WORKING PAPER SERIES BETWEEN GRASSROOTS POLITICS AND THE ETHNICIZING IMPERATIVE OF THE MULTICULTURAL STATE: LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRANT ORGANIZATIONS IN TORONTO CERIS -The Ontario Metropolis Centre Between Grassroots Politics and the Ethnicizing Imperative o

The CERIS Working Paper Series Manuscripts on topics related to immigration, settlement, and cultural diversity in urban centres are welcome. Preference may be given to the publication of manuscripts that are the result of research projects funded through CERIS -The Ontario Metropolis Centre. All manuscripts must be submitted in both digital and hard-copy form, and should include an Abstract of 100-200 words and a list of keywords. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This paper examines the politics of Latin American immigrant incorporation in Canada with a focus on the relationship between community organizing, settlement and social needs and services, and the ethnic politics of Canadian multiculturalism. Our analysis focuses on organizational patterns and addresses questions about the kinds of organizations Latin Americans have developed over time, particularly the form and agendas of settlement-oriented organizations, the extent to which their agendas respond to longstanding and diverse ways of doing politics, the tensions that emerge between internal priorities and negotiations versus external opportunities and constraints, and the ability of different kinds of organizations to incorporate shifting/emerging priorities. To address these questions, we examine the history of the two pan-ethnic organizations that are presently active in Toronto: the Centre for Spanish Speaking Peoples (CSSP) and the Hispanic Development Council (HDC). We consider how the two organizations navigate between a) governmental desires for channelled and orderly interlocution with a pan-ethnic Latin American subject able to present a "coherent" agenda of settlement-service needs, and b) in-group pressures, particularly from country of origin and sectorally-specialized Latin American organizations, to respond to diverse and changing needs and to sustain an explicitly political agenda. This paper is based on research funded by SSHRC and CERIS (see notes 3 and 4). The authors are grateful to the