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A Chinese Community in a Prairie City:
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C1ass and Ethnic Relations
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Wing-5am Chow

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A CHINESE COMMUNITY IN A PRAIRIE CITY
A HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE OF ITS CLASS
AND ETHNIC RELATIONS

by

Wing-3am Chow

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Anthropology

1981

Amfitiiv

ABSTRACT

A CHINESE COMMUNITY IN A PRAIRIE CITY
A HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE OF ITS CLASS
AND ETHNIC RELATIONS

by

Wing-5am Chow

The primary objective of this dissertation is to explore the
meanings of class and ethnicity in terms of the ethnographic data on a
Chinese community in western Canada. Adopting a relational and holistic
perspective, this study will identify the underlying social reality which
gives logic to the observable events, activities, and social organizations
of the selected local ethnic community. The forms and process of material
life of the local community are seen as part and parcel of the very nature
and development of the entire social system. Within the context of the
global market and political system, the local ethnic community is found
peripheral not only in terms of its ethnic identity but also in terms of
the work identity of the majority of its members. For Canada's growth,
immigrant labor is indispensable; however, the presence of new immigrants
is frequently regarded as a challenge to the well-being of the mainstream
Canadians. The data used are based on both fieldwork and documentary

records.

© Copyright by
Wing Sam Chow

1981

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Sincere gratitude is expressed to members of the dissertation
committee, Dr. Kenneth David, Dr. Bernard Gallin, and Dr. Barry Raulet
for their constructive criticism and numerous courtesies. Dr. Robert
McKinley, the chairperson of the committee, has given his encouragement,
assistance, and advice throughout the course of this study. My great
indebtedness to him! Dr. Joseleyne S. Tien, the dean's representative,
must be mentioned for her helpful suggestions. Special appreciation goes
to Mrs. Esther McKinley, Mrs. Moiyin Chow, Mr. Wong Kam Cheong, and my

parents. Their many and varied contributions and support are indispensable.

iii

Abstract

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Copyright Notice

Acknowledgements

List of Tables

List of Figures

Chapter:

I.

II.

III.

IV.

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Analytical Perspective . . . . . . .
A Literature Review . . . . .
Theoretical Orientation .

Plan of Dissertation . . . . .
Fieldwork . . . . . . . . . . . . .

IWMIGRATION: ITS HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND

ITS

THE

BEGINNING . .

Introduction . . .
The Historical Context . . . . .
The Early Immigrants: the Indentured
Laborers . . . . . .
Summary and Discussion

CONTEMPORARY SETTING
Introduction . . . .

The National Setting . . . . . . .
The Local Setting . . . . . . . .

OCCUPATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . .
Before 1947 . . . . . . . . . . . .
After 1947 . . . . . . . . . .
Summary and Discussion . . . . . .

iv

Page

iii
vi

vii

19
26
27

29

29
29

35
43

49

49
49
57

65

65
65
7O
97

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter: Page
V. SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Before 1947 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

After 1947 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Summary and Discussion . . . . . . . . 126

VI. LIFE HISTORIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Summary and Discussion . . . . . . . . 142

VII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . 146
Footnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Table

LIST OF TABLES

Arrivals of Chinese Immigrants (1901-66)

Population of Ethnic Chinese in Canada
(1881-1971)

Distribution of Chinese Population in
Canadian Cities (1921, 1941) . .

Distribution of Chinese Population in
Canadian Provinces (1901-41)

Age Distribution Among Winnipeg Chinese
in 1946

The Important Occupational Groupings of
Gainfully Occupied Chinese in Canada in 1931 .

Number of Individuals Age 15 and Over in the
Experienced Labor Force Showing Chinese Ethnic
Origin by Detailed Occupations and Sex for
Winnipeg, 1971 . . . . . .

Winnipeg Chinese by Occupational Groups and
Prestige Scores, 1971 . . . . . . . .

