Latin American Canadians
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (544,380 (by ancestry, 2011 Census) 387,315 (by birth) 1.2% of Canadian population) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Leamington, London, Kitchener, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Regina, Brandon, St. Catharines, Wood Buffalo, Sherbrooke, Red Deer | |
| Languages | |
| Spanish, Canadian English, Canadian French, Indigenous languages, Portuguese | |
| Religion | |
| Roman Catholic, Judaism · Protestants · Indigenous beliefs · | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Latin Americans, Spanish Canadians, Native Americans, Portuguese Canadians, Hispanic and Latino Americans |
Latin American Canadians are Canadian citizens of Latin American descent or persons of Latin American descent residing in Canada. Latin American is the term used by Statistics Canada. Other terms used sometimes are "Latino Canadian" and "Latin Canadian". Latin Canadians comprised 1.2% of the population in 2011.
The majority of Latin American Canadians are multilingual, primarily speaking Spanish or Portuguese. Most are fluent in one or both of Canada's two official languages, English and French. Spanish, Portuguese and French are Romance languages and share some similarities in morphology and syntax.
Latin Canadians have made distinguished contributions to Canada in all major fields, including politics, the military, music, philosophy, sports, business and economy, and science.
The largest Latin American immigrant groups in Canada are Mexican Canadians, Colombian Canadians and Salvadoran Canadians.
The majority of Latin American Canadians are recent immigrants who arrived in the late 20th century from El Salvador, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, and Guatemala, with smaller communities from the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and elsewhere, with nearly all Latin American countries represented. Reasons for immigrating include Canada's better economic opportunities and politics or civil war and political repression in their native countries, as in the case of Cubans fleeing from the Fidel Castro revolution, Chileans escaping from Augusto Pinochet's rule, Salvadorans fleeing from the Salvadoran Civil War, Peruvians escaping from the Juan Velasco Alvarado dictatorship, Dominicans opposed to the regimes of Rafael Trujillo and Joaquin Balaguer, Mexicans escaping from the Mexican Drug War, Colombians from the violence in their country and Venezuelans opposed to the rule of the Socialist Unity Party.
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Wikipedia