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There has been a significant history of Chinese immigration to Canada, with the first settlement of
Chinese people The Chinese people or simply Chinese, are people or ethnic groups identified with China, usually through ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, or other affiliation. Chinese people are known as Zhongguoren () or as Huaren () by speakers of s ...
in Canada being in the 1780s.Chan, Anthony B. 013 July 302019 May 22.
Chinese Canadians
." ''The Canadian Encyclopedia''. Ottawa: Historica Canada. Retrieved 2020 December 14.
The major periods of Chinese immigration would take place from 1858 to 1923 and 1947 to the present day, reflecting changes in the Canadian government's
immigration policy Border control refers to measures taken by governments to monitor and regulate the movement of people, animals, and goods across land, air, and maritime borders. While border control is typically associated with international borders, it a ...
. Chinese immigrants were originally considered an expendable source of cheap labour due to their economic depression and acceptance of death from Canadian employers. Between 1880 and 1885, the primary work for Chinese labourers in Canada was on the
Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...
(CPR).


Nootka Sound, 1770s

In 1788, some 120 Chinese contract labourers arrived at
Nootka Sound , image = Morning on Nootka Sound.jpg , image_size = 250px , alt = , caption = Clouds over Nootka Sound , image_bathymetry = , alt_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = Map of Nootka So ...
,
Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest by ...
. British fur trader
John Meares John Meares (c. 1756 – 1809) was an English navigator, explorer, and maritime fur trader, best known for his role in the Nootka Crisis, which brought Britain and Spain to the brink of war. Career Meares' father was Charles Meares, "formerly an ...
recruited an initial group of 50 sailors and artisans from Canton (
Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kong ...
) and
Macao Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a po ...
, China, hoping to build a trading post and encourage trade in sea otter pelts between Nootka Sound and Canton. At Nootka Sound, the Chinese workers built a dockyard, a fort, and a sailing ship, named the ''
North West America ''North West America'' was a British merchant ship that sailed on maritime fur trading ventures in the late 1780s. It was the first non-indigenous vessel built in the Pacific Northwest. In 1789 it was captured at Nootka Sound by Esteban José M ...
''. Regarding this journey and the future prospects of Chinese settlement in colonial North America, Meares wrote: The next year, Meares had another 70 Chinese brought in from Canton. However, shortly after the arrival of this second group, the settlement was seized by the Spanish in what became known as the
Nootka Crisis The Nootka Crisis, also known as the Spanish Armament, was an international incident and political dispute between the Nuu-chah-nulth Nation, the Spanish Empire, the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the fledgling United States of America triggered ...
. Seeking to establish a trade monopoly on the West Coast, the Spanish imprisoned the Chinese men. It is unclear what became of them, but likely some returned to China while others were put to work in a nearby mine and later taken to Mexico. No other Chinese people are known to have arrived in western North America until the gold rush of the 1850s.


Gold Rush, 1858

The Chinese first appeared in large numbers in the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1858 as part of a huge migration from California during the
Fraser Canyon Gold Rush The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, (also Fraser Gold Rush and Fraser River Gold Rush) began in 1858 after gold was discovered on the Thompson River in British Columbia at its confluence with the Nicoamen River a few miles upstream from the Thompson's ...
in the newly declared Colony of British Columbia. Although the first wave arrived in May from California, news of the gold rush eventually attracted many Chinese from China. As result,
Barkerville, British Columbia Barkerville was the main town of the Cariboo Gold Rush in British Columbia, Canada, and is preserved as a historic town. It is located on the north slope of the Cariboo Plateau near the Cariboo Mountains east of Quesnel. BC Highway 26, whic ...
—located in the
Cariboo The Cariboo is an intermontane region of British Columbia, Canada, centered on a plateau stretching from Fraser Canyon to the Cariboo Mountains. The name is a reference to the caribou that were once abundant in the region. The Cariboo was t ...
—became Canada's first Chinese community, where more than half of the town's population was estimated to be Chinese. Several other BC towns also had significant Chinatowns, including Richfield,
Stanley Stanley may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Stanley'' (1972 film), an American horror film * ''Stanley'' (1984 film), an Australian comedy * ''Stanley'' (1999 film), an animated short * ''Stanley'' (1956 TV series) ...
, Van Winkle, Quesnellemouthe (modern-day Quesnel), Antler, and
Quesnelle Forks Quesnel Forks, historically Quesnelle Forks, also simply known as "The Forks" or grandly known as "Quesnel City" is a ghost town in the Cariboo region of British Columbia, Canada. It is located the junction of the Quesnel and Cariboo Rivers an ...
. In the goldfields, Chinese mining techniques and knowledge turned in to be better than those of other miners. They employed hydraulic techniques, such as the use of ' rockers', and a technique whereby blankets were used to filter
alluvial Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...
sand and then burned, resulting in the gold melting into lumps in the fire. In the
Fraser Canyon The Fraser Canyon is a major landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley. Colloquially, the term "Fraser C ...
, Chinese miners stayed on long after all others had left for the
Cariboo Gold Rush The Cariboo Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Colony of British Columbia, which later joined the Canadian province of British Columbia. The first gold discovery was made at Hills Bar in 1858, followed by more strikes in 1859 on the Horsefly Riv ...
or other goldfields elsewhere in BC or the United States. They continued hydraulic mining and farming, and owned the majority of land in the Fraser and Thompson canyons for many years afterward. There was no shortage of successful Chinese miners: by 1860, the Chinese population of Vancouver Island and British Columbia was estimated to be 7,000. Moreover, Lillooet's Chinatown lasted until the 1930s.Mark S. Wade, ''The Cariboo Road'', publ. The Haunted Bookshop, Victoria BC, 1979, 239pp. ASIN: B0000EEN1WRobin Skelton, ''They Call It Cariboo'', Sono Nis Press (December 1980), 237pp. , .


