Further Reading

An excellent examination of the political, economic, and social evolution of Guatemala from the Spanish conquest to the early 1980s is Jim Handy, Gift of the Devil: A History of Guatemala (Toronto, 1984). Susanne Jonas, The Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, and U.S. Power (Boulder, Colo., 1991), looks mainly at twentieth-century conditions, with a good overview of events through to the beginning of the 1990s. Carol Smith, ed., Guatemalan Indians and the State: 1540 to 1988 (Austin, Tex., 1990), is a collection of articles which survey five centuries of the indigenous response – in terms of social and cultural change as well as resistance and protest – to European and ladino domination. All three works evince a concern for tracing the roots, dimensions, and impact of Guatemala’s unjust political and social order.

To date, little has been written about Guatemalans in Canada. Fernando Mata, “Latin American Immigration to Canada: Some Reflections on the Immigration Statistics,” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, vol.10, no.20 (1985), 35–40, includes information about this group, and other statistical information is available from various Statistics Canada publications, including Census 1991: Ethnic Origin – The Nation, Table 2 (Ottawa, 1992). Repression and Exile: A Study of Salvadorean, Guatemalan and Haitian Refugees in Montreal, by Charles D. Smith and Salinda Hess, is an extensive quantitative analysis of Guatemalan immigrants surveyed in 1983–84. A summary of their findings appears in Charles Smith, “Trials and Errors: The Experience of Central American Refugees in Montreal,” Refuge, vol.5, no.4 (1985), 10–11. Data of a more qualitative nature are reported by Dianne Meredith, “Guatemalan Refugees and Their Process of Adaptation in Toronto” (M.A. thesis, York University, 1992). Ronald Wright’s “Escape to Canada,” Saturday Night, vol.102, no.5 (1987), 44–52, is a moving portrait of Guatemalan refugees in several Ontario cities, with a concise summary of the historical and political context of their exile. Cross Cultural Learner Centre, “Guatemala,” in Cultural Profiles (London, Ont., 1986), provides some insight into the group in Ontario.

Two articles that address the impact of immigration policy on the volume and nature of Guatemalan immigration to Canada are Alan Simmons, “Latin American Migration to Canada: New Linkages in the Hemispheric Migration and Refugee Flow System,” International Journal, vol.48, no.2 (1993), 282–309, and Tanya Basok and Alan Simmons, “The Politics of Refugee Selection,” in The International Refugee Crisis: British and Canadian Responses, Vaughan Robinson, ed. (London, 1993), 132–57. Joy Simmonds, “New Experiences for Refugee Women,” Refuge, vol.6, no.3 (1987), 10–11, includes some information about Guatemalan women. Guatemalans outside central Canada can be studied to some extent in Alberta Manpower Settlement Services, Latin-American Newcomers: Issues Affecting the Adaptation of Immigrants from Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador (Edmonton, c. 1984).