Asian History in Canada
Around the mid-19th to early 20th centuries, British Columbia was in a period of economic explosion. Those who were willing to work hard could find many opportunities. At this time, gold was found in British Columbia and Canada became dependent on workers to finish making the transcontinental railway. Many lumbering, coal mining and fishing business were not experiencing enough growth to match the needs of the society. This portrayed Canada as a place of opportunity and settlement for Asians whose homelands were becoming overcrowded. Sadly, the early pioneer years were extremely difficult for Asian immigrants due to the extensive racism and barriers keeping them from full participation of the Canadian life. It is through these hardships and sacrifices that the birth of many vibrant communities became possible. The Asian-Canadian pioneers are unforgettable and their legacies sculpt an important time in Canadian history.
The first Chinese people came in the mid-1800s to take advantage of the opportunities brought on by the discovery of gold. The majority of the early Chinese settlers were uneducated, unskilled and unmarried men who were farmers or laborers looking for a better life. Many early Chinese settlers of the 19th century originated from Guangdong and Fujian, two coastal provinces of China. Still, most of the Chinese who came to British Columbia in the 1850s and 1860s came straight from California because the gold rush in California was coming close to an end as the rush was just beginning in Canada.
There were two major gold rushes in British Columbia in the mid-1800s that attracted the Chinese. News of the Fraser River gold discovery spread and the first group of Chinese arriv...
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...Coast of Canada gave a great deal of their life’s energy to the building of the infrastructure of Canada. All of the early pioneers came to Canada prepared to work hard in order to send money back home to support their families and to build new lives in Canada. In many cases, this was a long and lonely sacrifice and few experienced support from the white settlers or received protection from the government. In almost every situation, the Asians were paid less than the whites and had no rights or privileges in the new country. Little by little, they were denied until eventually, immigration was rejected altogether separating families and leaving individual alienated from their loved ones. Thousands of men and women sacrificed and endured a great deal of pain in order to be accepted as citizens of Canada. Their stories are a vital part of the history of the West.
The Canadian Pacific Railway was the first transcontinental railway built to connect Canada from coast to coast. (Canadian Pacific Para. 9) The construction almost delayed completely because of John A. MacDonald losing power, but it was finally continued with the help of a syndicate. (Canadian Pacific Para. 4) Due to the insufficient amount of adequate workers in British Columbia, Chinese contract workers were imported to help construct the track with minimal pay and harsh conditions. (Canada Para. 1) Chinese-Canadians were discriminated by being given the most dangerous job, no food or shelter provided, and the least pay. Unfortunately, when the track was completed, the Exclusion Act for Chinese immigrants was established to stop immigration from China, (Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre Para. 5) while also making it impossible for family members from China to immigrate. (Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre Para. 11)
Canadian history has shaped Canada's future for centuries now. Without the great explorers of their time, and maybe even our time, provinces and territories, gulfs, bays, rivers and land would be lost and undiscovered for many years. Our great country can thank many brave and brilliant explorers and their crew, for founding our name, and creating such an amazing land. Jacques Cartier, John Cabot and Henry Hudson, all managed to explore much of Canada. Through discovering the islands of Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island to locating the Hudson Bay, these 3 explores endure Canada's harsh winters, famine, scurvy and much more, to begin the great discover of all of Canada.
Vancouver currently maintains an image as a sort of maternal ethnic melting pot, a region rich in cultural diversity and with a municipality that is both tolerant and welcoming of various displays and traditions. However, upon closer examination of recent history, it becomes clear that the concept of the city embracing minorities with a warm liberal hug is both incorrect and a form of manipulation in itself. The articles Erasing Indigenous Indigeneity in Vancouver and The Idea of Chinatown unravel the cultural sanitization that occurred in Vancouver at the turn of the nineteenth century as a means of state domination. Through careful synthesis of primary documents, the articles piece together the systematic oppression suffered by BC indigenous people and Chinese immigrants, reformulating our perception of the interests of the Canadian government.
Harold Cardinal made a bold statement in his book, The Unjust Society, in 1969 about the history of Canada’s relationship with Aboriginal peoples. His entire book is, in fact, a jab at Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s idea of ‘the just society’. Pierre Elliott Trudeau made great assumptions about First Nations people by declaring that Aboriginal people should be happy about no longer being described as Indian. His goal was to rid Canada of Indians by assimilating them into the Canadian framework. Considered by many as a progressive policy, Trudeau’s white paper demonstrates just how accurate the following statement made by Harold Cardinal at the beginning of his book is : “The history of Canada’s Indians is a shameful chronicle of the white man’s disinterest,
Labour leaders in Canada in the late 1800s and early 1900s were strongly opposed to the idea of Asians immigrating to Canada. In “Constructing the Great Menace” by David Goutor, it outlines the oppression of Asians by labour leaders which does not conclude that labour leaders hated all immigration and had a prejudice against all racialized groups. The unionists’ main argument for this opposition is based on the stereotype that Asians were claimed to have “accepted low wages and degraded working conditions” thus proving that they will diminish the standard of living for Canadian workers. These Labour Leaders were prejudice to Asians in an effort to supposedly protect Canadian workers and their jobs. However, it is not fair to say that labour
was the driving factor that ultimately resulted in the internment of the Japanese Canadians. Racial prejudice against Orientals had been around in B.C. since the 1850s when Chinese immigrants came to Canada to help with the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. A newspaper article described the Chinese as a “marvelous human machine, competent to perform the maximum of labour on the minimum of sustenance” (Adachi 42). While they were beneficial for contractors, they posed a threat to the white population (Figure 3). The cartoon suggests that the low living standards of the Chinese allowed them to endure the harshest conditions, while being satisfied with the lowest wages. In contrast, the typical European is portrayed as a civilized human being who cannot compete with the Chinese workers without sacrificing his dignity. As a result, when the Japanese started immigrating to Canada later on, the British Columbian population only saw them as another threat to their culture due to the similarities they shared with the Chinese. However, the Japanese proved to be a greater problem since they were not affected by the Head Tax imposed on the Chinese (Hickman, 33; Morton). The attack on Pearl Harbour was an excuse that finally allowed British Columbians to release the anti-Japanese sentiment that they had been suppressing for years. In addition, when the final decision to intern the Japanese Canadians was passed, the government considered them all as potential threats (Figure 4). There was no effort made to distinguish those who posed potential threats and those who did not; most of them had no connection with Japan besides for their ancestry. This can only be attributed to racism, as there are only 38 suspects out of the 22,000 internees. Similarly, selling of Japanese property was another racist act that the government claimed to be necessary for the war effort and to increase national security (Sunahara 90; “The War Years”).