Immigration for the railway, 1871–82

When British Columbia agreed to join Confederation in 1871, one of its conditions was that the
Dominion The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire. "Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State at the 1926 ...
government build a railway linking BC to
Eastern Canada Eastern Canada (also the Eastern provinces or the East) is generally considered to be the region of Canada south of the Hudson Bay/Strait and east of Manitoba, consisting of the following provinces (from east to west): Newfoundland and Labrador, ...
within 10 years. British Columbian politicians and their electorate agitated for a settlement-immigration program for workers from the
British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...
to provide this railway labor; however,
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is n ...
John A. Macdonald Sir John Alexander Macdonald (January 10 or 11, 1815 – June 6, 1891) was the first prime minister of Canada, serving from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1891. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career that sp ...
, along with investors and other Canadian politicians, said such would be too expensive. In opposition, however, the Workingmen's Protective Association was established in 1878 in Victoria with the following purpose:
The objects of this society shall be the mutual protection of the working classes of British Columbia against the great influx of Chinese; to use all legitimate means for the suppression of their immigration; to assist each other in the obtaining of employment, and to devise means for the amelioration of the condition of the working classes of the Province in general.
Insisting that the project cut costs by employing Chinese workers to build the railway, Prime Minister MacDonald told Parliament in 1882: "It is simply a question of alternatives: either you must have this labour or you can't have the railway." In 1880,
Andrew Onderdonk Andrew Onderdonk (30 August 1848 – 21 June 1905) was an American construction contractor who worked on several major projects in the West, including the San Francisco seawall in California and the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Co ...
—an American who was one of the main construction contractors in British Columbia for the Canadian Pacific Railway—originally recruited Chinese laborers from California. When most of them deserted the railway workings for the more lucrative goldfields, Onderdonk and his agents signed several agreements with Chinese contractors in China's
Guangdong province Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
and
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
, as well as via Chinese companies in Victoria. These Chinese railway workers would be hired for the 200 miles of the CPR considered to be among the more difficult segments of the projected railway, particularly the area that goes through the
Fraser Canyon The Fraser Canyon is a major landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley. Colloquially, the term "Fraser C ...
. Chinese-Canadian labor was characterized by low wages (usually receiving less than 50% of what Caucasian workers were paid for the same work) and high levels of volatility. Through Onderdonk's contracts, more than 5,000 laborers were sent as "guest workers" from China by ship, in addition to over 7,000 Chinese railway workers from California whom Onderdonk also recruited. These two groups of workers, who were willing to accept $1 a day for their labor, were the main force for the building of Onderdonk's 7% of the railway's mileage. Between 1880 and 1885, 17,000 Chinese laborers completed the British Columbia section of the CPR, with more than 700 perishing due to appalling working conditions. As was the case with non-Chinese workers, some of the laborers fell ill during construction, or died while planting explosives or in other construction accidents. As with railway workers on other parts of the line in the Prairies and Northern Ontario, most of the Chinese workers lived in canvas
tent A tent () is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over, attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using gu ...
s. These tents were often unsafe and did not provide adequate protection against falling rocks or severe weather in areas of steep terrain. Such tents were typical of working-class accommodations on the frontier for all immigrant workers although (non-Chinese) foremen, shift bosses, and trained railwaymen recruited from the UK were housed in sleeping cars and railway-built houses in
Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...
and the other
railway town A railway town, or railroad town, is a settlement that originated or was greatly developed because of a railway station or junction at its site. North America During the construction of the First transcontinental railroad in the 1860s, tempor ...
s. Chinese railway workers also established transient Chinatowns along the rail line, with housing at the largest consisting of log-houses half dug into the ground, which was a common housing style for natives as well as other frontier settlers, because of the insulating effect of the ground in an area of extreme temperatures. Largely because of the Trans-Canada railway, Chinese communities developed across the nation, with the vast majority of Chinese Canadians lived in British Columbia during the 1880s.


After completion of the CPR 1885–1947

From the completion of the CPR to the end of the Exclusion Era (1923–1947), Chinese in Canada lived in mainly a "bachelors of the backpack society" since most Chinese families could not pay the expensive head tax to send their daughters to Canada. Chinese settlers began moving eastward after the completion of the CPR, although Chinese numbers in BC continued to grow. As with many other groups of immigrants, the Chinese initially found it hard to adjust and assimilate into life in Canada. As a result, they formed
ethnic enclave In sociology, an ethnic enclave is a geographic area with high ethnic concentration, characteristic cultural identity, and economic activity. The term is usually used to refer to either a residential area or a workspace with a high concentration ...
s known as "
Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austr ...
s" where they could live alongside fellow Chinese immigrants, with the vast majority of Chinese Canadians lived in BC during the 1880s. Originally, the Chinese were often stereotyped as , meaning temporary. Especially during the 19th century, the white society in British Columbia perceived the Chinese as people who could not be assimilated. In 1885, the
Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...
Consul General
Huang Zunxian Huang Zunxian (, May 29, 1848March 28, 1905), courtesy name Gongdu (), was a Chinese official, scholar, and writer, active during the late Qing dynasty. As a poet, he published more than a hundred poems. He was born in Jiayingzhou, now Mei Count ...
told a Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration:
is charged that the Chinese do not emigrate to foreign countries to remain, but only to earn a sum of money and return to their homes in China. It is only about thirty years since our people commenced emigrating to other lands. A large number have gone to the Straits' Settlements, Manila, Cochin China, and the West India Islands, and are permanently settled there with their families. In Cuba, fully seventy-five percent have married native women and adopted those Islands as their future homes. Many of those living in the Sandwich Islands have done the same... You must recollect that the Chinese immigrant coming to this country is denied all the rights and privileges extended to others in the way of citizenship; the laws compel them to remain aliens. I know a great many Chinese will be glad to remain here permanently with their families if they are allowed to be naturalized and can enjoy privileges and rights.
By 1886, the population of Victoria Chinatown had increased tenfold from the completion of the CPR to over 17,000; and at the turn of the 20th century, there were 17,312 Chinese settlers in Canada. By the 1940s, almost 50% of the Chinese-Canadian population lived on the West Coast. Until the 1960s, there were no significant populations of Chinese in any other province.


