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25 July 2011

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History of Chinese

Immigration to Canada

 

For many decades Canada worked hard to keep

Chinese people from settling permanently in the country

 

Canada has a racist past. Few people argue about that anymore. But Canada was not unusual. One hundred and fifty years ago most Western countries had racist immigration policies. Europeans feared they would be overwhelmed by migrating hordes, particularly of Asians.

 

Thousands of Chinese, almost all men, had come to Canada in the middle of the 19th century. They came first to find gold and later to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).

 

Labouring to Build the Country

About 17,000 Chinese labourers worked on the railway for which they received a wage that was half that of white people. The Chinese were given the most dangerous jobs

 

Welcome when they were doing the grunt work of building the CPR, Chinese labourers were not wanted when the job was done.

Library and Archives Canada

 

and perhaps as many as 1,000 of them were killed in the process of building the CPR. An accurate count does not seem to have been kept, reflecting their unimportance in the minds of railway bosses.

 

With the railway finished in 1885, Canada didn’t want the Chinese anymore.

 

Head Tax Installed

A Royal Commission was set up to decide what to do. Based on its findings a Head Tax was placed on Chinese immigrants to discourage them from coming to Canada.

 

The tax was $50, which was just above what a labourer could expect to save in a year. But, many Chinese people were desperate to escape the overcrowding and poverty of their homeland. The Head Tax didn't deter them; almost 40,000 paid the money and came to Canada.

 

In 1900, the tax was raised to $100, and still they came. Three years later, it was bumped up to $500, an enormous amount for an impoverished Chinese peasant.

 

Between 1903 and 1923, 42,000 people paid the $500 and came to Canada. In total, Ottawa collected $23 million in Head Tax payments.

 

This photograph of Victoria’s “Chinatown” was taken in 1886. It shows the poor living conditions endured by Chinese immigrants then and for decades afterwards. The Chinatown in Victoria is thought to be the oldest such section in North America with the first arrivals coming in 1858.

B.C. Archives

 

Chinese Banned Altogether

Then, Ottawa put its foot down and passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923. (A Chinese Exclusion Act had been passed in the U.S. in 1882. Australia and New Zealand also imposed head taxes to try to discourage Chinese immigration.)

 

The Chinese Exclusion Act put a stop to all immigration to Canada. No other group has ever been banned from coming here in this way.

 

The Act came into effect on Dominion Day. The Chinese-Canadian community called it “Humiliation Day,” and for a long time refused to take part in celebrations to mark the country’s birthday.

 

Chinese men already in Canada could not bring their families to join them. Some were never reunited. Women left alone in China had a very hard time raising their families.

 

The 1931 Census found that there were 1,240 Chinese men to every 100 Chinese women in Canada. Most of the men were married but prevented from bringing their wives to join them. This gave rise to the emergence of grim bachelor-communities in the country’s Chinatowns.

 

Anti-Chinese Racism

Intermarriage was totally socially unacceptable. On the rare occasions that it did occur, both partners would be cut off from friends and family. Worse could happen, as Velma Demerson found out in 1939.

 

Ms. Demerson was 18 years old and had fallen in love with a Chinese man. She was pregnant with their child when she was arrested by police in Toronto. She was sentenced to a home for wayward girls and spent 10 months behind bars, much of it in solitary confinement.

 

When her child was born it was taken away from her. Upon release she married her lover and that resulted in the loss of her citizenship status. She has written about her experience in her 2004 book Incorrigible.

 

The Chinese people who were in Canada suffered from a lot of discrimination. Laws in many provinces banned Chinese employers from hiring white, female workers.

 

To a large extent discrimination forced Chinese-Canadians into self-employment. And, it forced them to live apart from mainstream society in segregated Chinatowns.

 

 

Campaign for Redress

But, the Chinese-Canadian community lobbied for repeal of the Exclusion Act. It took until 1947 for this to happen. During the 24 years of the act’s existence only 15 people of Chinese ancestry got into Canada.

 

In 1988, Japanese-Canadians received an apology and compensation for their mistreatment during World War II. Chinese-Canadians took note and began asking for something similar.

 

In June 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave an apology to the Head Tax payers in the House of Commons. “We...recognize,” said Mr. Harper, “that our failure to truly acknowledge these historical injustices has prevented many in the community from seeing themselves as fully Canadian.”

 

Along with the apology went a payment of $20,000 to each of the surviving 20 people who paid the Head Tax and to the 200 or so still-living widows of payers who had died.

 

Image credit

Anton Bielousov

 

Sources

Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

“Chinese Immigration In Canada.” Chinese-Canadian National Council.

“An Honest Woman.” Scott Piatkowski, This Magazine, July-August 2005.

“Chinese Head Tax FAQs.” CBC News, October 11, 2006.

 

© Canada and the World, July 2011

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CHINESE LABOUR CORPS

 

Chinese labourers came in handy a couple of decades after the CPR was finished.

 

World War I was raging in Europe and was consuming the lives of Canadian soldiers faster than they could be recruited. Chinese-Canadians volunteered to fight but only a tiny number were accepted.

 

In 1917, forced enlistment was brought in, but still “Orientals” were not allowed to join up.

 

However, in 1917, 50,000 to 80,000 (accounts vary) men from China were recruited into the Chinese Labour Corps. They worked behind

the lines in France.

 

They were brought to Canada’s west coast by ship. From there, they crossed Canada in sealed railway cars and shipped out of east coast ports to Europe. The cars were sealed because

authorities were concerned some of the Chinese would try to jump off and go

underground.

 

After the war they were sent back to China in the reverse direction. However, while waiting to leave from Vancouver Island in March 1919, they rioted. An unknown number used the confusion to slip away into

Victoria’s Chinatown.

 

 

 

GENTLEMAN’S(?) AGREEMENT

 

Starting in 1907, Canada had an unofficial pact with the United States. Both countries agreed to limit the number of Japanese people they allowed in.

 

The Japanese government was also party to this “gentleman’s agreement” because it wanted to limit the number of its people who emigrated.

 

This was all done with a handshake without the inconvenience of having to pass laws.

 

Under the deal no more than 450 people of Japanese origin could enter Canada each year. In practice, however, the number of Japanese immigrants who came in was lower than the quota.

 

 

 

From almost no speakers in 1980, Mandarin-Chinese is now spoken by more immigrants settling in Canada than any other language.

 

 

 

NO ENTRY

 

Amendments to the Immigration Act were made in 1919, adding new grounds for denying entry into Canada.

 

Cabinet was given the power to prohibit any race, nationality, or class of immigrants by reason of “economic, industrial, or other condition temporarily existing in Canada” (unemployment was high at the time).

 

Cabinet could also refuse entry to people because of their “peculiar habits, modes of life, and methods of holding property.”

 

 

 

US TOO

 

With Japanese– and Chinese-Canadians receiving apologies and money other groups are calling for the same treatment.

 

During World War I (1914-18) 5,000 Ukrainian-Canadians were rounded up and put in camps. They were among 8,579 people the government said were enemy aliens. These people had come to Canada from territory that was under the control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Canada was at war with the Austro-Hungarians.

 

In addition to those interned in camps another 80,000 (most of them Ukrainians) had to register as enemy aliens.

 

Other groups are now queuing up for a deal. There are Italian-Canadians interned during World War II.

The descendents of African slaves want compensation.

 

Now, the door is open to such accommodations the list of injured parties is likely to grow.

 

Former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau refused to go down this road. His view was that we should study history to find out where we went wrong so we could avoid repeating errors. But, he said, we could only be just in our own time.