Tracking city’s cultural diversity through sports
University of Toronto project looks at waves of physical activities introduced by immigrants
Dublin-born and bred, Colm Sharkey ate, slept and breathed hurling, an ancient Irish field-hockey-like sport said to date back 2,000 years.
It’s not surprising that when he joined a contingent of young Irish immigrants looking for jobs in Canada in 2009, he also brought along Ireland’s national sport — making its comeback to Toronto after the city’s last hurling club went dormant in the mid-’80s with fewer Irish migrants coming over.
“It’s something that we played all the time at home, doing it every second day,” said the construction project manager, 35, who founded the Toronto Hurling Club with two Irish friends. The club now boasts 55 members, doubling its size since its 2010 inception.
“We don’t want to lose that ability and heritage. Moving to a new country can be daunting. We are more than a sporting club.
“We help others with accommodation and find jobs. It gives us a sense of community.”
Hurling is just one example of the many “physical cultures” introduced to Canada through immigration — and the focus of a new project led by University of Toronto kinesiology professor Peter Donnelly, director of the Centre for Sport Policy Studies.
“This website is great. Even if hurling dies out here, it has all the information you need to know about hurling to keep it alive.” COLM SHARKEY ABOUT THE U OF T PROJECT
The project — funded by the Sport Canada Research Initiative — has recently launched a data base of ethnic physical activities on its website at gtactivity.ca, profiling in text, images and video some 150 sports, games, dances, exercise systems and martial arts that have come and gone in Greater Toronto with the immigration flow. The website now welcomes submissions from the public.
From aboriginal snowshoeing and feather dancing to Azonto, a PanAfrican dance recently popularized by Ghanaian youth through social media, the project is a wealth of information about the history and evolution of what Donnelly calls the “physical culture” of newcomer communities.
“We’d like the website to be an organic, living archive of what is new, what is gone and what is changed in the physical culture of Canada,” said Donnelly, a British native who moved to Canada in 1976 after getting his PhD in the United States.
“We want people to recognize, connect with and participate in these activities as a result of the website.”
Donnelly said these activities come and go, stop and revive with changing immigration patterns, though many of them do not survive past the first generation.
Through the database, Donnelly and researchers are also examining the integration and inclusion of new Canadians through physical activities, and what plays into the passingon of their physical culture.
Initial findings of the project show the size and social status of an immigrant community, as well as an activity’s affordability and accessibility, are key to the upkeep of an ethnic sport, game or dance, Donnelly said.
Such ethnic physical activities and culture can only be sustained and grow if the base of membership is broadened to include participants from outside the community.
Dragon-boating is a great example of how what used to be a Chinese traditional sport has grown into a mainstream activity through successful marketing, while soccer and cricket show how sports, popular among many immigrant groups, bring people of all backgrounds together and have elevated their status in Canada in recent years.
Torontonian Laura Molinari first learned about capoeira — a mix of martial arts, acrobatics, dance and music with roots in Angola and the Congo — when she visited Brazil in 2003 to learn Portuguese. She searched for capoeira classes in the Greater Toronto Area upon her return and found only four places that offered the program. She has been a member of Capoeira Malês since.
“There are more people doing it now. The awareness for sure has grown from12 years ago when I came back from Brazil,” said Molinari, 42, an interpreter and translator by profession. “People see it (practised) on the street, on TV and in movies, and they want to learn about it.”
Her master, Waldecir de Souza, a.k.a. Mestre Lua, said making cultural physical activities accessible to the public is crucial to their survival and growth; most groups are small and don’t have the resources and know-how for marketing and promotion. When he first came to Canada in 1997, he had only a handful of students per class, but now it has grown to about 25. “You don’t have enough students to pay the bills, but I keep doing it because I love capoeira and I want to keep it alive,” said de Souza, who has a day job in a factory to make ends meet.
At the Toronto Hurling Club, Sharkey said he has had only a handful of non-Irish hurling players — and none this year — although membership is open to all.
He believes the technical nature of the sport may intimidate some from joining.
“It is a sport most Irish people start playing when they’re kids. I hope my two boys, Tadgh and Seamus, would keep it up,” said Sharkey, who started hurling when he was 4 and played for the Ballyboden St. Endas Club all his life until he moved to Canada seven years ago.
“This website is great. Even if hurling dies out here, it has all the information you need to know about hurling to keep it alive.”
“We’d like the website to be an organic, living archive of what is new, what is gone and what is changed in the physical culture of Canada.” PETER DONNELLY DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRE FOR SPORT POLICY STUDIES