Martin Boyd

According to statistics published by the Print Measurement Bureau (www.pmb.ca), there are now more than 900,000 Hispanics living in Canada. Other sources put the figure at over 1 million. Although this figure looks insignificant against the 45 million people of Hispanic origin living in the United States, it represents a huge increase in numbers over the past decade, and this population explosion is reflected in the increasing number of Hispanic institutions in Canada’s major urban centres – particularly in the Greater Toronto Area, where the majority of Canada’s Hispanics live (according to a Statistics Canada study conducted in 2008).

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Martin Boyd

Culture and language are inextricably linked, and the promotion of a culture necessarily entails the promotion of its language as well. In recent years, Spanish has come to occupy a high profile in North American pop culture; through the popularity of dance styles like Cuban salsa, Hispanic pop stars like Colombian singer Shakira, the novels of Isabel Allende or even the increasing interest in Mexican cuisine, North American mainstream culture has become peppered with spices from the Spanish-speaking world. While such aspects of Hispanic culture certainly have their intrinsic value, Hispanic culture has much more to offer, and there is an increasing number of Canadians (of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic backgrounds) who wish to explore this culture more deeply, and to gain a true appreciation of the richness of the language in which literary icons such as Sor Juana, Federico García Lorca, Jorge Luís Borges and Pablo Neruda wrote their works. The Cultural Celebration of the Spanish Language (or CCIE, its Spanish acronym) is one of very few organizations in Canada that are dedicated to providing opportunities to those people interested in learning more about Hispanic literature, art, music and film than they can obtain from the superficial (and often stereotypical) images available to them through mainstream media.

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José Luis Díaz

The legendary adventures of Topiltzin Ce-Ácatl, who was the last king of Tula around the middle of the tenth century and the best known of the human equivalents of the great pre-Hispanic god Quetzalcoatl (“the Plumed Serpent”), are the source and the chief product of a Mexican myth in constant evolution. In examining these adventures, it is notable how the experiences of the Toltec king at each point precisely repeat and signify on the earth the same fate faced by Quetzalcoatl himself.

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Martin Boyd

In Mexico City, we used to live in an apartment on Calle de la Higuera in the district of Coyoacán, a little street that ran between the bustle of the famous Plaza Hidalgo, with its myriad candy vendors, organ grinders and street comedians, and a peaceful, shady little park named “La Conchita”. Many a Sunday afternoon, to escape the madness in the centre of Coyoacán on the weekend – when the whole area filled with tourists who came to visit Frida Kahlo’s famous house, Casa Azul, or to buy souvenirs in the open-air market, or simply to soak up the atmosphere of one of the oldest districts of colonial Mexico City – Paulina and I would go and sit on one of the seats in La Conchita, to take refuge beside the little chapel there and breathe the almost soporific tranquility of that solemn place. On one occasion, while we sat contemplating the last rays of sunlight that filtered through the branches of one of the large old trees of the park, I imagined that I heard a faint voice in the whisper of the leaves, like the weeping of a woman in mourning. I turned around to look for the crying woman, but nobody was there. A moment later the sound stopped, and I was about to dismiss it as a product of my imagination when Paulina turned to me and asked me if I had heard a woman crying.

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