Donations for Chinese Relief Fund, as seen in
Mr. Li's Receipts . . .

vi

Page

32

33

54

55

62

66

72

82

111

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page
1. The City of Winnipeg, with the Approximate
Locations of Chinese Restaurants Shown
(Map) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

vii

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Class and ethnicity are two pertinent issues in the study of
Canadian society. The primary objective of this dissertation is to ex-
plore the meanings of class and ethnicity in terms of the ethnographic
data on the Chinese minority in Winnipeg. Using a structural Marxist
model, this study will identify the underlying social reality which gives
logic to the observable events, activities, and organizations of the
selected local ethnic community. To achieve this end would require an
holistic analysis of the interaction between the local community and its
wider social milieu. That is to say, this study, while focusing on the
nature and development of the local ethnic community, will elucidate, at
the sane time, the major features of the system of class and ethnicity
which Canada constitutes.

Classes, in this study, are regarded as economic groups; in other
words, the sharing of permanent or at least long-term economic interests
is an important characteristic of members of a class. An ethnic group is
regarded as a group of people who think of themselves as being alike, and
stemming from a common origin or from other historically rooted factors.
Analytically speaking, ethnic relations are non-class relations.

The City of Winnipeg is the capital of the Province of Manitoba,
Canada. With the advent of railway in 1886, Winnipeg has grown to become

a grain center and a financial, commercial, and manufacturing city. The

2
total population in 1971 was 540,260. The major ethnic groups, in order
of size in 1971, are the British numbering 232,125, Ukrainians 64,305,
Germans 61,995, French 46,205, Polish 25,915, Jewish 19,385, Scandinavians
17,535, and Netherlanders 15,020 (p. 60 below).

In Winnipeg, the Chinese population is largely scattered within the
inner city with only a small percentage in the suburbia. The presence of
three Chinese in the City was first reported in 1877. By 1921, the
Chinese pOpulation had grown to 814. This, however, had declined to 762
by 1941, reflecting the restriction of Chinese immigration into Canada
between 1925 and 1947. Since the renewed Chinese immigration in 1947, the
Chinese population of the City had grown to about 3,400 by 1976 (p. 61
below). The city setting will be more fully described in Chapter III.

The first Chinese immigration in substantial numbers was in con-
nection with railway construction. After its completion, the Chinese
pOpulation dispersed into various Canadian cities. In Winnipeg, the
Chinese population had been engaged largely as entrepreneurs in the
service sector. This is classified as the periphery industry (yis-a-vis
the core industry), and features low productivity and low income. After
the renewed immigration in 1947, the occupational distribution, however,
shifted to ramify into the core industry. In this study three historical
periods are distinguished, the early Chinese immigrants, the pre-l947 era,
and the post-1947 era. The occupations, social organizations, and other
observable social relations vary from period to period.

This study also focuses on the organizations which the ethnic
Chinese have established to cater to the internal needs and interests of
the community. However, the dominance that some associational leaders

enjoy is derived by virtue of their strategic linkage to a government in

3
China and/or to the elites among mainstream Canadians. As demonstrated
by certain writers (e.g., Clement 1974, Porter 1965) these Canadian elite
patrons are nearly always members of the dominant ethnic groups, primarily
the Anglo-Saxons and secondarily the French, i.e., those capable of making
individious judgements about the appropriateness of various ethnic groups

coming to Canada.

Analytical Perspective

This study is concerned with the forms and processes of material
life of a local ethnic community in an advanced industrial society. The
life of the local community is part and parcel of the very nature and
deve10pment of the entire social system. It belongs to the inclusive
polity of a particular historical context. Within the context of the
global market and political system, the local community is peripheral not
only in terms of its ethnic identity but also in terms of the occupations
of the majority of its members. Two sets of terms will be used to delineate
class ordering. One set includes terms familiar to students of social
stratification: the upper, middle and working classes. The other set in-
dicates ethnic and class domination and subordination among interacting
collectivities: the center of the Center, the periphery of the Center,
the center of the Periphery, and the periphery of the Periphery (see pages
44f below). These ethnic and class relations will be analyzed in terms of
the overall structural conditions implied by this model.

