Chinese Immigrants In Canada

Canada, a multicultural country, engages people from diverse countries converging on this second large country in the world. Chinese Canadian, as the third largest immigration group in Canada, are referred as “largest visible minority”, due to its population, which is estimated almost 1.5 million people. [1][2]
Tracing back to, the first Chinese came to Canada were for the construction of fortress and 40-tone schooner in 1788. Afterward, there was a wave of Chinese immigration because of the Gold rush and recruitment of railway construction in Canada. When the construction completed soon, Chinese were unwelcomed. Later, the Chinese Immigration Act established a barrier for the immigration wave. Since then, Chinese started to struggle for their
basic rights. After many years of conflicts, comprehending and adoption, Chinese are gradually accepted within the society. They not only contributed on the railway construction, but also shared their personal value according to education, finance and culture etc. to the society. Currently, an increasing number of Chinese students and immigrants come to Canada for a better education, and businessmen also come here to seek for more profits. Although for Chinese Canadian, people still have some misunderstanding about them, they are the both major and main part of the Canadian history. Chinese have almost 200 years of history in Canada. The Chinese pioneer consisted of approximately 120 smiths and carpenters entered Canada in 1788, a year of Qing Dynasty. A British fur trader recruited them but no historical evidence could show what happened and where they went at the end.3 After 69 years from the first landing, a large amount of people, who were from the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong and only could speak their dialect, Cantonese, were insistent on entering an unfamiliar country. Canada could offer opportunity of job, gold rush and construction so that those Chinese labours could feed their family in their hometown although their wages were only one-fifth of the white workers for the same work,4 which means that the Chinese prefer to work for longer hours and get a lower wage. As the result, an invisible competition began between Chinese and white labours, and the white labours are gradually dissatisfied to Chinese labour. On the other hand, the works enable Chinese labours to boosting the Canadian economy and establish some shelters for their descendants or later Chinese immigrants.
Under the low wage employment situation, the Parliament of Canada legislated the Chinese Immigration Act (CIA) in order to repel Chinese immigrants, which required Chinese who came to Canada to pay a tax of $50 called head tax, in 1885.
Only diplomats, clergymen, merchants, students, tourist and men of science, these 6 types of people were able to eliminate the tax. Through the years passing, the head tax raise more and more heavy until $500 in the CIA of 1940. Despite the terrible working condition, low wages and heavy tax, they thought it is still worth it and to compare situation in China, they could earn from 10 to 20 times more in Canada thus most of the Chinese labours chose to afford the tax.5 The Chinese were the only ethnic group ever banned from Canada. Since the head tax fail to restrict Chinese Immigration, the federal government pass an Act in 1923 known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, in which a person with Chinese origin will not be permitted to enter Canada. This Act efficiently stopped the immigration wave, whereas it also influenced the reunification of family. Moreover, the basic rights of vote were removed from the Government of British Columbia. Chinese immigrants became an identified target of prejudice and discrimination, especially in British
Columbia.
Numerous Chinese and their family were impacted by this Act, hence the Chinese population in Canada decline almost seven thousand people over 20 years time from 1931. Chinese Canadian received a solution from federal government, in 2006. The Prime Minister at that time, Stephen Harper made an apology to those Chinese who were suffer from the Immigration Act from 1885 to 1923. He said, “ Chinese Canadian [were] making an extraordinary impact on the building of out country [Canada]…the Chinese Canadian community [deserved] an apology for the head tax and appropriate acknowledgment and redress”.6
Chinese immigrants had faced the hardship, poverty and discrimination back to the time; however, their embarrassing position in Canada was relieved after the outbreak of European War in September 1939. The new generations obey their obligation as a Canadian citizen, to volunteer for military. These actions showed their patriotic emotion and gradually changed the stereotype about uneducated, poor and mean and so on. In the year 1947, the World War II, since China made a huge contribution during the war, the Exclusion Act was repealed, yet there were some laws still against Chinese. Until 1962, the immigration gate lifts the ban to Chinese immigrants. The population grew almost seven times in the 4 years since 1962,[7][8] in which people from Asian area have the same treat in immigration status as those from Europe and those Chinese immigrants’ spouses and children gained the opportunity to reunite with their husband and father. Chinese policy also plays a vital role in the Canadian immigration progress. In 1949, China was controlled by Chinese Communist Party, excepting Taiwan and to colonial areas Hong Kong and Macao. Due to the threat from government’s dictatorship, Chinese, the immigration tendency increasingly change into people from China mainland. Mainland people believed that they were able to enjoy the more equal rights and they have a place to express their profession and skill if they immigrated.[9][10] Especially, the massacre, Tiananmen Square Event in 1989, large amount of students migrate to North America to seek a better place with democracy, justice and freedom. And Canada could support protection to those students and professors who were dissatisfied with Chinese government and were in danger. In the late 20 century, the return of Hong Kong in 1997 lead thousands of Hong Kong residents to emigrated Canada in order to avoid the Communist Party’s dictatorship.
From 1991 to 1996, thirty thousand Hong Kong Chinese immigrated to Canada every year, which means over half of the total Hong Kong immigrants during the period and one-fifth of the total immigrants. While after 1997, most of Hong Kong Chinese saw the positive prospective, hence, the immigration trend started to fall continuously from 44,169 in 1994 to 2,857 in 2000.[11][12] In present, most of the Chinese are easy to adapt their new lives in urban city, because of the efforts such as equal rights, shelters and the community established in a
century.