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Discrimination in the 20th century
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Thesis Statement
During the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1881-1885, the discrimination against Chinese workers demonstrates social injustice.
Summary The Canadian Pacific Railway was the first transcontinental railway built to connect Canada from coast to coast. (Canadian Pacific Para. 9) The construction almost delayed completely because of John A. MacDonald losing power, but it was finally continued with the help of a syndicate. (Canadian Pacific Para. 4) Due to the insufficient amount of adequate workers in British Columbia, Chinese contract workers were imported to help construct the track with minimal pay and harsh conditions. (Canada Para. 1) Chinese-Canadians were discriminated by being given the most dangerous job, no food or shelter provided, and the least pay. Unfortunately, when the track was completed, the Exclusion Act for Chinese immigrants was established to stop immigration from China, (Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre Para. 5) while also making it impossible for family members from China to immigrate. (Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre Para. 11)
Last Spike Driven In By Donald Alexander
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This discriminated the Chinese-Canadians and implies that because the men were Chinese they deserved less than white men. Chinese workers were given $1 each day with no shelter or food provided. (Canada Para. 1) They ate a main diet of rice, dried salmon, washed down with tea. The lack of vitamin C in their diets was caused because the Chinese workers weren't given enough money to buy fresh fruits. This caused many Chinese workers to obtain scurvy, which is a painful disease created by the deficiency of vitamin C. (Canada Para. 2) On the other hand, Canadian's who worked on the Canadian Pacific Railway were given $2.50 dollars a day with food and shelter provided. (Canada Para.
To get Canadians against the idea of Indian immigration the government had accused Indians of having ‘Hindu hookworms’ since they had “low living standards” because they usually went places barefoot and they did not maintain proper sanitization. Once the Indians in British Columbia were tested, the reports showed that they did not have hookworms, so instead they were accused of consuming thymol to disguise their condition. As you can see Canadians were very racist against non-whites. As long as your skin colour was white you were allowed and welcomed into
The impact of the CPR is huge in Canada because the railway helped import and export goods and foods from destination A to destination B, building materials and other everyday items from Canada West to Canada East and vice versa. There were also bad impacts on the Canadian Pacific Railway for example the CPR costed a lot for the parliament and the government, even though Donald Smith and Hugh Allan made the finances tough for few years for Canada. This drop lead to the Great Economic Depression. But in the end of the drop of this economic depression, everyone was happy with the Canadian Pacific
In today’s rapidly growing global society, foreign relations with other countries are imperative to a nation’s prosperity and world-wide harmony. Especially with China, the fastest growing country in the world, it is important for Canada to establish relations that can benefit both countries. The foundation of these Sino-Canadian relations was created by Norman Bethune’s involvement in the Second Sino-Japanese War. China was not always such a flourishing and prosperous society. In 1937, during this war, Japan invaded China with imperialist objectives.
...reatment of these workers by the railroad corporations such as working in highly dangerous conditions while receiving very minimal pay. In this sense culture and ethnicity played a different role from the two previous chapters in how the area confronted social change.
was the driving factor that ultimately resulted in the internment of the Japanese Canadians. Racial prejudice against Orientals had been around in B.C. since the 1850s when Chinese immigrants came to Canada to help with the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. A newspaper article described the Chinese as a “marvelous human machine, competent to perform the maximum of labour on the minimum of sustenance” (Adachi 42). While they were beneficial for contractors, they posed a threat to the white population (Figure 3). The cartoon suggests that the low living standards of the Chinese allowed them to endure the harshest conditions, while being satisfied with the lowest wages. In contrast, the typical European is portrayed as a civilized human being who cannot compete with the Chinese workers without sacrificing his dignity. As a result, when the Japanese started immigrating to Canada later on, the British Columbian population only saw them as another threat to their culture due to the similarities they shared with the Chinese. However, the Japanese proved to be a greater problem since they were not affected by the Head Tax imposed on the Chinese (Hickman, 33; Morton). The attack on Pearl Harbour was an excuse that finally allowed British Columbians to release the anti-Japanese sentiment that they had been suppressing for years. In addition, when the final decision to intern the Japanese Canadians was passed, the government considered them all as potential threats (Figure 4). There was no effort made to distinguish those who posed potential threats and those who did not; most of them had no connection with Japan besides for their ancestry. This can only be attributed to racism, as there are only 38 suspects out of the 22,000 internees. Similarly, selling of Japanese property was another racist act that the government claimed to be necessary for the war effort and to increase national security (Sunahara 90; “The War Years”).
