The Infrastructure and Integration Lab

Graduate Student Researcher: Gabrielle Abando, MA Sociology.

Why do immigrant enclaves matter for ethnic community wellbeing and longevity and what makes them work? Filipinos comprise the fourth-largest visible minority group in Canada. With 95% of current Filipinos in Canada arriving after 1970, the Filipino Canadian community is standing at a crucial point demographically. The first generations have established their families, the second generation is coming of age and establishing their own new families, and a new generation of third-generation Filipino Canadians is being ushered in. Current literature on Filipino Canadians focuses mostly on macro geopolitical relations that draw Filipinos out into Canada, but less research examines the everyday experiences of Filipino Canadians in local neighbourhoods and communities. This project addresses this gap by asking how specific spatial mechanisms make for a functional, sustainable Filipino Canadian community. To address this question, I use a case study of the Joyce-Collingwood neighbourhood, an informally recognized ‘Filipinotown’ among the community, in the globalizing and diversifying city of Vancouver. This project uses a combination of ethnography and semi-structured interviews to better understand how the spatial composition of Joyce-Collingwood shapes the Filipino Canadian experience. I examine the unique attachments Filipino Canadians make to this space, and thus the vital role these neighbourhoods play in cultivating and maintaining community. This project bridges the theoretical gaps between the macro-structural elements of space and infrastructure and micro-experiences of social capital deployment and immigrant identity development by recognizing immigrant enclaves like Joyce as ‘co-ethnic canopies’. As refuges from the disorientation and homesickness experienced by many immigrants, these ‘canopies’ re-affirm a sense of belonging for recent immigrants while also providing a space for future generations to understand their culture and community through observation and interaction in space.