When Maria Vivanco arrived in Ireland with her husband Ivan in 2000, they only knew of five other Ecuadorians living in the country. The couple, who both worked as carers in a nursing home, also discovered many people they met had never heard of their home country.
“People thought Ecuador was somewhere in Asia. They would ask me if I was Chinese or from Japan. I always explained it’s a small country between Colombia and Peru.”
Two decades on, Ms Vivanco and some 120 Ecuadorians who now call Ireland home, gathered on Saturday with friends and family to formally mark their country’s independence day. The celebration in South Dublin was organised as part of a series of events held by the newly formed Ecuadorean Community of Ireland this year.
A very small community, there were 108 Ecuadorians living in Ireland in 2022 when the last census was carried out. However, Ms Vivanco has noticed the numbers who come here to work or study increasing, particularly in recent months as organised crime and drug related violence in Ecuador has spiralled out of control. In April, Ecuador’s president declared a state of emergency because of “internal armed conflict” and spike in violent deaths.
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“More people started coming here over the past five years, that’s why we wanted to set up this community,” says Ms Vivanco, who was appointed president of the Ecuadorean Community of Ireland on Saturday. “It’s not just because of the bad economy any more, Ecuador’s also become very dangerous with lots of kidnappings. People living in Ecuador have become scared.”
Many who come here already have European passports through their grandparents, while others are married to a European citizen, she said. However, with no embassy in Ireland, Ecuadorians must travel to London to organise visas and official documentation.
“I’m in Ireland 20 years and it’s still difficult to integrate. At our last meeting we asked some of our kids if they were happy in Ireland and one little boy said the kids in his school don’t play with him because of the colour of his skin and because he doesn’t speak English well,” Ms Vivanco says.
“We want Ecuadorians to feel at home here, to grow as a family, and be able to support one another.”
Asked how Ecuadorians in Ireland feel about the rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric, Ms Vivanco was keen to underline that all Ecuadorians come to Ireland with permission to work and live here. “In our group we have doctors, care assistants, people working in banks. We contribute to the economy, we do not live on the dole, but I think that should be better explained to people.
“People don’t have the knowledge of what we bring here as immigrants. We bring revenue here, we consume here, we’re living our lives here.”
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