Hernan A.
Torontonian
Unsustainable Silence from the Mouth of a Mandolin
I was born in Cuenca, Ecuador in 1963. There is a story that is told about my grandfather who used to travel on horseback throughout the Andean hills with a mandolin entertaining the communities he would come across. During one of his many sojourns, he was unexpectedly assassinated. This tragedy happened while I was in my mother’s womb and when I was born, I too was pulled by the sounds of the mandolin.
I left Ecuador in 1992, as the political situation in the country became increasingly unstable. Before I left, Don Vicente Baculima who was ninety at the time and famous for constructing the finest string instruments in Cuenca, gave me a mandolin. When I arrived in Toronto, I was faced with all of the challenges facing new immigrants: a language barrier, culture shock and lack of employment. Possibly in homage to my grandfather’s ideals, I began traveling the Toronto Transit System and city streets working as a busker. I used my mandolin to sing the restless songs of an immigrant wanting to realize practical dreams.
In 1999, I was ordained as the first Hispanic Anglican priest in Canada and I established the first Spanish–speaking congregation in Toronto. As years pass, I feel, live and share the manifestations of the old mandolin in the ideals of CHHA 1610 AM, the Caravan of Hope and the San Lorenzo Community Centre, all of which allow our community to celebrate, enrich and integrate into this multicultural capital, Toronto.