In addition to the Caribbean community, since the 1960s, there has been a growing wave of migrants from 'continental Africa'. Between 1946 and 1960, Africans represented only 0.3 per cent of the immigrants to Canada; between 1960 and 1980, on account of the changes in immigration policy discussed below, that proportion rose to 1 to 2 per cent of the country's immigrants. The majority of migrants are from South Africa, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Nigeria. They have been joined by a number of refugees fleeing from natural disasters and conflicts in Ethiopia, the former Biafra/Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia and Rwanda; however, large numbers of Africans who might be considered refugees are unable to make Canada their home since, the authorities argue, they do not meet the United Nations' definition of the term 'refugee'. In the last few decades, the situation of communities of African descent has become even more complex with the migration of Afro-Latin Americans from every country in the region. Perceived as fulfilling neither the racial expectation of 'Latinos' nor the linguistic expectations of 'Blackness', most of these Spanishand Portuguese-speaking persons of African descent are trying to find their place and are creating communities in Canada.  
The very existence of the many communities of African descent in Canada is remarkable. According to Joseph Mensah,  
[h]istorically, Canadian immigration policy has been racist, to put it bluntly (...) The conventional wisdom in pre-1960s Canada was that Blacks, in particular, were so physically, mentally and morally inferior to Whites that the influx of Blacks would inevitably create racial problems in this country (Mensah, 2010, p. 69).