The Chinese in Toronto from 1878. Arlene Chan
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Название: The Chinese in Toronto from 1878
Автор: Arlene Chan
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: История
isbn: 9781459700949
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In 1903 the head tax was increased once again, this time to $500, an exorbitant amount that immediately curbed the influx of Chinese. In the first half of 1904, no Chinese entered the country, while in the latter half, only a trickle managed the monetary feat.15 Without a doubt, this $500 tax was a financial challenge. A typical farmer of the day in China, who earned seven cents a day, would have to work for 20 years to pay this tax, while a Chinese labourer in Canada would have to work for two years. At the time, $500 was enough to purchase two houses in Vancouver.
Fourteen-year-old John Kuong paid the $500 head tax when he arrived in 1921:
You worked for $5 or $6 for a seven-day week, if you were lucky. But back then you could buy 100 pounds of potatoes for 25 cents. That’s why paying $500 for a head tax was a lot of money.16
After Kuong moved to Toronto from Saskatoon, he worked in a restaurant, and in 1967 he owned a laundromat at Dundas and Keele streets in the Junction.
With some Chinese, such as Kuong, still managing despite the immense head tax, a strongly worded circular was issued by the Victoria Chinese Board of Trade Guild in 1913 and widely distributed in China. Created as a communication to deter Chinese from immigrating to Canada, the flyer, in part, described the hardships and miseries of those already in the country, so that the “people in China” would “give up the idea of coming.”
Why should you, brothers, leave your parents and your wives and children to come over here? Don’t you know that our lot in life here is very much harder than it is in China? There are now about 20 thousand Chinese in Canada, who are unemployed and without a permanent home. They can get no work to support themselves. They go about begging old clothes and bread to save themselves from cold and starvation.17
The circular further detailed the revenue collected by the Canadian government and showed that over $9 million was collected from 1885 to 1913 (see Table 1).
TABLE 1
Victoria Chinese Board of Trade Guild Circular
Source: Kootenay: An Exploration of Historic Prejudice and Intolerance, www.fortsteele.ca/exhibits/kootenay/ethnic/circular.asp.
Against all odds, the head tax proved ineffectual in deterring the Chinese. From the 1891 to the 1921 censuses, the increases were substantial, ranging from 108 percent to 42 percent (see Table 2). One explanation for the influx was the expanding Canadian economy; labour contractors willingly advanced money to Chinese immigrant labourers to cover the head tax. But the strongest factor was the burning desire to come to Canada, and the Chinese resorted to any means possible. They borrowed money from their families, friends, and fellow villagers, money that they would spend the rest of their lives paying back.
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 СКАЧАТЬ