East Asians of Canada

ETHNONYMS: Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Nikkei (Japanese), Orientals

Orientation

Identification. As used here, "East Asians in Canada" refers to Canadians of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Filipino ethnic ancestry. The Chinese in Canada can be divided into two major subgroups—those who came before 1947 and those who have come since then. The earlier group was composed almost totally of men who lived in western Canada. They came primarily from Guangdong Province in southern China. Those who have arrived since 1947 have more often been families, with a substantial percentage emigrating from Hong Kong. Within each subgroup further distinctions can be made on the basis of time of migration to Canada, social status, and place of birth. The Japanese in Canada are a heterogeneous group, consisting of the issei, nisei, sansei, yonsei, and the shin eijusha. The issei, or first generation, in Canada is made up of the early immigrants who came to Canada roughly between 1877 and 1907. The nisei are the children of the issei who as a group were born between about 1908 and 1940. In Japanese, nisei means "second generation," sansei, "third generation," and yonsei, "fourth generation." The Japanese immigrants who came to Canada after World War II are called the "shin eijusha." Theoretically, these new immigrants can be called "issei," but they prefer to be known as the new immigrants because they are mostly technicians and professionals, unlike the issei before the war who were mostly laborers, farmers, and fishermen. The Koreans and Filipinos are more homogeneous groups, as many are skilled technicians or professionals who have settled in Canada only in the last few decades and have assimilated easily into the Canadian Economy.

Location. Prior to the post-World War II influx, East Asians in general lived mainly in British Columbia and other western provinces. The Chinese were concentrated in British Columbia as well, though Chinese communities did form in large cities elsewhere (for example, Toronto) prior to World War II. In 1986, Ontario contained the largest number of people in each of the four groups with 156,170 Chinese, 44,195 Filipinos, 17,200 Koreans, and 16,150 Japanese. British Columbia is home for 112,605 Chinese, 15,905 Japanese, 15,810 Filipinos, and 5,065 Koreans. Alberta also has many East Asians, and Manitoba has a sizable (15,815) Filipino population. There are relatively few East Asians in the Maritime Provinces or in Quebec, with the exception of the Chinese who number 23,205 in the latter.

Demography. According to estimates from the 1986 Census, there are 360,320 Chinese, 93,285 Filipinos, 40,995 Japanese, and 27,285 Koreans in Canada. East Asians constitute about 2 percent of the population of Canada. Their number has increased rapidly in the last thirty years, both through natural population growth and through increased immigration under the Immigration Act of 1952 and subsequent amendments. For the Japanese, intermarriage of the sansei and younger nisei with non-Japanese has contributed to the natural population growth. The younger group in the Japanese-Canadian demographic profile provides a contrasting pattern to the general Canadian population profile in that the population pyramid base is wider indicating the population as a whole is younger. Filipinos in Canada today are mostly young with a high percentage of females, many of whom have arrived since the 1960s.

Linguistic Affiliation. Prior to the end of World War II, when they were isolated from the general population, the Chinese and Japanese maintained their native languages. Full participation in their community often required knowledge of the local or regional dialect of Japanese or Cantonese or Mandarin. But those who have settled in Canada in the last thirty years and their children are more often bilingual in the native language and English, with many Chinese from Hong Kong speaking Hong Kong Chinese. Many recent Filipino and Korean immigrants have arrived already speaking English along with their native language.

History and Cultural Relations

The history of the Chinese and Japanese in Canada is essentially one of racial discrimination from the time of arrival to after the Second World War. Koreans and Filipinos, because they have arrived recently during the period when Canada has embraced an official policy of multiculturalism, have suffered much less from racial discrimination. There has been little organized cooperation among any of the four East Asian groups, either in the past or today.

Chinese. Chinese first immigrated to Canada in the 1850s to participate in the Fraser River gold rush. When the mines gave out, some moved on to California and others returned to China, but the majority stayed on in British Columbia where they worked in low-level service jobs. In the 1880s a second wave of Chinese men arrived in Canada. In all, about seventeen thousand came, with most recruited to work on the Extension of the Canadian Pacific Railroad through British Columbia. Whites in British Columbia expected that once the railroad was completed, the laborers would return to China. But many could not afford the trip back and instead settled in British Columbia where they worked as wage laborers in coal mining, fish canning, and agriculture. Always viewed as less than equal by Whites in British Columbia, their willingness to work hard for low wages and thus take jobs many thought belonged to Whites led to further resentment, harassment, and the formation of anti-Chinese organizations such as the Workingman's Protective Association and the Knights of Labour.

White resentment also led the British Columbia government to seek changes in national immigration laws that would effectively end Chinese immigration to Canada. In 1885 a head tax of fifty dollars was placed on immigrating Chinese; in 1901 it was raised to one hundred dollars and in 1905 to five hundred dollars. Because the tax failed to prevent immigration, the Chinese Immigration [Exclusion] Act was amended in 1923 and immigration ceased until the act was repealed in 1947. Between 1923 and 1947 only forty-four Chinese had immigrated to Canada. The repeal of the act and subsequent measures over the next twenty years gave Chinese the opportunity for full participation in Canadian society, including the right to vote which had previously been denied them. It also opened up immigration, with many of those arriving since 1947 coming as families from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and elsewhere, such as Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and South America.

Japanese. The first Japanese in Canada was Manzo Nagano, a sailor, who arrived in 1877 and after sojourns back to Japan and to the United States eventually settled in Victoria in 1892. The early period of emigration from Japan (1877—1907) was one in which conflict resulting from racial and cultural differences culminated in the race riots of 1907 in Vancouver. During this period there was considerable hostility toward both the Chinese and Japanese in British Columbia. As noted above, various measures were enacted by the British Columbia government to restrict Chinese immigration and participation in Canadian society. Although aimed at the Chinese, these restrictions applied to the Japanese as well and led to disfranchisement and efforts to restrict naturalization. These various attempts to enact discriminatory and racist legislation were not occurring in a vacuum. Public agitation in the province had been increasing gradually.

The perception of Whites in British Columbia that the Japanese were an economic threat rested on several basic cultural differences. The Japanese emphasis on frugality and hard work was reflected in their day-to-day activities and in their customs and habits all of which were based on the traditional Japanese value system. Japanese social organization centered on shared needs as well as on a sense of group consciousness. Group solidarity within the Japanese community was further strengthened by its physical and social segregation from White society. Within this bounded territorial space, it was not difficult to retain the highly systematic and interdependent social relations that were based on the principle of social and moral obligation and traditional Japanese practices of mutual assistance such as oyabun-kobun (parent-child) and sempa-kohai (senior-junior) relationships. Another aspect of traditional Japanese social relations that characterized both the oyabun-kobun and sempai-kohai systems was the emphasis placed on one's sense of duty, loyalty, and obligations to one's employers. Out of a sense of unquestioning loyalty, the kobun or kohai blindly followed the orders given by the oyabun or sempai. Ironically, these traditional values and customs, which led to the relatively successful adaptation by the Japanese in western Canada, became the main reason that the White community prevented the Japanese from becoming equal members of Canadian society.

Japanese laborers who came to Canada around 1907 were recruited to work for the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Wellington Colliery. The period from 1908 to 1940 was one of controlled immigration, the major feature of which was the "Gentlemen's Agreement" of 1908, which restricted immigration to returning immigrants, wives and children, and immigrants specifically hired by Canadians. Because of the Anglo-Japanese alliance and labor shortages, anti-Japanese sentiment decreased before and during World War I. It increased again during the depression after the war and led to restrictions on Japanese involvement and ownership rights in the fishing and other industries, professional employment, and access to higher education. As Adachi has noted, to Japanese-Canadians citizenship was meaningless or, at best, symbolized the "status of second-class citizenship."

From 1941 to 1948 the situation worsened, and Japanese-Canadians were deprived of their civil rights. The threat of war with Japan and then the war itself increased anti-Japanese feelings and led the government beginning in late 1941 to impound the property of Japanese-Canadians, close their language schools, and halt publication of Japanese-language newspapers. In 1942, 20,881 Japanese-Canadians were rounded up and removed to detention camps in interior British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario. Restrictions were relaxed beginning in 1943, motivated in part by the need for Japanese workers in other parts of Canada. In July 1947 a commission was established to compensate Japanese-Canadians for the property that had been confiscated. It was not until September 1988, however, that all property and civil rights claims were settled, with the final settlement reached by the National Association of Japanese Canadians and the government of Canada. The wartime Experience effectively destroyed the Japanese community in Canada, but revitalization has started through the efforts of those who have arrived in the last few decades.

Settlements

East Asians have always been and continue to be mostly urban. Early Chinese and Japanese immigrants tended to form distinct ethnic communities—"Chinatowns" and "Little Tokyos"—in large cities. Because of their larger numbers, the Chinatowns have been more visible and have drawn more attention. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these communities were typical urban immigrant ghettos. Since the 1950s, as the Chinese and Japanese populations in Canada have increased and become more mobile spatially and socially, the urban communities have become social, Political, and symbolic centers as well as residential ones. At the same time, as discrimination has lessened, more Chinese and Japanese have chosen to live outside the traditional communities. For the Japanese, Toronto has in some ways replaced Vancouver as the center of Japanese culture in Canada. Koreans and Filipinos have also settled mainly in urban areas (two-thirds of Filipinos live in the Toronto area), but they have not formed distinctive residential enclaves. Filipinos, perhaps more so than the other groups, have settled in the suburbs.

Economy

Chinese and Japanese laborers who came to British Columbia around 1907 were brought in mainly through contractual arrangements between emigration companies and Canadian importers of labor such as the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Wellington Colliery. Many of these men worked for the railroad, on farms, in the fishing industry, and in wood pulp mills. For the Chinese, White Canadians expected that they would return to China once their work on the railroad was completed. When most stayed in Canada and took low-level work at low wages, White resentment resulted and was Directed both at the Chinese and Japanese. A labor shortage during World War I dampened anti-Asian feelings, but they increased again after the war as a result of a depresssion and unemployment that became marked upon the return of soldiers.

The strong control of the fishing industry on the west coast by the Japanese at this time became a matter of concern for British Columbia politicians, and in 1919 they attempted to limit the number of fishing licenses issued to Japanese fishermen. As part of the attempt to restrict immigration, the provincial legislature asked the dominion government to amend the British North America Act so that provincial Governments would have the "power to make laws prohibiting Asiatics from acquiring proprietary interest in agricultural, timber and mining lands or in fishing or other industries, and from employment in these industries." Between 1923 and 1925, the Department of Marine and Fisheries took away close to one thousand fishing licenses from the Japanese, and they were prohibited even from using gasoline-powered fishing boats in order to give White fishermen a competitive advantage. Such economic harassment continued to plague the Japanese fishermen, and consequently, many went into farming.

Laws that denied Chinese and Japanese the right to a provincial vote prevented them from participating fully in several areas of professional employment because of a requirement that one must be on the voters' list. For example, to secure a logging license, one had to be twenty-one years of age and on the voters' list. These employment restrictions also applied to education, and it was not until the fall of 1945 that McGill University in Montreal accepted a nisei. This delayed access to education has had serious consequences for the nisei in terms of their occupational mobility. Chinese professionals, because of these restrictions, confined their business to the Chinese community. After release from the detention camps, some Japanese chose to remain in Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan where they became farmers. The Japanese who have arrived since World War II are more highly educated than both the prewar Japanese and Canadians in general and are found in relatively large numbers working in the professions, academia, and the arts. The Chinese today are still heavily involved in service industries (restaurants, laundries, garment-making), although recent Immigrants are less likely to enter these traditional occupations. The economic nature of the Chinatowns has been transformed in the last two decades from what were essentially residential enclaves that provided products and services to the Chinese community to major economic centers that provide products and services to Canadian society.

Many Koreans came to Canada to find economic independence, and many have succeeded. Unemployment is rare among Korean-Canadians and about 50 percent own their own home, a far greater percentage than in Korea. Many are university-educated and work as physicians, lawyers, and professors, while perhaps some 50 percent own small businesses such as food stores, gasoline stations, restaurants, and real estate agencies. In Toronto, for example, Koreans run about twelve hundred convenience stores. The success of these enterprises rests in part on the willingness of family members to staff the establishments so that they can remain open for long hours.

Kinship, Marriage and Family

Chinese. Chinese kinship, marriage, and family in Canada have gone through three distinct stages. From the 1880s to 1947, the Chinese in Canada formed a "bachelor Community" composed almost entirely of unmarried men or men whose wives and families were in China. These men usually lived in collective households called fang-k'ou -in the Chinatowns. A few fang-k'ou-still exist, though they are disappearing as the few remaining old Chinese bachelors die off. They were organized into numerous associations or fictive kin groups with affiliation based on a common place of birth, surname, or dialect. The second stage took place roughly from 1947 to 1967 and involved the arrival of the wives and Children of some of the bachelors and the formation of nuclear families.

The third stage began in 1967 and continues today with nuclear families that are similar in size and composition to Canadian families in general. Perhaps the major differences between the contemporary Chinese-Canadian family and other Canadian families are the extent to which adult Chinese children provide financial support for their parents and the frequency with which grandparents live with their Children and their important contribution to child rearing.

Japanese. Many of the Japanese laborers who came to Canada in the early 1900s were unmarried men. Unable to Return to Japan, they relied upon arranged marriages or on "picture bride" arrangements, a system whereby pictures of the prospective bride and groom were exchanged and the decision to marry made after consultation with relatives and possibly the nakodo, or go-between. As these brides immigrated to Canada, the demographic composition of the Japanese community gradually changed.

Kobayashi has observed that the most significant characteristic of Japanese-Canadian marriages today is that Japanese-Canadians are marrying Canadians of other ethnic backgrounds at a rate that suggests that this is the norm rather than the exception. Her analysis of immigrant Marriages also reveals that immigrants, too, are intermarrying frequently with non-Japanese Canadians. About 42 percent of Japanese women under the age of forty-four are married to non-Japanese men.

In these mixed marriages, however, there are indications that not all aspects of traditional Japanese culture have disappeared. Certain traditional festivals such as hina-matsuri (dolls festival) on May 3, tango-no-sekku (boys festival) on May 5, and keiro-no-hi (a day set aside to respect the aged) are still celebrated. The celebration of these festivals reinforces Japanese family values. For example, the elderly issei and nisei place considerable emphasis on gaman (forebearance) and enryo (modesty). Gaman means the suppression of emotions, the ability to grin and bear all pain, to remain calm and carry out one's task regardless of the circumstances. Enryo means much more than modesty as it encompasses codes of behavior concerning moderation and nonaggression. Self-effacement, self-control, reticence, humility, and denigration of oneself are all included in enryo. With the aging of the issei and nisei, the Japanese-Canadian family is attempting to come to terms with some traditional family values such as oyakoko and kansha. Oyakoko (filial piety) rests on the feeling of kansha (gratitude to one's parents) and children are obliged to fulfill their filial duties to take care of their aging parents. This responsibility often falls on the eldest son or daughter. But in many families, because of the vast geographic distances that often separate the generations in Canada, it can be extremely difficult to fulfill one's filial obligations.

Koreans and Filipinos. Because of their recent arrival, middle-class socioeconomic status, and residential dispersal, Korean and Filipino families are generally similar to the average Canadian family. Many Koreans, however, own small businesses, which are often staffed by family members from three generations, making economic cooperation between extended kin important. And despite economic assimilation, many traditional Korean family values such as the importance of ties to clan members, patriarchal authority, and Respect for the elderly remain important. Filipino families in Canada are often formed through a chain migration, with the first immigrant being a young woman with job skills marketable in Canada. She subsequently arranges for her parents, children, siblings, and other relatives to emigrate.

Sociopolitical Organization

Because of their isolation within Canadian society, both the Chinese and Japanese developed distinct ethnic communities with their own social, economic, and religious institutions, which reflected both the values and customs of the homeland and adaptational needs in Canada.

Chinese. The basic social unit in Chinese communities in pre-World War II Canada, the fictive clan (clan association or brotherhood), reflected the reality that 90 percent of the population was male. These associations were formed in Chinese communities on the basis of shared surnames or combinations of names or, less often, common district of origin or dialect. They served a wide range of functions: they helped maintain ties to China and to the men's wives and families there; they provided a forum for the settlement of disputes; they served as centers for organizing festivals; and they offered companionship. The activities of clan associations were supplemented by more formal, broader-based organizations such as the Freemasons, the Chinese Benevolent Association, and the Chinese Nationalist League. With the growth and demographic change in the Chinese community after World War II, the type and number of organizations in Chinese communities have proliferated. Most are now served by many of the following: community associations, political groups, fraternal organizations, clan associations, schools, recreational/athletic clubs, alumni associations, music/dance societies, churches, commercial associations, youth groups, charities, and religious groups. In many cases, membership in these groups is interlocking; thus special interests are served while community cohesion is reinforced. In addition, there are broader groups that draw a more general membership, Including the Chinese Benevolent Association, the Kuomintang, and the Freemasons.

