Social boundaries

Racial differences shaped British Columbia’s society, like they did any other society. But the strength of some of the past racial boundaries may surprise many modern-day British Columbians.

Immigrants who first settled in the province took many rights away from the original First Nations people and denied them access to land and resources that they had controlled for thousands of years. These immigrants were not necessarily all from Europe, however. In an attempt to limit the number of immigrants from other ethnic backgrounds, British Columbia’s European settlers introduced many social, legal and economic restrictions.

The first Chinese immigrants came to British Columbia aboard a British fur-trading ship in 1788. As craftspeople, their job was to help build a trading post at Yukuot, on Vancouver Island. In the years that followed, thousands more people emigrated from China to British Columbia. The province limited their rights in many ways, going as far as placing a $50 head tax on new Chinese immigrants in 1885. The tax rose several times, reaching a height of $500 in 1923, when it was replaced by an almost total ban on Chinese immigration. The ban lasted until 1947. In 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for both the tax and the ban, calling them a “grave injustice.”

The first South Asian immigrants came to British Columbia in 1903 to find work in sawmills and as general labourers. Ironically, the head tax placed on Chinese immigrants created employment opportunities for people from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The provincial government saw the growing South Asian population as a threat and denied these newcomers the right to vote.

Anti-immigration attitudes became stronger and stronger and eventually led to the Komagata Maru incident. In 1914, officials refused to allow 376 Sikh emigrants from British India (who were, therefore, also British subjects) to come ashore in Canada. After two months of floating in Burrard Inlet aboard the Komagata Maru, these once-hopeful voyagers returned to Asia.

In 1877, a sailor named Manzo Nagano, became the first Japanese person to arrive in British Columbia after successfully jumping ship at New Westminster. Others followed in 1891 to work at coal mines in Cumberland on Vancouver Island. In 1895, Japanese immigrants were also denied the right to vote. In 1907, after the Asiatic Exclusion League (a group whose goal was to prevent East Asian immigration) started a riot in Vancouver’s Chinese and Japanese districts, Japan agreed to restrict immigration to B.C.

Anti-Japanese feelings during the Second World War resulted in roughly 22,000 Canadians of Japanese descent being relocated from the coast. Most were sent to internment camps in the province’s interior, but others went to camps and farms in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario. After the war, the Japanese immigrants had two options: they could move to Japan, a country that few of them had even visited, or they could re-settle east of the Rockies.

During the Second World War, Davidson wrote back and forth with a Japanese member of the Vancouver Natural History Society, Sunao “Steve” Shigematsu. The government had seized Shigematsu’s home and sent him to the province’s interior.

Through letters, Davidson arranged to house Shigematsu’s butterfly collection in the radio room of his Kerrisdale home until Shigematsu’s return (before the war, Davidson and his son had used the radio room for their hobby, HAM wireless radio). These matter-of-fact letters show how major historical events touched people’s personal lives.

In 1986, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney apologized for this mistreatment on behalf of all Canadians.

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Further reading

David Brownstein (2006). Sunday Walks and Seed Traps: The Many Natural Histories of British Columbia Forest Conservation, 1890–1925, unpublished PhD Thesis, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

Cole Harris (1997). The Resettlement of British Columbia: Essays on Colonialism and Geographical Change, UBC Press, Vancouver.

James Morton (1977). In The Sea of Sterile Mountains: The Chinese in British Columbia.

Norman Buchignani, Doreen M. Indra and Ram Srivastiva (1985). A Social History of South Asians in Canada, McLelland and Stewart Ltd, Toronto.

Ken Adachi (1991). The Enemy That Never Was: A History of the Japanese Canadians, McClelland & Stewart, Toronto.

Michael Graeme Campbell (1977). The Sikhs of Vancouver: A Case Study in Minority–Host Relations, unpublished MA thesis, Dept of Political Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.