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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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, their confinement in Chinatown perpetuated cultural exclusiveness and the isolation of the Chinese.
The Chinese quarters, in 1886, were located on Cormorant Street in Victoria, home of the oldest Chinatown in Canada.
The first Chinese resident recorded in Toronto’s city directory of 1878 was Sam Ching. He was the owner of a hand laundry at 9 Adelaide Street East, a two-storey building owned by the barrister Thomas Ince. The neighbours, all with Anglo-Saxon names, included a machinist, a blacksmith, oil merchants, and book keepers.23 Another man, Wo Kee, operated a laundry nearby, at 385 Yonge Street.24
By 1881 10 Chinese lived in Toronto and there were four Chinese laundries. Seven Chinese resided in the St. James Ward, bordered by Yonge Street to Jarvis Street and King Street north to Bloor Street. Three lived in the St. Andrews Ward, bordered by Yonge Street to the western city limits and King Street north to Queen Street.25
A barber shop, import store, and tailor occupied one-and two-storey buildings at 70½–74 Elizabeth Street in 1937.
The population growth was slow, insufficient in numbers to constitute a defined community. In 1891 the Chinese in Toronto numbered 33. Three years later, there were 50.26 This rate of growth changed, however, at the dawn of the new century. As the city grew rapidly during the early 1900s, so did the Chinese population. In 1900 there were 200 Chinese and 95 businesses that were widely scattered. In 1905, 228 laundries, a few grocery stores, some restaurants, and at least 15 merchants appeared.27
By 1910 there were two clusters of Chinese businesses in small yet identifiable Chinese sections.28 The first cluster was located on Queen and George streets, where there were six Chinese businesses and the Toronto branch of the Chinese Empire Reform Association, which had opened in 1905. This office closed after the fall of the Manchu dynasty in 1911, and the businesses moved away, halting the growth of what had appeared to be developing into a Chinese area. By this time, the Chinese numbered 1,001 men and 35 women, a negligible proportion of the city’s population of 130,000.29
Yet, even such a small population, less than 1 percent, was grounds for concern among Torontonians. The city’s first neighbourhood association, the Rosedale Ratepayers Association, announced the need to keep Chinese laundries out of its neighbourhood.30 Jack Canuck, a Toronto newspaper, mounted its attack on the growing number of Chinese:
There are not less than 25 Chinese stores, laundries and restaurants in the blocks bounded by King, Queen, Yonge and York Streets. How many of them are ‘dens’ in the Police court parlance? One need only stroll through the above mentioned blocks and notice the throngs of Chinese lounging in the streets and doorways to realize that the ‘Yellow Peril’ is more than a mere word in this city.31
It was not until after 1915 that Toronto’s Chinese settled in a clearly defined area, with nine businesses and residences.32 This early community was on and around York Street but was soon disrupted due to a redevelopment, the first of many to come. The Chinese then moved west to the low-rent area along Queen Street between York and Elizabeth streets. When this location was also designated for redevelopment, the Chinese moved north up Elizabeth Street toward Dundas Street West.
This area was located in what was then known as the Ward, bounded by Yonge Street, University Avenue, College Street, and Queen Street. Close to the railway station, the Ward was a major immigrant reception area and provided low-cost housing for the city’s poorest settlers, largely East European Jews and Italians. It was a maze of broken-down cottages and unpaved alleys and laneways, like Foster Place and Hagerman Street. The Ward gained a reputation as a slum after the House of Industry, a poor house, was opened at Elm and Chestnut streets in 1848. One block away was Centre Street, a red-light district until the late 1800s.
This vacant property, adjacent to the Great Wall Company and a tailor shop at 60–70 Elizabeth Street in 1937, was a sign of the high turnover of businesses in Chinatown.
The living conditions in the densely populated Ward were deplorable. As more Jews settled there between 1905 and 1912, housing demand increased, rents soared, and landlords neglected to improve their СКАЧАТЬ