Four major questions confront this study. In what ways do the
occupations and social organizations of the ethnic Chinese reflect both
the underlying class and ethnic relations and the historical reality of

the world system? What is the basis of individual freedom? In what ways

4
do the observable historical events and social practices reveal the hidden
reality invisible but present behind the visible forms? Lastly, to what
extent do publications on ethnic Chinese in various parts of the world

succeed in portraying and analyzing their ethnic and class relations?

A Literature Review

In this review are included studies on ethnic Chinese in various
parts of the world, a case study on Japanese in Canada, and a theoretical
article on ethnicity. This review will demonstrate that these publications
show a failure to relate class and ethnicity in any systematic way. An
important pioneering work on a Chinese community, The Chinese in Malaya
by British administrator and historian Victor Purcell (1948 and 1967) is
descriptive, and contains a wealth of historical data. Although this
monograph is not intended to be analytical, it does not excuse Purcell's
treatment of "the Anglo-Chinese relations" as a "social aspect," homo-
logous with "Chinese religion," "Chinese social problems," "Chinese labor
and immigration," ”Chinese political societies, 1911-1941," and "the
Chinese in Malayan industry" (Purcell 1967: xv). The mere description of
these "social aspects" should have demonstrated to the writer that they
are as much products of the interaction between the ethnic Chinese and the
British, as of the Chinese tradition which Purcell seems to emphasize.
Aithough the materials are workable for the analysis of ethnic and class
relations, such analysis is not attempted. The so-called "social aspects"
are simply convenient categories by which the writer presents his
materials, and are devoid of any analytical value.

Among the earlier works on the Chinese in the United States are

those of sociologist Rose Hum Lee on the Chinatown in Butte, Montana. Lee

5

(1948) describes the social institutions which she divides into "religious
political institutions" including the Temple, Save the Emperor Society,
Gee Kung Tong (transliterated as Chi Kung Tang in this dissertation); "the
familial institutions," including the clan associations; and "tongs and
festivals." Such a classification based on the ways the participants refer
to the institutions reflects the local people's system of classification,
but should not be regarded as sociological categories. On the basis of
Lee's approach, all the institutions may well be classified as tgng (or
Eggg, literally meaning hall), or equally as "familial" and "political,”
if not "religious" institutions.

In her 1949a paper, she examines changes in occupations among the
ethnic Chinese of Butte from 1890 to 1945. Although the paper is entitled

"occupational invasion, succession and accommodation..."

she only deals
with ”accommodation" equated with "complementing," "symbiosis," "adjust-
ment" and "adaptation" (Lee 1949a: 50-58). The ”occupational accommoda—
tion" by the immigrant group is regarded as "an index to their "social
accommodation" and ”assimilation" (ibid., p. 58). Specifically, "occupa-
tional accommodation" can be achieved by performing serviceswhich are
needed by the dominant groups but are not done by them (ibid.). In
accommodation, then, the immigrant group avoids competition with the dom-
inant groups, while maintaining its own identity.

In her article "The decline of Chinatown in the United States"
(1949b), Lee observes that the Chinatowns have been rapidly declining
since 1940. This is expressed by the gradual disappearance of the
"cultural and social institutions," the loss of population, with only the

"economic establishments" such as laundries and restaurants remaining

(ibid., p. 431).

6

While the ethnic Chinese have made "accommodation" and the China-
towns have declined, ethnic Chinese are regarded as not having completed
Robert E. Park's "racial cycle of contact, competition, accommodation and
assimilation." In The Chinese in the United States (1960), which contains
her studies over the years, she calls for full assimilation among her
people. She could call and her people might listen. The final outcome,
however, would depend on the overall structural conditions. At the
present, by her criteria the Chinese remain at the "accommodation" stage.
Lastly, although she does not deal with class relations as such, she
presents the Chinese as an ethnic minority, emphasizing their interaction
with the ethnic majority.

