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The Latin American, Aboriginal, African, Europeans and Asian descendants community living in Canada is a relatively new community. We come from more than 23 different countries, and belong to a variety of different ethnic/race backgrounds, social class, levels of education, different languages. We are highly heterogeneous community.
Women in our community reflect the diversity of the community in general.
Women participation in social movements has related to the incredible social upheavals that taken place in Latin America in general. Women have opted or have been forced by their political contexts to become active participants in the struggles taking place in the different countries since the 1960's. These same conditions of political persecution and stark poverty forced people to emigrate or to flee to another country, In this new challenge women continued to provide strength and the glue that kept families from disintegrating. Most importantly, women pushed for and/or became involved in the creation of social services that would respond to the particular needs of the recently arrived communities.
Latin American women have contributed enormously to the economic and social well being of Canadian society. This contribution has been either through their work in factories, childcare facilities, the services industry and in innumerable agencies providing legal, health and social services to the community and at the government levels.
Still a great number of Latin American women are limited in their participation in Canadian society by the need to take care of their families, isolation and inability to improve English skills, or inability to explore other work/educational opportunities. This failure to participate in mainstream society may be further intensified by experiences of violence and trauma, poverty and discrimination.
Thus, Latin American women have kept working mostly in frontline jobs and grassroots organizations within the limits of the community, and seldom do they aspire, or have access to move further into the mainstream Canadian society and be more active there. Clear systemic and systematic barriers such as racism, sexism, classism and discrimination have prevented Latin American women to do so.
Indisputably, these same barriers are also present in the internal make up of our community. In fact, the typical response of the exile and immigrant community has been to ghettoize itself both as a protection and as a response to the difficulties faced. We have, however, been slow to analyze how internal differences have contributed to our marginalization from the mainstream. It would seem that in assuming a certain cohesion, whether imposed by the Canadian State or our own survival, we have been unable to interrogate our own internal barriers.
At this juncture, it has become crucial that we begin to explore, research and analyze in a formalized manner, the reasons why Latin American women have not become participants in the larger Canadian context. This absence has had detrimental effects not only in the community but in the mainstream society as well.
Our organization believes it is essential for Latin American women to come together in an organization that will tap into our human resources and potential. An organization that would make use of professional expertise already available in our community to support those women in the margins; that would create bridges amongst the incredible diversity that is present in the community, be it generational, ethnic, racial, cultural, etc; that would support creative initiatives in a broad range of areas such as art, crafts, gardening, herbs, business and so forth. An organization that would spear investigation, and would facilitate all sorts of information gathering useful for the community and Canadian society.
In the present political and economical climate we are confident that channeling Latin American women's organizational skills, professional knowledge and life experiences, we will be able to contribute not only to the survival and growth of our community, but also to the enrichment of the Canadian society at large.
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