The term “Canadian” offered no redemption as the Japanese Canadians were involuntarily regarded as potential treats to national security by their own fellow citizens. In a country they knew only as home, the “yellow” race was a culture many felt they could never accept with open arms. In essence, as the prejudice impelled the Japanese to enclose themselves in a separated society, they were decidedly doomed to remain a permanently alien, non-voting population. As visible minorities, the Japanese were easy targets for discrimination in every social aspect of their lives. In 1907, a race riot took place in a district called “Little Tokyo” in Vancouver. There, an estimated five thousand racist Canadians sought to destroy the homes and stores of the Asian community. By 1928, W.L. Mackenzie King proposed that one hundred fifty Japanese immigrants be permitted to enter Canada each year to prevent future mishaps. The bombing of Pearl Harbor was merely a trigger point for the public distaste to truly emphasize itself. With such close relations with the United Sta...
Canada has continuously served as a home to immigrants and refugees from decade to decade harbouring people from a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The first set of immigrants to settle in the country came from Britain, the United States and from other nationalities mostly including immigrants from Europe who were either desperate to escape from religious or political turmoil or were simply attracted to Canada’s economic promise. Soon after the Canadian confederation in 1867, immigrants from Irish and Chinese backgrounds who occupied most of the country were used as workers and the demand for labourers to develop the country increased rapidly as more Chinese descents were imported to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Although, Canada opened its doors to immigrants, but the country also intended to gain human resources for work in the farms, in the forests, factories and mines but not everyone was equally welcomed in Canada.
Karen Chos’s “In the Shadow of Gold Mountain” is an incredible film which sheds light on the historical injustice Chinese immigrants faced on their journey to become Canadian. Karen’s film educates the audience of the dark past of the Chinese head-tax and the Exclusion Act. Two powerful ideas the film shares are systematic discrimination and reconciliation. In the early nineteenth century, there were many explicit racial laws set for a certain group of people. For the Chinese immigrants it was the head tax, a fee paid specifically by any Chinese wanting to come to Canada. Through the years the head tax reached $500. Since the head-tax did not suffice, the government imposed the Exclusion Act, completely banning Chinese immigration. This act
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
The Chinese immigrants started flooding in through the West coast to California around the time of the Gold Rush, looking for economic opportunity. With the Chinese immigrants came a whole new cultural group and a whole lot of laborers that were eager to work. The Chinese quickly became involved in all kinds of labor from gold mining and building railroads to agriculture and fishing skills. The new Asian population just kept growing and growing as immigrants spread word of their good fortune in California and swayed more and more of their family to come over to the states. With their growing population they created their own large communities and the first ever Chinatown ...
One of the first groups of people who settled by the Fraser River were the Chinese immigrants who traveled up the continent from San Francisco. Later, many other people of Chinese descent moved directly from Hong Kong, looking for a better life in the “Gum Shan” (the “Gold Mountain”). They didn’t get very far before a shortage of labour caused the government relied on the Chinese workers to do hard
Canada is one of the most diverse countries in the world with different ethnic groups and religions forming the nation to what we know Canada as today. The first Asian minority group to immigrate to Canada was the Chinese in 1852 during the California gold rush. The immigrants were mostly male migrant workers from the rural area of the Guangdong Province. They were employed as “coal miners, seasonal workers, and domestic services” in Canada. (Guo & Devoretz, pg. 4) In the past, minorities groups were treated unfairly and experienced limited opportunities while in Canada. Since the Chinese were not citizens of Canada, they were unable to move up in their career. The country eventually adopted harsh immigration laws that prevented minority groups
Fast forward to 1941, there are still signs of ongoing challenges and struggles of the achieving a multicultural ideal within Canada. Canadian literature represents and reflects its current cultural diversity (or its lack of diversity) and during 1941, there was a boom of discrimination faced by the Japanese. As a result of the Pearl Harbour bombing near the end of World War II (“WWII”), many Japanese-Canadians faced immediate detainment and removal from their homes, even from Canada. This internment continued all the way until 1949, four years after the end of WWII and by then, more Japanese-Canadians were uprooted, with their properties being seized by the Canadian government (Sunahara 76). Then even after this internment ended, there were
South Asian immigrants have a long standing history within Canada, and in British Columbia in particular. This Indian diaspora, the dispersion of Indians from their original homeland, is well rooted in Canada (Geary 2014). Indo-Canadians represent three percent of the Canadian population at large, and are the second largest minority behind Chinese-Canadians (Geary 2014). In fact, the South Asian populace as a whole is growing faster than overall Canadians, at a rate of thirty-three percent for South Asians versus four percent for Canadians as a whole (Geary 2014).