Asian-history anniversaries begin to coalesce

Georgia Straight: 21-Sep-2006
http://www.straight.com/Print_Page.cfm?id=20689

By Charlie Cho

History is never neutral. Framing is everything. Take Vancouver's
anti-Asian riots of 1907.

On September 7 of that year, the Asiatic Exclusion League led a parade
to City Hall at Main and Hastings streets, calling for an end to Asian
immigration to British Columbia. More than 8,000 people, including
local politicians, labour leaders, and members of fraternal
organizations, rallied with banners reading Stand for a White Canada.

Only 2,000 could fit in City Hall, so crowds drifted to Chinatown, a
block away. A rock thrown through a store window touched off a rampage
of smashed signs and glass, and looting that continued into
neighbouring Japantown, where the crowd faced some resistance before
police showed up to quell the violence.

In the following days, Chinese and Japanese armed themselves with
guns, preparing for another siege. They held a general strike,
refusing to go to their jobs in homes, restaurants, and mills.

William Lyon Mackenzie King, then federal deputy minister of labour,
held hearings on the riot. Almost a year later, damages were awarded:
$26,000 to the Chinese, $9,000 to the Japanese.

Henry Yu, an associate professor of history at UBC, sees 2007 not just
as the 100th anniversary of the 1907 riots but marking three other key
years in the history of Asian immigration to Pacific Canada: 1947,
1967, and 1997.

For Yu, focusing on a simple "victim" narrative would obscure the
richer story that has led to the transformation of Vancouver into what
he calls the Switzerland of the Asia Pacific.

Instead of being the end result of a long history of anti-Asian racism
in North America, Yu sees the 1907 riots as the beginning of Canada
severing its ties with Asia. "The Chinese weren't brought to Canada
just because they were 'cheaper' but because they were cheaper to
bring here [than from Eastern Canada]," he says. "The whole irony is
the railroad they helped build [finished in 1885] made it easier to
bring the people to displace them."

New European immigrants claimed the Asians were taking their jobs in
farming, fishing, and mining when the opposite was true: Europeans
were arriving from Eastern Canada and taking jobs from Asians.

In 1947, Asian Canadians' service in the Second World War led to the
repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act and full citizenship (including
the right to vote) not just for the Chinese but also for Japanese
Canadians, Indo-Canadians, and First Nations.

Yu considers 1967 an underrecognized landmark. "We think of
multiculturalism. We think of Pierre Trudeau. It's not just because of
Quebec and the Quiet Revolution and the things that led the
multiculturalism in terms of federal politics but also the new [1967]
Immigration Act, which led to huge new waves from China."

The act created a more equitable points system that made it easier for
educated professionals to enter Canada, facilitated family
reunification, and eliminated discrimination on the basis of
nationality and race by dismissing national origin as a condition of
entry or exclusion.

"My grandfather, to bring my parents and my grandfather over in 1965,
had to pay off…" Yu begins with a laugh, then clarifies his statement.
"Well, let's say you made a contribution to the Liberal-party MP in
your riding and wrote a nice letter. Next thing you know, you get
clearance."

The Hong Kong handover in 1997, although not a Canadian event,
prompted changes to Canadian law designed to attract Asian
entrepreneurs and investors.

Says Yu: "You could think of it as a new head tax: the $250,000
investment program [which is now $450,000]. In the '80s, if you
invested a quarter of a million dollars, you got Canadian
citizenship."

This, according to Yu, along with then-premier Bill Vander Zalm's
Expo-land sale to Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, "marks the
triumphant rise again of a Canada that now embraces its role not as
the end of the tracks [but] as the centre of a world that is now tied
to Hong Kong and Asia."

Now Yu sees Vancouver as "a safe place to park your money" in
relatively stable real estate and "a safe place to stick your kids" in
our relatively inexpensive education system.

As a board member of the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of
British Columbia, Yu encourages a wide variety of interpretations and
events around these anniversaries in 2007. For example, CCHSBC
president Hayne Wai and board member Gordon Mark have already made
progress on the civic level. Along with University of Victoria history
professor John Price, they've begun discussions about possible
activities with Vision Vancouver Coun. George Chow.