Immigration Acts and Exclusion Era, 1885–1947

In 1885, the Government of Canada passed '' The Chinese Immigration Act, 1885'', levying a '
Head Tax A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments fr ...
' of $50 on any Chinese coming to Canada, thereby making Chinese people the only ethnic group to pay a tax in order to enter Canada. What's more is that, well before the 1885 Act, a series of Chinese tax acts were passed in British Columbia. After the 1885 legislation failed to deter Chinese immigration, the Canadian government passed the '' Chinese Immigration Act, 1900'' to increase the tax to $100. The Chinese had no choice but to pay it even though it was worth two years' salary of a railway worker.


Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, 1885

Soon afterward, Chinese merchants among larger Chinese communities formed the
Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) ( in the Western United States, Midwest, and Western Canada; 中華公所 (中华公所) ''zhōnghuá gōngsuǒ'' (Jyutping: zung1wa4 gung1so2) in the East) is a historical Chinese associatio ...
(CCBA), which was registered as a charitable organization in August 1884, but effectively served as an "internal administrative institution" in the Chinese-Canadian community. The CCBA opened their first branch in Victoria in 1885 and a second in Vancouver in 1895. The Association was mandatory for all Chinese in the area to join and would do everything from representing members in legal disputes to sending the remains of members who died back to their ancestral homelands in China.
Huang Zunxian Huang Zunxian (, May 29, 1848March 28, 1905), courtesy name Gongdu (), was a Chinese official, scholar, and writer, active during the late Qing dynasty. As a poet, he published more than a hundred poems. He was born in Jiayingzhou, now Mei Count ...
, the Chinese Consulate in San-Francisco, played an integral role in the establishment of CCBA:
Now the Honorable Huang Zun Xian permitted to forward our case to the Chinese Ambassador to England to send again an official protest to the British Government. He also instructed that we raise funds, firstly, to hire lawyers for the case, and secondly, to be prepared for the establishment of The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. This Chinese representative body could, therefore, address all the issues concerning the Westerners, and do benevolence by taking care of the sick and the poor Chinese.
With the large extent of discriminatory legislation against Chinese immigrants, CCBA worked actively in seeking external support, for instance, by sending letters to the Chinese Ambassador to England and the Chinese Foreign Minister, as well as corresponding with the Chinese Consul in San-Francisco. CCBA would also send petitions to local administrations. In 1909, in response to the City of Victoria's policy of segregating Chinese children in public schools, CCBA constructed the Chinese Public School. In addition, during the early 20th century, fraternal-political associations such as the
Guomindang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
and the
Freemasons Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
were involved in Chinatown politics and community issues, adjudicating disputes within the community and speaking for the community to the non-Chinese world. After legislation in 1896 that stripped Chinese of voting rights in municipal elections in BC, Chinese people in BC became completely disenfranchised. The elector's list in federal elections came from the provincial elector's list, and the provincial ones came from the municipal one.


Royal Commission and Chinese professions, 1902–07

In 1902, the federal government appointed a Royal Commission on Chinese and Japanese Immigration, which concluded that "the Chinese are more unhealthy as a class than the same class of white people," and that they were "unfit for full citizenship...obnoxious to a free community and dangerous to the state." Through the '' Chinese Immigration Act, 1903'', the Government would further increase the landing fees to $500 (equivalent to
CA$ The Canadian dollar (symbol: $; code: CAD; french: dollar canadien) is the currency of Canada. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, there is no standard disambiguating form, but the abbreviation Can$ is often suggested by notable style g ...
10,336.27 in 2021) following demand by B.C. politicians. Following the 1903 legislation of $500, the number of Chinese who paid the fee in the first fiscal year dropped from 4,719 to 8. In addition to federal legislation, municipal ordinances restricted employment opportunities. In BC, Chinese professionals were prohibited from practicing such professions as law, pharmacy, and accountancy. During the next 40 years after 1885, following the completion of the CPR, Chinese persons became involved in the labor behind an industrializing economy. With legislation banning Chinese from many professions, Chinese entered those that non-Chinese Canadians did not want to do, such as laundry shops or salmon processing. Skilled or semi-skilled, Chinese Canadians labored in British Columbia sawmills and canneries; others became market gardeners or grocers, pedlars, shopkeepers, and restaurateurs. A "credit-ticket" system evolved in this time whereby Chinese lenders in China or North America would agree to pay the travel expenses of a migrant who was then bound to the lender until the debt was repaid, despite the fact that such contracts would not be legally enforceable in Canada. Chinese workers opened grocery stores and restaurants that served the whole population, including non-Chinese, and Chinese cooks became the mainstay in the restaurant and hotel industries as well as in private service. Chinese success at market gardening led to a continuing prominent role in the produce industry in British Columbia. Ethnic discrimination was rampant during these times, as evidenced by large-scale Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver in 1907.


