chinese kosher head tax
Two noteworthy things today. The first, I suppose is not exactly
noteworthy, just curious, or curious to me. It falls under the "only in
Vancouver" category. Today, I bought lunch for me and Betsy at a
restaurant called Sabra. It was a desperate lunch. We had to eat, were
pressed for time and were limited by location. Betsy needed to pack
(she's moving), and I need to prep for a meeting (see noteworthy thing
#2). Sick of sandwiches, I made Betsy go pack, and I wandered around
Oak and 22nd to fetch lunch. There's not much there but a bustling
Starbucks and the little that is there is closed on Sunday. Sabra was
open, and after walking in...staring at the menu and strolling around
the block again for different options, I realized desperate times must
dismiss my picky-ness. Sabra is clearly a Jewish deli; and I love
Jewish delis, but this is not a New York Jewish deli and it isn't even
like Solly's on Broadway. It's its own thing altogether...I especially
thought this when I was shown the menu and underneath "kosher restaurant
and bakery" read in the same font size "Chinese and international
cuisine." No Chinese items were in sight, nor were they on the menu.
Anyway. I guess Jews and Chinese aren't exclusively a "only in
Vancouver thing"...there is that book /Peony/ (I think it's called) by
Pearl Buck about a Chinese Jewish girl in China. And there's that
reference in Isaiah about the Jews being scattered as far as the land of
Sinim. And there's archaeological evidence in China of synagogues, and
I think there are still some in existence, or at least there was as late
as 1930. And then today my friend Maria told me about an Asian concert
she went to Friday that was sponsored by a Jewish organization in
Vancouver. Go figure.
More Jews and Chinese links! Apparently, at my 3pm meeting today, a
Jewish group wanted to come and support the Chinese Head Tax redress but
had some big Israel event today. This brings me to noteworthy thing
number 2: I got to hang out with reconciliation-type people today. The
organization that they are with sponsor Caux, the program I'll attend
this summer in Switzerland. Very interesting. Today, we met with Bill
Chu who is the Chinese Christian guy, in his 50s(?) and he goes to
Grandview Calvary Baptist. Anyway, he's really involved with
reconciliation...I think his last big thing was to help organize Chinese
Christian Canadians and Aboriginal peoples. Right now, he's working on
an event that will coincide with the Canadian government's apology for
charging Chinese people who wanted to stay in Canada with a head tax.
The head tax to a Chinese Canadian is like the epitome of a lot of
racial yuckiness. His hope is that the event will help bolster the
vertical (government-people) apology with a horizontal (people-people)
apology---the latter of course is where the real grief happened.
Anyway, our meeting today was to help organize non-Chinese...of which
apparently the Jewish org who couldn't make it still wants to make a
part. Really interesting.
posted by graceh at 12:07 AM
4 Comments:
Grace...why no updates? More action is required. Your quality entries perhaps make up for your lack of daily updates though...unlike my frequent randomness. Cool blog. I've put a link to you on mine. You not only have a cool blog but you are the coolest. Seriously.
Canada today discriminates against many people and charges a head tax.
These two factors come in the form of the VISA required by people of some nationalities to visit Canada.
No one complains about the VISA situation so I can only assume that the Chinese just want to suck money out of our country.
As I understand the situation the Chinese were offered the opportunity to come to Canada to work on the railway and were expected to leave when the project was finished.
Today we would call this a guest worker program. These people however decided to stay and because Canada had never experienced such a problem before the government handled the problem in what turned out to be and insensative manner.
So?
This happened many years ago and the supposed abused was stopped when the law was repealed.
So the probem was solved. Period.
Time for the Chinese to get a life and move on. Afterall the people who feel abused are in most cases the Grand Childeren of these people.
This is why I am convinced that it is nothing more than an attempted money grab by these people.
Hi Ric---
I don't know who you are, but thanks for sharing your opinion.
I am new to this issue, so I'm not as informed as I would like, but I do think that the Chinese head tax redress issue primarily is much more than about a grab for government money. I know some of the organizers of personally, and this is honestly not what they are after. In fact, I think most of them would fail to qualify for funds as they are not the original descendants of the head-taxed. Their goal is public education, and to amend a wrong committed by a society not just at a vertical governmental level, but at a horizontal one---at the level of the people. I think above all, they would like to see this societal discrimination acknowledged addressed, so all Canadians can continue on as good multi-cultural neighbors.