Terry Fox contributed to Canadian identity because he proved that no matter what problems you have, you can always do it. Firstly, he had a dream but he hurt himself but instead of stopping he recovered and strived to do a thing that a fully healed person could do, and he tried to run across Canada. Not only was it hard physically but he showed no matter what other people don't think you can do you can do it. Just like nobody believed that Harriet Tubman could bring people to Canada, but harriet worked hard and she proved most people wrong. Chinese Immigrants is important to the Canadian Identity because it showed that Canada had a great reputation. Most people knew that if they got in Canada their lives would still be pretty bad, but they
... and disease carriers. None of that was true! The Canadians had made such a strong, but wrong opinion about the Chinese that they paid them less. They thought the Chinese men had no families to support. Many Chinese people weren’t even allowed to buried next to the white. Zhang had to suffer prejudice and mistreatment. He tried to change his owner’s view and after many attempts, he succeeded. After a few years, Zhang got enough money to go back to China and he felt like, in many years… that he was free.
Many Nakhi people decided to migrate to other areas of China and they were mixed with a variety of nations. Immigration of Chinese people to Canada started all the way from 1788 when Canada required trading posts to be built. More people arrived to build the Canadian railway, as China was impacted by numerous riots. Their average salary was much less than Caucasian workers, this made even their basic needs hard to fulfill. After this construction was done, the Canadian government used policies to stop them from coming as they hoped for a “White” country, one of them was the infamous Chinese head tax. Even if they managed to stay, due to the rising discrimination, they cannot buy property or start a business outside of chinatown in case of
Racial discrimination in the workplace has been a persistent theme in Canada’s history as well as present-day times. The occurrence of actions and attitudes that impose a sense of one being less equal than another on the basis of one’s race in Canada’s workplace inhibits both our nation’s ability to move forward as well as strengthen unification within our country. The belief in a more egalitarian society, where one’s race and ethnic background have little to no impact on employees (or potential employees) standings within the job market, would seemingly be reinforced by the majority of Canadians, who consistently show support for Canada’s multicultural identity. Couple that with the noticeable strides Canada has made in the past several decades through legislation, in order to eliminate discriminatory practices and actions within the workplace, and one would likely assume that racial discrimination within the workplace is largely a concern of the past. However, current research supports the argument that the level of which racial discrimination occurs today is increasing, and as such it persists to be a key problem in the current workplace of the nation. In the workplace, racial discrimination is often seen with regard to uneven access to jobs, unfair selection and promotion criteria (as well as access to the means in order to meet this criteria), and workplace harassment. This paper compares similar findings of two articles; the first, Racial inequality in employment in Canada, as was published in the Canadian Public Administration (CPA), and the second, What Are Immigrants’ Experiences of Discrimination in the Workplace?, published by the Toronto Immigrant Employment Data Initiative (TIEDI).