An example of the few monographs appearing in the nineteen fifties

and sixties is The Chinese of Semarang by Donald Willmott, 1960. The

 

ethnic Chinese are said to lead a way of life that includes elements of
Chinese, Indonesian, and Dutch civilizations (Willmott 1960: 16). Accord-
ingly, the ethnic social behavior is described in terms of these influ-
ences in a part of the study. At other times, the study becomes centered
on the "internal structure" (Willmott 1960: 47) and the interaction among
the ethnic groups. The term "structure" is taken to mean organization and
its visible characteristics. For example, the "internal structure" of
Chinese business enterprise is one of small units under family management
and ownership,.and one of instability. Proceeding from a description of
the "internal structure," he discusses the interaction between the Chinese
and Dutch business, which has "operated smoothly and with mutual benefit"
(Willmott 1960: 59). However, the role of middle-man is explained not in
terms of an overview of the market transaction and the exclusivist Dutch

policy, but solely in terms of the "internal structure" as characterized

by the knowledge of local market and the small accumulation of ready
capital (ibig.). The emphasis here is more on social types rather than
social relationship.

Parallel to this approach is his treatment of the gentry and social
prestige. He notes that:

emigration was responsible for turning the

traditional social prestige scale upside down .

The gentry did not migrate. . . . Almost all the

immigrants were illiterate farmers, laborers and

petty merchants. Their purpose is to make money,

and wealth became practically the sole criterion

of success and social position (Willmott 1960: 116)
Does he believe that if the gentry had migrated, the "traditional social
prestige" would have been maintained? And the gentry would have been less
likely to become middle-men? By severing these entities from their proper
historical context, he has rendered them completely meaningless. Although
he does not incorporate history into the field of analysis, and although at
times his view is fragmented, he attempts to deal with ethnicity as fully
as possible. Class relations as such are not dealt with; however, his book
provides workable materials for such analysis.

William Willmott has written two monographs on the Chinese in
Cambodia. One of them, containing some field notes incoherently presented,
is hardly a scholarly work in any sense of the word. He has in fact to
acknowledge, "This is not, then, a book of anthropology" (W. Willmott 1967:
2). Nevertheless, the study is under anthropologist Maurice Freedman's
supervision: fieldwork is conducted; and library research is carried out
in Phnom Penh, Paris, and London (ibid. p. 3).

In his (1970) publication, written on the basis of the same data,

he thoroughly confuses the reader about the objective of the monograph.

The title indicates that the objective is to study the Chinese community

8
in Cambodia. However, he begins the preface by writing, "In studying a
community of over a hundred thousand persons . . ." (ibid., p. iii). A
check on a table (ibid., p. 7) confirms that this is the Chinese popula-
tion in Phnom Penh. Still, in his Introduction, he states that "the

primary focus of this book is the congregation system and its effects upon

 

Chinese social organization" (ibid., p. 2). The congregations are sub-

 

ethnic categories or speech groups among the ethnic Chinese recognized by
the French colonial government as corporate groups, each with the author-
ity to exercise self-government. For example, the Teochius form a congre-
gation, which has a hui-guan (association) and a £h££_(chief) delegated by
the French to exercise certain degrees of self-government. The congreg -
tigg system is a means of indirect rule designed by the colonial author-
ity.

In any case, discussions on the system constitute only one-third
of the volume, from the beginning of the system in Annam to its decline
after the second world war. The system is not mentioned again except
briefly in one chapter for the rest of the book. This consists of four
chapters rambling over contemporary Phnom Penh, one chapter on small
towns in Cambodia, one chapter on six overseas Chinese communities from
Singapore to Vancouver, and a last chapter on the so-called Chinese
traditional cities. In these chapters, he takes note of the similarities
and differences between the Chinese community in Phnom Penh on the one
hand, and the other Chinese communities and Chinese traditional cities on
the other hand. In the last chapter, entitled "beyond a conclusion," the
reader may think that generalizations and inferences derived from the
previous discussions would be presented. However, he is again disap-

pointed. The book is literally "beyond a conclusion" and without a

9
conclusion. There are a few foci, but there is no "primary focus" as
William Willmott (1970: 2) has claimed.

