Chinese Canadians in British Columbia

The history of Chinese Canadians in British Columbia began with the first recorded visit by Chinese people to North America in 1788. Some 30-40 men were employed as shipwrights at Nootka Sound in what is now British Columbia, to build the first European-type vessel in the Pacific Northwest, named the North West America. Large-scale immigration of Chinese began seventy years later with the advent of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858. During the gold rush, settlements of Chinese grew in Victoria and New Westminster and the "capital of the Cariboo" Barkerville and numerous other towns. and throughout the colony's Interior, where many communities were dominantly Chinese. In the 1880s, Chinese labour was contracted to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Following this many Chinese began to move eastward, establishing Chinatowns in several of the larger Canadian cities.

History

The first Chinese known to have been in British Columbia were a group of labourers brought in to build a ship at Nootka Sound, the Northwest America, who were sent back to China afterwards (though some traditions of the Nuu-chah-nulth say some remained and married, and that they had seen Chinese people before). The next Chinese arrived with the massive and sudden migration of 30,000 gold-seekers and merchants from San Francisco and the California goldfields with the Fraser Gold Rush of 1858, forming the nucleus of Victoria's Chinatown and leading to the establishment of others at New Westminster, Yale and Lillooet, though most Chinese gold-seekers were not in the newly emerged towns but busy prospecting and working the goldfields. Estimates indicate that about 1/3 of the non-native population of the Fraser goldfields was Chinese. As more and more gold fields were found, Chinese spread out all over the colony, and confrontations at Rock Creek and Wild Horse Creek with mostly-American miners, but the colonial government intervened on the side of the Chinese (other similar situations were fairly rare, until the railway era).

Chinese miners were notable in many of the gold rushes in the coming decades, including the remote Omineca and Peace River Gold Rushes of the 1860s Cassiar Gold Rush of the 1870s. While Chinese were driven from the Similkameen Gold Rush in the 1880s, the Cayoosh Gold Rush at Lillooet in that same decade was entirely Chinese. In most goldfield towns there were no distinct Chinatowns, and in many towns and gold camps, Chinese miners and merchants were often the majority so the term "Chinatown" is inapt for them. Barkerville had an "official" Chinatown but Chinese dominated the population in the town's whole area, and many non-Chineselived in the "official" Chinatown; nearby Richfield was near-entirely Chinese, as were many of the towns in the Cariboo goldfields. As the more impatient non-Chinese miners moved on, Chinese took over their diggings, often pulling out more due to more advanced placer-mining techniques, and also obtained ranches and farms and Chinese retailers were often the mainstay of commerce in the waning goldfield towns. In Victoria, the first tax register for that city indicates that of the ten richest men in the city, eight were Chinese (with the Governor and James Dunsmuir only ahead of them on the list).

Chinese merchants from New Westminster were among the first to set up shop in Gastown, the townsite that sprang up next to the Hastings Mill property which was the historical kernel of what would become the City of Vancouver. Some were on Water Street but most early Chinese businesses (mostly bordellos and opium dens) were along what is now the 100 block of West Hastings Street. The use of Chinese labour in the clearing of the West End led to the winter riots of 1885 which saw Chinese residents flee to a refuge in a creek ravine around the then-southeast end of False Creek, thereafter known as China Creek. It was not until the 1890s that Chinese businesses began to relocate back into the growing city, along Dupont Street (now East Pender Street), forming the nucleus of Chinatown. Until around 1980, Toronto's ethnic Chinese population became the largest in Canada then, Vancouver had the largest ethnic Chinese population in Canada.

Earliest arrival

The launch of the North-West America at Nootka Sound, 1788

In the late 1780s, some 120 Chinese contract labourers arrived at Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island. The British fur trader John Meares recruited an initial group of about 50 sailors and artisans from Canton (Guangzhou) and Macao. At Nootka Sound, the Chinese workers built a dockyard, a fort and a sailing ship, the North-West America. Regarding this journey and the future prospects of Chinese settlement in colonial North America, Meares wrote:

The Chinese were, on this occasion, shipped as an experiment: they have generally been esteemed an hardy, and industrious, as well as ingenious race of people; they live on fish and rice, and, requiring but low wages, it was a matter also of œconomical consideration to employ them; and during the whole of the voyage there was every reason to be satisfied with their services. If hereafter trading posts should be established on the American coast, a colony of these men would be a very valuable acquisition.

— John Meares, Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789, from China to the North West Coast of America

The next year, Meares had another 70 Chinese shipped from Canton. However, shortly upon arrival of this second group, the settlement was seized by the Spanish in what became known as the Nootka Crisis. The Chinese men were imprisoned by the Spanish. It is unclear what became of them but likely that some returned to China while others were put to work in a nearby mine and later brought to Mexico. No other Chinese are known to have arrived in western North America until the gold rush of the 1850s.

The gold rush era

A group of Chinese sent one of them, Ah Hong, to survey the Fraser area after hearing that gold had been discovered there. Ah Hong verified that the gold rush was happening and stated this upon his May 1858 return. The Chinese first appeared in large numbers in the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1858 as part of the huge migration from California during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in the newly declared Mainland Colony. Around a third of the sudden, massive immigration were Chinese. Although the first wave arrived in May from California, news of the rush eventually attracted many Chinese from China itself. The San Francisco company Hop Kee & Co. commissioned the shipment of 300 Chinese persons, most of whom would mine gold after their arrival, on June 24, 1858. This was the first shipment of Chinese, and additional ones would occur in 1858 and 1859.

Most Chinese mined gold, but there were some who mined jade. During the era, coal mines on Victoria Island hired Chinese workers. Coal mines on Victoria Island were to later hire Chinese workers as scabs, notably at Cumberland, where the Chinese workers' settlement was protected by barbed wire fences and watchtowers because of potential violence from union workers the Chinese had been brought into replace.

Omineca Miner Ah Hoo at Germansens Landing in 1913. Many Chinese remained in the province's Interior and North long after the gold rushes. Some towns such as Stanley were predominantly Chinese for many years, while in the Fraser Canyon and even more remote areas such as the Omineca, Chinese miners stayed on to mine claims in wilderness areas.

The Chinese often entered existing mining sites that White miners had abandoned since it was easier for them to acquire the claims to those fields instead of getting a claim to a new field. In many cases claims to used mining sites were less expensive than claims to new sites. The ethnic Chinese then reworked the abandoned sites. In the goldfields, Chinese mining techniques and knowledge turned out to be better in many ways to those of others, including hydraulic techniques, the use of "rockers", and a technique whereby blankets were used as filter for alluvial sand and then burned, with the gold melting into lumps in the fire. In the Fraser Canyon, Chinese miners stayed on long after all others had left for the Cariboo Gold Rush or other goldfields elsewhere in BC or the United States and continued both hydraulic and farming, owned the majority of land in the Fraser and Thompson Canyons for many years afterwards. At Barkerville, in the Cariboo, over half the town's population was estimated to be Chinese, and several other towns including Richfield, Stanley, Van Winkle, Quesnellemouthe (modern Quesnel), Antler, and Quesnelle Forks had significant Chinatowns (Lillooet's lasting until the 1930s) and there was no shortage of successful Chinese miners.

In addition to the mining operations, Chinese established auxiliary businesses including vegetable farms, restaurants, and laundries. Chinese opened a fishing company in an area near the provincial capital. When fish canneries opened in the 1870s Chinese workers were hired. Chinese also worked for Western Union to install a telegraph line between New Westminster and Quesnel. Western Union hired 500 Chinese for this task in 1866.

The Royal Museum of British Columbia stated that in the beginning British Columbians had more tolerance and had little fear of the Chinese and that this differed from California. The province had given the Chinese the same legal protections that other ethnic groups enjoyed.

