THE INITIAL contacts between Spain and Canada go back several centuries to the voyages of the Basque fishermen and whalers to Canada’s Atlantic coastal waters and to Spanish exploration of the Pacific coast. Basques, along with Portuguese, Bretons, and others reached the plentiful fishing grounds on the Grand Banks in the sixteenth century. Port aux Basques on the south shore of Newfoundland and Ile aux Basques in the St. Lawrence River help to mark this distant chapter in Canadian history. On the west coast of Canada and the United States during the eighteenth century, the Spaniards were the first to discover and chart many of the straits, islands, and gulfs for a distance of four thousand miles. That explains why Spanish names such as Galiano Island, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Navarez Bay, and Mount Bodega abound in the British Columbia coastal area. After this early age of exploration ended, there was little contact between Spain and Canada until very recent times.

The first mass emigration of Spaniards began in the mid-1950s. The reasons were rural over population, the collapse of certain occupations, industrial expansion, the quest for adventure, and the simple desire to better one’s lot in life. There was even a political edge to Spanish emigration as people sought to escape the rigours of the Franco regime. Under an arrangement between the Spanish and Canadian governments, a group of 150 farm families immigrated to Canada in 1957. Another project worked out by the two governments involved bringing a group of young, single Spanish women from different walks of life to work for a year as domestic servants.

The group included nurses, teachers, a cartoonist, a book binder, several stenographers, dress makers, sales women,and even a mechanic who made truck parts for a Spanish firm. Many of the Spanish immigrants who came in the mid-1960s were skilled workers who gravitated to Canada’s urban centres. They were, for example, technicians, welders, electricians, and mechanics. A small but growing number of white-collar workers and professionals also came during this period.

Official figures on the number of Spaniards in Canada vary. According to the 1996 Canadian census, 204,360 reported that they were entirely (72,470) or partly (131,895) Spanish by ethnic origin. But only 11,240 people indicated that their country of birth was Spain. Clearly, many people from Spanish-speaking countries other than Spain declared themselves to be Spanish by ethnic origin.

Spaniards are heavily concentrated in six major cities: Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton. In these large urban centres they tend to cluster in identifiable areas with people from other Latin countries such as Portuguese, Italians, and Latin Americans. In Montreal, Spaniards reside in a number of suburbs including Greenfield Park, Laval, Brossard, and Dollard-des-Ormeaux. As well, a cluster of Spanish ethnocommunity organizations and store fronts on the Rue Saint-Laurent have served to increase the group’s visibility in that city. In Toronto, a group of Spanish stores and a medical centre run by Spanish-Canadian physicians have helped to form a relatively small and compact business district on College Street.

Educational, cultural, leisure, and welfare organizations such as the Association Cervantes-Camoens of Quebec City (1945) and the Club Hispano of Toronto (1964) have also been founded in the larger Spanish communities. These clubs serve many of the immigrants’ needs of body and soul. Activities include soccer and bowling, theatre, music, art classes and recitals, lectures, and the celebration of important Spanish holidays. The bold and innovative decision by the Hispano-Canadian Association of Kitchener-Waterloo (Ontario) to build two housing developments to assist lower-income Spaniards and non-Spaniards helps to remind us that tending to the needs of one’s own does not hinder or impede the desire and ability to contribute to the larger community.