This study attempts to explain the uneven treatment of Chinese, Japanese and East Indian ethnic minorities in British Columbia in terms of the social, economic and political conditions produced by the development may be discerned. In the first stage, ethnic relations between Asian and European immigrants were ‘cordial’ as employers welcomed relatively cheap Asian labour in an expanding colonial economy. Later, wide spread antagonisms developed between European and Asian workers as capitalists in coal mining, railway construction, fishing and forestry industries began to replace higher priced labour with Asian immigrants in order to increase profit. As state capitalism and the greater regulation and control of the labour process came about in the early 1900's, a new phase of ethnic relations was inaugurated with organized labour increasing its efforts to include minorities in trade unions and broader social reforms. It is maintained that current theories of West Coast ethnic antagonisms and racial prejudice do not explain this complex history because of their tendency to reify social processes and to assign blame for racism and ethnic antagonisms to; 1) irrational psychological fears arising from cultural diversity, 2) the utilitarian and economic motives of dominant ethnic groups and finally, 3) European racial ideologies. / Graduate