Non-Chinese were vocally upset because the Chinese were willing to work for wages lower than wages than whites. Whites held that the willingness to work for less money had prevented them from taking labour jobs and depressed overall labour wages. Therefore non-Chinese workers and later organized labour groups criticized Chinese. Whites perceived themselves to have superior physical condition and morals compared to the Chinese, and held that the Chinese had many diseases. The Chinese often sent money back to China instead of doing local investment. In addition the Chinese were observed to be taking in more money than they needed since the Chinese had simple lifestyles and did not have their families with them. Therefore non-Chinese held that ethnic Chinese were not contributing anything to the area while they were taking resources from it:

"The Chinese work cheaper, live on less, and send more money out of the country than any other class of laborers. On the other hand they are industrious, sober, and reliable"

— Rosalind Watson Young and Maria Lawson

"Yet the image of thousands of Chinese seeking fortunes in the gold rush continues to dominate people's imaginations to this day. For this reason, Chinese were viewed as contributing little to the local economy while taking from the land."</ref> and that the Chinese were preventing economic growth from occurring. British and Americans believed that China was an inferior country and that European culture was superior over others. British Columbians were also afraid that the Chinese would someday be more numerous than the whites.

White persons had committed violent acts against ethnic Chinese, and therefore Chinese had avoided areas where whites had newly discovered gold. The Europeans Canadian public had an anti-Chinese attitude and made anti-Chinese statements. European Canadian-dominated newspapers along with politicians made anti-Chinese statements. The Library and Archives Canada stated that blaming the Chinese for economic downturns was a way to promote White supremacy and give a sense of unity to White migrants. British Columbians had made public efforts to demand for laws that limited the amount of Chinese immigration and enacting restrictions on Chinese activity.

The gold rush era saw the population of Chinese in British Columbia in the 1860s to be around 6,000-7,000. Once the Gold Rush in Canada ended, many Chinese moved to the United States. According to the 1871 Canadian census there were 1,548 ethnic Chinese in the province. In 1878 there were about 3,000 ethnic Chinese in the province.

The province began attempting to pass head tax and licensing bills modeled after similar anti-Chinese laws in Australia. In 1878, the provincial government passed a law forbidding Chinese from engaging in provincial public works. A bill calling for a $30 license fee per every half year per Chinese person passed in the BC legislature in 1878, making it the first anti-Chinese law passed by that legislature. The law prompted a strike of Chinese workers, which was the first Chinese civil rights action taken in the province. An 1884 law, titled the "Chinese Regulation Act," affected all ethnic Chinese, including those of Hong Kong origins, by stating that "any person of the Chinese race" must pay them. The law asked for a payment of $100 per person 15 or older. In the same period the federal government had blocked many anti-Chinese laws passed by the BC government. For instance the 1878 law was nulled for constitutional reasons, similarly blocking another law in 1884.

The places of origin of the Chinese immigrants were not recorded on Canadian census records. Most immigrants to British Columbia in the late 1800s were from Guangdong, with many others from Fujian. Of those from Guangdong, most came from Siyi (Sze-yap), a group of four counties.

By 1862 Barkerville had over 5,000 Chinese. The same year, Victoria had 300 Chinese people, making up 6% of the city's population; Victoria incorporated that year.

Immigration for the railway

Chinese labourers working on the Canadian Pacific Railway mile sections of the Canadian Pacific Railway from the Pacific to Craigellachie in the Eagle Pass in British Columbia. The railway from Vancouver to Craigellachie consisted of 28 such sections, 2% of which were constructed by workers of European origin.

When British Columbia agreed to join Confederation in 1871, one of the conditions was that the Dominion government build a railway linking B.C. with eastern Canada within 10 years. British Columbia politicians and their electorate agitated for an immigration program from the British Isles to provide this railway labour, but Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, betraying the wishes of his constituency, Victoria, by insisting the project cut costs by employing Chinese to build the railway, and summarized the situation this way to Parliament in 1882: "It is simply a question of alternatives: either you must have this labour or you can't have the railway." (British Columbia politicians had wanted a settlement-immigration plan for workers from the British Isles, but Canadian politicians and investors said it would be too expensive).

In 1880, Andrew Onderdonk, an American who was one of the main Canadian Pacific Railway construction contractors in British Columbia, originally enlisted Chinese labourers from California. When most of these deserted the railway workings for the goldfields, Onderdonk and his agents signed several agreements with Chinese contractors in China's Guangdong province, Taiwan and also via Chinese companies in Victoria. Through those contracts more than 5000 labourers were sent as "guest workers" from China by ship. Onderdonk also recruited over 7000 Chinese railway workers from California. These two groups of workers were the main force for the building of Onderdonk's seven per cent of the railway's mileage. As was the case with non-Chinese workers, some of them fell ill during construction or died while planting explosives or in other construction accidents, but many deserted the rail workings for the province's various goldfields. By the end of 1881, the first group of Chinese labourers, which was previously numbered at 5000, had less than 1500 remaining as a large number had deserted for the goldfields away from the rail line Onderdonk needed more workers, so he directly contracted Chinese businessmen in Victoria, California and China to send many more workers to Canada. 17,000 Chinese, many of whom became railroad employees, arrived to Canada between 1881 and 1885.

Winter conditions and working conditions, dynamite blasts, substandard medical care and nutrition, and landslides killed many railroad workers. Paul Yee, the author of Saltwater City: Story of Vancouver's Chinese Community, wrote that "[c]onservative estimates" stated that the total number of ethnic Chinese railroad workers killed was 600.

Onderdonk engaged these Chinese labour contractors who engaged Chinese workers willing to accept only $1 a day while white, black and native workers were paid three times that amount. Chinese railway workers were hired for 200 miles of the Canadian Pacific Railway considered to be among the more difficult segments of the projected railway, notably the Fraser Canyon.

After the railroad was completed, some Chinese who had worked on the railroad returned to China. Some who stayed in Canada went to Vancouver and to the Prairie Provinces.

Settlement in the late 1800s

In 1884 Nanaimo, New Westminster, and Victoria had the largest Chinese populations. At that time Quesnelle Forks was majority Chinese, and there were also Chinese in Cumberland and Yale.

In addition to the railroad business, Chinese in the late 19th century British Columbia also worked in market gardens, coal mines, sawmills, and salmon canneries. Most Chinese at the time lived among other Chinese.

In 1881 4,350 ethnic Chinese lived in British Columbia, making up 99.2% of the ethnic Chinese in all of Canada. Around 1881 Chinese settlement in British Columbia had a 28 male to 1 female ratio. The gender disparity was not as high in New Westminster and Victoria, but in there was a more severe gender disparity in the Fraser and Thompson canyons, Barkerville, Cassiar, Nanaimo, and market gardens in the vicinity of Victoria. In 1883 there were almost 1,500 Chinese gold miners in the province.

The province banned Chinese and First Nations-origin persons from voting in provincial and federal elections with an amendment of the Qualification of Voters Act passed in 1872. Because eligibility for federal elections originated from provincial voting lists, persons of Chinese origins were unable to vote in federal elections. At the time some electoral districts in British Columbia were majority Chinese.

In 1882 8,000 Chinese arrived in Canada. The province was unable to pass its own immigration law, so it asked the federal government to take action. In the late 1800s the British Columbian government supported efforts by the Canadian federal government to charge a head tax. The purpose of the tax was to discourage ethnic Chinese from immigrating to Canada. The Chinese Immigration Act of 1885, which included the head tax, was passed shortly after the railway construction cased. No other ethnic group had a tax levied on it during immigration. The tax was originally $50. In 1887 there were 124 Chinese who came to Canada, a sharp decrease. The numbers of Chinese began increasing around the year 1900. In 1900 this tax increased to $100, and in 1903 it became $500, again reducing immigration levels of Chinese. An average worker's yearly wages were below $500. Patricia E. Roy, the author of A White Man's Province, wrote that the head tax did not significantly decrease Chinese immigration into British Columbia, and that this caused members of the British Columbia legislature to call for further restrictions on ethnic Chinese.

