Immigrants put down roots in North End

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This article was published 03/05/2006 (7477 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CITY-NEIGHBOURS- PROFILE-BROOKLANDS/WESTON
WHEN Victor and Nancy Santoyo moved to Winnipeg from the Philippines in the early 1990s, they had to start their life over from scratch.

The pair were both trained engineers, but took low-paying jobs to pay off their travel debt until they upgraded their education to comply with Canadian regulations. Victor says they lived with his sister in Tyndall Park for a year until they spotted a modest home in Brooklands they could afford.

Since then, the Santoyos have had three children, Emmanuel, 11, Jerome, 6, and Justin, 3. Nancy says staying in the area is affordable for families struggling to adjust to life in a new country. It is also giving her children opportunities to advance their education.

“We could start fresh,” she says. “I’m so happy to be here.”

In an area where services like the major bank, grocery store, and library in have all closed in recent years, families like the Santoyos are becoming the new voice of the community.

Many new immigrants call Weston and Brooklands home, and Nancy says they know many other Filipino families who moved into the area and are trying to sponsor relatives to come to Canada. She says she likes living on her street, where long-term resident seniors, Métis and Filipinos live side by side. The Santoyos live close to their family and friends, and to the Philippine Canadian Centre where they regularly volunteer.

Since the early 1970s, new immigrants have been moving into Weston and Brooklands largely because of the affordable housing. From 1961 to 1970, immigrants accounted for only 1.3 per cent of Weston’s population and a mere .9 per cent of Brooklands’. However, from 1971 to 1980 the flow of immigrants in the neighbouring communities began to boom. Immigrant population rose to four per cent in Weston and 5.4 per cent in Brooklands.

The area continued to attract a high number of Filipino families until the late 1990s.

Once friendly rivals that were divided by Keewatin Street, the communities of Weston and Brooklands now share the same concern about the future of their neighbourhoods.

“There’s a lot of pride in Weston/Brooklands,” says Caprice Kehler, community programmer with Nor’West Co-op Community Health Centre.

The growth of Brooklands and Weston dates back to the late 1870s, when a large number of settlers from Europe began moving into the area because of the availability of land. Despite its modest beginnings with a population of 500 people, the Village of Brooklands grew to a population of 3,000 by 1952, and continued to grow by another 1,000 people over the next decade.

Just steps away from Brooklands, Weston boomed along with the rise of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the West, and was known as CPR Town in the early 1900s. Most families living in the area worked for the railway even half a century ago, and held together a diverse community made up of English, German, and Ukrainian workers.

Growing up in the close-knit area, former resident Judy McKelvey remembers how residents rarely left their community. McKelvey, whose father was alderman during the late 1950s, describes the neighbourhood as a small town. She says children went to local schools and after-school activities at the community centre, and neighbours often mingled at the local grocery store, church or library.

Unlike today, McKelvey says few families had multiple vehicles, and residents didn’t travel outside their boundaries on a daily basis because transportation was more difficult.

“It was very much a small-town feel,” McKelvey says. “People didn’t go out of the community like they do now.”

Today, families continue to move into the area while McKelvey says more seniors are moving out. Housing options are limited for aging long-term residents like Joyce Kipling, and new families continue to move in.

“We have lost so many things that it’s hard to live here unless you’re mobile,” she says. “We’re always being changed.”

In her 48 years living in the Brooklands community, Kipling has witnessed drastic changes in her neighbourhood.

From the struggles to maintain local amenities and the fight to keep local businesses and residents in the community, Kipling says things aren’t what they used to be.

Local churches like St. Thomas Anglican are struggling to recruit new parishioners, as 75 per cent of congregation members now live outside of the Weston community. The church celebrated its centennial in 2005 attempting to reach out to the community in an attempt to build its relationship with the new families in the area.

According to Kipling, the longstanding chairwoman of the Brooklands Residents Committee, the area’s future hinges on the new generation. In a community that once thrived with drama, wrestling and boxing clubs, Kipling says someone has to continue to fight for programs that keep the community connected.

“Somebody’s got to step up and do something,” she says.

Val Koop, a community programmer who works with adult residents and youth groups at NorWest’s satellite centre on Alexander Avenue, says that since so many services left Brooklands over the last few years, the community is slowly beginning to develop its own ideas. Residents meet in what was their local library for everything from youth programs to mom groups and a community-run food bank.

Koop says there has been a clear rise in the number of residents participating in community-building initiatives over the past two years, and says the neighbourhood is ready to fight for things it wants, like a walking group and community-run restaurant.

“A lot of people do know each other,” she says. “Through our work at the centre we’ve seen people connect.”

In the last five years, local improvement initiatives like Neighbourhood Watch and a volunteer citizen patrol program have helped cut break and enter rates in half. Residents like Jim Castle say the programs have been a success.

Victor Santoyo says that most neighbourhood Filipino immigrants go through similar challenges to those his family has faced, and that’s why they decide to move to Weston and Brooklands. Nancy says new immigrants need the support that nearby family, friends and community can offer, and that’s why they’ve decided to put down roots in the North End neighbourhood.

“To be able to survive and get established is to depend on the help of family and the community,” Nancy says.

jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca