Let’s Talk about Yellow Peril

Text: We acknowledge the history of colonization that has introduced our community to this land. As treaty people and settlers on unceded lands, it is our continuing responsibility to understand our role in our relationship with indigenous peoples.

(store front with Chinese signage)

Narrator: Fueled by the covid19 pandemic, anti-Asian racism is on the rise. Major cities across Canada are experiencing an increase of hate crimes that are at times six to seven hundred percent higher than previous years.

(Busy winter street in Chinatown, Montreal )
(Text: 700-800% increase in reported incidents of anti-Asian racism in 2020)

Betty Venezuela: “Politicians spread the lies that they call it the china virus.”
(Image of U.S. president Trump)
(Text: Trump uses racist terms ‘Kung Flu’ and ‘Chinese virus’ to describe Covid-19)
(Text: Covid-19 fueling anti-Asian racism and xenophobia worldwide.)
“People thought that we Asians brought the virus with us
even though I’ve been here 50 years ago.”

(Street scene montage)

Narrator: From smallpox to SARS to today’s coronavirus every outbreak has sparked its own wave of anti-Asian racism.

(Text: Racist attacks against Asians continue to rise as coronavirus threat grows.)

Anne-Marie Pham: “It reinforced this belief that Asian people bring about disease. Same with SARS that was the same issue and now we’re seeing again with the covid19 pandemic.”
Teresa Woo-Paw: “Covid19 is actually another one of those situations where the concept of yellow peril was brought back in association with a virus.”

Narrator: What is yellow peril?

(Text: Yellow Peril definition: Yellow peril is a racist metaphor portraying Asian people as a threat to Western civilizations.)

Anne-Marie Pham: “This idea that Asian people are seen historically as a threat to the welfare, the health the well-being of Canada or other Westernized countries.

César Cala: “Both implicit and explicit bias against cultural practices that people may think are the ones to blame for the outbreak in many communities, right.”

Narrator: Yellow peril first became a source of social tension when the Chinese arrived in North America during the gold rush of the 1850s.

(Montage of period gold rush photographs)

These racist stereotypes further spread in Canada when the Chinese laborers arrived to build the Canadian Pacific Railway.

(Montage of period photographs featuring Asian railway workers and anti-Asian cartoons)

Seen as an Asian invasion this migration stoked unfounded fears of Asians as job stealers as being immoral and filthy threats to Canadian society. Once the railway was completed, yellow peril sentiment led to the Chinese head tax

(Montage of immigration papers featuring Asian applicants)
(Text: 1885 head tax 50$)
(Text: 1900 head tax 100$)
(Text: 1903 head tax 500$)

where Chinese were charged as much as 500, the equivalent of two years salary, as a way to discourage their immigration.

(Text: 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act with images of Asian people being deported)
(text: 1907 Vancouver race riots target South Asian labourers, Chinatown and Japantown)
(Montage of images of storefronts with broken windows)

By 1923, nearly all Chinese immigration to Canada was banned under the Chinese exclusion act yellow peril also drew racial hostility towards other immigrant groups like the Japanese and South Asians.

(Inter-title: 1907 Vancouver race riots target South Asian labourers, Chinatown and Japantown)
(Montage of images of storefronts with broken windows)

In 1908, the continuous journey regulation was added to the immigration act. This amendment declared that immigrants must
come directly from their country of citizenship. This essentially put a halt to South Asian immigration as trips from these regions required multiple stops.
(Montage of South Asian immigrants arriving on ships)

Meanwhile, during the same period, Canada accepted European immigrants at levels that are still unsurpassed to this day. Throughout this time fear-based propaganda reinforced the image of Asians as immoral unclean, and unfit for citizenship.
(Montage of related images and racist cartoons of the day)

Built as safe havens from racism, Chinatowns were meanwhile also labeled as places of filth and disease.

(Text: 1885 The Canadian Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration)
“The Chinese quarters are the filthiest and most disgusting places in Victoria, an ulcer spreading to the whole city.”

(Text: 1941 WW2 Attack on Perle Harbour)

(Montage of anti-Japanese propaganda cartoons and articles)

During World War II, the fear of Japanese invasion propelled the fear of the yellow peril to new heights fears and distrust of Japanese Canadians along the west coast labeled them as enemy aliens and spies.

(Text: 1942 War Measures Act, Japanese internment camps)

Kenji Ohashi: “We were a threat to the Canadian government, there was conspiracy kind of theories going about and the kind of thinking at the time was that the Japanese were going to come and invade Canada. The Japanese were moved away from the West Coast.”
(Inter-title: 1949 Forced displacement of Japanese families away from the west coast, incarceration and forced labour)

Narrator: Under the War Measures Act. 22,000 Canadians of Japanese origin were uprooted sent to internment camps and forcibly relocated while their property was seized and sold to pay for their own internment.
(Montage of period photographs depicting the forced relocation)

Kenji Ohashi: “Whatever you had was confiscated. I could recall going to Hastings Park, where there was a sort of a center a community where everybody was housed and each family had a stall, a horse stall, from the Hastings Park race raceway.

The football field that was there was a whole group of cars and vehicles that were confiscated were all lined up there but it was also the same with the fishing boats at Richmond and Stevenston where all these boats were confiscated. We in our family felt that we thought we were going to come back to Vancouver. We left a lot of our channels within the homes that we were in and then after some time we tried to claim that and they said ‘no there was nothing left here’ and that
some occupants have taken over as a rental property.”

(Text:22,000 Japanese Canadian were forcibly displaced to inland regions of Canada)

Narrator: By the end of the war, nearly 4,000 citizens and Canadian-born Japanese were exiled while the remaining population would be
displaced to inland regions in Canada throughout this dark period.

Representations in media newspapers cast Asians as villains or animals with slanted eyes and exaggerated yellow skin tone.
(movie stills and posters depicting a highly stereotyped “Evil” Asian man)
A popular image was that of Dr. Fu Manchu a super predator seeking world domination and vengeance against the West.

This menacing stereotype only further portrayed Asians as untrustworthy sneaky and conniving.

(Text: 1950-now, New waves of immigration)

In the form of systemic racism, these fears still influence today’s immigration policies and access to citizenship for certain groups.

(Text: 2002: Temporary foreign workers program added: low-skilled workers category)

César Cala: “Canada’s economy needs the workers it’s a regular chronic and historical need but the solution has always been temporary to the detriment of the workers not to the employers.”

(Text: Today, discrimination against ‘predatory buyers’)

Narrator: Even before the global pandemic, scapegoating of Asians as
predatory buyers in creating a housing crisis and notions of Asian students taking over college campuses reinforced the idea of an evil foreign power that is invading our way of life.

(Text: 2020 Increases of anti-Asian hate crimes and attacks)
(images of assaulted Asian men)

At its worst, yellow peril drives the blaming of Asian Canadians for the global pandemic.

André-Anne Côté (translated from French) Covid only continues to exacerbate the pre-existing discrimination against the Chinese, and it gives them an excuse to legitimize their racism and find fault with immigrants.

Narrator: This false narrative has emboldened racism to a degree where hate crimes are being committed against individuals and the Asian Canadian community.

(Contemporary video of racist and violent acts against Asian people)

André-Anne Côté (translated from French) I think that I am so afraid that I act preventively . In fact I hide myself and when I encounter people I hide my face.  Just the fact that we ask the question, “Should i hide myself or not?” Indicated there is a problem.

(Text: 2021 Mass protests and media representation)
(Montage of images and film footage of people protesting against anti-Asian racism.)

Narrator: Today across major cities Asian groups have taken to the streets to make their voices heard in the fight against anti-Asian racism.

Betty Valenzuela: “You can’t be complacent nothing’s going to happen if you’re complacent. Stand up and speak up and condemn whoever is responsible.”

(Text: 2021 Policy change?)

Narrator: While the government has repeatedly denounced anti-Asian racism, tangible action and fundamental systemic change are needed.

Teresa Woo-Paw:”Places of power and influence when they are silent then, they are actually keeping other people silent public systems have a moral and material responsibility to actually speak out against it.”

Narrator: If we don’t start the discussion who will? You?

(Text: Act3endracism logo, www.act2endracism.ca)