Exclusion Act, 1923

'' The Chinese Immigration Act, 1923'', better known as the ''Chinese Exclusion Act'', replaced prohibitive fees with an outright ban on Chinese immigration to Canada with the exceptions of merchants, diplomats, students, and "special circumstances" cases. (Ethnic Chinese people with British nationality were also restricted from entering Canada.) The Chinese who entered Canada prior to 1924 had to register with the local authorities and could leave Canada only for two years or less. Just before the enactment of the ''Exclusion Act'', the Chinese Association of Canada went to Ottawa to lobby against the bill. Since the Act went into effect on 1 July 1923, Chinese people at the time referred to
Dominion Day Dominion Day was a day commemorating the granting of certain countries Dominion status — that is, "autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external ...
as " Humiliation Day''" and refused to celebrate Dominion Day until after the act was repealed in 1947. Vancouver's Chinatown during the exclusion era became a thriving economic and social destination that was home to many Chinese Canadians on the West Coast. The discriminatory laws also gave way to a gender imbalance among Chinese immigrants. Primarily due to the head tax, the cost of bringing a dependent, such as a wife or aged parents, to Canada became prohibitive. As such, Chinese men typically came alone, living as bachelors in Canada. In 1886, there were only 119 females among a total population of 1680; in 1931, only 3,648 were women among a total Chinese population of 46,519. A survey was done in 1922 by Republican China's Overseas Chinese Bureau showed that, among Victoria Chinatown's whole population of 3,681, only 456 were females. In the late 1920s, it was estimated that there were only 5 married Chinese women in Calgary and 6 in Edmonton.


Post-war period, 1947–99

With the '' Exclusion Act of 1923'' being repealed in 1947, the majority of immigrants in Canada emigrated from the People's Republic of China, including
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta ...
, and the Republic of China (
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
). Other Chinese immigrants have come from South Asia, Southeast Asia, South Africa, the Caribbean, and South America. From 1947 to the early 1970s, Chinese immigrants to Canada came mostly from Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Southeast Asia. Also following the abolishment of the ''Exclusion Act'', Chinese-Canadians gained the vote federally and provincially in 1947. The experiences of the
Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
made racial discrimination against Chinese-Canadians unacceptable in Canada, at least from the standpoint of government policy. With the aim of defeating
Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...
and its extreme discrimination, Canada could not maintain its racial legislation without looking hypocritical. Moreover, with Chinese Canadian contributions in World War II, and also because the anti-Chinese legislation violated the
UN Charter The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the ...
, the government of Canada repealed the ''Chinese Exclusion Act'' and gave Chinese Canadians full citizenship rights in 1947. Chinese immigration, still, was limited only to the spouse of a Chinese who had Canadian citizenship and his dependants. After the founding of the
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
(PRC) in October 1949 and its support for the communist
North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...
in the
Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top:{{ ...
, Chinese in Canada faced another wave of resentment, as Chinese were viewed as communist agents from the PRC. Moreover, those from mainland China who were eligible in the family reunification program had to visit the Canadian High Commission in Hong Kong, as Canada and the PRC did not have diplomatic relations until 1970.


Chinese Adjustment Statement Program and other policies, 1960–73

In 1959, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration discovered a problem with immigration papers used by Chinese immigrants to enter Canada, and the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal and national police service of Canada. As poli ...
were brought in to investigate. Evidently, some Chinese had been entering Canada by purchasing real or fake birth certificates of Chinese-Canadian children bought and sold in Hong Kong. These children carrying false identity papers were referred to as ''
paper sons Paper sons or paper daughters is a term used to refer to Chinese people who were born in China and illegally immigrated to the United States and Canada by purchasing documentation which stated that they were blood relatives to Chinese people who ...
''. In response,
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration The minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship (french: Ministre de l'immigration, des réfugiés et de la citoyenneté) is a minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet. The minister is responsible for Immigration, Refugees and Citi ...
Ellen Fairclough Ellen Louks Fairclough (née Cook; January 28, 1905 – November 13, 2004) was a Canadian politician. A member of the House of Commons of Canada from 1950 to 1963, she was the first woman ever to serve in the Canadian Cabinet. Early life and ca ...
announced the "Chinese Adjustment Statement Program" on 9 June 1960, which granted
amnesty Amnesty (from the Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία, ''amnestia'', "forgetfulness, passing over") is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power offic ...
for paper sons or daughters if they confessed to the government. As a result, about 12,000 paper sons came forward, until the amnesty period ended in October 1973. Independent Chinese immigration in Canada came after Canada eliminated race and the "place of origin" section from its immigration policy in 1967. Four years later, in 1971, an official policy of
multiculturalism The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for " ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchang ...
was implemented in efforts to tackle
institutional racism Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, health ...
. Many Chinese also enlisted in the Canadian forces, despite Ottawa and the BC government being unwilling to send Chinese-Canadian recruits into action, since they did not want Chinese to ask for enfranchisement after the war. However, with 90,000 British troops captured in the Battles of Malaya and
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borderin ...
in February 1942, Ottawa decided to send Chinese-Canadian forces in as spies to train the local guerrillas to resist the Japanese Imperial Forces in 1944. These spies were nevertheless little more than a token gesture, as the outcome of World War II had been more or less decided by that time.


Late 1970s

A turning point for Chinese in Canada was an incident in September 1979 involving a '' W5'' feature report, which stated that foreign Chinese were taking away opportunities from Canadian citizens for university educations. In response, Chinese communities nationwide united to fight anti-Chinese sentiments. The report, suggesting that there were 100,000 foreign students, featured a girl complaining that her high marks had not allowed her into the
University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
's pharmacy program because seats had been taken up by foreign students. The data used in the report, however, proved inaccurate. The Canadian Bureau for International Education revealed that there were only 55,000 foreign students in Canada at all levels of education, and only 20,000 full-time foreign university students. Historian Anthony B. Chan devoted an entire chapter of his 1983 book ''Gold Mountain'' to the incident, and found that, contrary to the claims of the prospective pharmacy student, there were no foreign students in Toronto's program that year. Chan emphasized the anger that the Chinese-Canadian community had about the images of anonymous Chinese people in the feature was because they felt the "implication was that all students of Chinese origin were foreigners, and that Canadian taxpayers were subsidizing Chinese students—regardless of citizenship." Chinese communities nationwide staged protests against
CTV Television The CTV Television Network, commonly known as CTV, is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television network. Launched in 1961 and acquired by BCE Inc. in 2000, CTV is Canada's largest privately owned List of Canadian ...
, the network that airs ''W5''. Initially, CTV would only offer a "statement of regret" but the protests continued until an apology was made in 1980. Network executive Murray Chercover acknowledged the inaccuracy of a great deal of the program's information, adding that the network "sincerely apologize for the fact Chinese-Canadians were depicted as foreigners, and for whatever distress this stereotyping may have caused them in the context of our multicultural society." The protesters met in Toronto in 1980 and agreed to form the
Chinese Canadian National Council The Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) (french: Conseil national des Canadiens chinois pour la justice sociale), known in the Chinese-Canadian community as Equal Rights Council (平權會), is an organization whose purpose is to promote eq ...
(CCNC) to better represent Chinese Canadians on a national level.


1980s–90s

The 1980s saw movement of Chinese in Canada from the
ethnic enclave In sociology, an ethnic enclave is a geographic area with high ethnic concentration, characteristic cultural identity, and economic activity. The term is usually used to refer to either a residential area or a workspace with a high concentration ...
s of Chinatowns to outlying suburbs of major Canadian cities. This movement was seen by some as changing the fabric of some communities with the establishment of new ethnic enclaves, commercial areas, and use of Chinese-language signage. Carole Bell, Deputy Mayor of
Markham, Ontario Markham () is a city in the Regional Municipality of York, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately northeast of Downtown Toronto. In the 2021 Census, Markham had a population of 338,503, which ranked it the largest in York Region, fourth largest ...
, expressed that the overwhelming Chinese presence in the city was causing other residents to move out of Markham. Additionally during the 1980s, local communities in Toronto and Vancouver have accused the Chinese immigrants for hyperinflating property prices. During the mid-1980s and early 1990s, Canada's recession and growth of the Chinese economy resulted in a shift in Chinese migration in Canada. Attracted by the employment opportunities back home, some newer immigrants moved back, with many retaining their Canadian citizenship. This resulted in the phenomenon of '' astronaut families'', whereby the husband, being the money-earner, would only visit Canada once or twice a year, usually during December or the summer months, but the rest of his family would live in Canada. The Chinese community also sought redress for past injustices done against them. Since the early 1980s, there has been a campaign to redress the Head Tax paid by Chinese entering Canada from 1885 to 1923, led by the CCNC. However, the movement did not gather enough support to be noticed by the government until the 1990s. Still, the government was largely resistant to the calls of apologizing and refunding the head tax to the payers or their descendants. Canadian courts also ruled that while the government had no legal obligation to redress the head tax, it had a moral obligation to do so. The Liberal governments of the 1990s adopted the position of "no apology, no compensation" as the basis of negotiating with the Chinese groups and were criticized for stonewalling the Chinese community.


Immigrants from Hong Kong, late 1990s

With the political uncertainties as
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta ...
headed towards
1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic (1997 film), Titanic'', the List of highest-grossing films, highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; ...
, many residents of Hong Kong chose to immigrate to Canada, as it was relatively easier for them to enter the country due to their Commonwealth of Nations connections. It was also relatively easier for Hong Kongers to migrate to Canada than to the US, as the latter set fixed quotas for different nationalities, while Canada ran on a "points" system, allowing immigrants to arrive if they have desirable factors such as graduate degrees, training, funds to start new businesses and language abilities. According to statistics compiled by the Canadian Consulate in Hong Kong, from 1991 to 1996, "about 30,000 Hong Kongers emigrated annually to Canada, comprising over half of all Hong Kong emigration and about 20% of the total number of immigrants to Canada." The great majority of these people settled in the
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anchor ...
and
Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. T ...
areas, as there are well-established Chinese communities in those cities. After the Handover, there was a sharp decline in immigration numbers, possibly indicating a smooth transition towards political stability. In the years to come, the unemployment and underemployment of many Hong Kong immigrants in Canada prompted a stream of returning migrants.


