Citizenship learning and political participation of immigrants: the case of Latin Americans in Toronto

This research project applies qualitative and quantitative techniques to empirically analyze the civic and political participation of a group of Latin American immigrants in the city of Toronto, Canada. The study, which included interviews with 100 adult immigrants to Toronto and focus groups, addressed two main dimensions. The first of which being the differences in the type and intensity of the participatory levels between the home and host societies and the second being the civic and political learning processes generated as a consequence of emigrating from Latin America to Canada. Using Bourdieu's and Putnam's conceptualizations on social capital, I explored the ability of this group of immigrants to exchange the cultural, social and political capital brought from their home countries in the Canadian political system. More specifically, my research analyzed the factors that enable and inhibit the political participation of Latin American Canadians, paying particular attention to the differences that occur in the fields of grassroots and electoral politics. Although community networks and previous political experience promote political involvement, several obstacles, such as limited command of English, discrimination and an insufficient knowledge of the Canadian political system seriously undermine the chances of Latin Americans to attain higher political participatory levels. Interestingly, the results also show that these barriers become more visible in electoral rather than in grassroots politics. The findings also suggest that several immigrants underwent a variety of civic and political transformative learning processes, many of which led them to challenge and question old assumptions and values. Moreover, participating in the Canadian political system proved to be significant to modify immigrants' stance towards the political scene in their home countries. New experiences, interaction with other cultures and the possibility of examining facts from a distant perspective, motivated many immigrants to re-assess the political situation in their countries of origin as well as develop intense transnational political, cultural and solidarity activities.

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