When Sofia Palma Florido was choosing what to pursue for a research grant while studying at McMaster University, she knew she wanted to highlight Latin American stories in Hamilton.
What she didn’t realize was that she would also end up honouring her grandparents in the process.
“My maternal grandmother was a wonderful Colombian woman with a heart overwhelmed with generosity. She did not receive a formal education but had an incredible memory, remembering nearly everything about everyone she met. I believe this gift allowed her to make everyone in her life feel all the more special,” Palma Florido said.
“My paternal grandmother grew up in New Jersey and returned to her father’s home country of Honduras after boarding school. She was a woman of many stories and unparalleled resilience.”
With most of her grandparents now gone, Palma Florido set out to document the stories of older people and found the project was a way to give back to seniors in her community.
“I don’t have access to that listening space with them anymore, so if I can give somebody else’s grandparents that listening space, I’ll do it.”
Palma Florido’s project, Calling Home: Oral histories of Latin American older immigrants in Hamilton, captured the stories of five seniors living in the city, and was “rooted in a community’s desire to share and pass on oral histories to the next generations.”
She spent five months putting it together, conducting, translating and analyzing interviews.
“That idea came from my interactions with the Asociación Fraternidad Hispana (AFH),” she said.
“One of the initiatives that they have is Cafecitos, where they meet at either a community centre or a gym, and it’s just a space for elders to have coffee and share stories.”
There were points where these people were actively reliving really painful parts of their lives with me, always willingly and always with that desire of sharing.– Sofia Palma Florido
AFH is a non-profit organization based in Hamilton that looks to support Latin American immigrants in the community.
Palma Florido said the purpose of her project was to demonstrate that “every life deserves honouring.”
“There are [stories] that that are more epic and had more struggles than others, but there’s also that quiet struggle of people who came here in their 20s to study, who fell in love and who started their lives somewhat easily but [were] trying to fit into to a world that wasn’t made for them,” she said.
Getting to know a pillar of Hamilton’s Latin American community
As her project progressed, Palma Florido said she found herself getting emotional with her interview subjects.
“I cried with them because there were points where these people were actively reliving really painful parts of their lives with me, always willingly and always with that desire of sharing.”
She said there were a couple of stories that stood out to her, one of which was the story of a man who came from Chile during a tumultuous time in the country’s history.
Eduardo Navarro arrived in Canada with his wife and two children in 1976. He was studying law in Chile when the coup d’état of September 1973 happened.
“I was a public figure among the student leadership, therefore I was a target,” Navarro told CBC Hamilton. “I was working for a news agency in November ’75 and they came to the office, lucky I was not there, so I started to move around the country.”
He first arrived in Burlington, Ont., but moved to Hamilton shortly after to look for opportunities to learn English and a job in manufacturing.
Dreams of building a better community
Navarro said that, as a proud man, it was not easy for him to let go of Chile.
“I was an active participant in fostering the development of a new Chile and I wanted to become a lawyer. That was frustrated then by the coup d’état and by the restrictions of the military government.”
After a few years of feeling guilty about migrating, he went back to Chile.
“I felt that I was betraying my country at the beginning, but when we attempted [to go back], I realized that I have no right to jeopardize my kids and my family for my ideals, so we decided with my wife to come back, and I committed.”
Navarro said even though he would still not go back, his hopes for Chile’s future have remained alive.
“Now, the country’s going through a developing of a new constitution, [that process] has called my attention because that is my dream, to participate on anything related to law and the rights of people.”
Motivated by his children, Navarro eventually applied his dreams of building a better community to Hamilton.
“They pushed me, they said ‘Dad, you cannot work in a factory [for the rest of your life]. You have to go and do something for yourself,’ so I did, I followed my children’s advice.”
He graduated from McMaster University as a mature student and has a diploma in sociology and political science. He also graduated from Mohawk College as a child and youth worker.
“I thought that if I could not help the people of Chile in Chile, I could help the Hispanic community or those who are in need in Hamilton,” he said.
Over the years, he has volunteered for several organizations in the city, participated in the founding of AFH and was the president of it for several years.
He also helped with the creation of a housing co-operative on the Mountain called Los Andes of Hamilton, “where I still live because it’s my baby,” he said.
Hoping to turn stories into ‘something bigger’
Growing up in Honduras, Palma Florido said she has always had a “diasporic identity.”
“I was born to a Honduran dad and a Colombian mom … so I always had this ‘elsewhere’ to call home, it was already established in Latin America as a baby, and that song almost continued moving here.”
Her family moved to Canada around 10 years ago to flee from the “traumatizing level of insecurity” in Honduras.
Palma Florido has remained connected to her heritage mostly through her own family, but also through Latin American communities she has found in Hamilton and Vancouver, where she grew up, she said.
Now graduated from McMaster, she works as a settlement worker for refugees and newcomers at Hamilton’s YMCA and hopes to eventually turn her project into a book.
“I would feel that it’s more so an encyclopedia than a book of just the story of immigration into Hamilton from Latin America … I would love to just make it something bigger than I was able to do with my projects,” she said.
Palma Florido said she hopes young people in particular will see her project as proof that “every story is worth hearing.”
“Life stories do not suddenly become valuable at a certain age. Every moment of a person’s life deserves to be cherished and honoured.… It is in these spaces of sharing that we connect more deeply with ourselves and each other.”