The Chinese in Toronto from 1878. Arlene Chan

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      Source: Ban Seng Hoe, Enduring Hardships (Gatineau, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2003), 9.

      Although the early laundries were clustered in downtown Toronto, they spread across the city. George Lee, who later became a dentist, worked at his father’s laundry at 1132 Yonge Street. Harry Lem, owner of Lichee Garden, worked at a laundry operated by his father and uncle in the Danforth area. Tom Lock recalled that his father, who arrived in Toronto with his hair in a queue, was “one of the pioneers, a small businessman who was forced to open a laundry because of the language barrier.”⁶³ He described hand laundering at his father’s business in the St. Clair and Lansdowne neighbourhood:

      To make the linens white, we used to put the soiled linen in a big square steel tank 4’ x 4’ x 6’ deep on top of the coal stove. We would feed the tank using a hose and add bleach, stirring the washing with a big stick. After, Ma would stand on a stool, reach into the boiling water and drag out the clothes with the stick. She would then drop them in a pail and transfer them to the washing machine.⁶⁴

      A Torontonian reminiscing about his youth during the Great Depression described a local laundry:

      Outside of Chinatown there were a number of Chinese who ran laundries… They must have done a good business because any time I visited one of these establishments to pick up some finished washing for a neighbour (my mother always did her own), I noticed their shelves were full of the wrapped finished product.⁶⁵

      Olive N. Graham remembered the laundry being picked up at her house by Lem Brother Laundry, which was located near the Scarborough Bluffs in the 1920s:

      Not to be forgotten was the small sad figure of the Chinese laundryman who came regularly to the neighbourhood carrying his load in a white sack on his back. Mother would give him her best cloths and shirt collars which he finished beautifully in his little shop at Birchcliff. Tickets would be in Chinese characters and this, of course, was very mysterious. What a lonely life he must have led.⁶⁶

      Kay Chong’s experience, so typical of the strong kinship in the laundry business, shows the young age at which some early immigrants came to work under sponsorship of a family member. Chong’s father, who arrived in 1920 at the age of 13 to work in his relative’s laundry, later owned and operated two hand laundries in the Broadview and Arlington areas. He brought over his 17-year-old son, Kay, from China in 1950. Kay later took over the laundries from his father.⁶⁷

      Even as laundries multiplied across the city, Chinatown was not lacking in other types of businesses (see Table 6). A fancy goods store, Wing Tai and Company, opened at 405 Yonge Street. In 1902 a shop at 69½ Queen Street West was operated as the Quong Ying Yune Tea Company. Other tea businesses included Lee Chong Yung at 154 York Street, Yee Quong Teas at 156¼ York Street, and Kwong Yong Loy at 85–87 Queen Street East. Additionally, a cluster of businesses extended between 173 to 187% Queen Street East: two laundries, four goods stores, one cigar store, and a men’s furnishings store.

      One goods store offered a variety of provisions, including Chinese herbs, homemade Chinese sausage, and various other imported products from China. It operated not only from the storefront but also from a truck, delivering to restaurants and laundries. The owner’s son remembered how deliveries were made to the customers:

      Chinese laundries provided delivery service. The truck for Hoy Jack Laundry, located at 95 Harbord Street, is parked in Chinatown in 1923.

      One goods store offered a variety of provisions, including Chinese herbs, homemade Chinese sausage, and various other imported products from China. It operated not only from the storefront but also from a truck, delivering to restaurants and laundries. The owner’s son remembered how deliveries were made to the customers:

       The business card of Y.S. Chu, who owned the export and import store the Oriental Trading Company, lists the inventory, including “coolie coats.”

      My dad would go out two or three times a week on a circuit. He had to deliver because a bag of rice was 45 pounds, a barrel of soap was 120 pounds, a barrel of starch was 120 pounds, and a bag of soda, 100 pounds. You couldn’t take that on the streetcar very well.⁶⁸

      TABLE 6

      Chinese Population and Businesses in Toronto, 1881 to 1931

      Source: Valerie Mah, An In-Depth Look at Toronto’s Early Chinatown, 1913-1933 (masters thesis, University of Toronto, 1977).

      Restaurants and Cafés

      A second occupational niche that appeared in great numbers was the business of restaurants, cafés, and hamburger joints (see Table 6). Downtown Toronto was a popular spot to open eating establishments for office workers, store clerks, labourers, and travellers, who were hungry for reasonably priced food. These establishments were started for similar reasons as laundries, as Chinese could borrow startup money and learn the business on-the-job, but partnerships.

      were the only way that low-paid Chinese with limited savings could start their small businesses.

      Although the initial capital investment of $1,000 to $2,000 for restaurants was two to three times greater than for laundries, the margin of profit was greater. Using the premises for working and sleeping kept costs to a minimum for more profitability. And they hired from within the family. One immigrant, who arrived as a 21-year-old in 1912, worked at a number of Chinese restaurants where he was consistently replaced by a family member:

      During those years most Chinese employers only hired their relatives or people who had the same surname. Even if you were hired by an employer to whom you were not related, as soon as he found a relative to take your place, you would immediately be fired. Thus, over the years, I moved around to many towns and cities.⁶⁹

      Sing Tom’s Restaurant was Toronto’s first Chinese restaurant to open in 1901. It was located at 37½ Queen Street West, later the site of the Robert Simpson Company.⁷⁰ The name changed to Sing Wing Restaurant in 1902, but within the next year, the address was occupied by Kong Yee Teas.⁷¹ As more restaurants opened, so did fears that these and other Chinese businesses would hire white women and corrupt them with opium or sell them into white slavery.

      In 1908 Toronto’s city solicitor advised the Board of Police Commissioners to refuse licenses СКАЧАТЬ