R.G. Tatlow, a Vancouver member of the British Columbia legislature, proposed the "Act to Regulate Immigration into British Columbia," or the Natal Act. The bill was intended to reduce immigration from China and Japan. According to the bill, a person would have to fill out a form in a European language in order to enter the province. An amendment added to the bill disallowed it from being applied to a person who had his or her entry controlled by the Canadian parliament, and this made the bill no longer apply to the Chinese. In September 1901 the federal government blocked the bill.

On May 10, 1883, 20 whites set a Chinese-occupied log house on fire, killing one Chinese man and injuring about 7 or 8 Chinese. The incident occurred at Camp 37 near Lytton. This occurred in the aftermath of a Chinese gang attack on several administrators of the camp in which a foreman had been murdered in retaliation for a foreman refusing to pay two Chinese persons. These persons had been previously fired but a Chinese boss convinced the foreman to allow them to work again. The newspaper The Colonist criticized White doctors who refused to treat the injured, and it also criticized the attack itself, calling it "the most unmanly and cowardly affair" that happened in Canada. This was the deadliest anti-Chinese action of the era.

Many Chinese stayed remained in the Interior of British Columbia after the railroad was completed. Most moved to Vancouver in 1886, although some moved to New Westminster and Victoria instead. In the area of Lac La Hache in the South Cariboo, as elsewhere in the Interior, Chinese worked as farm labourers and as freighters:

Chinese are frequently the butter-makers as well as the general farm laborers. They are old residents, for they came from California when the white miners came, upon learning of the discovery of gold. Not only do they mine and farm, they also "freight". As there is no railway, goods have to be delivered by freight waggons, large canvas-covered vans drawn by six or seven horses. So large and profitable a business is by no means wholly in the hands of the Chinese. They freight only for their countrymen

Settlement in Vancouver

There were 114 ethnic Chinese in the Burrard Inlet area in 1884. The population included 60 sawmill hands, 30 cooks and washing persons, ten store clerks, five merchants, three married women, and one prostitute. The sawmill hands worked at Hasting's Sawmill. Additional Chinese settled an area north of False Creek after an 1885 announcement that the terminus of the railway was to be extended to the area. Former railroad workers caused Vancouver's population to increase.

The city of Vancouver incorporated in April 1886, and at the time the city had a pre-existing Chinese population. The Chinese coming to Vancouver had originated from Guangdong. Many Chinese worked at Hastings Sawmill upon arrival, and many Chinese worked in logging camps, mills, and in forest-clearing crews. Property owners hired Chinese to clear forests because the Chinese were the cheapest laborers available.

Discriminatory actions against Chinese occurred early in the city's history, including mob violence, newspaper articles asking for preventing Chinese from living in Vancouver, and post-Great Vancouver Fire street resolutions asking for preventing the return of the Chinese. In the period's newspaper articles, "anti-Chinese sentiment appeared to be unanimous." The practice of contractors hiring labour crews of only one race had caused the wage disparity between whites and Chinese, and the lower pay of the Chinese workers was the "classic explanation" for anti-Chinese sentiment among whites. "Greedy speculators" had chosen to use Chinese labourers despite the abundance of White laborers. Some historians argued that whites desiring a racially homogenous White Canada was another strong factor in anti-Chinese sentiment. In early 1886 one party in the mayoral election in Vancouver prevented ethnic Chinese from voting.

In 1900 there were 36 Chinese laundries in Chinatown. The city government had passed a law in 1893 that the section of Pender Street between Carrall and Columbia was the only place which could have laundry businesses; Paul Yee stated that enforcement of this law was very difficult, and therefore in 1900 the permitted zone had only two Chinese laundries. The city government later passed laws that harmed smaller Chinese laundries to benefit white-owned laundries, so the Chinese hired Wilson V. Sekler, a lawyer, to get the laws overturned.

Around 1911 3,500 persons lived in Vancouver's Chinatown, and it was Canada's largest Chinatown. The Chinese community was served by six schools and one hospital by the 1920s. During the same decade, the community had two Chinese theatres providing recreation.

20th century

Damage after the September 1907 riot in Vancouver

In 1907 the Asiatic Exclusion League sponsored a parade in Vancouver that opposed persons of Asian origin. This parade developed into a riot that caused damage to Vancouver's Chinatown and Japantown.

The 1911 census stated that Vancouver had 3,559 ethnic Chinese, giving it the largest ethnic Chinese population in all of Canada. That year, Victoria had 3,458 ethnic Chinese. Victoria had Canada's second-largest Chinatown.

The Chinese Immigration Act, 1923 prohibited ethnic Chinese from obtaining Crown land and it prevented ethnic Chinese who were not persons born in Canada, diplomats, businesspersons, and university students from immigrating to Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia wrote that the act "effectively ended Chinese immigration." This immigration act also starved small town Chinese communities in British Columbia of new arrivals.

As part of the Great Depression many Chinese began leaving small towns and settling in Vancouver and Victoria. In 1931 the ethnic Chinese populations of Vancouver and Victoria combined became more numerous than the Chinese elsewhere in British Columbia.

The immigration act was repealed in 1947. As a result, many smaller locations in British Columbia which had Chinese populations mostly of older men finally began receiving women in children. In 1947 Chinese persons in BC were given the right to vote. In 1951 the final anti-Chinese laws in British Columbia were terminated.

In the mid-20th Century Chinese began moving from smaller British Columbia towns to Vancouver and eastern Canada because of the collapse of some of British Columbia's agricultural industries. The consequence was a decline in small town Chinese populations that began in 1956.

In 1961-1962 Vancouver, Victoria, and about 60 other settlements in British Columbia had a total of 24,000 ethnic Chinese. About 18,000 were resident in the Vancouver area, 2,000 were resident in Victoria, and 4,000 were resident in other places.

In the 1980s a wave of Chinese from Hong Kong came to Vancouver. Levels of Chinese coming from Hong Kong declined after the Handover of Hong Kong in 1997. Vivienne Poy wrote that instances of antagonism towards ethnic Chinese and incidents of racial hatred targeting Chinese occurred by the late 1980s.

Geography

Victoria Chinatown

As of 2002 the only sizeable Chinatowns in the entire province were in Vancouver and Victoria, with most Chinese Canadians living elsewhere than the traditional Chinatowns. The Royal BC Museum stated that it "was known for its maze of alleyways and courtyards, containing everything from theatres and restaurants to gambling dens."

Communities that had Chinatowns and/or areas where Chinese were concentrated in the mid-20th Century, other than Vancouver and Victoria, are Ashcroft, Duncan, Kamloops, Kelowna, Nanaimo, Nelson, Port Alberni, Prince George, Prince Rupert, and Vernon. These communities, including Quesnel, and Trail were the "twelve major Chinese communities in smaller towns". Chinese restaurants made up the majority of the businesses, and overall about 25% of the total businesses were grocery stores; the Chinese also operated shoe repair shops, and dry goods stores, in addition to taxi operations. There were some laundry shops but mechanical washing processes had reduced the number of traditional laundries.

Kelowna had a historic Chinatown in the area between Harvey Avenue and Leon Avenue, east of Abbott and west of Highway 97/Harvey Avenue. In 1909 15% of Kelowna's population was ethnic Chinese. In 1911 the percentage was the same. That year Sun Yat-sen visited Kelowna for fundraising purposes. In 1978 the final remaining traditional Chinese business ceased operations. By 2010 less than 1% of Kelowna's population was ethnic Chinese. A section of the façade of the rebuilt "Chinese Store" that was in Chinatown is now housed at the Kelowna Museum.

Kamloops historically had a Chinatown on Victoria Street where most ethnic Chinese lived; John Stewart of the Kamloops Museum & Archives stated that it was not a "true Chinatown". It was established by 1887, and by 1890 the community had up to 400 Chinese; John Stewart of the Kamloops Museum & Archives stated that this was "amazingly large". About 33% of Kelowna was ethnic Chinese in the 1890s. Economic changes in Kamloops that caused Chinese to leave, two fires in 1892 and 1893, and a 1911-1914 demolition dismantled the Chinatown. Peter Wing, the first ethnic Chinese mayor in North America, served as the Mayor of Kamloops. A Chinese cemetery exists in Kamloops, and it, one of the largest in the province, was last used in the 1960s. The Kamloops cemetery is the only one that is dedicated to Chinese who were among the earliest settlers.

Nanaimo had various Chinatown sites beginning in the 1800s. The first was a dock area in Downtown Nanaimo proximity to the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) terminal that existed in the 1960s. The Chinese community moved to its second site prior to 1900. This was also in Downtown Nanaimo. The third site opened on an 8 acres (3.2 ha) site in the outerlying areas of Nanaimo that was purchased by the Rising China Holding Company (Chinese: 華興實業公司; pinyin: Huáxīng Shíyè Gōngsī, Cantonese: Wa-Hing Shat-ip Kung-Sz), an all-Chinese firm. The second site had been abandoned because a fuel company that had acquired the land occupied by the second site had raised rents. In the summer of 1959 the Chinatown in Nanaimo was destroyed by a fire. 200 persons lost their houses, and most of those affected were senior citizens.

Geography of the Vancouver area

Vancouver Chinatown

As of 2011 there are over 450,000 ethnic Chinese in Greater Vancouver. Vancouver received the title of being, outside of Asia, the "most Asian city" due to its large ethnic Chinese population. Vancouver had ethnic Chinese residents when the city was founded in 1886. According to Graham E. Johnson, the author of "Hong Kong Immigration and the Chinese Community in Vancouver," people with origins from Hong Kong "have been especially notable in the flow of international migrants to British Columbia which, for all intents and purposes, has meant the Vancouver region."

Richmond, in Greater Vancouver, had more ethnic Chinese residents than White residents in 2013. Ian Young of the South China Morning Post described Richmond as "the most Chinese city in North America."

The Yaohan Food Court in Richmond

Ethnic Chinese are located throughout Vancouver. 40% of the residents of a large portion of Southeast Vancouver are ethnic Chinese. The Granville and 49th area within South Vancouver also has a Chinese population. Henry Yu, a University of British Columbia history professor, stated in 2007 that significant ethnic Chinese populations are located in all Greater Vancouver neighbourhoods. The Vancouver Chinatown is the largest Chinatown in Canada.

In 1981 the vast majority of ethnic Chinese in Greater Vancouver lived in the Vancouver city limits. At the time Chinese were concentrated in eastern Vancouver, around Chinatown. By the mid-1990s ethnic Chinese had moved to Kerrisdale and Shaughnessy. In those communities ethnic Chinese built large modern-style housing in place of Neo-Tudor and other style houses from the early 20th century.

Richmond has a high concentration of ethnic Chinese. Ethnic Chinese make up 80% of the residents of the Golden Village area, focussed along No. 3 Road, which contains many Chinese businesses. Douglas Todd of the Vancouver Sun wrote "Richmond remains the most striking bastion of Chinese culture". In 1997 the newly immigrated ethnic Chinese in Richmond were stereotyped as being, in the words of Ray, Halseth, and Johnson, "wealthy 'yacht people'". Richmond had few Chinese in 1981, with most census tracts having fewer than 5% of their populations being ethnic Chinese and with no census tract having over 10% of its population be ethnic Chinese. By 1986 the proportion of Chinese in Richmond was increasing; in 1986 the city's 8,000 ethnic Chinese persons made up 8.3% of Richmond's total population and 9% of the Vancouver area's Chinese Canadians. By 1991, 16.4% of Richmond's population was Chinese Canadian and 11% was Chinese immigrants. In 1997 Ray, Halseth, and Johnson wrote that "it appears that" new ethnic Chinese immigrants were bypassing Vancouver and moving directly to Richmond.

Areas of northern Coquitlam also have ethnic Chinese residents, like most other places in the Lower Mainland. The Halifax Street and Kensington Street area of North Burnaby has Chinese residents, like most of Vancouver's neighbourhoods and suburbs.

Demographics

As of 2001 374,000 ethnic Chinese resided in British Columbia, and 348,000 of them resided in the Vancouver metropolitan area. The ethnic Chinese in British Columbia made up 34% of the total ethnic Chinese population in Canada, and 10% of the total population of British Columbia. As of 2001, 18% of the residents of the Vancouver area and 4% of the residents of the Victoria area were ethnic Chinese. In 2006, 168,210 persons in Vancouver proper were ethnic Chinese, as were 75,730 in Richmond, and 3,085 people in Victoria.

In 1961-1962 Canada had about 24,000 ethnic Chinese, including 18,000 in the Vancouver area, 2,000 in Victoria, 286 in Port Alberni, 254 in Prince Rupert, 240 in Nanaimo, 230 in Nelson according to the area Chinese, 200 in Duncan according to the area Chinese, 196 in Prince George, 191 in the Kamloops area, 145 in Vernon, 85 in Quesnel according to the Chinese residents, 80 in Ashcroft according to the Chinese residents, 69 in the Trail-Rossland area, 62 in Kelowna, as well as about 1,962 persons in other places in the province. At the time, in the communities other than Vancouver, Victoria, and Nanaimo, the sex ratios between males and females ranged from four men per woman to ten men per woman, and older males were the majority of the Chinese populations of these towns at the time. The majority of the non-Vancouver, non-Victoria Chinese populations at the time were employees of small businesses. The working class populations outside of Vancouver and Victoria mainly consisted of sawmill workers in Duncan and stevedores in Port Alberni.

The 2006 Chinese populations of the towns not in the Vancouver nor Victoria areas were as follows: 1,235 in Kelowna, 1,065 in Kamloops, 810 in Prince George, 330 in Vernon, 285 in Prince Rupert, 120 in Port Alberni, 120 in Quesnel, 90 in Nelson, 65 in Duncan, 45 in Rossland, and 15 in Trail.

Vancouver-area demographics

In 1992 Vancouver had the second largest ethnic Chinese population outside of China, with San Francisco having the largest such population.

In 2006 Statistics Canada stated that there were 381,535 ethnic Chinese in the Vancouver metropolitan area, making up 43% of the area's total number of visible minorities. Ian Young of the South China Morning Post stated that were 396,000 ethnic Chinese in Greater Vancouver in 2006. That year, according to Statistics Canada data, the numbers of visible minority Chinese in Greater Vancouver included 168,210 in the city of Vancouver proper, 75,730 in Richmond, 60,765 in Burnaby, 20,205 in Surrey, 19,580 in Coquitlam, 5,835 in Delta, 3,770 in New Westminster, and 3,360 in West Vancouver.

As of around 2009, about 30% of Vancouver residents had some or more Chinese ancestry, and Chinese ancestry was the most commonly reported out of all of the ancestries.

By 2012 most Chinese arriving in Hong Kong were from the Mainland, with some Chinese coming from Taiwan.

A 2013 study by Dan Hiebert of the University of British Columbia predicted that by 2031 the Chinese population of Vancouver would be 809,000.

Place of origin

As of 2011 most ethnic Chinese immigrants to British Columbia go to Vancouver, and of the overall provincial ethnic Chinese immigration most originate from Mainland China. Historically immigrants came from Hong Kong and to a lesser, extent, Taiwan. The Mainland Chinese government prohibits dual citizenship, while the Hong Kong government allows its permanent residents to also hold citizenships of western countries. David Ley, author of Millionaire Migrants and a professor of UBC, stated that this meant that previously Hongkongers had more of an incentive to come to Vancouver compared to Mainlanders.

In the period 1996-2001, according to Canadian census data, the number of persons from Mainland China arriving to Vancouver eclipsed the numbers of Hongkongers; the number of Hongkongers present in Vancouver declined between 1996 and 2006. In 2006 there were 137,245 immigrants from Mainland China in Vancouver, while there were 75,780 Hongkonger immigrants in the same city that year. The Hongkonger immigrant number had declined 12% between 1996 and 2006 with almost all of the decline occurring from 2001 to 2006. From 1996 to 2006, Ian Young of the South China Morning Post wrote "the fall in the number of such immigrants present in the city suggests" that 29,325 Hongkongers left Vancouver while according to the census data 18,890 Hongkongers arrived. Meanwhile the Mainlander population increased 88% between 1996 and 2006. In 2012 7,872 Mainland Chinese arrived in Vancouver while 286 Hongkongers arrived in the same city. According to Ley, the demographics of immigrants changed because "everyone [from Hong Kong or Taiwan] who wanted a [Canadian] passport got one."

Mainland Chinese

Some households of Mainlander origin in Vancouver involve a wife and children living there. The husbands of the households are working in China. In 2013 Young wrote that "Anecdotal evidence suggests mainland Chinese wives commonly stay in Vancouver to provide a citizenship toehold for their absentee husbands." As of 2003 many Mainland immigrants had Mainland credentials in skilled jobs but encountered difficulty in finding employment in their fields with these credentials.

Hong Kongers

Vancouver received most of the Hong Kongers settling in British Columbia, and out of all of Canada British Columbia had the highest proportion of Hong Kong settlers. Many professionals, spurred by the impending 1997 Handover of Hong Kong and 1980s economic and political issues, immigrated to Vancouver. Therefore late 20th century Hong Kong immigration had relatively more socioeconomically higher end persons compared to previous waves of Chinese immigration. Hong Kong immigrants perceived Vancouver as a good destination due to concerns about safety and the quality of Canadian schools. As of 2013 several Hong Kong-origin families based in Vancouver are transnational, meaning that members of the family may move between Hong Kong and Vancouver.

Language

In the 19th Century until the influx of the 1980s, multiple dialects of Cantonese were spoken in British Columbia. This is because Guangdong province itself, the source of much Chinese immigration, had multiple dialects of Cantonese and the Hakka language spoken within its borders. Most railway workers were from Taishan and spoke the Taishanese dialect of Cantonese.

Historically Cantonese was the dominant language in Greater Vancouver. Cantonese was the language used in radio and television programming involving that community. As of 1970 there were fewer than 100 Hakka Chinese speakers in Vancouver. By 2003, Mandarin began to have a presence, including in the media, due to an increase in immigrants from mainland China. By 2012 Mandarin was displacing Cantonese in Greater Vancouver. Cantonese and Mandarin are commonly spoken in Richmond.

Institutions

In 1863 the first Chinese association in Canada, located in Barkerville, was established. It was the Zhi-gong Tang (Chi Kung T'ong), translated into English as the "Chinese Freemasons." It served as a Masonic lodge but did not have formal ties to European-origin Masons.

In 1884 the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) was formed in Victoria. The organization initially acted as an unofficial consulate of the Chinese government; the San Francisco consulate gave permission to Chinese businesspersons in Vancouver to establish the CCBA in the spring of that year. This function continued until the 1908 opening of the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa. The purpose of the CCBA became broader and it in general became a Chinese advocacy organization. In 1967 the Victoria Chinese Canadian Veterans Association, which organizes Remembrance Day events and Victoria Day parades involving the Chinese community, was established.

As of 1968 Duncan had an office for persons with the name Zheng/Cheung, and this served as the city's sole clan association.

In 1977 the Kamloops Chinese Cultural Association (KCCA) was incorporated. In addition to the cultural association, Kamloops also hosts a Chinese Freemasons group and a Taiwanese cultural society.

The Okanagan Chinese Canadian Association is headquartered in Kelowna. In addition in the 1960s Kelowna had a boarding house for men named Huang/Wong, and this functioned as the city's sole clan association.

The Freemasons served as the sole community organization of the Chinese in Nanaimo since the 1959 fire. Prior to 1959 Nanaimo had multiple Chinese associations. The Rising China Holding Company, the owner of the third Chinatown, in a period prior to 1959 served as the de facto government of the area. It had several locality associations, including the Yu-shan Hui-guan, which served Guangzhou (Canton)-origin Chinese. It also housed clan and fraternal associations. The Rising China company lost influence after the Chinese began to integrate into the town by moving outside of Chinatown and learning the English language. The 1959 fire destroyed the remaining power held by the group, and in the fire's aftermath the other organizations "gone into eclipse." Of all of the organizations present in the third Chinatown, the Freemasons were the only one that rebuilt within the Chinatown.

In the 1960s Port Alberni had a locality association, also called the Yu-shan Hui-guan with the same Cantonese name and with the same purpose as the Nanaimo organization.

Prior to 1945 the Prince George Chinese Benevolent Association was established. The purpose was to raise support for China during World War II. In the 1960s Prince George also had a clan association, Zhi-de Tang (Chi Tak T'ong), which Willmott described as the sole "significant political grouping" in the smaller British Columbia towns.

In the 1940s a benevolent association in Prince Rupert was established; it was, like the one in Prince George, created in order to give China support during the war.

Institutions in Greater Vancouver

Prior to the 1960s many ethnic Chinese in Vancouver had established associations based on their clan origins and districts in addition to educational and recreational organizations. Douglas Aitken of The Georgia Straight stated that the Chinese Benevolent Association (CBA) was the most important organization operating in the Vancouver Chinatown in the first half of the 20th century. Wong Soon King, Lee Kee, Shum Moon, Yip Sang, Leong Suey, and Chow Tong founded the CBA in 1896. The organization operated the Chinese Benevolent Association Building in Chinatown; it was built in 1907. Additional association buildings opened in the 1910s and 1920s. According to Aitken, the organization "lost most of its influence" in the 1970s but had regained influence by 2014.

A new wave of Chinese Canadian organizations opened around the 1970s and 1980s. Newly arrived Hong Kong immigrants began participating, and the people leading the new organizations tended to be Hong Kongers. Graham E. Johnson, the author of "Hong Kong Immigration and the Chinese Community in Vancouver," wrote that older organizations were "flourishing" at that time.

In 1973 the Chinese Cultural Centre opened in Vancouver's Chinatown. The Sun Yat-sen Classical Garden Society is in operation in Vancouver. The purpose of the society was to raise funds to complete the Sun Yat-sen Classical Garden.

Prior to 1994 ethnic Chinese "music societies" in Vancouver, first founded in the 1920s, had an increase in popularity.

In 1973 the organization SUCCESS, a loose acronym for the United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society, was founded to provide social services for ethnic Chinese, including recent immigrants. As of 2003, it had 350 employees, a headquarters in Vancouver, and 11 other offices in the Greater Vancouver region. As of the same year its budget is $16 million. As of 2010 Tung Chan, a former councillor of Vancouver, heads this organization. As of the 1960s, ad-hoc community organizations established by Chinese businesses, existed in Chinese communities which did not have their own full-fledged community associations.

Commerce

The tax registers of the City of Victoria show that Chinese businessmen were, after the Governor and coal-baron Robert Dunsmuir, the wealthiest men in the new city. Many of these were labour-contractors, a sector which would grow exponentially in the railway era, and opium merchants.

Many Chinese malls which contain businesses catering to Chinese speakers are concentrated in Richmond, though common throughout Vancouver and in many of its suburbs, particularly near Coquitlam Town Centre and in the Metrotown Town Centre area of Burnaby.

Chinese-catering businesses in Richmond

Media

As of 2009, of all of the major ethnic categories in Vancouver the Chinese had the secondary highest number of media products. Three Chinese language daily newspapers, Ming Pao, Sing Tao and World Journal cater to the city's large Cantonese and Mandarin speaking population.

The Vancouver Sun operates Taiyangbao (simplified Chinese: 太阳报; traditional Chinese: 太陽報; pinyin: Tàiyáng Bào), a Mandarin-language version of their regular newspaper. The English language edition of the Epoch Times, a global newspaper founded by Chinese emigres, is distributed through free boxes throughout the metropolis.

The Chinatown News, a biweekly, English-language paper, was a newspaper established by Chinese born in Canada, or tusheng. The founder was Roy Mah, who served as its editor. The paper focused on Canadian politics and events and did not focus on intra-Chinese political conflicts. Instead its focus was on things of interest to Canadian-born Chinese, and the paper often favored the tusheng in conflicts they had with newly arrived Chinese. It ran until 1995. The Chinese News Weekly and New Citizen were also established by locally-born Chinese, in 1936 and 1949, respectively, but closed after short durations of operation.

Historical Chinese-language papers in Vancouver include the Chinese Times, Chinese Voice, and New Republic.

The Da Zhong Bao was opened in February 1961. It was published by the Chinese Youth Association. It was originally bimonthly but it later shifted into being a weekly paper. There was an English version published in the Fall of 1970. Four issues were made in the CYA's attempt to spread messages to tusheng.

The Truth Monthly (traditional Chinese: 真理報; simplified Chinese: 真理报; pinyin: Zhēnlǐ Bào), a Christian newspaper, is in Vancouver.

Politics

When Vancouver was founded in 1886, its charter stated that municipal elections would not have First Nations and Chinese voters. R. H. Alexander, the operator of the Hastings Mill, asked his Chinese employees to vote anyway but they were chased away from the polls by whites. These men were supporters of David Oppenheimer, a rival candidate who was to become the city's second mayor. Alexander, at the time, was making an unsuccessful bid for the Mayor of Vancouver.

The Kuomintang became the dominant political group in the Vancouver Chinese community in the late 1930s. The KMT's influence in British Columbia dwindled after the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. The international headquarters of the Communist Party of China was located, on the other hand, in Victoria's Chinatown.

In 1957 Douglas Jung, from Vancouver, was first elected to the Parliament of Canada; he was the first Chinese Canadian to serve on the parliament. In 1962 Jung lost his election. Art Lee, also from Vancouver and elected in 1974, was the second Chinese Canadian in Parliament.

Peter Wing, the first North American mayor of Chinese ancestry, was elected Mayor of Kamloops in 1958.

Politics in Greater Vancouver

Politics in the Vancouver city proper

As of around 2005 12% of the Vancouver-based politicians had some Chinese ancestry. This formed a 0.40 index of proportionality in relation to the city's overall population of those with Chinese ancestry.

Chinese newspapers in the Vancouver region, during the 1960s and December 1970 began asking for their readers to participate in elections. In the Vancouver municipal elections in 1968 and 1970 three ethnic Chinese candidates each ran for election. In both Chinese candidates did not succeed in being elected.

By 1985 the City of Vancouver had an ethnic Chinese alderman. Bill Yee, the second visible minority ever on the Vancouver City Council, was elected in 1982. Susan Wilking was elected in 1988; she was the first Chinese-American woman to take a position in the city government. By 1994 multiple ethnic Chinese politicians have ran for and been elected in political campaigns in the Vancouver area. Most of these politicians were of Hong Kong origins. Since the 1980s and as of 2009 Vancouver City Council has consistently had ethnic Chinese persons. In 2001 the Richmond Canadian Voters submitted three candidates for the Richmond City Council, including two ethnic Chinese, but none of them won seats. Yee wrote that the public perceived the party as being "Chinese" "due to its leadership and conservative positions on group homes and liberal public education".

By the 1990s white residents of some Vancouver neighborhoods criticized ethnic Chinese for demolishing older houses and building larger, newer houses in their place. Brian K. Ray, Greg Halseth, and Benjamin Johnson, authors of "The Changing ‘Face’ of the Suburbs: Issues of Ethnicity and Residential Change in Suburban Vancouver," wrote that many existing Whites perceived the ethnic Chinese and their new houses as being "an assault on traditional meanings associated with suburbia."

During a failed 2004 election proposal to reinstitute the ward system in the City of Vancouver, the heavily Chinese southeast Vancouver had what Irene Bloemraad, author of "Diversity and Elected Officials in the City of Vancouver," described as "clear opposition" to reinstituting the ward system. Bloemraad stated that the at-large voting system used by Vancouver makes it difficult to elect women and minorities, and that the council's majority White demographics were "probably" influenced by the original rationale of the at-large system, to "keep those with social democratic ideologies out of politics". The ward system was abolished in 1935.

In 2014 the City of Vancouver enacted a grant program to preserve Chinese society buildings in the Vancouver Chinatown and in the adjacent Downtown Eastside areas.

Politics in other Greater Vancouver cities

In 2013 a petition arguing that Chinese-only signs were a problem in Richmond was submitted to the city council. The City Council responded by ignoring the petition.

By 2014 the group Putting Canada First, which criticizes having Chinese-language signs in Greater Vancouver, was established. That year, its spokesperson, North Vancouver resident Brad Saltzberg, wrote a letter arguing against having Chinese language signs to the city council of West Vancouver. The Mayor of West Vancouver, Michael Smith, criticized the movement.

Greater Vancouver federal politics

According to boundaries drawn in 1984, there were two Vancouver-area ridings with over 20% of their populations each being Chinese: Vancouver East, which was 23.9% Chinese, and Vancouver Kingsway, which was 24.6% Chinese. That year, Vancouver South was 17.8% Chinese and Vancouver Quadra was 11.2% Chinese. In 1988 the ridings were redrawn. The Vancouver East Chinese population was 25.4%, making it the only riding that was over 20% Chinese. The Chinese population of Vancouver South was 19.7%.

In 2010 Gabriel Yiu, a New Democratic Party (NDP) candidate for a 2009 BC election, accused candidate Kash Heed, his political rival, of distributing illegal anti-NDP pamphlets to ethnic Chinese in the Vancouver-Fraserview riding. Heed was the winner of that election.

Vancouver housing prices

As of 2014 the recent Chinese immigrants coming to Metro Vancouver are 96% of the total Chinese recent immigrants to the entire province. As of that year there was a trend of wealthy Mainland Chinese entering Vancouver. 29,764 wealthy ethnic Chinese, the majority of Mainland Chinese, entered British Columbia under the Immigrant Investor Programme (IIP), the Canadian wealthy investor immigration program, from 2005 to 2012. Vancouver was the intended destination of many of the IIP applicants. The applications were frozen because of the immense popularity. As of January 2013 there was a backlog of 45,800 Chinese intending to enter British Columbia using the IIP.

By 2013 these wealthy Mainland Chinese investors were buying property in Vancouver. Some existing members of the Vancouver community, including ethnic Chinese, criticized the new investors, arguing that they were driving up housing prices. As of 2013 Demographia Research ranked Vancouver as being the second-most expensive city in the world, after Hong Kong. The organization ranked 350 cities in the world. Ayesha Bhatty of the BBC wrote that "experts say there's little evidence to back up the fears." Mayor of Vancouver Gregor Robertson has made differing statements on whether or not the Chinese buyers are affecting housing prices.

Education

The Victoria Chinese Public School (CPS; Chinese: 域多利華僑公立學校; pinyin: Yùduōlì Huáqiáo Gōnglìxuéxiào) in Victoria was established as the Imperial Chinese School (Chinese: 大清公立學校; pinyin: Dà Qīng Gōnglìxuéxiào) in 1909. Xu Jianzhen, the Consul-General of China in San Francisco, had officially opened the school. The Victoria School Board had a policy denying enrollment to China-born pupils that was enacted in 1908 and other schools for China-born students were overcrowded. In 1913 the school began offering classes during the daytime for ethnic Chinese students according to an agreement with the Victoria School Board, and it officially changed its name at the same time. The new daytime classes served students who were segregated in public schools.

