan newsletters in Toronto. It remains to be seen whether second-generation Goans in Canada will preserve the links that their parents are maintaining with their ancestral villages in Goa.
There are also more formal associations. The Goan Overseas Association (GOA), founded in 1970 and based in Toronto, describes itself as a “non-religious sociocultural association.” It is the largest Goan organization in Canada, and indeed in North America, with branches in Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Vancouver. A major proportion of its members are Goans from East Africa. The Goan Overseas Association publishes a quarterly newsletter, Pulse. It sponsors a full and varied annual calendar of events, including horseback riding, a Gold Cup field-hockey tournament, a Gold Cup dance, a boat cruise, a symposium, a family day, a seniors’ Ladhainah (Catholic liturgy), a celebration of the feast of St Francis Xavier (the patron saint of Goa), a children’s Christmas Mass, and Christmas and New Year’s dances.
The oldest Goan association in Canada was the Indo-Pakistani Christian Association, founded in Montreal in 1965. By 1969 it had a membership of 100. From this association emerged the Canorient Christian Association (CCA), incorporated in 1971, with headquarters in Montreal. It publishes a newsletter called Contact . The association established a chapter in Toronto in 1974, and another in Ottawa in 1987. Its membership is made up largely of immigrants from the South Asian subcontinent.
Initially, there was rivalry between the GOA and the CCA but, in the 1980s, it diminished and the associations began to sponsor joint cultural and social activities. The CCA’s cultural centre in Toronto has been made available to the GOA for its social occasions. The latter group has now purchased land in the Toronto area on which to build its own centre. The two associations celebrate the New Year separately, each sponsoring its own gala New Year’s dance, one of the most important events in the year for Goan Christians.
In order to bring the second generation into the larger Goan community, the Goan Overseas Association established a youth wing in 1978, and in 1982 it added a Youth Development Secretary. The GOA now offers more community-based social events that are popular among Goan young people, and attendance at its social functions has been as high as 300. A Young Adults Committee has also been formed within the GOA. Other Goan Christian associations in Canada are following the GOA’s lead in bringing Goan youth into their social and cultural activities. The CCA, for example, has always had a large body of Goan young people participating in its activities, but it has only recently formally recognized their separate needs and interests. Goan young people, for their part, are using their positions in the associations to question their parents’ old-world Goan values, the place of young Goans in Canadian society, and their Goan ethnicity. Their self-examination and the intergenerational debates that it leads to are a sign of the vitality of the Goan community. In 1977 a Goan senior citizens’ group started its own organization in the greater Toronto area. Organized into eastern, western, and central zones, it has established a friendship network among Goan seniors.
Other organizations serve the large community in the Toronto area. These include the Goan Charitable Organization, an arm of the GOA that assists Goans and other Canadians with their financial needs. There are also associations reflecting “new faces” within the Goan Christian community in Toronto, the Konkani-speaking immigrants from several Middle Eastern countries, who are forming their own Goan associations to sponsor dances and socials for their communities. There are also associations in other cities in Canada: the Vancouver Goan Association, the Edmonton Goan Association, the Calgary Goan Association, the Goan Association of Manitoba in Winnipeg, and the Quebec Goan Association in Montreal.
