Cultural vibrancy in Metro Van: How the Latin American community is contributing to the Lower Mainland’s rich identity

On a lively Vancouver night, a community hall lights up with the sounds of Spanish and Portuguese harmonies from the Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre (VLACC) community choir, Canto Vivo.

The choir consists of 30 singers from 14 different countries, singing music from all over Latin America. Their voices, singing in harmony with each other, celebrate and echo the meaning of community and togetherness.

The population of Latin Americans in Canada has increased significantly in recent years. From 2001 to 2021, the Latin population increased by 146 per cent, going from an estimated 203,300 people to over 500,000 people in 20 years, Statistics Canada reported.

In British Columbia, the population of Latin Americans went up by nearly 50 per cent from 2016 to 2021.

MDS Consulting, a Vancouver-based immigration and legal services group, highlights the rise in population in the province can be attributed to Latin Americans being drawn to Vancouver’s multiculturalism and rich history.

Latin American culture is heavily rooted in family and community and can be expressed through music, dance, food, art, and community events.

Whether it be highlighting Latin stories through the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) or creating reading groups to celebrate Latin American short stories, the culture is branching out and actively doing its part in the community to reshape Vancouver’s cultural identity. 

VLACC Executive Director and Co-Founder Lili Vieira de Carvalho says the centre is contributing to Metro Vancouver’s cultural landscape by creating an inclusive and educational space for people. 

The cultural centre has partnered and collaborated with established organizations to create spaces for Latin American arts and culture, specifically during Latin American Heritage Month in October. 

Programs like Latin Expressions, run by the cultural centre in collaboration with organizations such as the Vancouver Writers Fest and VIFF, broaden and engage the public on Latin American arts and culture. 

Vieira de Carvalho says the VLACC reached out to Vancouver Writers Fest to bring in three Latin American writers to do a talk about their books and writing, which ended up being successful and were well received by the local community and Metro Vancouver population. 

“We are not especially interested in generating our own programs,” Vieira de Carvalho says. “[The VLACC is asking] what is happening in our community of artists, and how we can support the artists in taking their work to the public. That’s how we have been able to find ways of doing that.” 

She adds the VLACC is going beyond just serving the Latin American community. Broadening and expanding its audience to give everyone in the community something to engage and talk about is also one of the organization’s objectives. 

“We are doing work for everybody,” Vieira de Carvalho says. “Our mandate is to share a deeper understanding of Latin American arts … to contribute to the education and cultural legacy of all Canadians.” 

While the VLACC contributes to bringing Latin American voices to public audiences, university instructors are also seeing and contributing to the shift. 

University of British Columbia (UBC) Spanish lecturer María Adelaida Escobar Trujillo says the contributions of Latin American culture to Metro Vancouver’s landscape and vibrancy aren’t just limited to the arts but also from traditional food and theatre productions, in addition to local universities in the Lower Mainland. 

Escobar Trujillo says there are many organizations in Vancouver productive to the Latin American scene. Two of these organizations are the VLACC and Latincouver. 

Latincouver does its part in celebrating Latin American food and community culture, while the VLACC hosts reading groups and cultural festivals. Escobar Trujillo adds Latin American programs at universities like UBC and Simon Fraser University are popular amongst students. 

“All the [Latin American] classes are full,” Escobar Trujillo says. “Students really love to be there.”

Universities are about academics, but Escobar Trujillo says UBC goes beyond academics in contributing to Metro Vancouver’s cultural identity. The Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at the university has hosted exhibitions on Amazonian and Chicano cultures, in addition to hosting Spanish book fairs and displaying Latin American books at the university’s Walter C. Koerner Library, which concerns the social sciences and humanities. 

UBC also offers extended courses for students who want to explore certain topics of interest. Escobar Trujillo has been a UBC instructor and lecturer since 2016 and says there are many adults who enrol specifically in these extended courses to learn Spanish, with a growing interest to understand the language and the Latin American community.  

While there are contributions coming from local universities, Escobar Trujillo says Latin American theatre, music, dance, and soccer are thriving and growing in Metro Vancouver. Local playwrights are becoming more active in the community, and Chilean, Mexican, and Caribbean restaurants are expanding and flourishing across the city.

“Soccer is growing and growing and growing,” Escobar Trujillo says. “I can see [it] is growing in many neighbourhoods and children love soccer. That is something which is very Latin American.”

She adds music and dance, particularly salsa, are also important and beautiful expressions of Latin culture.

Ann Yuan, director of international recruitment admissions and articulation at KPU International, could not give specifics to how many Latin American students study at the institution, but says international student recruitment numbers have gone down at the university due to immigration policy changes from Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). 

Only 105 new international students enrolled at KPU in the summer semester, Yuan says. Despite the decrease in international student admissions at the university, there is still a growing Latino population in the province and across Canada.

KPU is another university that has contributed to Metro Vancouver’s cultural identity. Yuan says KPU International hosts student and community-led events to make international students feel welcome and build connections with other students. 

“We have a program called the Peer Mentors program,” Yuan says. “We hire a group of peer mentors and they are trained to support students virtually while they are not here. Students can message their paired peer mentors anytime and ask any questions …. It helps create the first connection [international students] have in Canada.”  

Yuan adds KPU International has a student life team that plans trips to places like the Capilano Suspension Bridge, Victoria, and Whistler. These trips are planned monthly, and students only have to pay a small fee to go. The goal of the trips is for international students to make connections with other students, and most importantly, have fun. 

In addition to trips and events, Yuan says KPU International’s office gets funding to support new international students in finding proper housing and food. 

“For those who are newcomers, if they are having [challenges] finding proper housing or have a challenging time [finding] food security, they can get additional funding and support from the department [to help get] through the difficult first couple of weeks,” Yuan says.

While community organizations and cultural events in Metro Vancouver showcase the vibrancy and rich culture of Latin America, they have also expressed the ongoing need to support and sustain cultural vibrancy and identity. Vieira de Carvalho says there is a need for more programs and events for young children and families living in Metro Vancouver and that there should be ones focused on also adding heritage language programs for children. 

“We are seeing the need and we decided to address that because we knew that we could do it and [Latin American children and families] need it,” Vieira de Carvalho says.

She adds the VLACC is adding programs, which include a professional development and social media program for Latin American artists. In September, the VLACC will be offering programs in research and writing for individual artists.

Vieira de Carvalho says the cultural centre and programs within the organization mean a lot to her.

“I was always involved in the arts and the arts management and [I’m] able to use my experience … to bring some of my heritage to other people.”

Despite facing challenges with programming, Escobar Trujillo says there is a lot of happiness and empathy within the Latin American community. Through cultural events, festivals, dance, music, and cultural education, members of the Latin American community are strengthening their culture, while actively participating in shaping Metro Vancouver’s cultural identity. 

For Escobar Trujillo, Vancouver is a place of openness and acceptance. She is a proud member of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and feels welcome and safe in Canada. 

“One of the reasons to come [to Vancouver] for many people is safety,” Escobar Trujillo says. “[The United States] didn’t accept [my partners and I’s] marriage there .… But here, you feel safe.” 

The lively night at the Vancouver community hall is still going on for hours into the night — Spanish harmonies getting louder, dancing getting faster, and smiles getting bigger. Latin American culture is thriving and shaping the region through music, food, and community legacy.