From Sunbelt to Snowbelt: Filipinos in Canada (review)

From Sunbelt to Snowbelt: Filipinos in Canada. By Anita Beltran Chen. Calgary: Canadian Ethnic Studies Association, University of Calgary, 1998.

The relatively recent intensified global dispersal of Filipinos has called for increased scholarly research and interpretation. However, much of the growing literature on Filipinos in the diaspora has focused on research in the United States. In its portrait of Filipinos in Canada, From Sunbelt to Snowbelt is an important addition to the body of scholarship on Filipinos in North America and in the diaspora. Anita Beltran Chen's book is a collection of conference papers and previously published articles (that span a twenty-year period of her scholarship) which provide a thorough statistical account and description of Filipino communities in Canada.

The first part of the book provides a history of Filipino immigration to Canada and a socio-demographic profile of these communities (i.e. age and sex composition, occupational distribution, and settlement patterns), which include the trends and changes they have experienced. Prior to 1962, Canada's racially discriminatory immigration policies restricted the entry of nonwhite immigrants, but changes in immigration regulations in the early and mid-1960s, a shift from a race-based to a points-based system, legally ended such racist practices. As a result, Filipinos (as well as other Asian immigrants) have been able to immigrate to Canada in significant numbers since the late 1960s. Within this short period, the Philippines consistently has been one of the top ten source countries of immigrants to Canada. Additionally, Filipinos in Canada have become one of the fastest growing ethno-cultural communities, mostly settling in Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, British Columbia.

According to Chen, the history of Filipino immigration to Canada has been largely shaped by the Canadian state's immigration policies, which have corresponded to its shifting occupational and economic needs and on provisions for family reunification. She argues that the "policy of selection particularly in terms of occupational demands and skill as well as employment opportunities could be adjusted to meet the manpower needs of the Canadian economy. Immigration is then linked to manpower requirements and to such changes as may occur over time." (p. 14) As Chen demonstrates, the connection between state immigration policy and the occupational needs of the Canadian economy has directly resulted in the heavy concentration of Filipino immigrants in the working age group (between 20-39 years old). Historically, this connection is evident in the entrance of nurses in the late 1960s (almost one in every four nurses admitted into Canada was from the Philippines), the admission of factory workers for the garment industry in the mid-1970s, and from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, the arrival of female domestic workers.

The primary effect of the family reunification aspects of Canadian immigration policies has been the entrance of large numbers of elderly Filipinos from the late 1970s to the late 1980s. In this respect, Chen writes, "The increasing admission of Filipino seniors is largely attributed to the immigration policy of 1976, which came into full implementation in 1978, stipulating family reunification, among other provisions." (p. 73) Conversely, Chen points out that elderly Filipinos were motivated to immigrate so that they could "join their adult offspring who had already established themselves in Canada." (p.87) The presence of these elderly Filipinos has affected not only the socio-demographics but also the structures of family, ethnic, and social life. (See chapters 6 and 9.) Although the immigration policies of the receiving country have had significant consequences in shaping the socio-demographic profiles of immigrant communities as revealed in her quantitative analyses, Chen reminds us throughout her book that our studies of immigration must take into consideration the social, economic, and political conditions of both the host and home countries.

One of the key insights in the first part of the book is Chen's discussion of the effect of Canadian immigration policies on the sex ratio, namely the...