We want to put our best face forward when selling ourselves to
tourists, so when the provincial tourism department placed an ad in the
Chronicle-Herald promoting its “Doers and Dreamers” guide for
visitors, it made sense to put some pretty faces on the cover.
There’s a smiling old guy paddling a pumpkin boat, a mixed-race
couple dining on the lawn of a bed and breakfast and just the cutest
little girl you’ve ever seen, sitting in a field of pumpkins.
Problem is, that cute kid, five-year-old Maria Lua da Silva,
daughter of Paula and Azeitona da Silva, was deported last year, after
her parents’ refugee claim was rejected. Back in their native Brazil,
the da Silvas are now applying to immigrate through a provincial
sponsorship program, and hope to reestablish themselves at the capoeira
dance studio they started in Halifax.
Capoeira is a Brazillian art that mixes martial arts, dance, poetry
and song.
Tourism officials were taken by surprise when notified of Maria
Lua’s immigration problems, but said her family was paid through a
contract with the Colour advertising firm. Colour is paid $50 every
time the image is used.
Paula da Silva says she was paid $250 for a photo shoot with her
daughter, but laughs off the irony of Maria Lua being used to promote
tourism. “Maybe it will help our immigration file,” she says.
—Tim Bousquet
This article appears in Sep 17-23, 2009.
Refugees from Brazil ??? Please explain.
Sounds like good middle class people with entrepreneurial drive, just what we need.
Too bad they’ll have to wait about 3 years for the normal immigration system to work.
Same problem if health care professionals want to move here.
Maybe our new NDP government can fast track nurses and other people. Time to empty Europe instead of stealing 3rd world people.
The province doesn’t deport people, so I don’t know why Tourism should be criticized.
Doers and Dreamers….kind of sums up what immigrants really are.
And “Joeblow”what makes Europeans more desirable than your so called “3rd world” people?