Experiences and Conditions of Chinese Immigrant in Canada (Essay Sample)

Experiences and Conditions of Chinese Immigrant in Canada
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Experiences and Conditions of Chinese Immigrant in Canada
The Chinese migrated to Canada first in the sixteen century as shipwrights’ employees. The discovery of gold in Canada in the late sixteen century stimulated the rise in their numbers. The rise was particularly those employed in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The end result was a large number of Chinese immigrants in Canada. The paper evaluates the distinctive historical experiences and conditions of a Chinese immigrant laborer in Canada.
The Canadians were slow to embrace the Chinese immigrants. Despite the Canadian government policy that illegalized racial discrimination, the people of Canada discriminated the Chinese. As other Western countries took lessons from the Holocaust experiences on the dangers of discrimination, the Canadians continued to practice racial segregation (Barnholden, 2007). The government’s attempts to enact legislations against it were perceived to be hypocritical by the Chinese immigrants because the laws were not enforced.
According to Anderson (1987), the Chinese immigrants in Canada experienced a hostile reception from the natives. Moreover, they were assimilated by the natives. “Chinatown” was created by the government of Canada with the aim of preventing the immigrants from using productive lands. Since then, Chinatown has been projected to be areas of segregation based on ethnicity and race. Chinatown was wholly concentrated by the Chinese who felt isolated from the rest of North America. The town was viewed as an “ethnic” community in the middle of an urban setting (Anderson, 1987). Upon feeling isolated, the Chinese immigrants decided not to interact with the Canadians in business or any other social activities. The show of discriminated also adopted by the Chinese yielded some positive results.
The Canadians profiled the Chinese to be inventive and, therefore, their skills could be positively exploited. Barnholden indicates that the Change in attitude by the Canadians against the Chinese immigrants in the 1980s saw mass movement of the Chinese from Chinatown. The immigrants were exposed to the major cities of Canada away from the ethnic enclaves of Chinatown. The immigrants stopped using Chinese as a commercial language by adopting English and Canadian. The new relationship between the Chinese and Canadians resulted to a multi-cultured society. The two races exchanged cultural practices and borrowed traditions from one another (Barnholden, 2007).
However, suspicion still existed between the Chinese and the conservative Canadians. For example, the local communities in Vancouver and Toronto accused the Chinese of hyper-inflating property prices. This incident united the Chinese communities to fight against anti-Chinese sentiments. The Chinese were further accused of absorbing majority of education chances in the educational facilities in Vancouver. The accusations resulted to the Chinese immigrants being denied chances to study in the prestigious Canadian institutions. Regardless of citizenship, the Chinese were taxed more than the Canadians.
The pro-democracy student movement advocated for better treatment of the Chinese students in Canada. The movement conducted successful and massive demonstrations that saw the Canadian government award permanent citizenship to the Chinese students and scholars. The segregation experiences, accusations and economic exploitation resulted to the immigrants to be tempted on the opport...