Immigration In The 19th Century

In the early 19th century, the Canadian government embedded an Immigration policy with the Continuous Journey Regulation that requires each person to pay $200 cash. A Punjab merchant named Gurdit Singh Sirhali started the movement of migrants to aboard a ship. Komagata Maru the steamship included 376 Indians men (340 of them were Sikhs, 12 Hindus, and 24 Muslims) that were challenged of admittance to the country. Due to British Colonists enforcing “The White Man Canada” policy, it restricts non-white migrants into an entry. In effect, the incident spurred a lot of public attention in the Indian community and the press. About 50 years later, British Columbia Ministry of Attorney General released on apology letter recognizing Asian migrants
The main themes concentrated in this article is nativism on how the British colonists systematically oppressed Punjabi Migrants to stay in the country, the rise of economic growth in the New World and culture divergence between the Americas and India. To define the word nativism, in the English Oxford Dictionary, “Nativism is a policy protecting interests of native-born or established inhabitants against immigrants.” Which means that throughout the 19th century, Imperialists has excluded Punjab migrants from being a citizen in the country. Indian migrants as subjects of the global British Empire, treated them with loyalty and respect. In spite of these arguments the Prime Minister of England Winston Churchill seen migrants as a problem. He thinks that the Indians are imposing a threat towards the empire by taking over their job positions. And so, the legislation passed the Natal Act to prevent unwanted racial or national groups. This was defined by a language screening test to identify migrants based on their language capabilities. In effect the actions taken by the government were uncivil, and disgraceful on behalf of the committee. People of the Indian community made protests and
As explained in the letter, it is a series of chronological events are shown to the reader to understand the context which states “The vessel returned to Hong Kong July 23, 1914, with all but 22 of the original passengers, who were allowed to leave the ship, other passengers were denied entry into Canada.” This explains how Canadian immigration officers observed migrants when arriving at the country. An embodiment of representatives in the courthouse shows how responsible they’re for fulfilling the duties to the citizens which include the Primer, the Minister, and the Attorney General. The interesting part about the document compared to other primary sources is the government perception of Asian migrants. By examining from the past, they were excluded from residency rights for a period of duration. The Sikhs who were dominant in migration had issues with finding a home. They were mostly accompanied by 3-4 people in the household with inadequate food and water. This has demonstrated that with the government’s lack of social support and benefits that have led to the devastation drawn to these