For this reason, Japanese and Italian Canadians were placed in small internment camps with many other people with the same descents. The internment camps had no running water or electricity and had little amounts of food. 1 In addition, they worked for a long period of time but received such a small amount of money. For instance, the Italian Canadians were paid only 20 cents a day.2 As a consequence the enemy aliens were not even allowed to speak their mother tongue because soldiers feared they may be planning an attack, revenge or escape.3 In general, the Canadian government shamed the Japanese and Italian Canadians just because of their cultures. These enemy aliens were kept in captivity in a country known for freedom. Therefore, all of the mistreatment was due to fear and racism, the Canadian government discriminated the Japanese and Italian
Canada has a history of mistreating minority groups and one prime example is Japanese internment, Japanese Canadians were feared and judged not only due to the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese but also just right out racism. Racism towards Asians also known as ‘yellow peril’ was very evidently the remote cause of Japanese interment while the bombing at Pearl Harbor became the immediate cause. Japanese Canadians were treated differently; people were jealous of their success, they were judged not upon their action but upon their heritage/background. Finally,when the Canadian Japanese were free to go they didn’t get an apology or any compensation for years later. The Japanese Canadian were discriminated against because they were different from
They spent all day bent over and often the workers would come home with blisters and scars on their hands from picking the leaving off o the stock. Most people from foreign countries temporaioly. Iiving conditions were cramped and dirty. In source #1 its said that most of the workers were unhappy and wanted to return to their homeland after the contract they had signed was over. The schedule that was in source #2 lists that the foreigners would wake up to the morning call at 5:00 AM and would fall asleep at 8:00PM. They worked six days a week and were alerted with one siren to another. When the laborers were allowed to discontinue working, they would only be able to stop at 4:00
She chooses to cite only academic publications, Canadian governmental documents, and local newspaper articles in her long list of sources, none of which provide perspective from the people around which the article is centered; the Chinese. This highlights the key issue within the article; whilst Anderson meticulously examines how Chinatown is simply a construction of white supremacists, she ignores what life was actually like for the area’s inhabitants, and how the notion of ‘Chinatown’ may have become a social reality for those living in it. By failing to include sources written by those who lived in Chinatown during the time or live there now, she misses the notion of Canadian-Chinese agency and potential willingness to thrive and adapt in an environment she deems simply a hegemonic construction. Barman’s sources are more all encompassing of varying perspectives. This may be due to the fact that she wrote the article 20 years after Anderson’s, during a time in which history was beginning to be viewed through a culturally-relativistic lens. Whilst including a plethora of academic sources and government documents, Barman also draws extensively from sources of indigenous voice, such as conversations between August Jack Khatsalano and Major Matthews. This allows for the expression of indigenous agency, and reveals how they reacted to a chronology of systematic displacement. This first-hand approach is appropriate in supporting Barman’s thesis, which says that Indigenous peoples were the most adversely affected by urbanization in a variety of
Even before the Act, prejudice and discrimination was already well entrenched. Existing policies had already made it difficult for Chinese immigrants and the Chinese community. During the postwar years, anti-Asian sentiment and calls of prohibitive regulations on Chinese immigrants grew. Many feared that the Chinese population was a threat to job opportunities as they could be paid lower legally. The Immigration Act of 1923 passed by the government permitted only four classes of Chinese immigrants from entering. The few Chinese immigrants who fell within these admissible classes were not guaranteed admission and needed to go through many examinations. There were many discriminatory provisions in the act. For example, ships were authorized to bring one Chinese person for every 250 tons of tonnage compared to 50 tons for other immigrants (Kelley 207). Between 1923 and 1946, only 15 Chinese immigrants were accepted into Canada. Chinese men who priorly arrived in Canada could not unite with their families as their wives and children were allowed to immigrate to Canada. The population of the Chinese community decreased due to lack of women. ("Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21"). Chinese Canadians suffered greatly from the restrictive policy of the Canadian
Prejudice and discrimination have been an essential issue between racial groups in Canada, groups like aboriginal people, Asians, blacks, and many others were humiliated by white people and mistreat by the government. During the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, hundreds and thousands of these minority members fought in various ways for Canada, the Allies, and themselves. Whether on the battlefields and back on the home front, aboriginals, Asians, and blacks in all aspects made a significant contribution to the victory of World War II.