Suffering from the ravages of rebellion, floods, dire food shortages and a huge population explosion in the Guangzhou and Guangdong areas of China, the distant vista of Canada became a light of hope for Chinese immigrants in the mid-1800s. Canada was verging on an innovative era of growth and expansion, but all was not to be well for the new arrivals.
The first wave of Chinese immigrants to Canada moved north from San Francisco in 1858. Arriving first in the United States, they came to British Columbia to prospect for gold on the Fraser River. Working “as gold miners, laundrymen and market gardeners,” said Paul Yee in his book, Chinatown, the new immigrants “also became teamsters, coal miners, salmon canners and servants.” Mainly men, they had left their wives and families behind in China; much of their Canadian earnings was sent home to care for their families.
Trans-Canada Railway Labour
By 1860, there were approximated 7,000 Chinese on Vancouver Island and in lower BC, with Barkerville becoming the first Chinese community in Canada, stated Canadian Encyclopedia. Determined, hard workers, the new Government of Canada under Sir John A. Macdonald recruited the Chinese to work on large projects such as the final leg of the Trans-Canada rail line in British Columbia. Speaking against strong opposition, Macdonald said, “It is simply a question of alternatives: either you must have this labour or you can’t the have railway.”
Besieged with dismal conditions and under inhumane circumstances, the Chinese workers cleared the forests to build and level the railway bed, and did the exceedingly perilous tasks of clearing the tunnels for the railway. None of it was easy. Many were killed in bridge collapses, in tunnel explosions, from exhaustion due to excessive vigorous work. Others yet became ill from scurvy, noted the Chinese Canadian National Council. The 15,000 Chinese workers composed the majority of railway builders in British Columbia between 1881 and 1885 - they also earned a third less than white men for the same work. When the railway was completed, the Chinese were let go and spread out across the country to find work.
Forced to Flee
Facing racial discrimination, the immigrants were viewed as inferior to white Canadians. Whites did not understand the foreign, seemingly exotic ways of the Chinese. Not permitted to vote, they were chased away from the polls in 1880s. The Chinese workers were even forced to flee from their jobs by hostile white men, fearful of losing their own jobs to the lower-paid labourers. Often dangerous attacks, their shacks were destroyed, and bedding, clothing and belongings of the Chinese set ablaze.
As more Chinese made Canada their home, they grouped together to form neighbourhoods. In Vancouver, said Paul Yee, “it was not surprising that Chinatown was near the docks, railways lines and the commercial downtown.” The first Chinatown buildings there were made of wood with the false fronts popular in the era, and later transformed into sturdy brick buildings with apartments overtop of the businesses at the street level.
Chinese Business Flourished
While most of the Chinese were employed with average jobs as laundrymen, tailors, cooks or porters, many were astute businessmen, creating their own fortunes in Canada. The Sam Kee Company, for example, began as a laundry that expanded into real estate, import/export of rice and herring, fuel sales and labour services. It was one of several companies that made “annual incomes of $150,000 to $180,000,” stated Yee. By 1911, Vancouver’s Chinatown population stood at 3,600.
Over long decades of struggle, including immigration prohibitions and outrageously expensive head taxes, life for the Chinese in Canada gradually improved. Discrimination eased, rights to vote and participate in government were given, and generations of new Chinese Canadians were born. This year, 2008, is the 150th Anniversary of Chinese Immigration to Canada. It is a time to celebrate the arrival of the industrious, undaunted people who helped build Canada into the extraordinary country that it is today.
Source:
Chinatown, by Paul Yee, published by James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Toronto 2005.
Susanna McLeod - Intriguing Canadians, the art of cartoonists, and fascinating moments in Canada's history have kept Susanna McLeod writing for 16 years.
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