Chilliwack’s Chinatowns: Anti-Chinese Sentiment

Dr. Chad Reimer describes some of the anti-Chinese sentiment that typified British Columbia in the early 20th century.

Transcript:

A title card is shown with the text “Anti-Chinese Sentiment” and a black and white photo of a Euro-Canadian family sitting outside with their Chinese domestic worker standing in the background.

Anti-Chinese sentiment was like the air whites breathed in British Columbia. It was just unquestioned; it was not something that needed to be expressed. And it existed in Chilliwack. There were some who recognized, like, the Evans family was unusually sympathetic and perceptive about the contributions of both the local Stó:lō and the Chinese.

Two black and white photos are shown side-by-side, one of workers standing next to a loaded logging truck, and the other of Euro-Canadians standing with Chinese men outside a storefront.

The McCutcheon family as well. John McCutcheon was the one who sold the land that was Chinatown North to the Chinese. And his granddaughters remembered going there as children, and being guests of Wong Yip Shee, watching the New Year’s celebrations.

A black and white photo of a Chinese domestic worker with a Euro-Canadian Child is shown.

And you do have truly affectionate feelings developed between families and the domestic nannies and so forth. But by in large it was a very negative attitude towards Chinese; flat out racist.

An anti-Chinese political cartoon and newspaper article are shown side-by-side.

The city wanted to get the Chinese buildings outside of city limits. And so from when they succeed, and that Chinatown North is outside of city limits, when they succeed they kind of cut back on the raids. Just before and after the First World War you have a huge population influx, so by that time the farmers could get labourers elsewhere, and that’s when you start having the campaigns against Chinese farmers as competitors.

Two newspaper clippings discussing raids on Chilliwack’s Chinatowns and opposition to leasing land to the Chinese are shown side-by-side.

It was the Chinese farmers who had first cleared the land, and the white farmers had gone into this tenant agreement thing with them to then put potatoes in, so they had done this deal and after the First World War had said “we can’t do this anymore. We are making a commitment as farmers not to lease land to Chinese people; Chinese farmers. We have to be, you know, a white industry”.