No description available.

This study seeks to understand Chinese ethnicity as a process of ongoing cultural construction engaged in by Chinese people in Vancouver from 1945 to 1980. Drawing evidence primarily from the ethnic press and voluntary organizations, it uncovers a diversity of cultural positions articulated by different groups of Chinese with respect to their ethnic identity and sense of community. This interior discourse on Chineseness unfolded in part because of changing demographic conditions within the ethnic group. After the Second World War, the older settlers who had arrived in Canada before the exclusion act of 1923 were joined and gradually outnumbered by their Canadian-born descendants and new immigrants. This development ushered in a contest for the power of cultural definition among various generations of local-born and immigrant Chinese. The emergent diversity of ethnic constructs in the Chinese minority after 1945 also reflected the continuous influence of China and the new opportunities Chinese people began to enjoy in Canada. The former unitary outlook of the ethnic group regarding the close relationship of overseas Chinese with their home country was displaced, but not by any simple cultural re-orientation to Canada. Particularly among the immigrant Chinese, the concern forthe native place, the care for family members in Mainland China and Hong Kong, the desire to promote some form of Chinese culture in Vancouver, and a residual interest in Chinese politics remained salient dimensions of their ethnic consciousness. At the same time, the dismantling of discriminatory legislation and other racial barriers in the larger society afforded Chinese people for the first time the option to nurture an identification with Canada. In the 1970s these two fundamentally different cultural orientations were reconciled, as the discourse on Chineseness took on a new paradigm. Under state multiculturalism and with the rise of ethnic sentiments, members of the Chinese minority advanced their claims to be "Chinese Canadians" within the officially enshrined Canadian mosaic. Despite popular subscription to this category, immigrant and local-born Chinese invested this label with different meanings. The underlying diversity of Chinese ethnic construction was once again unveiled.

Note: / During the past few years a number of thorough studies have been made of immigration into Canada and the United states. These have not only revealed the quantitative movement of large numbers of people across international boundaries with the expressed intention of establishing permanent residence, but have also indicated the precise nature of the social process of immigration. The studies of’ the latter have been most profitable in bringing out the causative factors of migration and the by-productual results affecting individual personalities and the general body politic among which they seek an economic and social niche. [...]

During the fall of 1924, the British Columbia Legislature debated a bill that proposed banning the employment of white women and Asian men as servants in the same household. Although this piece of legislation (publicly known as the "Janet Smith Bill") never passed into law, it offers great insight into the racial and nationalist ideas that were dominant in 1920's British Columbia. Drawing on postmodern theories of 'discourse' and 'knowledge,' I have located the Janet Smith Bill within larger intellectual and political structures to understand what the bill's goal of "protecting white women" means. My thesis identifies two primary meanings of this bill. First, the Janet Smith Bill is meant to prevent the production of Eurasian children in British Columbia by keeping Asian men and young white women physically apart. Scientific "knowledge" dictated that such offspring would only produce social chaos in the country. The second primary meaning of the bill is based on the nationalist drive to keep British Columbia "white" by increasing the white birthrate. Moral reformers and politicians feared that young white women would become drug addicts through close association with 'Orientals,' consequently forsaking their duty as "mothers of the race." Protecting white women, according to this discourse, meant protecting their ability and opportunity to produce healthy white babies. The Janet Smith Bill, therefore, was meant to produce and reproduce a "white British Columbia."

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Université Laval, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [279]-292).

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 52-57). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.W.S.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2003. / Bibliography: leaves 134-142.

This study seeks to understand Chinese ethnicity as a process of ongoing cultural construction engaged in by Chinese people in Vancouver from 1945 to 1980. Drawing evidence primarily from the ethnic press and voluntary organizations, it uncovers a diversity of cultural positions articulated by different groups of Chinese with respect to their ethnic identity and sense of community. This interior discourse on Chineseness unfolded in part because of changing demographic conditions within the ethnic group. After the Second World War, the older settlers who had arrived in Canada before the exclusion act of 1923 were joined and gradually outnumbered by their Canadian-born descendants and new immigrants. This development ushered in a contest for the power of cultural definition among various generations of local-born and immigrant Chinese. The emergent diversity of ethnic constructs in the Chinese minority after 1945 also reflected the continuous influence of China and the new opportunities Chinese people began to enjoy in Canada. The former unitary outlook of the ethnic group regarding the close relationship of overseas Chinese with their home country was displaced, but not by any simple cultural re-orientation to Canada. Particularly among the immigrant Chinese, the concern forthe native place, the care for family members in Mainland China and Hong Kong, the desire to promote some form of Chinese culture in Vancouver, and a residual interest in Chinese politics remained salient dimensions of their ethnic consciousness. At the same time, the dismantling of discriminatory legislation and other racial barriers in the larger society afforded Chinese people for the first time the option to nurture an identification with Canada. In the 1970s these two fundamentally different cultural orientations were reconciled, as the discourse on Chineseness took on a new paradigm. Under state multiculturalism and with the rise of ethnic sentiments, members of the Chinese minority advanced their claims to be "Chinese Canadians" within the officially enshrined Canadian mosaic. Despite popular subscription to this category, immigrant and local-born Chinese invested this label with different meanings. The underlying diversity of Chinese ethnic construction was once again unveiled. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

During the fall of 1924, the British Columbia Legislature debated a bill that proposed banning the employment of white women and Asian men as servants in the same household. Although this piece of legislation (publicly known as the "Janet Smith Bill") never passed into law, it offers great insight into the racial and nationalist ideas that were dominant in 1920's British Columbia. Drawing on postmodern theories of 'discourse' and 'knowledge,' I have located the Janet Smith Bill within larger intellectual and political structures to understand what the bill's goal of "protecting white women" means. My thesis identifies two primary meanings of this bill. First, the Janet Smith Bill is meant to prevent the production of Eurasian children in British Columbia by keeping Asian men and young white women physically apart. Scientific "knowledge" dictated that such offspring would only produce social chaos in the country. The second primary meaning of the bill is based on the nationalist drive to keep British Columbia "white" by increasing the white birthrate. Moral reformers and politicians feared that young white women would become drug addicts through close association with 'Orientals,' consequently forsaking their duty as "mothers of the race." Protecting white women, according to this discourse, meant protecting their ability and opportunity to produce healthy white babies. The Janet Smith Bill, therefore, was meant to produce and reproduce a "white British Columbia." / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate