The Chinese in Toronto from 1878: From Outside to Inside the Circle

Toronto.

INTRODUCTION

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

—CONFUCIUS

The story of the Chinese in Toronto has roots in an ancient civilization and branches that extend to one of the youngest countries. Canada was in its infancy, not yet having celebrated a birthday, when the first wave of Chinese arrived on its shores in 1858. Toronto was younger still, with its first Chinese recorded in 1878 as laundryman Sam Ching.

The arrival of these early immigrants from China marked the first step in a journey of a thousand miles that would take years in an arduous climb up the untravelled cliffs of what came to be known as Gold Mountain. The contributions of these pioneer immigrants forged the foundation of Canada’s multicultural mosaic. Their legacy, pre-dating Confederation and spanning 150 years in the country, comprises only a fraction of their homeland’s civilization — marked in history by millennia. And yet their impact can be felt in the flourishing communities of present-day Toronto, which has a thriving population of Chinese Canadians. Chinatown is no longer an ethnic enclave that sheltered the early Chinese from a hostile host society. There are now many Chinese communities that have broken out of the Chinatown mould and have successfully established themselves in many areas of the city.

There are many stories to tell. Some are told in the words of individuals from the past and present, others as excerpts from novels, poems, and biographies that reflect Chinatown both real and imagined. No one story alone can fully describe the societal disadvantages that shrouded the Chinese in Canadian society. The hardships of early immigrant life and injustices of the government and society are brought to light not so much to inspire shame as to show lessons learned.

A country that has gained a worldwide reputation for compassion and human rights was historically less than compassionate, and this is worth exploring. Individual decisions of public officials alone, such as parliamentarians, police officers, judges, and even prime ministers, did not create the hostile environment. Rather, institutional and systemic racism was entrenched in the official policies and legislation of the day. Why the Chinese made the decision to leave their families and homeland in mass numbers becomes clear when the factors that pushed them out of China and pulled them to Canada are explained.

More than 17,000 Chinese labourers, mostly from one province in Southern China, came to Canada to make their fortunes. Their dreams were not unlike those of other newcomers, who wanted to own their own land and businesses and to make a life with their families. They fled conditions that were filled with war, poverty, and starvation. These immigrants were a small portion of the single biggest migration out of China in its long history. Many departed for Southeast Asia. Many went to the United States. Some came to Canada in hopes of striking gold or working as labourers for the Canadian Pacific Railway.

The Chinese struggled under extreme hardship as they tried to find employment in a harsh environment filled with state-sanctioned hostility, hatred, and discrimination. They moved eastward across Canada in search of more welcoming towns and cities. Subsequent waves of immigration were shaped by immigration laws that restricted and excluded Chinese almost exclusively. Canadian government and businesses exploited Chinese labour but resisted the acceptance of Chinese into Canadian life. The established white society viewed the Chinese as foreigners who could be imported or expelled as needed. The great irony of the Chinese Canadian experience has been that success was as dangerous as failure. Whenever the Chinese excelled as labourers or businessmen, efforts arose to depict their contributions not as a boon to Canada, but as a threat. The federal government succumbed to public demand, first with a series of head taxes, and, finally, with the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act, which slammed shut the doors to Canada for 24 years.

After the Second World War and the repeal of the Exclusion Act, several waves of Chinese immigrants entered Canada at different times and for different reasons. The People’s Republic of China was established in 1949. The Nationalist Party fled and set up headquarters in Taiwan. Civil unrest in Southeast Asia brought boatloads of refugees into Canada. Hong Kong and Macau were handed back as special administrative regions of the People’s Republic of China. All of these historic events shaped the immigration patterns to Canada.

The telling of the story of the Chinese in Toronto has been a personal journey for me. The phrase outside the circle is a reference made by my mother, Jean Lumb, a Torontonian, as she reflected on her childhood years at a segregated school. Why are we being treated this way? Why can’t I do what other people do? The most important thing at that time was being accepted into the circle. I didn’t want to be outside looking in. I wanted them to accept me in this circle.

The Chinese in Toronto were kept outside the circle for decades by decision-makers at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels, by the media, and by Canadian society. The modest beginnings of Chinese in Toronto and the development of Chinatown are due to the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, after which time Chinese labourers fled eastward from a hostile British Columbia in search of employment and a more welcoming place. In 1894 the Chinese population in Toronto numbered 50. Today, no less than seven Chinatowns serve the city’s largest visible minority, with a population just short of half a million. After English, Chinese is the most spoken language in the Toronto area.

Chinatown was, for a time, in a constant state of flux, reacting to a history notched with varying restrictions, exclusions, and periods of immigration that destroyed or re-located its physical centre. Despite these tumultuous setbacks, the story of the Chinese in Toronto has a happy ending. Today, the Chinese communities are flourishing — a testament to resilience and endurance of those early settlers seeking a better future for their families. While the promised land of Gold Mountain never materialized, they paved the way for their descendants to reach undreamed of heights.

As a third-generation Chinese Canadian, I was born, raised, and educated in Toronto. I spent my childhood in what is now called Old Chinatown, at Elizabeth and Dundas streets. My parents were the co-owners of the Kwong Chow Restaurant, at the time considered one of the big four Chinese restaurants in the city. Beforehand, they had operated a grocery store in the Junction at the west end. Our family moved to a house at the intersection of Dundas and Beverley streets, where I attended public school and Chinese school.

The arrival of my maternal grandfather in 1899 was followed a few years later by that of my grandmother; they were both from Taishan. My father paid the $500 head tax for entry in 1921. Nanaimo, British Columbia, was the birthplace of my mother, who also experienced, first-hand, the injustices of discriminatory legislation. As a child, she attended a segregated school. When the Exclusion Act was enacted, she and 10 of her brothers and sisters were required to register for identification cards despite being born Canadian citizens. When she moved to Toronto at age 16, there were only 13 Chinese families in Chinatown. The year was 1935, smack in the middle of the bachelor society phase. Marriage to my father, who was not born, like herself, in Canada, stripped her of her Canadian citizenship. Ironically, she later became a citizenship judge who granted citizenship to over 2,000 Canadians.

My own journey of a thousand miles spans several decades and it is my close connection to Chinatown that has afforded me a deeper understanding of what I am reliving through my research. While my trek is far from completed, I have linked memories of past places and faces that I can now, as an adult, chart in the story of the Chinese community. For the diminishing number of Torontonians who lived during the early years of Chinatown, the tales will conjure a trip down memory lane. For the greater number, who did not live those many years ago, these tidbits paint a bleak landscape of a time past.

Spelling

Pinyin, the official system of romanization in the People’s Republic of China, is used for names and terms. More commonly recognized words that reflect the early prevalence of Cantonese and its many variations — for example, cheongsam — have the pinyin equivalent in parentheses. English names are used if possible: Chinese Times instead of Dahan gongbao. Usages deemed as more familiar and popular for English readers are preferred, for example, Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, instead of Sun Zhongshan and Jiang Jieshi.

Toronto Geography

Throughout the text, there are many references to Toronto and its political and statistical configurations. The following definitions have been compiled to clarify such references.

TORONTO

Before 1998, Toronto was one of six municipalities that made up Metropolitan Toronto.

CITY OF TORONTO

In 1998, Toronto, North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke, York, and East York were amalgamated into the new City of Toronto, with one mayor and one city council.

GREATER TORONTO AREA

This term includes City of Toronto and the four surrounding regional municipalities of Durham, Halton, Peel, and York.

TORONTO REGION

This term refers to the census statistical designation of Toronto Census Metropolitan Area that is slightly smaller than the Greater Toronto Area. It includes municipalities of the City of Toronto, Mississauga, Markham, Richmond Hill, Oakville, Brampton, Caledon, Halton Hills, Milton, Mono, Pickering, Ajax, Uxbridge, Newmarket, New Tecumseth, Bradford West, Gwillimbury, Whitchurch–Stouffville, Vaughan, and Georgina.

Ants can move even a mighty mountain.

—CHINESE PROVERB.

Chinatown in Toronto owes its humble beginnings not to nineteenth-century Ontario but rather to the places that the early Chinese left behind. The first was China; the second was British Columbia. Unsettling conditions pushed Chinese immigrants to make the difficult decision to leave and seek their fortunes elsewhere.

China is the third largest country in the world, with 9.3 million square kilometres that would handily cover the entire continent of Europe. Boasting five thousand years of civilization, this landmass is home to over one billion people, or one in five of the total world population. The Han people make up 93 percent of the population, with no less than 55 minority groups in the balance.¹ Waves of Chinese immigration became known as the Chinese diaspora, second in number only to the descendants of African slaves.² Commonly referred to as overseas Chinese (huaqiao), an estimated 37 million Chinese live in 136 countries worldwide, three-fifths in the neighbouring countries of Southeast Asia.³ China’s national language is guoyu, literally translated as national language and commonly referred to as Mandarin. From 1949 onwards, it was called putonghua, meaning generally understood language.

Control of the nation was once held in the hands of dynastic leaders, whose reigns were characterized by periods of unrest and turmoil. China was ruled by the Han ethnic group, with the exception of a few dynasties that include the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) and, most notably, the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). The Qing, or Manchu, dynasty, whose last ruler was infamously known as the Last Emperor, was established by the Manchurians with the overthrow of the Han in 1644. The dynasty flourished in the early years, bolstering China’s claim to having a civilization. and culture vastly superior to other nations. In the Chinese language, Zhongguo means middle kingdom, a reference to being the centre of the world. However, by the mid-nineteenth century, the power and influence of the Manchu dynasty declined and faced a crisis both on its home soil and internationally. By this time, the imperial government did not function effectively and internal and external disturbances threatened China’s sovereignty.

By the mid-1800s, the population had more than doubled, and overcrowding caused shortages of land, impairing China’s ability to feed its 420 million people. Crushing poverty and starvation were rampant among the people, most of whom were peasants living the relentless cycles of the planting season. Hard-working and ingenious in their methods of making do with so little, the peasants eked out a meagre living.

Additionally, mismanagement of funds and the corruption and extravagance of the Qing ruling class emptied the imperial coffers. China’s international status as a powerful civilization fell as the Industrial Revolution catapulted many European countries forward in technological development. The failure to modernize and keep pace contributed to the country’s downfall and eventual humiliation by foreign powers. China succumbed to Western expansionism, which resulted in the Opium Wars — the first from 1840 to 1842, and the second from 1850 to 1860. Previously closed to foreigners for several hundred years, China was forced to open its ports to trade with Britain, pay hefty indemnities, hand over Hong Kong as a British colony, and enter into emigration treaties. France and other European countries soon followed suit with demands for their own concessions and jurisdictions in the port cities. The Chinese became second-class citizens in their own country. Another external influence, to their detriment, was Japan as it expanded its empire in Asia. China’s loss in the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894 culminated in the cessation of Taiwan to Japan.

Those living in the southern-most province, Guangdong, were the hardest hit. Between 1787 and 1850, Guangdong’s population doubled from 16 million to 28 million.⁴ At the best of times, there was only enough food to feed one-third of its inhabitants. In the Pearl River Delta, the 13 counties of the region occupied 10 percent of the province, yet the 18 million inhabitants represented 50 percent of its population.⁵

Unrest led to peasant rebellions, which claimed the lives of over 20 million people — the most renowned such uprising being the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) against the Qing government.⁶ Additionally, between 1852 and 1908, the Pearl River Delta was assailed by 14 floods, seven typhoons, four earthquakes, two droughts, four plagues, and five famines.⁷ These disasters, along with widespread banditry, aggravated the food shortage. When the Qing government imposed the burden of the British indemnities on the backs of the peasants, in the form of higher taxes, the consequences were dire. With tax collectors in pursuit, many sank deeper into debt. The urgency to leave Guangdong province was never greater.

In 1672 the Qing government had banned Chinese emigration overseas, and this edict was not rescinded until 1859.⁸ Despite this, large-scale migration to other parts of the world, particularly Southeast Asia, began in earnest during these troubling times. When news about a faraway place glittering with gold began to circulate, hope for the future was ignited in Guangdong. Stories spread wildly about this land that came to be known as Gum Shan, or Gold Mountain.

The Gold Rush

Gold was discovered on the Fraser River of British Columbia in April 1858. Thousands of prospectors, whose gold hunting in the California gold rush was nearing an end, sailed or travelled overland to Victoria, British Columbia, to continue their hunt for dazzling riches, first in the Fraser River gold rush (1858–1860), then the Cariboo gold rush (1860–1863). The first wave of emigration from China began with a group of 300 in 1858.⁹ These settlers navigated many dangers before even reaching Canada, beginning with the trek from their villages to Guangdong’s port of Guangzhou and ending with the crossing of the Pacific Ocean, which tossed them at sea for four to eight weeks.

These pioneer immigrants were not the earliest to arrive. Legends about a Buddhist monk landing on the western shores of what is now known as North America date to 400 BCE.¹⁰ And the first documented Chinese was recorded in 1788 by Captain John Meares, who left from the Portuguese colony of Macau with 50 Chinese labourers, carpenters, and shipwrights aboard the ship Felice. They landed at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island to build a trading post and a small schooner, the North West America, for use in the trade of sea otter pelts to China. Close to 100 years passed before the Chinese appeared again in British North America, this time in significantly greater numbers.

Like the thousands of prospectors from California, the new arrivals from China quickly set out for the gold fields. By 1863, 4,000 Chinese were panning for gold.¹¹ They were not welcomed by the experienced white fortune-seekers from California. Miners in California often used violence to drive the Chinese out of various mines, and the Chinese learned to rework abandoned claims to avoid beatings and robberies. The Chinese, the most conspicuous of immigrant gold rushers, were singled out for harsh treatment and discrimination. Their large numbers, physical differences, incomprehensible language, and eating habits with chopsticks made them easy targets to spot. They wore cotton shoes, jackets with cloth buttons, and loose cotton trousers — traditional dress that added more fuel for attacks and abuse.

One striking characteristic, in particular, was their hair, commonly held in a queue or long braid. When the Qing dynasty was established in 1644, their traditional Manchu hairstyle was enforced on the defeated Han men, who came to regard it as a symbol of their servitude and subjugation. Cutting it off meant certain execution in China, as this was considered an act of treason against the Manchus. A favourite sport for pranksters in North America was cutting off Chinese queues, something that caused great shame for the victims.¹² Not until the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, in 1911, were the Chinese allowed to cut their braids without fear of persecution.

By the end of the gold rush, in 1863, the Gold Mountain dreams of the Chinese were realized only for a few; most faced only failure and disappointment.

Canadian Pacific Railway

The second major wave of Chinese immigrants was lured to Canada for an entirely different purpose — the transcontinental railway to link Canada from the Atlantic to Pacific coasts. When the Americans completed their Northern Pacific Railway in 1869, British Columbia showed great interest in joining the United States. At that time, British Columbia was still an isolated colony of the British Empire. The American purchase of Alaska, in 1867, boxed British Columbia in, with the United States then bordering it in both the north and south. Prime Minister John A. Macdonald tried to persuade the colony to join Confederation; however, British Columbia’s response was that unless it was tied by rail to the rest of the country, the colony would secede from the British Empire or, worse still, be annexed to the United States. Furthermore, any agreement would be annulled if the railway was not completed within 10 years. With the prime minister’s acceptance of these terms, British Columbia joined Canada in 1871 as the sixth province.

Prime Minister Macdonald’s success in nation-building was not without its challenges. In the 1873 elections, he was defeated and the new prime minister, Alexander Mackenzie, was not interested in fulfilling the promise of a railway in the West. Macdonald was re-elected in 1878, but his renewed effort to build the railway was met with more roadblocks.

Andrew Onderdonk, an American engineer, bid successfully on the rights to build the railway from Port Moody to Craigellachie — a distance of 547 kilometres. He needed cheap labour to come within budget, and he favoured Chinese labourers, who had worked on his railway projects in the United States. They worked hard and at wages 30–50 percent lower that those paid to white labourers. Prime Minister Macdonald, not without strong opposition, immediately approved the hiring of 10,000 Chinese. In his words, spoken in parliament, If you want the railroad you’ll have to accept the use of Chinese labour. If you won’t have Chinese labour, you won’t have a railroad.¹³ From 1881 to 1884, 1,500 experienced Chinese workers came from the United States, 15,701 from China.¹⁴

Onderdonk dispatched recruiters to China, especially the Guangdong province, to entice a work force of labourers. Leaflets and posters with promises of work in Canada were distributed. The passage and settlement expenses, about $40 per person, were paid in advance by the recruiters. Most applicants were typically penniless peasants who had to pay the recruiters back as indentured labourers.

In the earlier years, the Chinese sailed on threemasted sailing ships, and later on Pacific fleets, including the Empress liners, which were launched by the Canadian Pacific Railway. As an example, the RMS Empress of Asia, built in 1913, accommodated 300 first class passengers, 100 second class, and 800 in steerage. This ocean liner was used primarily to transport cargo and passengers from Asia to British Columbia.¹⁵

Like the earlier immigrants en route to the gold rush, the Chinese travelled in steerage, crammed shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee. As dictated by the contracts upon which these recruits had pressed their fingerprints, tea was served twice a day and unboiled water the rest of the time. The 400 grams of rice, to which each group of four people had been promised as a day’s ration, was in fact shared among 10.¹⁶ Many died of starvation before reaching the shores of Canada.

The age, sex, and background of these men on a Canadian Pacific Railway ship make them typical of the Chinese immigrants bound for Canada.

The hardships endured during the crossing paled in comparison to the perils to come; the Rocky Mountains proved to be a formidable obstacle to railway construction, slowing progress and endangering workers. There were treacherous peaks and long stretches of water, islands, and bays that needed to be traversed. To this end, work distribution was unevenly handled. White labourers from Europe worked lighter types of jobs, like measurement, calculation, and design. The Chinese were mostly engaged in the heavy work — building bridges, chiselling tunnels, chipping away at rocks, and transporting heavy debris. The use of nitroglycerine, a powerful and unpredictable explosive, one drop of which could cause catastrophic blasts, was handled by the Chinese. They took on the risks, with the foremen’s promises of passage money for their wives. Many makeshift tunnels that were used to start the blasting of the mountains on the north side of the Fraser River remained half-completed and abandoned after too many workers were killed. Others perished from different causes, such as overwork, landslides, and collapsing bridges. Local lore tells the tales of ghosts who, to this very day, linger around the unmarked graves and tunnels.

Chinese workers were not compensated for this dangerous work. In fact, they were paid significantly less than the white labourers. James Pon, chairman of the Foundation to Commemorate the Chinese Railroad Workers in Canada and himself a descendant of a railway worker, stated:

The life of the Chinese railway worker was very hard. He worked 12 hours a day six days a week. He got paid 75 cents a day, whereas a white man, or Caucasian, was paid a dollar-fifty a day, and he, the white man, was supplied with food and lodging, whereas the Chinese was not given any food or lodging. The Chinese lived in tents and they had to buy their own food, and sometimes they had to buy food from the company store.¹⁷

Disease was rampant and swept through the camps of exhausted workers. Malnutrition from the lack of fruit and vegetables exasperated the health of the Chinese, who were deprived of medicine and medical care. Scurvy and beri-beri were among the major causes of death. And the terrible weather in the Rockies found the Chinese ill-prepared for the brutal winters, as told by the son of one worker:

My father came from Xinhui in Guangdong province, and because it was very warm there, he was not prepared for the cold winters in Canada, nor were any other of the Chinese. They arrived in their thin clothing, cloth shoes, still wearing their pigtails, and the railway did not provide them with gloves, hats, or any kind of work clothing. When the winter snows came, they still worked in their cloth shoes, and my father told me that he had to wrap burlap sacks around his feet to keep from freezing.¹⁸

Chinese labourers used hammers to break up rocks and transported the gravel using their heads, shoulder poles, and pushcarts for the construction of a roadbed in 1884.

The sacrifices in human life amounted to an estimated one person for every mile of railway track that was laid.¹⁹ Although the death count is estimated at 600 to 2,200 workers, no definite count exists, because no one took responsibility for the Chinese workers beyond the work they did in laying the track.²⁰

In 1885 the railway was completed. The eastern and western sections of the Canadian Pacific Railway were now joined from coast to coast — the realization of a national dream. A famous photograph, taken at 9:22 a.m. on November 7, 1885, records the driving of the last spike by company director Sir Donald Smith at Craigellachie, British Columbia, and the proud but stern faces of Canadian Pacific Railway officials and workers. Borne on the backs of the industrious Chinese labourers, who comprised three-quarters of the railway workforce, the crowning achievement that united Canada was celebrated with not one Chinese in attendance. Nor were there any references made about them among the countless news articles written at the time. Onderdonk,