From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Mexicans/Luin Goldring
Mexicans from rural and working-class backgrounds have been migrating to the United States since the early part of the twentieth century. The Bracero program, dating from 1942 to 1964, provided the social basis for contemporary international migration from Mexico. This contract-worker program gave workers the initial experience they needed in the foreign country. Afterwards, many overstayed their contracts or returned without one. In the 1960s the families and friends of the braceros became the next “wave” of network-based migrants. During Mexico’s economic crisis of the early 1980s, another wave of migrants went north. This time it included migrants from new “sending” regions, including cities.
Early Mexican migrants were concentrated in agricultural and railroad jobs in the United States but the range of occupations later broadened to include jobs in manufacturing and services. Although the migrant population has expanded to include people from urban areas with professional backgrounds, those with rural and working-class backgrounds still predominate. Meanwhile, Mexicans continue to migrate to the United States, both legally and without documents. Estimates of the undocumented population vary considerably, but the United States government suggests a total of one to two million, with about 200,000 entering annually since the 1980s. There are Americans of Mexican descent whose families have been in the United States for many generations, but the fact that new migrants arrive on a daily basis reinforces the minority status of Mexicans. They are one of the fastest growing visible-minority populations and are gaining a toehold in the political power structure.
Mexican migration to Canada differs from that to the United States in many ways. Mexican immigrants represent a small proportion of immigrants in Canada (less than half a percent); they have a relatively short history of migration to Canada; they tend to come from middle-and upper-middle class backgrounds; they do not live in segregated or concentrated enclaves; and the majority come as legal immigrants. While approximately 5,000 Mexicans enter Canada each year as temporary contract workers for agriculture, these are not counted as immigrants because of their explicitly temporary legal status. Unlike the United States’ Bracero program, the temporary-worker program in Canada has various mechanisms to discourage workers from overstaying their permits.
With respect to class, Mexicans in Canada are not only from middle- to upper-class backgrounds; many are well educated and come with professional degrees or as students. While their educational levels may be low compared to other immigrant groups in Canada, 16 percent in 1995 had a bachelor’s degree or above, and 30 percent had trade qualifications or some university education. The majority come from urban areas, including Mexico City, Puebla, Guadalajara, San Luis Potosí, and Acapulco. Many Mexican immigrants in Canada have come because of a desire to improve their already relatively comfortable economic position.
Although this generalization holds for the community as a whole, Mexicans are a heterogenous group of immigrants who come from various regions and different social and economic backgrounds. Four broad groups can be identified among Mexican immigrants. First, there are the middle- or upper-class professionals who decided to migrate to enhance their professional or economic opportunities and to improve their children’s opportunities. Many of these immigrants come with family members. They have made a definite decision to immigrate to Canada and probably have some knowledge of English. They are the most likely to remain in a professional occupation in Canada. A second, and closely related group, is made up of middle-class immigrants with professional degrees, technical training, or certification but who generally do not have much proficiency in English or French. They are similar to the first group in that they made the decision to migrate and met Canadian immigration requirements, but they tend to have less knowledge about Canada. This group has been increasing in recent years, and is more likely to include single persons or couples who arrive without children.
Mexican Mennonites represent a third group of immigrants. Mennonites began to migrate from Canada to northern Mexico in the 1920s, after establishing an agreement with the Mexican government which granted them certain privileges. By 1940, there were 5,838 Canadian-born persons in Mexico, the majority of whom were Mennonites. Over the years some have returned to Canada. This trend appears to have accelerated in the mid-1980s and again in the early 1990s in response to economic difficulties in Mexico.
Mexican Mennonites in Canada tend to be less well-educated, without professional degrees, and to come from agricultural occupations in Mexico. Many owned land in Mexico, but economic uncertainty and a desire to improve their children’s opportunities seem to be the main motivations behind this group’s migration to Canada. In the last two years, the severe drought that has affected northern Mexico has also motivated Mennonites to migrate to Canada. Although some are return migrants who originally came from Canada, most are Mexican-born descendants of earlier Mennonite migrants. They generally migrate to Canada as families, and retain their own culture, language, and religion.
The so-called holiday spouses, most but not all of whom are women, represent a fourth group. They migrate because of their marriage decision, although it is also possible that those who marry foreigners are more likely to have had a prior interest in migration. Students with no long-term plans to remain in Canada, but who do so after meeting and marrying a Canadian, can also be included in this group. In any case, this is a group who did not have long-standing plans to emigrate and who probably had less advance familiarity with the history, languages, and climate of Canada. It also includes people from a wider range of socio-economic backgrounds.