As president of the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver and
adviser to the Vancouver Chinatown Merchants Association, Chow is no
stranger to the issues. "It was purely due to the white workers
worried about Chinese immigrants taking away their jobs," Chow says.
"That kind of thinking will always linger in people's minds."

Apart from public discussions or photo exhibits, Chow suggests, "Maybe
we should have a dinner, like we always do. Like the reconciliation
dinner we did with Bill Chu [founder of Canadians for Reconciliation]
and the First Nations."

Chow says he has not broached the issue with the mayor or other
councillors. "I always look to events generated by the community
rather than done by the government."

Although B.C.'s Ministry of Tourism, Sport, and the Arts is already
calling on groups to help mark the 150th anniversary of the province's
establishment in 2008, the province seems to have no concrete plans to
mark the 2007 anniversary, appearing to take a similar "wait for the
community" approach. A representative of the office of Auditor General
Wally Oppal, who is also the minister responsible for
multiculturalism, did not return a call from the Georgia Straight.

Henry Yu has already begun an advocacy process with a presentation to
B.C.'s Multiculturalism Advisory Council, which may make
recommendations to Oppal. The idea of commemorative events already has
the support of one of the council's 15 members, Jan Walls, Yu's fellow
CCHSBC board member and former director of the David Lam Centre for
International Communication at SFU.

Jim Wong-Chu, an amateur historian, recalls learning about "the night
the white boys played" (as the Chinese called it) in the early '60s
from people in the community.

He has written an essay about the riots for the upcoming issue of
Ricepaper, a national Asian Canadian magazine, and posted it on the
magazine's Web site, www.ricepaperonline.com/.

As in his earlier work on the Asian North American History Timeline
Project, Wong-Chu places the 1907 riots in a broader continental
context. He cites incidents from as far back as 1635, when Asian
barbers were banned from working in Mexico City, to the "Anti-Hindu
Riots" of 1907, when Indo-Americans were beaten in Bellingham just
five days before the violence in Vancouver.

Although he writes that "Today, Canada has the best minority and human
rights legislation in the world" (except with regards to First
Nations), Wong-Chu says the city of Vancouver, the province of British
Columbia, and trade unions have never accepted responsibility for the
riot, and they should. (The Asiatic Exclusion League was formed by
labour unions in San Francisco and had thousands of members in
Vancouver and Seattle.)

But Wong-Chu says it needs to go even further than public
acknowledgment. He would like the focus to be on public discussion and
education. "I would love to see the province change some of the
curriculum to reflect some of this. When you can open a book in 12
years of education and you never heard of this…what the hell?"

Artists have also been working on plans and proposals to mark the
anniversaries. Writers Fred Mah and Roy Miki have reportedly been
working on something performance- or poetry-related.

Filmmaker (and CCHSBC board member) Karin Lee has had discussions with
former Centre A gallery curator Alice Ming Wai Jim about holding
events in Chinatown itself. "For me, that would be the most
interesting thing: to be in the Downtown Eastside and the sites where
the riots took place…whether they're projections at night, or
soundscapes, or installations of some kind."

Rick Lam, president of the Vancouver Chinatown Revitalization
Committee, says the 100th anniversary of the riot isn't really on the
community's radar. Although he thinks it's important for people to
remember events from the past so they don't happen again, he says his
preference would be for a more low-key approach, such as an archival
exhibition at the Chinese Cultural Centre's Museum & Archives
building.

What he doesn't support, however, is a reenactment of the riots
(rumours of which were circulating in the community last year). "Every
group is free to do what they want," he says, "but for public events,
I believe it's important to have a dialogue with the community. If a
group wants to pursue something, we could call a meeting with all the
committee members, including the Chinese Benevolent Association, the
Chinese Cultural Centre, the Vancouver Chinatown Merchants
Association, the veterans' association…"

All of this underlines the fact that while we have about a year left
until the 100th anniversary of the Chinatown riots, how we'll mark the
event is far from settled. Whatever we decide, and whatever we do (or
don't do), it will be history in the making.