Canada Day…. what I love and hate about this country


This year, Canada Day is bittersweet.

For the Chinese community… starting in 1923, the day of the Chinese
Exclusion Act, July 1st became known as “Humilation Day.”  How
else can you describe the country of your birth or choice, not wanting
you because of your ethnicity or skin colour… not wanting “your kind”
so much, they they pass laws banning any immigration of your ethnicity
or ancestry, from anywhere in the world.

While the Conservative government has apologized officially for the
Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act, it has failed to recognize all
payers of the head tax.  They have offered financial payment to
“living head tax payers and spouses… who were directly
affected.” 

But what about the head tax payers and spouses who died waiting for the
apology?  And weren't familes direcly affected by the head tax and
exclusion act, which deliberately deterred families from being together
and ultimately separting them for decades?

Prof. Henry Yu of UBC, says that “giving redress only to those head tax
payers and spouses still alive, is like giving redress to First Nations
people who are still alive after their land was initially
stolen.”  Hmmm… I guess they would have to be 150 to 250 years
old now.

If my father's father was still alive today, he would be 140 years
old.  He had to pay $500 to bring my father's mother to Canada,
which would have been the price of a house, or 2 years salary.  In
today's world that would cost $200,000 to $350,000.

If the Canadian people thought that the $1000 immigrant landing fee
that the Martin Liberal government repealed last year was unfair to new
immigrants – a $200,000 deliberately prohibitive head tax is
unbeliveably unfair.

July 1st 1923, was the first day of the Chinese Exclusion Act. 
The present redress package only addresses the surviving head tax
payers and spouses.  Chinese immigrant families have always been
multi-generational and lived together because of  1) family values
2) economic necessity.  So yes… descendants are directly
affected by both head tax and exclusion act.

My friend Bill Chiu just sent me this information:

On Friday night, last week, we held a celebration/fundraiser dinner for Joy Kogawa and Kogawa House.  Wow!!!  Joy received the Order of BC on June 22 in Victoria.  The Land Conservancy of BC
purchased historic Joy Kogawa House on May 30th, and we will work
together to create a writing centre, and writer's in residence, as well
as a national landmark for Canada.

On last Saturday, I attended a board meeting for the Canadian Club Vancouver…
I have now been appointed to co-chair the annual Order of Canada – Flag
Day luncheon – the premier event of the Canadian Club Vancouver…
indeed an honour.  My co-chair is Linda Johnston, Director for
Canadian Heritage, Western Region.  For 2005, I helped organize parts of the 2005 Order of Canada luncheon with Joy Kogawa as keynote speaker, Margaret Gallager as MC, and Harry Aoki as special guest musician.

CBC Television is going ahead with the follow up to the award winning
series “Canada- a People's History,” titled “Generations.”  
They want to do a episode following the 7 generations of the Rev. Chan
Yu Tan family.  Wow!  I have been co-chair of the Rev. Chan
Legacy with my mom's cousin Gary Lee.  Chief Rhonda Larrabee is
excited, and I have also talked to my cousin Joni Mar – former CBC
reporter.  All agree this is good for the family, and good for
Canada.

And then there is our Gung Haggis Fat Choy Dragon Boat team.  30
individuals of different ages, ethnicities, interests and abilities…
paddling together for fun and recreation to help move the boat
forward.  Gee…. that sounds like Canada.  Maybe if Bob Rae
wins the Liberal leadership, we can get him in a dragon boat with his
guitar singing his self-composed song “We're All in the Same Boat Now!”

What I love about Canada, is Canadian's willingness to be inclusive,
and to think beyond their own needs and beyond their own selves. 
We can be incredibly giving to other countries…. but sometimes we
forget to look in our own backyard, or in our own mirrors. 

What I hate about Canada, is the petty selfishness of people to resent
and stereotype First Nations and non-white Canadians with negative and
ignorant characters.

Canadians we dislike (hate is a strong word… almost un-Canadian)
Trevor Lautens
Pamela Anderson
Doug Collins
racists
bigots
selfish self-centred people
ignoramuses…
all of the above


Canadians we love
Joy Kogawa
Joy Coghill
Thomas King
Roy Miki
Sarah McLachlan
David Suzuki
Wayne Gretzky
Steve Podborsky
Rick Hansen
Madeliene Thien
Evelyn Lau
Bryan Adams
Paul Yee
Shelagh Rogers
Sheryl Mackay
Prem Gill
Heather Deal
Harry Aoki
Mom & Dad
+ many more  (it's just so much easier to Love, than to Hate)

There's lots to cheer and boo about Canada…  but like any
family, you wish every member the best, you encourage them to grow and
learn, and you love them in spite of themselves.