Immigration in the 21st century

Today,
Mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
has taken over from Hong Kong as the largest source of Chinese immigration. A great number of immigrants have been Cantonese speakers, and a disproportionate representation of Cantonese over other Chinese immigrants is prevalent in many Chinese communities in Canada. The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) has also taken over from all countries and regions as the country sending the most immigrants to Canada. According to statistics from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), between 1999 and 2009 the largest number of immigrants to Canada came from the PRC. CIC statistics for 2002 showed that the Canadian immigrants from the PRC averaged well over 30,000 immigrants per year, totaling an average of 15% of all immigrants to Canada. This trend showed no sign of slowing down, with an all-time high of 42,295 reached in 2005. By 2010, 36,580 immigrants from the Philippines surpassed the 30,195 from the PRC. Filipinos retained their status as the number one immigrant group to Canada in 2011 with 34,991. The PRC lagged behind with 28,696. Chinese-Canadians have become more involved in politics, both provincially and federally. Douglas Jung (1957–1962) not only became the first Canadian Member of Parliament (MP) of
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...
and Asian descent in the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
, but also the first member of a
visible minority A visible minority () is defined by the Government of Canada as "persons, other than aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour". The term is used primarily as a demographic category by Statistics Canada, in connect ...
elected to the Parliament of Canada. In 1993,
Raymond Chan Raymond Chan (; born 1951) is the first Chinese Canadian to be appointed to the Cabinet of Canada. A member of the Liberal Party of Canada, Chan was elected to Parliament in the 1993 federal election, defeating then Defence Minister Tom Si ...
became the first ethnic Chinese to be appointed into the cabinet, after winning the riding of Richmond in the 1993 federal election. Many Chinese-Canadians have run for office in subsequent federal elections: * after two failed attempts,
New Democratic Party The New Democratic Party (NDP; french: Nouveau Parti démocratique, NPD) is a federal political party in Canada. Widely described as social democratic,The party is widely described as social democratic: * * * * * * * * * * * * th ...
candidate
Olivia Chow Olivia Chow (; born March 24, 1957) is a Canadian retired politician who was a federal New Democratic Party (NDP) member of Parliament (MP) representing Trinity—Spadina from 2006 to 2014. Chow ran in the 2014 Toronto mayoral election, placin ...
(wife of NDP leader
Jack Layton John Gilbert Layton (July 18, 1950 – August 22, 2011) was a Canadian academic and politician who served as the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) from 2003 to 2011 and leader of the Official Opposition in 2011. He previously sat on To ...
) was elected in the 2006 federal election, representing the riding of
Trinity—Spadina Trinity—Spadina was a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1988 to 2015. It generally encompassed the western portion of Downtown Toronto. Its federal Member of Parliam ...
; *
Alan Lowe Alan Lowe (born July 26, 1961) is a Canadian politician. He served as mayor of Victoria, British Columbia, 1999–2008. Education In 1982 Lowe earned a bachelor's degree in environmental studies from the University of Manitoba, and in 1985 he ...
became the first Chinese-Canadian Mayor of Victoria BC (1999–2008); *
Ida Chong Ida Chong (; born 1956 or 1957) is a British Columbia politician who served as MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head from 1996 until 2013. Chong and BC NDP MLA Jenny Kwan together became the first Chinese-Canadian members of the BC Legislative Assembly ...
was a Saanich municipal councilor in the Victoria BC region before being elected in 2001 as a BC provincial cabinet minister in
Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and ...
Premier
Gordon Campbell Gordon Muir Campbell, (born January 12, 1948) is a retired Canadian diplomat and politician who was the 35th mayor of Vancouver from 1986 to 1993 and the 34th premier of British Columbia from 2001 to 2011. He was the leader of the British C ...
's administration; * the
Bloc Québécois The Bloc Québécois (BQ; , " Quebecer Bloc") is a federal political party in Canada devoted to Quebec nationalism and the promotion of Quebec sovereignty. The Bloc was formed by Members of Parliament (MPs) who defected from the federal Prog ...
had an ethnic-Chinese candidate, May Chiu, running in the riding of LaSalle—Émard against
Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...
leader
Paul Martin Paul Edgar Philippe Martin (born August 28, 1938), also known as Paul Martin Jr., is a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 21st prime minister of Canada and the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 2003 to 2006. The son of ...
during the 2006 election; * Philip Lee became the first Asian
Lieutenant-Governor A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction. Often a lieutenant governor is the deputy, or lieutenant, to or ranked under a governor — a "second-in-comm ...
in Manitoba; *
Norman Kwong Norman Lim Kwong (born Kwong Lim Yew; ; October 24, 1929 – September 3, 2016) was a Canadian football player who played for the Calgary Stampeders and Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League (CFL). He was also an active businessman ...
, Canada's first professional Chinese-Canadian football player, also became Alberta's first Chinese
Lieutenant-Governor A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction. Often a lieutenant governor is the deputy, or lieutenant, to or ranked under a governor — a "second-in-comm ...
. Because of the influx of Chinese emigrants from the global diaspora, community organizations reflecting Chinese people from Cuba, India, Jamaica, Mauritius, Peru, and so on, have established a considerable presence in Canada. Immigrants from the PRC have organized into many associations. The Chinese Professionals Association of Canada (CPAC) reported having a membership of over 30,000 in 2019. In terms of education, the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia was created in 2004 to educate the general public about Chinese people in Canada; the University of Toronto's
Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library The Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library ( zh, 利銘澤典宬) is part of the University of Toronto Libraries system. It features a unique research collection on Canada-Hong Kong studies. Located inside Robarts Library at the University ...
is a dedicated resource centre for Chinese-Canadian studies; the Toronto-based Chinese Culture and Education Society of Canada teaches Chinese and aims to develop education and cultural exchanges between Canada and China.


