The Assimilation of Chinese Immigrants in Multicultural Canadian Society

History of Chinese Immigration to Canada

Fraser River Gold Rush

British Columbia had several gold finds which attracted many gold miners, one of which was Fraser River Gold Rush. When the first consignment of Fraser River gold reached San Francisco on April 3, 1858, the Fraser River Gold Rush was on. Tens of thousands of people flocked to the area, increasing the population of Victoria from 500 to more than 5,000 people; thousands more moved to the mainland.

Of those people, there were a number of Chinese immigrants from San Francisco, and a number of Chinese coming from China itself. They lived on fish and rice, and requiring low wages; it was actually not a matter also of economical consideration to employ them. During the pioneer days, shortage of labour forced the colonial government to rely on Chinese contractors for recruitment of Chinese labourers to build trails and wagon roads, drain swamps, dig ditches and engage in other sorts of backbreaking tasks.

Canadian Pacific Railway Construction

In 1881, the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia attracted a large scale of Chinese labourers into the young province. The railway construction would need at least 10,000 workers, while the White population of B.C. was estimated at about 35,000, and most of them were engaged in gold mining, coal mining, fish canning or commerce.

Since the local supply of labours could not meet the demand for railway construction, a large number of Chinese labourers were imported. This led to the result that white labourers believed that the Chinese cheap labour depressed their wages and jeopardized the survival of their families.

Head Tax and Chinese Immigration Act

As the Chinese immigrants were willing to work at low paid and took away many occupations of the local community, the white population had strong hostility towards them. In 1855, the Federal Government introduced the head tax system. It stipulated that Chinese immigrants had to pay $10 for the right to land in Canada, and directed at not only Chinese workers already in Canada, but ultimately to future Chinese immigration, the tax was later raised to $50 in 1896, $100 in 1901, and finally to $500 in 1903.

However, the the heavy tax was inefficient in reducing Chinese immigration. As a result, the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 was passed by the government of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in response to continued demands for more prohibitive regulations to limit Chinese immigration. The immigration of Chinese was strictly prohibited.

After many years of organized calls for an official Canadian government public apology and redress to the historic Head tax, the Canadian government announced an official apology on June 22, 2006, in which Prime Minister Stephen Harper's speech called the Tax a "grave injustice."

Contribution in Wars

After the outbreak of the European War in September 1939, many native-born Chinese youths volunteered for military service to prove their loyalty to Canada although they were not treated as Canadian soldiers. In World War II, many Chinese Canadians were served as military forces and got the admission as Canadian soldiers. Their contribution to Canada in the wars was recognized.

Therefore, the rights of full citizenship rights, including the right to vote, were granted after the Second World War, when Canada repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act and extended the vote to Chinese Canadians in 1947.

Political Participation

In the post-war period, Chinese were given more rights as a Canadian citizen. In 1957, they had not only the right to vote, but also the franchise. They began to participate politics in Canada.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, many Chinese Canadians were elected as MPs, MLAs, Mayors and City Councillors. Dr. Vivienne Poy (1998-) and Dr. Lillian E. Dyck (2005-) are two Chinese Canadian senators, and Governor General Adrienne Clarkson (1999-2005), Dr. David Lam, Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia (1988-1995), Norman Kwong, L-G of Alberta (2005-2010), and Philip Lee, L-G of Manitoba (2009-) are all of Chinese ethnic origin.

Immigration of Hong Kong People

In 1990, the outflow of people reached a peak of 62,000 people or about 1% of the population. The emigration rate would reach the peak in 1992 with 66,000 people, followed by 53,000 in 1993, and 62,000 in 1994. An estimated US $4.2 billion flowed from Hong Kong to Canada directly as a result.

With the political uncertainties as Hong Kong headed towards 1997, many residents of Hong Kong chose to immigrate to Canada. It was easy for them to enter Canada due to their Commonwealth of Nations connections.

