In the 1850s, the west coast of Canada was marked by the transpacific migration of Chinese communities from the British port of Hong Kong. Cantonese labourers served as the backbone of the numerous burgeoning agricultural and industrial industries, such as mining, logging, manufacturing, and fishing. Most notably, their contributions to the building of the transcontinental rail networks have made an indelible mark on the legacy of transportation infrastructure in Canada. 

Chinese labourers, however, were met with significant challenges in establishing a sustainable living and faced ethnically-based obstacles. For instance, the Chinese Head Tax was created by the federal government of Canada that charged Chinese immigrants $50 when they arrived in Vancouver. This tax increased over the years to $100 in 1900 and $500 in 1903 (Guo 2021). While this generated revenue for the state, individuals required to pay this hefty fee were placed at a significant economic disadvantage as they began their lives in Canada. 

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Twenty years later, the federal government passed the Chinese Immigration Act, which created further barriers by explicitly prohibiting the entry of Chinese immigrants into Canada (Guo 2021). The Chinese population in Canada was, furthermore, restricted from voting, entering professions such as law, medicine, and accounting, and acquiring Crown land. The labourers were additionally met with ongoing anti-Chinese rhetoric, us-vs-them language, and messaging that claimed that the influx of Chinese immigrants led to the erasure of jobs available to White workers. This claim was disproved by the fact that White workers who arrived on the Pacific coast would often be granted jobs originally held by Chinese workers (Yoo and Azuma 2016). 

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As anti-Chinese rhetoric expanded to racial discrimination against other East Asian ethnicities, it was clear that the democratic processes governing Canadian societies were failing to grant equal rights to East Asian communities and were infused with explicit manifestations of White supremacy. 

ANTI-ASIAN RHETORIC IN THE CURRENT CONTEXT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

The discourse surrounding the history of discrimination against East Asian communities strikes a particularly discordant chord when juxtaposed against the experience of these communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. During a time of public uncertainty and widely circulating misinformation, East Asian communities, particularly those of Chinese heritage, became targets of verbal and physical abuse and often bore the blame of being the “virus carriers” responsible for initiating the pandemic (Zhao et al., 2022). Particularly egregious incidents of discrimination included violent attacks on elderly individuals of East Asian background and mass vandalization of East Asian-owned shops and restaurants in Canada. 

The politicization of the pandemic has exacerbated the continued and growing anti-Asian sentiment found in Canada. The sense of otherness that was thrust upon the East Asian community during the pandemic stemmed from a historical yet still circulating notion of “yellow peril” that has existed in Canada (Zhao et al., 2022). Although anti-Asian discrimination has seen a notable spike during the pandemic, it has remained a steadfast component of the cultural hierarchy that has led to negative mental health outcomes in East Asian Canadians over the long term.

The current immigration experience of East Asian immigrants to Canada has been populated by encounters with structural barriers to finding one’s place within Canadian society. Highly educated East Asian immigrants often report experiences of downward social mobility and underemployment, explained at least in part by existing biases within Canadian education systems and labour markets (Guo 2021). Furthermore, East Asian students seeking higher education at Canadian universities and colleges are often met with the discourse that Asians occupy too large of a fraction of the student body (Guo 2021). This finding is especially striking given that, since the 1990s, Canada has increasingly depended on the skills and expertise of workers in the knowledge economy and has steadily relied upon immigration from East Asia to address domestic labour shortages.