Cheers, Todd

  
North Shore News: Canada's future includes head-tax descendants – by Todd Wong

Here's
the opinion piece I wrote for the North Shore News.  I felt it was
important to share with North Shore readers that many prominent head
tax descendents live amongst them.  This is also designed to be an
educational piece explaining the hardships and the effects of systemic
racial discrimination, and to highlight North Shore connections to the
Chinese community.  I wanted it to serve as a stand alone piece to
balance a previous June 2nd opinion piece that was ignorantly critical
of the Conservative government's decision to make an apology for the Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act – Harper blunders with Head Tax Apology by Trevor Lautens in the North Shore News.  It had prompted a June 18th response from my friend Grace Wong Head Tax lessons not learned,
which explains how much suffering the Chinese pioneers had to go
through because of paying the exhorbitatn head tax, plus separation of
family due to both the head tax and the Exclusion Act.  
I removed any original references to Lautens from my original article –
as much as I wanted to put him in his place, crate him up and send him
back “where he came from.”   – Todd 

Trevor Lautens  June 2nd
http://www.nsnews.com/issues06/w052806/061106/opinion/061106op2.html

Grace Wong's letter to NS NEWS  June 18th
http://www.nsnews.com/issues06/w061806/064106/opinion/064106le1.html

http://www.nsnews.com/issues06/w062506/065106/opinion/065106op3.html Canada's future includes head-tax descendants Todd Wong Contributing Writer My ancestors first arrived in Canada in 1888 and 1896. They weren't railway builders or gold seekers. My paternal grandfather, Wong Wah, was a respected merchant in Victoria, and my maternal great-great-grandfather, Rev. Chan Yu Tan, was a respected pastor for the Chinese Methodist Church. My family has lived in North Vancouver since 1974. I am a fifth-generation Chinese-Canadian head-tax descendant. My name is Todd Wong, and I am active on the B.C. Coalition for Head Tax Payers, Spouses and Descendants. As well, I devote community service to the Save Kogawa House campaign, the Asian Canadian arts community, and dragon boats. I am also currently a director for the Canadian Club. Every September, I speak at Terry Fox Runs as a Terry's Team member, serving as a living example that cancer research has made a difference. But I am better known around the Lower Mainland as Toddish McWong – the creator of Gung Haggis Fat Choy, a Robbie Burns Chinese New Year dinner, which is increasingly recognized as a unique cultural fusion event, which also inspired a CBC television performance special that aired in 2004 and 2005. Multi-racial harmony and understanding cultural diversity is important to me, and increasingly important to both Canada and the North Shore. It is unfortunate that so many people criticize Chinese head-tax redress payments as wrong and a burden on Canadian taxpayers. They say that head-tax descendants should move on and “get over it.” But how can you move on, when it has been ingrained over decades – over a lifetime – that you are inferior, second-class, and worth less than white Canadians? Both the Japanese-Canadian and the Chinese-Canadian communities were victims of the Anti-Asiatic League in the 1907 riots by white Canadians who attacked both Chinatown and Japantown. Yes, the Chinese pioneers had a choice to come to Canada, but being victimized by social and legislated racism is not a choice. Systemic racism continued long after Chinese were finally given enfranchisement to vote in 1947. They believed in the ideals that Canada stood for, equality and fairness, despite understanding the notion of having a “Chinaman's chance” in a court of law. The early pioneers learned to keep their heads down, not make a fuss, and be “good Canadians.” Rev. Chan Yu Tan emphasized that his family learn Canadian ways, and he successfully appealed the wrongful conviction of Chinese houseboy Wong Foon Sing for the murder of Scottish nanny Janet Smith. My father taught me early on that because I was born of Chinese heritage I had to work harder than white people to prove myself equal. His elder brother graduated near the top of his UBC engineering class, but was not hired. Chinese were disallowed from being members of professional organizations because they weren't allowed on voting lists until 1947, but racism continued beyond that. Barred from living in West Vancouver's British Properties, Chinese-Canadian pioneers and their descendants were challenged to overcome the learned helplessness created in the face of racism. My mother remembers taking the ferry as a child from Vancouver to North Vancouver and having picnics in Mahon Park and Horseshoe Bay. The North Shore has a rich and hidden Chinese-Canadian history, descended from those pioneers who paid the head tax. They came to Canada like emigrants from Scotland, England, France, Russia and Italy. Yet only the Chinese were so unwanted and treated so badly that legislation was passed to create an immigration deterrent called the Chinese Head Tax followed by the outright banning of all Chinese immigration from 1923 until 1947 under the Exclusion Act. It was the contributions of Chinese Canadian veterans in the Second World War like my Uncle Dan and his brothers who helped overturn it. Not many Chinese lived here in North Vancouver's early days, but gradually it would become home to some of our greatest role models. Former North Shore resident Bev Nann received the Order of British Columbia in 2001. Retired high school teacher Bill Chow taught generations of students at Balmoral and Windsor secondary schools. Donna Wong-Juliani has made incredible contributions to the Vancouver-area arts scene. She both grew up and still resides in West Vancouver. The granddaughters of Alexander Won Cumyow, the first Chinese born in British Columbia, went to school with me at Balmoral and Carson Graham. Next in line is my second cousin, 14-year-old Tracey Hinder, national CanSpell finalist last year in Ottawa. The Chan family was featured in the Chinese Cultural Centre exhibit Three Pioneer Chinese Families in 2002, and we have just been approached by CBC television to be the subject of one of their episodes for a future series titled Generations. Our family contains two Miss Canada contestants (one Caucasian, one Chinese). Cousin Rhonda Larrabee is chief of the Qayqayt First Nations and her daughter lives on the Burrard Band Indian Reserve. Rhonda jokes that her mother's side of the family lost their land, while her father's side had to pay the head tax. Our family is “so Canadian.” But no government should be allowed to profit from racism. Twenty-three million dollars was paid to the Canadian government in blood, sweat and tears – above and beyond what any other immigrant was forced to endure to become part of Canada's society. The symbolic return of the $23 million should be viewed as a tax refund which is simply 80 years in the making, albeit without interest! In 2004, The United Nations asked Canada to make an apology and financial redress, following New Zealand's example. Canada needed to make the apology so that our country could move forward in its cultural and social development. Financial redress is simply an important part of that process. Future generations of multi-racial Canadians and head-tax descendants need to know that Canada recognized its wrongs, and did not refuse to make a fair and honourable redress while head-tax payers, spouses and descendants were still alive. This is the legacy, not a burden, which we leave to all our children and all their children. We must believe that for the healing of our country – our inclusive, multicultural country – nobody should be left behind. published on 06/25/2006 Email this page to a friend