Many people from Hong Kong chose to migrate to Vancouver, Canada and an adjacent suburb Richmond. Other favoured cities were Toronto, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sydney, London, Melbourneand Auckland

Race Relations Cycle

Stage I: Contacts

In modern society, which exists as a Laissez-faire system, it enables physical contact between different social group which is superficial and explorative in nature. As Robert Park believes, “It removes the social taboo, permits the individual to move into strange groups, and thus facilitates new and adventurous contacts.” Kuh and Sweetman elaborate the idea of park in terms of time. They believe, “the more years that have elapsed, the more contact with the host culture has occurred, and the more new skills can be acquired” and they think that, “skills increase the economic success, at least as measured by monetary income and participation in work for pay” .

In the Fraser River Gold Rush period of Chinese immigrant, it is a contact period between the local Canadian with Chinese immigrant. The period involved the physical contact that the Chinese workers moved into the society. The Chinese immigrants brought their culture and facing cultural shock in a new society.

Stage II: Competition

In the economic and cultural competition occur from the contacts between host people and the migrants, Park claimed, “its ultimate economic effect is to substitute personal for racial competition, and to give free play to forces that tend to relegate every individual, irrespective of race or status, to the position he or she is best fitted to fill” . During the competition, Ono believes the identity between the local group and the migrant group will be strengthened. He mentioned the “ethnic competition directly contributes to the formation of ethnic identity in the descendants of immigrants. “

In the period of Canadian Pacific Railway Construction, Chinese immigrants worked as the lower class workers in the society, as their linguistic capital and cultural capital is less than the local Canadian, they failed to compete with the locals on the upper class occupations. Hence, they became the lower class in the society and started to develop community and their own identity in Canada.

Stage III: Accommodation

After a period of competition, the group identity has been formed and it comes to the stage of Accommodation. Park suggested that “it is this practical working arrangement, into which individuals with widely different mental capacities enter as co-ordinate parts, that gives the corporate character to social groups and insures their solidarity” . This stage is not stable, temporary and will evolve to assimilation ultimately.

Leipold and Bernhard used international student as an illustration, they claimed that “across cases, the students used various strategies to resolve or accommodate language and academic concerns.” They builded up different social relationships with their classmates, their tutor and other possible relationships.

When the Chinese immigrants started to participate in Canadian politic, they start to accommodation their identity and culture onto the local society. As Immigrants started to spread through the social structure, and exist in different classes, groups and parties.

Stage IV: Assimilation

Rober Park claimed, "assimilation is a process of interpenetration and fusion in which persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons and groups, and by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them in a common cultural life."

It is “the chief obstacle to the assimilation of the Negro and the Oriental are not mental but physical traits...The trouble is not with the Japanese mind but with the Japanese skin. The Jap is not the right color”

In Nowadays, there are a significant proportion of chinese people in Canada, and they have assimulate to the local culture. in the sense of multiculturalism, they have a fair outcome in terms of education, political participation, job opportunities etc. The Chinese identity and culture is formed and preserved.

Multiculturism in Canada

As the immigration in Canada have been increased since 19th century, multiculturalism has been developed in order to maintain the social harmony and diversity. The concept of multiculturalism is different from the idea of the ‘melting pot’. In United State, people uphold the value of the ‘American dream’, as a result, United State became a dreamland of earning gold in the 18th century. People in United State need to get united by changing their own culture and conform to the social norm. As a result, immigrant needs to to blend the respective cultures into a new indigenous culture, and there is no exception or qualification is required for the people to get into the culture. The new comers just need to conform to a new culture and contribute to form the united american dream. Hence, the ethnic conflict between white and black persist even in nowadays, as some of the values between different ethnic group could not come into one conclusive culture.

In contrast, the Canada, as a place for multiculturalism, focused on the fairness of the outcome. For example, the ethnic composition of a school, the fairness of the opportunities for different ethnic people to get a job. The cultural pluralism sustain the preservation of the communal life and significant portions of ethnic culture within the context of citizenship.

Hence, the Chinese immigrants in Canada could sustain their own cultural values and practises. They could transfer their cultural capital from their own countries, by building up their own new community in Canada, they could assimilate to the Canadian Society with a higher level of harmony. The respects and equal opportunities between different ethnic has been well developed in Canada, hence, the process of assimilation and the level of social harmony is faster and higher.