In the early 20th century, the Chinese-language schools in Victoria were the CPS, the Oi-kwok Hok-tong School, and the Jing'e School. In Vancouver there were several schools: the Wenhua Xuexiao, the Chinese Public School of Vancouver, the Jinhua School, the Kwong Chi School, the Canton School (Guangdong Xuexiao), and two other scools. There was also the Oi-kwok Hok-tong School in New Westminster.

Education in Greater Vancouver

Henry Yu, a University of British Columbia history professor quoted in the Vancouver Sun, stated in 2007 that significant ethnic Chinese populations are located in all Greater Vancouver school districts.

Vancouver School Board (VSB) schools are all integrated, with many school populations now predominantly Chinese-ethnic in composition. Private schools are also integrated, whether privately chartered or Catholic church-run. Chinese-language courses are available in most schools, and are popular with non-Chinese students, although regular curriculum instruction is in English. The VSB has basic courses in Cantonese.

In 1998 a group of parents of Chinese origins asked the VSB to establish a new school. The school board opted not to establish the school. The requested school would have used school uniforms, assigned more homework than other public schools, and, in the words of Paul Yee, author of Saltwater City: Story of Vancouver's Chinese Community, "bring in discipline" and "back-to-basics subjects".

As of 2012 there are Chinese-language schools in Vancouver that teach both Mandarin and Cantonese languages. In the 1980s and 1990s Cantonese was, in almost all Chinese-language schools in the city, the only variety taught.

The University of British Columbia has a continuing studies Mandarin program. Vancouver Community College has introductory Cantonese courses. Langara College has continuing studies Cantonese classes for adults and Mandarin classes for children.

Religion

Buddhist temple in Richmond

As of 2011 over 100,000 of the ethnic Chinese in Greater Vancouver were Christians, making up about 24% of the total population. 14% of the total population of Greater Vancouver ethnic Chinese stated that they were Buddhist.

Greater Vancouver has Chinese Protestant and Chinese Catholic churches. As of 2013 there are about 120 Chinese churches in the area. Of the Protestant churches there are over 110 in the area. Church services are held in Cantonese, English, and Mandarin.

There are over 26 Chinese Christian organizations in Greater Vancouver. They include theological organizations, radio stations, magazines, and newspapers.

Douglass Todd of the Vancouver Sun wrote that LGBT "may be the most distressing" of the sociocultural issues involving Chinese Christians in the area. In 2014 the Vancouver School Board had proposed a transgender rights program. In response, several Chinese-Canadian Christian groups and organizations, including Truth Monthly, protested the proposal. There were also Chinese Christian efforts to discontinue Burnaby Public Schools anti-homophobia programs. Justin K. H. Tse (simplified Chinese: 谢坚恒; traditional Chinese: 謝堅恆; pinyin: Xiè Jiānhéng), who wrote a master's degree thesis on wrote a PhD thesis on Chinese Christian public engagement in Vancouver and two other cities, argued that not all Chinese Christians have politically conservative beliefs.

Culture and recreation

The first recording of Cantonese opera occurred in Vancouver in 1898.

The Chinese New Year Parade is held every year in Vancouver. Many area politicians attend the event.

Around the 1950s 80% of the patrons of the International YMCA, opened as the Chinatown Centre in 1943 but given its new name in 1950, were ethnic Chinese. Most of them were tusheng.

The pre-1960s Chinese community in Vancouver had social clubs and places of entertainment. The number of ethnic Chinese clubs increased in the mid-1950s. The Chinese Students Soccer Club was the only team not consisting of White Americans that was active during the 1920s and 1930s. There was also a Chinese Tennis Club. The Chinese Athletic Club and the Chinese Bowling Club were populated with tusheng or locally-born Chinese. The increase in ethnic clubs prompted the YMCA to establish an inter-club council.

The community had the Chinese Opera House and Chinese Theatre.

Around the 1950s Chinese churches in Vancouver had their own recreational programs, including Boy Scouts.

The Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society is located in Vancouver. It was created in 1998 and maintains a museum in that city.

Terminology

See also: Nicknames of Vancouver

Chinese Vancouverites and Chinese British Columbians coined the term "Saltwater City" for Vancouver, and the term Gold Mountain, normally used for and coined in relation to the California goldfields, is also used for British Columbia. The Chinese Benevolent Association's records in Barkerville used "the Colonies of T'ang [China]" in their documents and correspondence.

"Hongcouver"

The city is sometimes called "Hongcouver", by international media due to the size of the Chinese population; the term is no longer used locally and is regarded as derogatory. The nickname "Hongcouver" refers to the large numbers of ethnic Chinese in Vancouver. The nickname originated from the attraction of Hong Kong immigrants.

John Belshaw, author of Becoming British Columbia: A Population History, wrote that Vancouver's "bitter elite" created the term. Beginning in fall of 1988, and through the early 1990s some Greater Vancouver businesses sold T-shirts with the word "Hongcouver" on them. Use of the word by Vancouverites increased as more and more ethnic Chinese moved in.

David Ley, author of Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines, described it as an "imagined" term bringing an "exaggerated cariacature" that was "fabricated" by media in North America and Hong Kong. Ley argued that "The motivation for presenting this entity was in part satirical, possibly on occasion racist". Miro Cernetig of the Vancouver Sun wrote that the term Hongcouver was "an era's impolitic catch-phrase for the xenophobia and palpable occidental unease in Vancouver at the prospect of a profound upheaval in society." Nathaniel M. Lewis, author of "Urban Demographics and Identities," described the term as "derogatory." Anu Sahota of the CBC described it as an "offensive term". Katie King, the author of Networked Reenactments: Stories Transdisciplinary Knowledges Tell, wrote that Vancouver was "lampooned in economic racist terms" through the word "Hongcouver".

Ley argued that there was also "insight" in the term "Hongcouver". Linda Solomon Wood of the Vancouver Observer stated that Hongcouver was one of several affectionate terms for Vancouver.

Lewis stated that "Hongcouver" was not as commonly used as it had been in the 1990s. In 2007 Cernetig also stated that it was no longer commonly used in the city. That year, Sahota stated that "Hongcouver" "persists today".

Ian Young, a correspondent of the South China Morning Post (SCMP), titled his blog about the Hong Konger population in Vancouver "Hongcouver".

Notable Chinese from BC

• Jim Chu, Chief Constable of the Vancouver Police Department
• Shawn Dou, actor
• Thomas Fung, founder of the Fairchild Group
• David Ho, businessperson
• Douglas Jung, first Chinese MP
• Jenny Kwan, activist, politician and cabinet
• David Lam, philanthropist and later Lieutenant Governor of BC
• Art Lee, MP
• Richard Lee, member of the BC legislative assembly
• Chow Shong "C.S." Wing, the first professional photographer in Quesnel, British Columbia
• Peter Wing, mayor of Kamloops
• Won Alexander Cumyow, the first Chinese person born in Canada
• Wong Foon Sien, journalist and social activist
• Gabriel Yiu, politician