Kinship ties are central to many migratory processes. Relatives often provide assistance with migration, information about the place of destination, a place to live, finding employment, and so on. Mexicans who marry Canadians and Mexican Mennonites draw on newly created and older kinship ties in the process of migration, and these ties help determine where people will settle and what they will do in Canada. Kinship ties are relatively less important for the other immigrants, however, especially for the two groups of professionals. This is not to say that kinship is unimportant; rather, it is to point to the different way in which kinship plays a role. A majority of Mexicans obtain landed status through relatives, as do most immigrants to Canada. But most professional immigrants decide to migrate based on other factors having more to do with employment opportunities and contacts, professional development, and economic advancement.
While many Mexican immigrants come as independent professionals, entrepreneurs, or students, the majority enter Canada as family members of people in these categories or as spouses of Canadian citizens. In the period 1983–92, the “family” and “independent” categories accounted for the largest share of Mexican entrants. If the “assisted relative” category is added to the family category, the clear majority of family-based migration increases even further; and if the small proportion of Mexicans in the “entrepreneur” and “investor” categories is added to independents, the latter’s share rises slightly to an average near 30 percent. Mexicans also come as refugees, and a few may be from other Central American countries, since data is based on “country of last permanent residence.” Little is known about these refugees. There may be undocumented Mexicans in Canada, but they are generally persons who have overstayed student or other short-term visas, rather than people who have crossed the border illegally. The numbers of such people have probably increased in the last few years, for the severity of the economic crisis in Mexico has created more interest in migration among middle- and upper-class people who might consider Canada as a destination. Some come on a short-term basis to explore the situation and then decide to stay on. Eventually, they either regularize their status or return to Mexico.
Official Canadian data on the number of Mexicans must be interpreted with some caution because the definition of “Mexican” can vary and because the relationship between Mexican origin and any particular ethnicity should not be taken for granted. Official figures tend to base “Mexican” origin on three main factors: country of birth, country of last permanent residence, and ethnicity. Discrepancies between the number of Mexicans found in different categories may stem from the possibility that some Mexican-born immigrants have resided elsewhere (especially the United States) before immigrating to Canada, or from incongruity between place of birth, or last residence, and ethnicity. For instance, some observers have noted that, of all immigrants who gave Mexico as their country of last permanent residence in the period 1956–65, only 20 percent listed their ethnicity as “Mexican.”
Efforts to assemble data on the number of Mexican immigrants over time may also be problematic for reasons having to do with changes in the categories used to collect and classify data. Before 1973 the category of “student” was not included among the list of possible intended occupations by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Furthermore, data on intended occupations were presented for immigrants according to their “ethnic origin” until 1962, when this changed to “last country of permanent residence.” Given the potential discrepancies between ethnic origin, last country of residence, and place of birth, it is important to note what definitions and category or categories are being used to classify immigration data.
The number of Mexicans in Canada remained extremely low throughout the 1950s and 1960s, climbed sharply in the first half of the 1970s, and rose again in the late 1980s. The 1991 census recorded 16,460 of wholly (8,015) or partial (8,445) Mexican ethnic origin. The highest proportions were in Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec, followed by Alberta and Manitoba.
Most Mexicans in Canada are in their prime working years, and many come with children. The majority are between the ages of fifteen and sixty-four years (72 percent). Only a fraction are sixty-five or older, and just over a quarter are fourteen years of age or younger (27 percent). More than half of the Mexicans who enter Canada are women. The prevalence of women seems to be due to the “holiday bride” phenomenon. This is the process whereby men who are Canadian citizens or landed immigrants travelling in Mexico meet, court, and marry Mexican women who then come to Canada.
The higher proportion of Mexican women, compared to men, is particularly noticeable in Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta. In contrast, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and the Atlantic region have either fairly even gender distributions or a higher share of men than women. It is possible that the holiday bride phenomenon is more prevalent in the west, where Canadians may be more likely to travel to Mexico. The evenness of the gender ratios in Manitoba and Saskatchewan may be due to the historical importance of Mennonite migration between Canada and Mexico.
Mexicans in Toronto and other urban areas in Canada do not live in any particular area of the city. For example, of the 9,730 Mexicans in Ontario counted in the 1991 census, about 5,000 are living in Toronto and the surrounding area but not in specific neighbourhoods. Mexican Mennonites are an exception to this pattern. In Ontario, their settlements are concentrated in a few localities in the southwestern part of the province, such as Aylmer, Leamington, Chatham, St Catharines, and north of Kitchener. There, they live fairly near each other and their churches, in areas where they can pursue agricultural occupations and perhaps buy land.
