Ethiopian Toronto

Ethiopian immigration to Toronto grew substantially following the 1974 revolution that overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie and installed the Derg military government, a period of political upheaval that drove many Ethiopians to flee, followed by further waves tied to the devastating famines of the 1980s and the long Eritrean war of independence that eventually split Eritrea from Ethiopia in 1993. Each of those crises added new refugees to Toronto's growing community.

A neighbourhood known informally as Little Ethiopia

A stretch of Bloor Street West near Bathurst Street developed a concentration of Ethiopian and Eritrean restaurants, cafés and shops informally known as Little Ethiopia, giving the broader community a visible commercial anchor point even as Ethiopian and Eritrean Torontonians settled across many different neighbourhoods citywide. The community has built churches, mosques and cultural organizations reflecting both its religious diversity, spanning Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity and Islam, and the distinct waves of crisis that brought successive generations to the city.

Sources

• The Canadian Encyclopedia — Ethiopian Canadians
• Wikipedia — Ethiopian Canadians

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