Apology and redress, 2004–06

As the nature of parliament headed towards a minority situation, all political parties needed votes from all sectors of the Canadian electorates. During the 2004 federal election campaign, NDP leader
Jack Layton John Gilbert Layton (July 18, 1950 – August 22, 2011) was a Canadian academic and politician who served as the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) from 2003 to 2011 and leader of the Official Opposition in 2011. He previously sat on To ...
pledged to issue an apology and compensation for the Exclusion-Era head tax. After the 2006 election, the newly elected Conservative Party indicated in its
Throne Speech A speech from the throne, or throne speech, is an event in certain monarchies in which the reigning sovereign, or a representative thereof, reads a prepared speech to members of the nation's legislature when a session is opened, outlining th ...
that it would provide a formal apology and appropriate redress to families affected by racist policies of the past. It concluded a series of National Consultations across Canada in 2006, from April 21–30, in Halifax, Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton, Montreal, and Winnipeg. The Liberal Party, who lost the 2006 election (as the outgoing government) changed their positions and were accused of " flip-flopping" on the issue during the election campaign as well as being questioned about their sincerity. Many Chinese, particularly the surviving head-tax payers and their descendants have criticized Raymond Chan, the Chinese-Canadian cabinet minister who was left in charge of settling the matter, for compromising the Chinese community in favour of the government and misleading the public. On 22 June 2006, Prime Minister
Stephen Harper Stephen Joseph Harper (born April 30, 1959) is a Canadian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Canada from 2006 to 2015. Harper is the first and only prime minister to come from the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada, ...
delivered a message of redress in the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
, offering an apology in
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
and compensation for the head tax once paid by Chinese immigrants. Survivors or their spouses were paid approximately $20,000 CAD in compensation. Although their children will not be offered this payment, Chinese Canadian leaders like
Joseph Wong Joseph Wong Wing-ping GBS, JP ( Hong Kong language: 王永平; born 25 July 1948) was the Secretary for Education Department, Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology and the Secretary for the Civil Service in Hong Kong. Wong completed ...
regarded it as an important and significant move in Chinese Canadian history. There were about 20 people who paid the tax still alive in 2006.
(19 to 34 seconds)
The Chinese Canadian Community circa 2021 In modern Canada, Chinese Canadian immigrants tend to be treated as if they belong to a single cultural or ethnic community with common interests and common spokesmen. Nothing could be further from the truth. China, like India, is not one homogeneous nation, rather it is a federation of as many nations as make up Western Europe, each with populations in the hundreds of millions and traditionally speaking distinctive languages which, while often mutually unintelligible in speech, are mutually intelligible when written, thanks to a unique innovation made by an early Qin emperor. In the interests of nation building, the current government is hastening the demise of these languages in favour of the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. Members of each of these different nations emigrated at different times, and in numbers completely disproportionate to their relative numbers in China. So from an ethno-cultural point of view, treating all of these groups as one, called Chinese-Canadians, who somehow reflect the makeup of modern China, is analogous to treating Canadians of French, Spanish, Latin American, Portuguese and Italian heritage, as one group that reflect modern Europe. One hears the term "Han Chinese" used as a racial indicator of "true" Chinese vs Mongolian, Manchurian, Tibetan, or other subgroups of people who have inhabited or even ruled large parts of China historically. That term could be interpreted as being analogous to "Western European" when used to describe the racial groups that make up Eurasia. The imperative to emigrate from China was different for different groups at different times, so the composition of the Canadian population of Chinese descent bears analyzing from the perspective of when they came to Canada. This will also explain how and how much Chinese Canadians as a group differ from Chinese in China. The initial migrations (1850 - 1923) were from the poorest classes of China who were willing to accept the risk, pay the Head Tax, and put in the hard work in search of economic survival and then prosperity. In the Nineteenth Century, the poorest migratory groups lived in the farthest south of China, hence formed the emigrating classes. Those from Fujian province and south coast groups such as the Hakka migrated primarily south west to Southeast Asia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam (more about them later), and even across the Indian Ocean to South Africa through British Empire connections. The group that colonized North America, both Canada and the US, during the Gold Rushes and railroad building years, were largely from rural villages in the hilly counties (the "Four Counties", Sze Yap in Wade–Giles Cantonese, Xi Yi in Pinyin Mandarin) to the west of Guangzhou (Canton), who were speakers of a sister language of Cantonese called Toi-san (Tai Shan in Pinyin). This group came to North America largely with the intent of sending money home to amass enough for a comfortable retirement, since they were quickly denied political, familial migratory, educational and economic rights in Canada. With the passage of the restrictive travel and family unification laws, the society in Canada was overwhelmingly a bachelor one interspersed with 2 year long conjugal visits if affluent enough. The relatively few women and families were still enough to establish small communities of Canadian born Chinese, and their descendants can claim up to five and six generations of being Canadian born. Toisan-ese was the primary spoken language of North American Chinatowns until well after the Second World War (1960's). One curiosity of this group is that Canadian immigration officials of the Victorian era did not realize that Chinese three syllable names start with the surname, with a generational name in the middle, and the given name at the end. So official English names were often registered backwards (eg) Wong Wai Kwong, who in Canada is known as Mr. W. W. Kwong, but in China is Mr. Wong, and belongs to the Wong family association. As well, names that were Anglicized in this era used the Wade–Giles phonetic system, with the result of names spelled Lee, Wong and Chan, instead of the Pinyin system adopted by the People's Republic of China which would Anglicize those same names as Li, Huang and Jian. After 1947 and the loosening of restrictions to Chinese immigration, family reunification commenced and continued for the next four decades. But because of place-of-origin restrictions, immigration from China would remain limited until the immigration policy change of 1967. While the US saw the influx of Mandarin speaking Nationalist Chinese allies after the Communist victory in China in 1949, Chinese Canadians remained overwhelmingly of Toisanese descent. A few politically connected Mandarin speakers, as well as Shanghainese speakers from the business capital of China, and Cantonese speakers from the British colony of Hong Kong, came to Canada in those years, but not in as great numbers. In Canadian immigration statistics, all would be listed as simply Chinese. In the 1960s, China rationed water to Hong Kong as it flexed its muscles to remind the UK that the lease would be up in 1997, precipitating the next chapter in Chinese immigration to Canada, but this time by urban Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong. This group was generally well educated, entrepreneurial, and more affluent, compared to the uneducated hard working labourers of a century earlier. Old downtown Toisanese Chinatowns were superseded by new suburban Cantonese speaking ones, and the affluence of the Cantonese migrants was felt in business and property development. Over a decade or two, Cantonese speakers became more numerous than Toisanese speakers, most of whose descendants had become English speakers. This was also the era of "astronaut" families, where wives and/or children were settled in Canada but businessmen stayed in Hong Kong due to more favourable business and tax laws. During the latter years of the 20th century, Cantonese speakers, despite being 5% of Chinese in China, constituted the majority of Chinese Canadians. People of Chinese descent also immigrated to Canada after having spent many years or generations in many other countries. For example, in 1979 and 1980, ethnic Chinese who had immigrated to Vietnam over preceding centuries were forced to flee Vietnam and tens of thousands arrived in Canada during those years as refugees known as the "boat people", not to be confused with ethnic Vietnamese refugees who came earlier after the end of the Vietnam War. During the Apartheid Era in South Africa, South Africans of Chinese descent came to Canada. Surnames from this group can sometimes be identified because the immigration officials in South Africa in bygone days registered their Anglicized names using two or all three of the Chinese names, resulting in polysyllabic surnames. It is worth emphasizing that none of the foregoing immigrants nor their descendants ever lived in Communist China, nor under any Communist government. Most came to Canada by choice and became productive Canadians. Most of their descendants fully embraced and integrated with Canadian ethical, cultural and social mores. Historically, these Canadian Chinese were often fleeing the government of China at the time, as in the anti-Qing dynasty supporters of the nineteenth century, or refugees from Communism in 1949 The most current wave of Chinese immigration, since the turn of the century, have been Mandarin speakers who were born and raised in the People's Republic of China. It is probably redundant to point out that this most recent group has very little in common with the previously discussed groups, in fact could be treated as a completely separate ethnic group. The Anglicization of their names will use the Pinyin system, and will have Mandarin pronunciation (eg) Sung vs Song or Soong, of Jian vs Chan. However, Mandarin speakers from Taiwan, which make up yet another group of Chinese Canadians, will spell their names the same way. In summary, there is no "Chinese Canadian" cultural entity per se, rather a rather splintered group of people who "look Chinese" from various backgrounds and histories, of which the three largest groups are largely assimilated fourth and fifth generation descendants of Toisanese speakers, first and second generation Cantonese speakers with ties to Hong Kong, and Mandarin speakers born and educated in the People's Republic of China. It is hard to quote references as there aren't any and this is fairly common knowledge among Chinese Canadians.


