Les trois blocs de la ville qui sont devenus un cœur philippin

Past the yellow glass cubes in Plamondon metro station and through its slanted glass entrance is the intersection of Van Horne and Victoria Avenue. An untrained eye would see a dense area framed by strip malls and a constant flow of commuters, but to the Filipino community, this is simply where life happens.

Jane Ramil and John Eric Feliciano are two members of the non-profit Filipinos of Montreal (FOM), a cultural organization highlighting the stories of the Filipino diaspora. As they walk through the intersection, Jane points out the restaurant Cuisine de Manille.

“I personally think it’s the best Filipino food in Montreal,” she says.

“They have the best BBQ skewers for sure,” Eric adds.

John Eric Feliciano (left) and Jane Ramil (right), two members of the non-profit Filipinos of Montreal (FOM).

It’s 3 p.m. on a Sunday—way past lunchtime—but the restaurant is still buzzing inside, with people dining on impossibly crispy lechon with a side of golden-hued garlic fried rice. Others are enjoying a XL-sized halo halo (“mix mix” in Tagalog), a dessert with crushed ice, evaporated milk, and today, ube in many forms including a swirl of ube paste, then a scoop of ube ice cream, and finally an uber wafer to top it off. For the owner Peter Contaoe, the restaurant is a way to honour classic recipes, and it has certainly resonated: dishes like their pancit bihon noodles are a staple at family potlucks.

Nearby are other restaurants, including Pinoy Pansitan, a classic “turo turo” (point point in Tagalog) restaurant, where customers point to different dishes available on steam tables. P’lengke’s grocery store on Van Horne is also popular for their prêt-à-manger section and shaved ice desserts, especially on Sundays. And then there’s Kam Shing, the Chinese restaurant.

“I used to joke about how it’s a Filipino restaurant,” says Eric, because it’s so popular with the Filipino community.

Generations of Uptown history

Known to locals as Uptown, Côte-des-Neiges is the neighbourhood with the highest concentration of immigrants in Montreal, with many of them being Filipino. The 1960s saw many people leaving the tropical islands of the Philippines, as Canada lifted racial restrictions for immigration and sought to attract people with expertise in health, manufacturing, and teaching. Subsequent political changes, for example the implementation of martial law in the Philippines in the 1970s, and later the Family Reunification Program and the Live-In Caregiver Program in Canada, led to a growing Filipino diaspora in cities like Toronto and Montreal.

Far from their families and sometimes working in exploitative workplaces as caregivers, new Filipino immigrants, many of them women, would work long hours to send money back home through remittance centres. These centres are such a common part of the week’s rhythm; there are still five within a block of Plamondon metro.

Cornerstones for the community

Outside of work, the pews of churches provide a place where members of the Filipino community can find familiarity. After 300 years of Spanish colonization, Roman Catholicism became ingrained in daily life in the Philippines, a tradition many families kept when they moved and grew in Montreal.

Al Abdon, a tito in the community and the chairman of the Filipino Heritage Society of Montreal, was married at St. Kevin’s Church in the 70s.

“We call it the Filipino church,” he chuckles, and other churches such as St. Pascal Baylon, Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, and St. Malachy are cornerstones for the community not only because of religion, but also because of practicality: churches usually have big meeting rooms that are affordable to rent for family parties and cultural events.

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