References

• Lai, David Chuen-yan and Pamela Madoff. Building and Rebuilding Harmony: The Gateway to Victoria's Chinatown. Western Geographical Press, 1997. See Snippet views at Google Books.
• Lai, David Chuen-yan. "The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in Victoria: Its Origins and Functions" (Archive). BC Studies. No. 15. Autumn 1972. p. 53-67.
• Morton, James. In the Sea of Sterile Mountains: The Chinese in British Columbia. J. J. Douglas, 1974.
• Bloemraad, Irene. "Diversity and Elected Officials in the City of Vancouver" (Chapter 2). In: Andrew, Caroline, John Biles, Myer Siemiatycki, and Erin Tolley (editors). Electing a Diverse Canada: The Representation of Immigrants, Minorities, and Women. UBC Press, July 1, 2009. ISBN 0774858583, 9780774858588. Start p. 46.
• Edgington, David W., Michael A. Goldberg, Thomas Hutton. "The Hong Kong Chinese in Vancouver" (Archive). Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis (RIIM) (Working Paper Series). Vancouver Centre of Excellence. April 2003.
• Guo, Shibao An interpretive study of a voluntary organization serving Chinese immigrants in Vancouver, Canada (PhD thesis) (Archive). University of British Columbia. See profile. Available at ProQuest.
• Ironside, Linda L. Chinese- and Indo-Canadian elites in greater Vancouver : their views on education (Master's thesis) (Archive). Simon Fraser University. 1985. See profile at Simon Fraser University.
• Johnson, Graham E. "Hong Kong Immigration and the Chinese Community in Vancouver" (Chapter 7). In: Skeldon, Ronald. Reluctant Exiles?: Migration from Hong Kong and the New Overseas Chinese (Volume 5 of Hong Kong becoming China). M.E. Sharpe, January 1, 1994. ISBN 1563244314, 9781563244315. Start p. 120.
• Ng, Wing Chung. The Chinese in Vancouver, 1945-80: The Pursuit of Identity and Power (Contemporary Chinese Studies Series). UBC Press, November 1, 2011. ISBN 0774841583, 9780774841580.
• Ray, Brian K., Greg Halseth, and Benjamin Johnson. "The Changing ‘Face’ of the Suburbs: Issues of Ethnicity and Residential Change in Suburban Vancouver." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Volume 21, Issue 1, pages 75–99, March 1997. Published online December 16, 2002. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.00059.
• Teo, Sin Yih. "Imaging Canada: Tracing the Cultural Logics of Migration Amongst PRC Immigrants in Vancouver" (Master's Thesis) (Archive). University of British Columbia (UBC), 2003. - See profile at UBC.
• Tse, Justin K. H. and Johanna L. Waters. "Transnational youth transitions: becoming adults between Vancouver and Hong Kong." Global Networks. Volume 13, Issue 4, pages 535–550, October 2013. Online publication date: February 12, 2013. DOI: 10.1111/glob.12014.
• Willmott, W. E. "Approaches to the Study of the Chinese in British Columbia" (Archive). BC Studies. No. 4. Spring 1970. p. 38-52. See profile page.
• Willmott, W.E. "Some aspects of Chinese communities in British Columbia Towns" (Archive). BC Studies. No. 1. (Winter 1968-1969). p. 27-36. See profile.
• Yee, Paul. Saltwater City: Story of Vancouver's Chinese Community. D & M Publishers, Dec 1, 2009. ISBN 1926706250, 9781926706252.

Further reading

• Adams, John David. "The Rise and Maturation of an Effective Anti-Chinese Argument in British Columbia, 1858-1879" (B.A. Honours paper. University of British Columbia, 1972), 22. (Note: See Google Books entry) - See search page #1 for more visible text of the John David Adams citation)
• Anderson, Kay. Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875-1980 (Volume 10 of McGill-Queen's Studies in Ethnic History, ISSN 0846-8869). McGill-Queen's University Press (MQUP), November 4, 1991. ISBN 0773508449, 9780773508446. - See profile at Google Books
• Barman, Jean. "Beyond Chinatown: Chinese men and indigenous women in early British Columbia" (report). BC Studies, Spring, 2013, Issue 177, p. 39.
• Barnes, Sydney (interview with Charlayne Thornton-Joe). "Memories of the Chinese Cemetery" (Archive). Royal BC Museum.
• Carrigg, David. "Home improvements" (Archive). Vancouver Courier. Thursday August 5, 2004.
• Chen, Zhongping and Charles Yang (interviewers). "Interview with Victoria’s Chinese Canadian Veterans Association" (Archive). Victoria' Chinatown, University of Victoria. June 24, 2011. -- Interview of CCVA President Victor Wong (黄活光).
• Cho, George and Roger Leigh. "Patterns of Residence of the Chinese in Vancouver." In: Minghi, J. (editor). Peoples of the Living Land (BC Geographical Series, No. 15). Tantalus (Vancouver), 1972. p. 67-84.
• Dunae, Patrick A., John S. Lutz, Donald J. Lafreniere, and Jason A. Gilliland. "Making the inscrutable, scrutable: race and space in Victoria's Chinatown, 1891." (Essay) BC Studies, Spring, 2011, Issue 169, p. 51. See profile. Available at EBSCOHost.
• Ikebuchi, Shelly Dee. "Marriage, Morals, and Men: Re/defining Victoria's Chinese Rescue Home." BC Studies. No. 183, Autumn 2014. p. 65-84. See profile. Available at EBSCOHost.
• Lai, David Chuenyan. Chinese Community Leadership: Case Study of Victoria in Canada. World Scientific, 2010. ISBN 9814295183, 9789814295185.
• Lu, Duanfang. "The Changing Landscape of Hybridity: A Reading of Ethnic Identity and Urban Form in Vancouver" (Archive). Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review (TDSR). International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE). Volume XI. Number II. 2000. p. 19-28.
• Ogura, Tamiko. "Vancouver from the 1907 Anti-Asian Riots to Hongcouver: A Century of Change Through Students’ Eyes" (Archive). Schema Magazine. June 19, 2007.
• Roy, Patricia E. A White Man's Province: British Columbia Politicians and Chinese and Japanese Immigrants 1858-1914. UBC Press, January 1, 1989. ISBN 9780774803731. See profile at UBC Press.
• Roy, Patricia E. The Triumph of Citizenship: The Japanese and Chinese in Canada, 1941-67. UBC Press, November 1, 2011. ISBN 0774840757, 978077484075012 p. 12 (with sources in English and Chinese) discusses the post-World War II intra-Chinese politics in Vancouver. This book uses sources in both English and Chinese.
• Ward, Peter W. White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy toward Orientals in British Columbia.
• Wickberg, Edgar. From China to Canada: A History of the Chinese Communities in Canada.
• Willmott, W.E. "Chinese clan associations in Vancouver." Man, vol. lxiv no. 49 (1964), p.. 33-37.
• Wynne, Robert S. “Reaction to the Chinese in the Pacific Northwest Coast and B.C., 1858–1910” (PhD dissertation, University of Washington, 1964), 125. (See search page #2 for more readable text of the citation)
• "The Hong Kong influx." CBC. 1997. Description page (Archived).
• "Perspectives on the 1907 Riots in Selected Asian Languages and International Newspapers" (溫哥華一九零七年排亞暴動中日英文史料) (Archive). University of British Columbia.
• "Report by W.L. Mackenzie King, C.M.G., Deputy Minister of Labour, commissioner appointed to investigate into the losses sustained by the Chinese population of Vancouver, B.C. on the occasion of the riots in that city in September, 1907."
• "Report of the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration : report and evidence. Ottawa : Printed by order of the Commission, 1885.
• "British Columbia Archives TRANS-PACIFIC RECORDS RESEARCH GUIDE" (Archive). Royal BC Museum.

External links

• "The Chinese Experience in British Columbia: 1850-1950." University of British Columbia.
• "The Chinese Experience in British Columbia: 1850-1950." Vancouver Public Library.
• Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia (加華歷史協會)
• Victoria Chinese Commerce Association
• "In pictures: Vancouver's Chinese community." BBC.
• Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden (Vancouver)
• Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver (加拿大溫哥華中華會館)
• Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver - "Origins of Historical Building in Vancouver" website, publ. Simon Fraser University
• Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society
• Kamloops Chinese Cultural Association