From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Latvians/
A complete overview ofLatvian history is provided in Andrejs Plakans, The Latvians: A Short History (Stanford, Calif., 1995). The immediate post-Communist period is analysed in Juris Dreifelds, Latvia in Transition (Cambridge, U.K., 1996).
Relatively little has been published about Latvians in Canada. Paul Kundziņš provides extensive sections in English about the community in Alberta in his Latviešu immigrācijas sakumi Albertas provincē Kanadā (The Beginnings of Latvian Immigration to the Province of Alberta; East Lansing, Mich., 1979), and Heronims Tichovskis offers a detailed history of Latvians abroad, including Canada, during the first decade after World War II in Latviešu trimdas desmit gadi (Ten Years of Latvians in Exile; Toronto, 1954). Two special issues of the Journal of Baltic Studies, no.2 (1979) and no. 3 (1990), edited by Solviega Miezitis, report on language and identity retention among Latvian Canadians. The challenges experienced by second-generation Latvian Canadians in the wake of the newly regained independence of Latvia are described in Ilze Arielle Matiss, “Lives in Changing Contexts: A Life History Analysis of Latvian Women’s Stories about Being Latvian” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 1998).
Latvian-Canadian cultural activity is extensively documented in M.K. Troemel Baltais, ed., Vadonis: 9th Latvian Song Festival in Canada (Toronto, 1991); and Jānis Briedis and Imants Alksnis, eds., Darbs un Devums: TLB 50 gadu jubilejas rakstu krājums (Toronto, 1998), which deals with the cultural and educational work carried out under the auspices of the Toronto Latvian Society. Reference materials on individuals and organizations in Canada are available in two Latvian-language encyclopedias: Latvju enciklopēdija , 3 vols., ed. by Arvēds švābe (Stockholm, 1952–55), and Latvju enciklopēdija, 4 vol., ed. by Edgars Anderson (Rockville, Md., 1962–90).