Gee…  I wonder what the First Nations people say about all the white people coming to their homeland, cutting down the trees, polluting the water, taking over the best fishing areas….  Todd

By LYN COCKBURN

He
hauls himself out from under my kitchen sink like William Shatner
in those Kellogg's commercials. But instead of offering me some All-Bran, he
nods his head towards the TV and asks: “What's he doing?”

The
“he” in question is Stephen Harper, and he's apologizing to the
Chinese-Canadian community for the racist head tax once imposed on immigrants
from China.
And for the 24-year outright ban on immigration from China.

It
is a fine speech indeed, one that makes me proud to be Canadian. Harper calls
the head tax “a great injustice.”

And
he terms the apology the “decent” thing to do. And so it is.

“Apologizing,”
I say to the plumber, who has been labouring under
the sink in a valiant effort to discover why it refuses to drain.

“To who? And why?”

“To the Chinese community in Canada for the head tax.”

“What's
that?”

I
explain the main points, having just learned the precise dates myself. I tell
him that starting in 1885, the Canadian government charged Chinese people $50
to stay here and, in 1903, it raised that amount to $500. All of this in an
effort to make the very workers it had brought here to build the CPR go home.

“Sounds
like a great idea,” he says. “We should be doing that now.” He
leaves me open-mouthed.

“We
fully accept the moral responsibility to acknowledge these shameful policies of
our past … ” Stephen says to the accompaniment of a snort of derision
from under the sink.

He
emerges again. “They should all be sent back,” he says.

“They, who?” I ask.

“Those
Asians,” he replies patiently, as though I am some dim child who refuses
to learn her ABCs.

“The Chinese, the ones from India, all of them.”

For
the first time he notices the look on my face. “I'm not a racist,” he
counters. “But there are too many of them. Canada
isn't Canada
anymore.”

“My
father came here from Scotland
when he was 20. Maybe he should have been sent home,” I offer.

The
plumber looks at me pityingly.

I
can't get control of my mouth: “But I guess that was OK,” I say. “Because he was white.”

This
salvo is greeted by a withering silence. I am once again the idiot child with a
lot to learn about life.

“I
think immigrants make the country more interesting and more vibrant,” I
continue weakly, wondering where our pre-apology conversation went.

“Vibrant,
hah!” he says. “My old neighbourhood, I
don't feel comfortable there anymore. There's so many of them, I'm the
minority.”

I
consider telling him that I hope to hell he is in the minority, that I don't
want a totally white Canada
where people can be arrested for Driving While Off Colour.

He
doesn't give me a chance, and begins a story about his cousin's son, who
evidently didn't get into university because so many of “them” had
money and bought their way in.

Before
I can say anything, he takes a quick breath and tells me about all the single
aboriginal women who evidently have mobs of children and rip off welfare.

I am
reminded of an aboriginal friend's favourite joke. A
white person screams at a First Nations person: “Go back where you came
from.”

“So,”
says my friend with satisfaction. “He pitches a tent in the white dude's
backyard.”

“And
the worst part is you can't say what you think anymore. You have to be careful
or someone will call you a racist or sue you,” says the plumber.

He
has discovered the problem. The sink is working again.

He
gathers up his tools, gets my signature on his worksheet, tells me, if somewhat
insincerely, that he hopes I have a good day and heads for the door.

Stephen
has finished his speech and now an elderly Chinese man, whose name is cut off
by the sound of the door closing, is speaking.

“I
am grateful,” he says into the reporter's microphone. “That I lived
to see this day after so many years of trying to get the Canadian government to
say 'Sorry.' ”

http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Columnists/Cockburn_Lyn/2006/06/26/pf-1653293.html

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