Japanese. Group solidarity within the post-World War II Japanese community was strengthened by their social and physical segregation in their work and residential environments. Within this bounded territorial space, it was not difficult to retain the highly systematized and interdependent Social relations that were based on the principle of social and moral obligations and the traditional practices of mutual assistance such as the oyabun-kobun and sempai-kohai relationships. The oyabun-kobun relationship promoted non-kin social ties on the basis of a wide-ranging set of obligations. The oyabun-kobun relationship is one in which persons unrelated by kin ties enter into an agreement to assume certain obligations. The kobun, or junior person, receives the benefits of the oyabun's wisdom and experience in dealing with day-to-day situations. The kobun, in turn, must be ready to offer his services whenever the oyabun requires them. Similarly, the sempai-kohai relationship is based on a sense of responsibility whereby the sempai, or senior member, assumes responsibility for overseeing the social, economic, and Religious affairs of the kohai, or junior member. Such a system of social relations provided for a cohesive and unified collectivity, which enjoyed a high degree of competitive power in the economic sphere. With the removal of the Japanese during World War II, subsequent relocations, and the arrival of the shin eijusha after World War II, there has been a weakening of these traditional social relations and obligations.

The sizable Japanese population, which shared a Common language, religion, and similar occupations, led to the formation of various social organizations. Friendship groups and prefectural associations numbered about eighty-four in Vancouver in 1934. These organizations provided the cohesive force necessary to maintain the formal and informal Social networks operative in the Japanese community. Prefectural association members were able to secure social and financial assistance, and this resource plus the strong cohesive nature of the Japanese family enabled early immigrants to remain competitive in numerous service-oriented businesses. Japanese-language schools were an important means of Socialization for the nisei, until the schools were closed by the government in 1942. In 1949 the Japanese finally won the right to vote. Today, both the sansei and shin eijusha are active participants in Canadian society, although their involvement in the academic and business sectors is more noticeable than in the political sector. The National Association of Japanese Canadians has played a major role in settling the claims of the Japanese removed during World War II and in representing Japanese-Canadian interests in general.

Koreans and Filipinos. Koreans and Filipinos in Canada have formed a variety of local and regional associations, with the church (United church for Koreans and Roman Catholic church for Filipinos) and affiliated organizations often the most important institution serving the community.

Religion and Expressive Culture

The majority of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Filipinos in Canada are Christians.

Chinese. Traditional Chinese religious beliefs centered on ancestor worship, which is reported as declining in Canada. But because ancestor worship is practiced in private, just how important it still is is unclear. The majority of Chinese are now Christians, with various denominations (Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Baptist, Pentecostal) represented in the larger Chinese communities. The United church is the most important and is the center of social and recreational activities in many communities. Major holidays other than Christian ones are the Lunar New Year, Bright-Clear, and Mid-Autumn. Chinese cultural traditions remain strong in Canada and are reflected in Chinese opera, martial arts, food, and traditional crafts such as paper folding. These traditions are maintained in part through regular cultural Exchanges between Chinese-Canadian communities and the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Japanese. The early issei or Japanese immigrants preferred Buddhism, but by the early 1900s, Christian missionaries were beginning to have some success in winning converts. Both the United church of Canada and the Methodists were making considerable inroads especially with the Canadian-born nisei. Although churches in Canada did not take a stand when Japanese property was confiscated and the Japanese were interned during World War II, the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and United churches provided elementary school education for children in British Columbia camps. The 1986 census indicates that this education experience helped win converts to the churches, with 10,680 Japanese members of the United church, 3,425 Anglicans, and 1,625 Roman Catholics in comparison to 10,330 Buddhists. There are also Japanese who are Seventh-day Adventists, Pentecostals, Baptists, Methodists, Mormons, Lutherans, and other Protestant denominations. More than 25 percent claim no Religious affiliation. Recent immigrants reflect the changing Religious affiliations of modern Japan in that several shinko shukyo, or "new religions" such as Soka Gakkai, Tenrikyo, P. L. Kyodan, Rissho Kosei Kai, and Konkokyo, are beginning to flourish in such cities as Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. These new religions, however, have their roots in Shintoism and Buddhism.

Koreans. For Koreans, earliest contacts with Canada date to 1890 and the arrival of Canadian missionaries in Korea. These missionaries later arranged for the immigration of Koreans to Canada. Koreans belong mainly to the Korean United church, the Korean Presbyterian church, and the Korean Roman Catholic church, with the United church being the most influential. At the same time, Korean traditions are maintained and Korean food, dance, music, and martial arts are highy visible in Canadian society. In addition to the major Christian holidays, Korea's National Independence Day is celebrated on March 1.

Filipino. The overwhelming majority of Filipinos in Canada are Roman Catholics, and their churches are the centers for organized activity outside the family. The Christian holidays are major religious and social events and are celebrated with the incorporation of traditional foods, dance, music, and other customs.

See alsoEast Asians of the United States

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K. VICTOR UJIMOTO