The Chinese head tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act By Matthew McRae When he was a little
Question:
The Chinese head tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act
By Matthew McRae
When he was a little boy growing up in Vancouver, Dr. Henry Yudidn’t understand why his grandfather frequently took him on longwalks to visit Chinatown. It was only when Dr. Yu was much olderthat he realized that his grandfather’s walks were connected to twodiscriminatory policies from Canada’s past: the Chinese head taxand the Chinese Exclusion Act.
To understand these two policies and the terrible effect theyhad on generations of individuals, you need to know a little aboutthe history of Chinese immigration to Canada. In the late 1800s,there was an influx of Chinese immigration to Canada’s West. Manycame to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway – the firstCanadian Railway to cross the Rocky Mountains and reach the PacificCoast – but Chinese people emigrated for many other reasons, too:working on farms, opening stores and participating in loggingoperations in British Columbia and elsewhere.
Chinese people in Canada often worked in dangerous or low?statusjobs that others did not want. Unfortunately, many white Canadianswere hostile to Chinese immigration. In 1885, immediately afterconstruction on the Canadian Pacific Railway was complete, thefederal government passed the Chinese Immigration Act, whichstipulated that, with almost no exceptions, every person of Chineseorigin immigrating to Canada had to pay a fee of $50, called a headtax. No other group in Canadian history has ever been forced to paya tax based solely on their country of origin. “It was an attemptto basically discriminate against the Chinese,” Dr. Yu explained.“…it was a way to alter the flow of migrants to the new Canada tobe weighted towards European and in particular Britishmigrants.”
In 1900, the head tax was raised to $100. Then, three yearslater, it went up to $500 per person. Between 1885 and 1923,approximately 81,000 Chinese immigrants paid the head tax,contributing millions of dollars to government coffers. One ofthose who paid the tax was Dr. Yu’s maternal grandfather, YeungSing Yew, who immigrated to Canada in 1923. Yeung was also one ofthe last Chinese immigrants to pay the head tax; in the same yearas he arrived in the country, the Canadian government passed a newChinese Immigration Act, which came to be known as the ChineseExclusion Act.
Under the new act, Chinese immigration to Canada was completelybanned. This legislation was kept in place until 1947, and itseffect on Canada’s Chinese community was devastating.
Because of the costly head tax, by 1923, Canada’s Chinesecommunities were largely “bachelor societies,” where menoutnumbered women by a ratio of almost twenty?eight to one. ManyChinese men had come to Canada alone, hoping to save enough moneyto bring over their wives and families. The Chinese Exclusion Actof 1923 destroyed those dreams. Yeung spent many years living alonein Canada.
Even after 1947, immigration to Canada was still challenging.Until Canada’s immigration system was overhauled in 1967, fewChinese were let into the country, and usually only for familyreunification purposes. In fact, Yeung first met his daughter – Dr.Yu’s mother – when she immigrated to Canada in 1965. Both of Dr.Yu’s parents worked full time, so when he was young, he spent a lotof time with his grandparents –this brings us back to the longwalks to Chinatown.
It was only when Dr. Yu was older, and knew his grandfather’swhole story, that he finally understood what the long walks wereabout: they demonstrated his grandfather’s joy at being reunitedwith his family. “It explains his showing me off to all those otherelderly men gathered at these cafes in Chinatown,” Dr. Yu told me.He recounted how excited the old men would be, and how they wouldenthusiastically congratulate his grandfather: "It explains why mygrandfather having me here was like an explosion of joy because theExclusion Act basically made it impossible for many of them… tomarry someone and have kids turn into grandkids. Many of them woulddie alone literally, growing old alone except for these other menin these cafes."
This experience helped teach Dr. Yu that the effects of racialdiscrimination take a psychological toll on many generations. Heremembers how, until the late 1940s, the Chinese in BritishColumbia were not allowed to swim in pools with whites and weresegregated in movie theatres. He told me how many Chineseimmigrants lived in fear of being deported because authoritieswould often look for reasons to remove people from the country. Dr.Yu’s grandfather used a fake identity, called a “paper name,” toget into Canada because he did not have a legal birth certificate –something that was very common at the time – and so he worried formany years about the authorities coming for him.
"So my grandfather, you could say he lived a life thatunfortunately distorted who he could be, who he was – and by thetime I knew him as an elder in the community, he wasn’t the sameman he was when he was young. When I learned about things like thehead tax…. It explained things about my grandfather that I alreadyfelt and knew. It’s kind of interesting that you can feelsomething’s wrong and not know why until later. You kind of don’tknow the words, and then you finally find a name for your pain. Yousay "Oh now I get it. Now I understand.""
Chinese Canadians did call for acknowledgment of the humanrights violations they experienced due to the head tax and ChineseExclusion Act. In 1983, Dak Leon Mark and Shack Yee requested thatthe Canadian government refund the $500 head tax they had eachpaid. In the years that followed, some 4,000 Chinese Canadians cameforward seeking redress. Some Chinese Canadians also pursuedjustice through the court of law. Redress finally came in June2006, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized in the House ofCommons. That same year, $20,000 in redress was offered by theGovernment of Canada to all surviving individuals who had paid thehead tax. The government also allocated $24 million for a communityhistorical recognition program and $10 million for a nationalhistorical recognition Program meant to educate Canadians on theimpacts of the head tax and the racism experienced by manydifferent groups in Canada.
Dr. Henry Yu is now a professor of History at the University ofBritish Columbia. He has played a key role in the Chinese Head TaxDigitization Project, which created a searchable database ofChinese Canadian immigrants who paid the head tax. The databaseallows individuals to search for family members, and it allowsresearchers access to important demographic information. For Dr.Yu, it also serves as a connection to his grandfather and to allthose who have passed away, ensuring they and their stories arenever forgotten: "You could say that in this research, thisdatabase, I can find ways to hear from him and all those other menwho are otherwise silent. And so that’s where, in a way, we wereable to find a voice and let it say things that perhaps theycouldn’t at the time."
Using the available prompt that appears above this,please write a personal response thesis (1 sentence thesis) and onebody paragraph based and course pack instructions. Separatethe thesis and body paragraph with one line of space. An APAcitation/reference is not needed for this writing. If you choose toinclude a comparative response, an APA citation reference is notneeded.
Systems analysis and design
ISBN: ?978-1118808177
5th edition
Authors: Alan Dennis, Barbara Haley Wixom, Roberta m. Roth