Iron Road Movie Essay

925 Words2 Pages

The movie "Iron Road" was created by Barry Pearson and Raymond Hart Massey II. The movie provided examples of the challenges the Chinese faced with poverty, famine and the environmental conditions, pushing the Chinese to move to Canada and showed the racism and mistreatment the Chinese received once they arrived in Canada. The movie was effective due to the fact that it was told from a specific perspective. "Iron Road" effectively represented the life of a Chinese peasant by providing examples with the struggles of poverty, famine and environment conditions in China, and the racism towards Chinese in Canada, all by telling the story from a Chinese perspective.

Poverty, Famine and the environment in China was one of the biggest push factors …show more content…

More than 17,000 Chinese came to Canada during 1881 till 1884. Couple thousand came from the coastal areas of the United States as they helped create the American transcontinental railroad, but majority of the chinese arrived straight from southern China. Most of these chinese workers, worked as labourers on the railroad (Ties That Bind, Chinese Railroad Workers). In the movie, it was shown as the Chinese workers arrived in Canada, the Canadians were waiting for them and immediately attacked them with names. The Canadians knew they were higher class and were better than them. This explained to us how the Chinese weren't welcomed to Canada and how they were treated unfairly. As they were getting treated horribly, the work the Chinese had to do were extremely dangerous. After the Chinese lost the opium war for the second time, it was agreed that they would be sent overseas to work in Canada. The Chinese were forced to do the dangerous and deadly jobs that the Canadian refused to do. (Asia/Canada, Chinese labour Builds the CPR) this also was shown in the movie because after the Chinese were in the mine and everything toppled over, Little Tiger went in the cave to clear the rocks away because no Canadian would do it. In the movie, the Canadians showed no empathy to the Chinese workers as they made them do the dangerous work. As little tiger walked into the cave, Mr.james explained how "he" might die, but the rest didn't care and said they could Aleah's find a replacement. So although the Chinese had an opportunity to come to Canada they weren't treated with respect and were put to do the harder

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