Saskatoon

Community Organizations: Portuguese Canadian Association of Saskatoon

PRESERVERANCE AND DEDICATION FROM A RELATIVELY SMALL COMMUNITY

SASKATOON’S POPULATION: 266,141

STATISTICS FOR THE PORTUGUESE IN SASKATOON:

AS MOTHER
TONGUE		AS MOST
SPOKEN		KNOWLEDGE OF
THE LANGUAGE		BORN IN
PORTUGAL		ETHNIC
ORIGIN
380
0.1% of population		120
0.04% of population		510
0.2% of population		160
0.06% of population		965
0.4% of population
Source: Statistics Canada

Audio Version:

The largest city in Saskatchewan also boasts the most sizeable Luso-Canadian community. Close to 1,000 residents here consider their ethnic origin to be Portuguese, 160 were born in Portugal and 120 speak the language most often at home. Although small, this community has shown tremendous perseverance and dedication to the heritage passed on by those who first arrived here from Portugal during the late 1950s and early 60s.

The Portuguese community in Saskatoon grew slowly since the arrival of the first immigrants in the city. According to the current president of the Portuguese Canadian Association of Saskatoon, Jennifer Nunes, the community did not grow considerably until the 1980s. Most of the immigrants here hail from the Azores and, most often, are related. This is due to the fact that newcomers would eventually sponsor family members to join them. “It was my grandmother’s brother, my tio, who sponsored [my parents] to Canada. We are not a big community. We have a lot of people that are related to each other. We have a big group from Faial and all, or almost all, are my family. The same thing happens with Santa Maria. There are lots of people from Santa Maria and they’re either related to each other or married each other or grew up together. That’s how our community works. And, of course, we have built relationships over the years through the association and the church. We have a few people from the continent, but not a lot, and they become our family”, Jennifer Nunes told us via a telephone conversation.

Sunset in Saskatoon (photo credit: James Nabargaul)

Although Saskatoon never had a street or a neighbourhood that became distinctively Portuguese, the community did settle around the area where St. Mary’s church is located. “When the Portuguese came to Saskatoon in the 50s, 60s and 70s, they lived in that one area and St. Mary’s Parish was the one that everyone attended, including my own family. We had mass in Portuguese until 2002 or 2003. We would get priests from Winnipeg or Edmonton, or Brazilian priests…or there were priests in Saskatoon who did missionary work in Brazil and who spoke Portuguese. We would pay for them to come and [celebrate mass] for us, but then more cultural groups joined us and then it made sense to do it in English. We still have the procession [of our Lady of Fatima], the Portuguese flag….it’s still Portuguese oriented, but in English”, Jennifer Nunes said.

The Portuguese pioneers in the city moved here to work mainly for CN Rail. They came alone, without their wives and children, in the hopes of settling and then sponsoring their loved ones. Some of them left either back to Portugal or moved to other cities in Canada, but those who stayed, along with their offspring, no longer work for the rail company. Now, it’s “just construction in general. We have a number of men who own their construction companies”, Nunes relayed.

The Portuguese Canadian Association of Saskatoon was founded in 1989, the same year a group was formed to organize the festivities in honour of Our Lady of Fatima. These two groups have since amalgamated and remain as the sole organizer of community events geared toward the Portuguese community, its friends and supporters.

Celebration of Our Lady of Fatima (photo credit: St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Parish’s Facebook page)

In terms of commercial establishments, save for the ones that are owned by Luso-Canadians, there are none that specifically served the community. No Portuguese restaurants, no bars, no bakeries and no churrasqueiras. Once, in years past, there was Café Europa (later named Café Roma) that was co-owned and operated by Jennifer Nunes’ father, António Nunes, and her late uncle, Carlos Silveira. “Portuguese and Italians would come together and watch soccer games and that sort of thing. Now, we don’t have anything”, Jennifer Nunes lamented and then added: “Recently, we had the Consul-General of Vancouver come here and service our community and that was amazing because we never had that. We had people who had never renewed their papers since coming to Canada and finally they had their papers renewed.”

In the streets of Saskatoon, if you pay attention, you can hear the Portuguese language being spoken. However, you can no longer hang around the area surrounding St. Mary’s Church to accomplish such feat. The community has now scattered and integrated, which is a sign of the challenges that organizations like the local Portuguese association and the church group that celebrates our Lady Fatima will increasingly face to persevere in the fight for the maintenance of our heritage and our language.

If you notice errors or misrepresentations in the article, please e-mail contact@lusocanada.com
Help us write History. Contribute your story, memory or experience related to this organization by sending an email to contact@lusocanada.com.