See also

*
Chinese head tax in Canada The Chinese Head Tax was a fixed fee charged to each Chinese person entering Canada. The head tax was first levied after the Canadian parliament passed the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 and it was meant to discourage Chinese people from enterin ...
*
Chinese Immigration Act, 1923 The Chinese Immigration Act, 1923, known today as the Chinese Exclusion Act (the duration of which has been dubbed the Exclusion Era), was an act passed by the government of Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, banning most forms ...
*
Immigration to Canada According to the 2021 Canadian census, immigrants in Canada number 8.3 million persons and make up approximately 23 percent of Canada's total population. This represents the eighth-largest Immigration, immigrant population in the world, whil ...
* Chinese Canadians in British Columbia * Chinese Canadians in Ontario *
Asiatic Exclusion League The Asiatic Exclusion League (often abbreviated AEL) was an organization formed in the early 20th century in the United States and Canada that aimed to prevent immigration of people of Asian origin. United States In May 1905, a mass meeting was h ...
*'' Lost Years: A People's Struggle for Justice''


References


Further reading

* Anthony B. Chan. ''The Chinese in the New World'' Vancouver, BC: New Star, 1983. * Stephanie D. Bangarth. "'We are not asking you to open the gates for Chinese immigration': The Committee for the Repeal of the Chinese Immigration Act and Early Human Rights Activism in Canada." ''Canadian Historical Review'' 84, 3 (September 2003): 395–442. * Historica Canada.
Nitro
" ''
Heritage Minutes ''The Heritage Minutes'' is a series of sixty-second short films, each illustrating an important moment in Canadian history. The ''Minutes'' integrate Canadian history, folklore and myths into dramatic storylines. Like the Canada Vignettes o ...
''. *Hoong, Ng Weng. 2013 November 27.
New B.C. book unearths Chinese labourers' secret role in First World War
" ''The Georgia Straight''. *Peter S. Li. ''Chinese in Canada'' (Second Edition). Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press, 1998. * Peter S. Li.
Chinese
" ''Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples''. Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1999. * Janet Lum. "Recognition and the Toronto Chinese Community" in ''Reluctant Adversaries: Canada and the People's Republic of China, 1949-1970.'' Edited by Paul M. Evans and B. Michael Frolic, 217–239. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 1991. (It is a discussion on the Toronto Chinese's view on Canada recognizing the PRC in 1969–1970). * James Morton. '' In the Sea of Sterile Mountains: The Chinese in British Columbia''. Vancouver, BC: J.J. Douglas, 1974. (A thorough discussion of Chinese immigration and life in BC, railway politics and a detailed profile of the political agendas and personalities of the time) * Patricia Roy. " A white man's province : British Columbia politicians and Chinese and Japanese immigrants, 1858-1914" Vancouver : UBC Press, 1989. * Patricia Roy. "The Oriental question : Consolidating a white man's province, 1914-41" Vancouver : UBC Press, 2003. * Lloyd Sciban
Important Events in the History of the Chinese in Canada
* Wing Chung Ng. " The Chinese in Vancouver, 1945-80: The Pursuit of Identity and Power." Vancouver: UBC Press, 1999.
''British Columbia from the earliest times to the present, Vol 2, Chapter XXXII - Chinese and Japanese Immigration''
E.O.S. Scholefield & Frederic William Howay, S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., Vancouver, British Columbia, 1914
Victoria Chinese Canadian Veterans Association: Veteran fighters for Canada and Chinese Canadian Citizenship
" ''Victoria Chinatown''.


External links


Lost Years

Chinese Canadian Redress

Chinese Canadian National CouncilHistorica's Heritage Minute video docudrama "Nitro."
(
Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is computer software for viewing multimedia contents, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on the ...
)


Library resources


Chinese Canadian Genealogy
at the
Vancouver Public Library Vancouver Public Library (VPL) is the public library system for the city of Vancouver, British Columbia. In 2013, VPL had more than 6.9 million visits with patrons borrowing nearly 9.5 million items including: books, ebooks, CDs, DVDs, video game ...

Chinese-Canadians: Profiles from a Community
- Vancouver Public Library wiki
Chinese Immigration in BC
- An archival collection from the UBC Library Digital Collections documenting Chinese settlement in British Columbia
Historic Chinese Language Materials in British Columbia
Asian Library and the Centre for Chinese Research,
University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top three ...
, Vancouver
Multicultural Canada website
- includes eight full-text searchable Chinese newspapers from B.C. and Ontario, publications relating to immigration, photographs, and the records of Victoria's Chinese Benevolent Association and the Cheekungtong (Chinese Freemasons) of Victoria and Vancouver

Library and Archives Canada {{North America topic , Chinese immigration to History of Chinese Canadians History of immigration to Canada Political history of Canada Chinese emigration