I think the head-tax is different from VISA's in that a VISA fee is assessed to everyone....yes, certain countries are assessed more of a fee, but I think that's more about diplomatic relations? The head tax pointedly targeted Chinese at the turn-of-the-last-century who AFTER working on the railroad wanted to stay. The Chinese were the only group targeted in this way, and for many of them this felt like a slap in the face after risking their lives building the railroad. Along with the head tax, other discrimatory policies were also put in place; the head tax represents only the epitome of the unwelcoming hate aimed towards them.
These first generations of Chinese live with these scars, and it is on this foundation that other visible minority groups have come to Canada. While immigration practices and procedures are certainly different now, and Canada grown in diversity has been striking...this foundation still remains and needs to be addressed for the continued good of all Canada.
Money is a symbol that tells the public this was for real, this is serious, this affects all of us; it is this latter message that the redress organizers are more interested in.
Grace
Nice response but I think the point is missed.
First, why does anyone deserve special treatment because building the railroad was dangerous ??
Everything at that time was dangerous from being the simple setteler to building the major construction projects of the time. Reason?? There were few is any safty measures in place for the workers.
Secondly,, as I pointed out these people were invited to come on a temporary basis to do a job. Today we would call this a guest worker program. They were expected to go home but decided to stay and due to the lack of experience in such matters at that time in history the government responded the best way they knew how.
Of course they were trying to limit the number of Chinese in Canada. At that time the Chinese were not well thought of and the government felt they had to do something to satisfy the general population. This sort of situation has existed throughout history.
Consider the Japanese who only permitted Koreans in as workers and to this day 4th generation Koreans are not allowed to be citizens of that country.
Was this wrong ?? I say no and I suspect it still goes on today.
I challenge you to contact the immigration depoartment and ask them if they attempt to limit immigration from any one area of the world in order to achieve some kind of balance between whites and non whites comming to Canada.
If they say no then I would suggest they are not telling the truth. If you doubt this get a copy of "Who Gets In". This is a video which I think was made by the national film board.
You seem to have the idealistic view that it would actually be possible to eliminate racism in Canada.
How are we going to do that??
By making laws forbidding me from not liking the customs a certain group brings to Canada??
Well how about a little retraining for those who come to our county.
How about banning all Japanese until they solve the problem of the Burakumin, Koreans and Okinawans in their country.
Or banning th chinese until they solve the human rights issues in their country.
Or ban the Indians until they eliminate the Cast system in their country.
I belive we must remember most of the first generation immigrants bring baggage from their homeland. This is fortunately filtered out by future generations but in the meantime we Canadians have to put up with the current generations desire in some cases to make Canada nothing more than a model of their homeland. And this includes not only the culinary religious and dress contributions but the prejudices they practiced at home.
I as a white person am deeply offended by the fact that all racisim charges tend to be leveled towards me. Sure there are whites who are racists but I can assure you that many of our new immigrants are no different from the white guys.
The racism issue will never go away but it could be improved if our immigration department made it clear to new commers that Canada EXpects them integrate into our society. The problem is that when some immigrants hears the world "Multiculturalism" they think it means making Canada like their old country.
This view is not surprising when you consider the brochure the Government gives out to those who want to become citizens.
In this brochure they attempt to tell the applicant what will happen to their culture when they become a citizen.
The following is a quote from the brochure:
"This means that if you decide to become a Canadian you do not have to forget your heritage: there are two official languages in Canada, but NO official culture. You are free to be yourself" !!!!!
Imaging,,,
First the statement says " if you choose to become a Canadian" which I believe you should be required to do if you have been here long enough and secondly "You are free to be yourself" which seems to mean that there is no need to assimilate into our culture (of course since the brochure says we have no official culture I guess it is hard to figure out what to assimilate in to).
And finally "No Officia Culture" ????? Try telling our friends in Quebec the hav no culture !!!
Any wonder our newcommers are confused ??
And finally if Canada is going to compensate some particular group how be we consider the Jews of the St. Louis who were refused entry to Canada in 1939.
At least the Chinese got to stay. These people returned to Germany where 3/4 of them were killed by the Nazis.
The issue of prejudice is a tough one and I don't think it will ever be solved. I think there can be improvements however if we educated newcommers from the beginning that they are expected to become Canadians. Not Canadians who still hold onto the "Old Country".
Afterall the reason they came here is because Canada is the Best Place in the world to live !!!
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