Toronto’s Gim Wong recounted the extremes that his uncle underwent, selling whatever land that could be spared, borrowing money from people in the village, and selling one sister into slavery. According to Wong, “villages did everything they could to send one person over, in hopes he would do what he could to help the village … Even when I was in high school, I remember my parents still fighting every New Year’s about whose village they were going to send $20 back to, my father’s or my mother’s. Our rent at the time was $5 a month, so $20 was a lot of money.”18
TABLE 2.
Chinese Population in Canada, 1881-1921
Source: Census of Canada, Statistics Canada, (1881–1921).
While the head tax was in effect from 1885 to 1923, 82,369 Chinese paid a total of $23 million, reportedly equivalent to the cost of building the British Columbia section of the Canadian Pacific Railway. This would amount to over $1 billion in the current economy.19
Family Life
Most of the Chinese people living in Canada were men without families, men left to live in what was called a bachelor society. Although the Chinese cherished large families, they would never experience the joy of being with their wives and raising their children. Some were single, but most were married men, who came to be known as bachelor husbands. They had wives in China but lived their lives in Canada like bachelors, their family arrangements split between two continents. The men sent money home regularly, where, in many instances, their home villages were supported almost exclusively by these remittances. Only the fortunate few, like merchants, made enough money to bring their families to Canada — the majority endured their hardships alone.
The strong loyalty to family was instilled through the teachings of Confucius (551–479 BCE), a political figure and teacher whose philosophy shaped the fundamental interactions an individual had with self, society, and government. Everyone was expected to obey and respect superiors: the subject to his ruler, the wife to her husband, the son to his parents, and the younger brother to his older brother. Great importance was placed on the family as the foundation of society, every man linked in the chain of ancestors and their descendants. This system of kinship was strictly patrilineal, in that sons, not daughters, continued the line, inherited the family property, and carried the important obligation of worshipping their deceased ancestors and parents. Filial piety or respect of the ancestral home was a highly honoured virtue. The structure of the Chinese family was not limited by blood ties alone. Rather, it applied beyond the household into broader kinship groupings. Families living together in the same locality regarded themselves as relatives, since they were descended from a common ancestor through the male line.
These Confucian values were brought to Canada by Chinese immigrants, who left their villages when they were in their teens or twenties. More often than not, the eldest son remained to work the modest plot of family land while his younger brothers were forced to leave out of necessity. Very few peasant families had land large enough for more than one son. Despite the vast distance, these men fulfilled their Confucian obligations by sending their meagre savings home and visiting as often as possible.
Few Chinese women ventured overseas, not only due to the prohibitive costs for passage and the head tax but also cultural taboos. In China’s patrilineal society, daughters were regarded as a burden. Often, out of desperation, they were sold into bondage as servant girls, concubines, or prostitutes. By tradition, Chinese women were initially family-centred daughters, then wives who were tied for life to their husbands, and finally widows. The role of a wife, some betrothed as young as eight, was to care for her parents-in-law, children, and household.
What separated the Chinese from other immigrants was the migratory pattern. Typically, men were the first to move abroad, followed by women, children, and parents. This sequence did not take place with the Chinese, due to the head tax. The 1911 census figures alone tell a sad tale of when there were 2,800 Chinese men in Canada for every 100 Chinese women — a male–female ratio of 28 to one. Comparatively, the proportion among immigrants overall was 158 men for every 100 women.20 The 1921 census (see Table 3) shows that, until the post-war years, the gender imbalance for Chinese in cities remained the most severe among all ethnic groups in Canada.21
TABLE 3
Ratio of Chinese Men and Women in Canada, 1921
Source: Census of Canada, Statistics Canada (1921).
Men who saved enough money would temporarily return home, many to be married and father children. A few years later, they might return for another visit and father another child. One such bachelor husband married at the age of 18 in 1917 and left China to work at his father’s laundry, in Canada. His daughter was born in 1918, after his departure. In 1922, 1926, and 1934, he made three short trips to his village, each time fathering a son. Not until the 1950s was he able to bring his wife and four children to Canada.22
The Beginnings of Chinatown
The origin of the designation Chinatown is not known, and this term survived other labels assigned by white society, like “Chinese quarters,” “Chinamen’s quarters,” and “Chinese district.” What is known is that the Chinese lived and worked in close vicinity to one another. The Chinese called these areas “the streets of the Tang people,” a phrase that is commonly used to this day. The word Tang is the name of the imperial dynasty of China (618–907 AD), considered the height of Chinese civilization. Over time, the word Chinatown evolved into the internationally recognized term, designating the ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese and a Chinese quarter of a city outside of China.
Whether the Chinese settled voluntarily in these segregated areas or were forced into isolation by mainstream society remains a controversial topic. During the early years of the gold rush and the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Chinese were clustered in tent camps pitched beside gold mines and railway tracks, and later in housing occupying the poorer parts of towns. White landlords would not sell or rent properties to the Chinese except for on the fringe of town. In Victoria and Vancouver, they occupied the cheapest districts, with low-class saloons and brothels as neighbours. This early segregation perpetuated the stereotype that the Chinese were undesirable foreigners who lived in unsanitary neighbourhoods rife with social vices like gambling and prostitution. The term Chinatown became associated with a full range of negative connotations and was used by politicians and journalists in political speeches, newspapers, and legislation.
This tent camp, located beside the railway tracks near Kamloops in 1886, was a precursor to the later segregation in towns.
Chinatowns did serve the needs of their community, and the influx of Chinese workers brought consumer demand. They developed as safe places to live and find Chinese goods and services. Grocers imported and stocked familiar goods and foods, like tea, dried fish, and rice. Just as the home villages in China provided identity and belonging to the Chinese, so, too, did the Chinatowns of the New World. They were the hubs and gathering places desperately needed by a society lacking in women and children. They became the heart and soul of Chinese Canada, a safe haven from the hostile and racist host society that surrounded them. Chinese people faced violence if they stepped outside of Chinatown. As new immigrants arrived, they tended to live in Chinatown with their sponsors. While this arrangement provided comfort for newcomers,