Locating Filipinos in Toronto: From Enclaves to Ethnoburbs

Locating Filipinos in Toronto: From Enclaves to Ethnoburbs

PHOTO: Ysh Cabana

(Part 3 of a Series)

By Ysh Cabana

Why would one choose to live in a neighbourhood of the same ethnic group? Certainly, there are benefits of the critical mass of ethnic neighbours. Aside from the obvious reason of speaking their own language, common interests and values facilitate social cohesion. Feeling a close connection offsets some of the effects of inequality across the economic gradient. People recognize their strength in numbers as they consolidate and animate a primary area of concentration.

Ethnic enclaves is a termed used by sociologists to describe these areas of concentration of a specific ethnic group surrounded by a zone of educational institutions, political and economic organizations. Enclaves tie together residents that are not exclusive to an ethnic group but actually in contact with the larger community. Over the long haul, enclaves have been integral part of Toronto.

Downtown Toronto’s St. James Town, where Filipinos make the largest visible minority group accounting for the dense population, is one area identified as an ethnic enclave. Filipino grocery stores give a taste of home. A few restaurants, remittance agency and a community hub are scattered throughout the area. In the the west end is a comparatively Filipino neighbourhood in Parkdale, particularly around Jameson Avenue, where working class families are also residing.

Some Philippine quarters may have assorted names, but are colloquially referred to as “Little Manila” or “Filipino Town.” The capital of the Philippines, Manila is considered by many as its economic, political, and sociocultural centre. But unlike many other Asian nations, the Philippines is not ethnically and linguistically homogeneous throughout the country. Thus, some people who do not originate from the capital region, refuse to use the former and opt for latter term instead, being that it is a non-regional term.
How do ethnic enclaves grow over time? Enclaves have have been continually shifting from the old parts of the city further out. Ethnic clusters are now essentially a suburban phenomenon.

The term ethnoburb is credited to urban scholar Wei Li who interpreted the newly formed social spaces of ethnic groups in the suburbs in large metropolitan areas. As in the case of Li’s seminal study of contemporary Los Angeles, ethnoburb or ethnic suburb, is described as distinct from the traditional ghettoes and enclaves of the old type. It is a phenomenon in the globalized economy (Wang, 2013) since it is not necessarily defined by a particular geographical area nor of primary relations but of a certain interest of new immigrants to voluntarily congregate in areas of no apparent deterioration of living environment or urban decay, that is, outside of inner-city clusters. Ethnoburb, in this sense, is a contextual model that “involves the globalization of capital and international flows of commodities, skilled labor, high tech and managerial personnel.”

Taste of Manila 2014 (TPR file photo)

Wilson Heights can qualify as a Filipino ethnoburb. First, it is a suburban ethnic settlement that differs from the inner city and is part of the emerging and evolving urban segmentation in Toronto (see PRIZM5). Second, Wilson Heights is a multiethnic residential cluster as described before and it functions, not only as a residential concentration, as a business agglomeration more obviously. Third, Wilson Heights is not an isolated ethnic enclave but is highly interconnected and integrated into the global, regional and local contexts.

If the community of study is linked not of primary relations but of interest, what links these new type of enclaves then are ethnic establishments. Particularly for in-place Filipino population growth in Toronto, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program have played an important avenue in the immigration process for the past decades. Signs of convenience are brought by the proximity of ethnic businesses (including beauty salons, convenience-style grocery stores, bakeries, driving schools, caregiving institutes, insurance agencies, remittance companies and restobars) serving non-Filipinos as well as Filipino consumers residing in the vicinities. Most of the holes-in-the-wall takeout shops have succeeded in acquiring larger floor areas in recent years. Such developments have led to attempts to form a business improvement area (BIA) involving not only local proprietors but also members of the city council.

However, there have been no certain geospatial boundaries of how an ethnoburb is defined. The formula that comprise the Filipinos’ settlement patterns in Toronto include neighbourhood components like the church as the focal point of faith, and a hospital as the primary source of employment. While St. James Town had the former Wellesley Hospital and the parish of Our Lady of Lourdes, and the combination of St. Joseph’s Hospital and the Holy Roman Family Catholic Church for Parkdale, the emerging Filipino town has the Church of St. Margaret and Baycrest Health Sciences Centre. However, a lot of the spaces that have been utilized by the Filipino population can be surveyed outside of the 5km radius from the center of Bathurst-Wilson coordinates: from as far as St.Clair Avenue in the south, passing along the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, halfway through at Earl Bales Park to as far as Steeles Avenue up north.

Our Lady of Assumption Parish, located along the Bathurst Street near Eglinton, may be considered the theatrum sacrum–a site of various public functions corridor aside from ecclesiastical services—as it houses the Filipino chaplaincy of Toronto. In the northwing of the church, the Juana Tejada Lounge is a centre for caregivers beyond the Sunday mass. It is named after one of the most celebrated domestic workers Juana Tejada, having diagnosed with cancer, eventually speaking in public to fight for caregivers’ rights in Canada and successfully lobbying for changes in the Caregiver Program requirements. These revisions eventually was also nicknamed Juana Tejada Law.

Close to Bathurst-Sheppard, Earl Bales Park is the venue for the largest Philippine National day events in June and where the installation of bronze bust of the national hero Dr. Jose Rizal would be the last commemorative monument allowed by the city of Toronto. Kababayan Community Centre Multicultural Services, which offers programs for the Parkdale area, also established a satellite office in the Bathurst-Finch Community Hub in 2013.

These spaces which were first notable as venues used by older Jewish populations in north Toronto have evolved to become well-known examples of ethnocultural places. What distinguishes this Filipino town from its early predecessors, though, is the fact that locating Filipinos is heavily influenced by their domestic work pattern, particularly extended across their Jewish employer households, making them more residentially dispersed. Thus the neighbourhood goes beyond the block of Bathurst and Wilson and the boundaries of which is unclear.

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This is an ongoing series on the topic of Filipino Town in Toronto. The author would speak on this research in the 10th International Conference on Philippine Studies in Silliman University, Dumaguete City, Philippine on July 6-8, 2016. You can email him at ysh.cabana@gmail.com