In his analysis, the term "structure" is equated with the overt
hierarchy of social institutions. To explain "the structure of leader-
ship" is to demonstrate the dominant role of the Hospital Board; to
explain the "associational structure" is to transcribe the hierarchy of
associations with the Hospital Board at the apex. The Board consists of
a small group of associational leaders in charge of a hospital which the
ethnic Chinese had built in Phnom Penh. In any case, the writer makes no
attempt to put this hierarchy into the total context of the ethnic and
class relations in Phnom Penh (W. Willmott 1970: 118-126).

Above all, his comparative studies are made out of context. He
compares the Phnom Penh Chinese community with the so-called traditional
cities in general in China, and infers that in both cases there is a
"formal separation of political and economic power" (W. Willmott 1970:
161-74). He is, in effect, regarding the "separation" or its contrast as
a variable, while the "political and economic power" remains a constant.
There is no attempt to assess the scope and nature of this power in its
respective context: namely, within a specific local ethnic community and
in traditional cities in general. In making such a comparison, the scope
and nature of this power is actually far from being constant.

While "structure" often draws the Willmotts' attention, "pattern"
construction becomes central in anthropologist Hsu's (1971) studies of the
Chinese in the United States. "The American pattern" is constructed by
drawing observations and illustrations from various parts of the United
States, while the "Chinese pattern" is constructed by using generaliza-

tions already made familiar by publications concerning Chinese language,

10

family, kinship, local ties and religion. The Chinese in America are re-
garded as having made "a series of bifurcated adjustments" between the two
patterns of life (Hsu 1971: 77). Their social behavior is then explained
in terms of the components of either of the patterns. This exercise
reduces to a demonstration of these components and their differences;
however, it cannot, for example, account for the serving in Chinese
restaurants of fortune cookies, the products created during the process
of interaction between the Whites and the Chinese. If this monograph
aims to demonstrate the integration of cultural pattern, the objective is
partially achieved. However, if the objective is to demonstrate the
effect of "contact and conflict" (preface), and to be counted as a study
of one of the "minorities in American life" (title pages), the study
fails. Ethnicity is not to be equated with cultural differences, but
rather with identities shown during the interaction taking place among
groups.

In a textbook widely used in Canadian universities in the early
19705, there appears an article on the Chinese in Toronto by an ethnic
Chinese, Vivien Lai (1971), resulting from thesis research under Donald
Willmott. The study is based on sociologist Milton Gordon's (1964) model
of assimilation and is concerned essentially with "cultural" and "struc-
tural assimilations." "Assimilation" is equated with "integration" and
"absorption" (Lai 1971: 125). Examined under "cultural assimilation" are
two sub-categories: (1) "cultural symbols," including the preferences in
language used, festivals celebrated, newspapers read . . . ; (2) "cul-
tural norms," as exemplified by preferences in post-marital residence and
attitudes towards pre-marital sex (ibid., p. 126). The second category,

"structural assimilation," is examined under the following assumptions: -

ll

{1) If the immigrants are ”fully economically absorbed," their occupations
"should be distributed in the same manner as the host society" (ibid.,
p. 131). {2) If the immigrants choose to "live in a desegregated area,
join Canadian clubs and go to Canadian church," they are regarded as
integrated in institutional level (ibid., p. 136). (3) "the number of
friends the immigrant has from his own ethnic group and from the host
society is an index of the extent to which he is integrated into the
society at the primary level" (ibid., p. 136). She concludes that "the
Chinese immigrants examined in this study are only partially culturally
assimilated, partially structurally assimilated. . . . " However, she
hastens to apologize that "this does not mean that the Chinese are less
capable of being assimilated than other immigrant groups" (ibid., p. 137).

Here and throughout her study, she seems to imply that not to be
assimilated is a form of failure, and that, conversely, to be assimi-
lated is good and normal. Reading this implication in conjunction with
her assumption (3) regarding friendship tells one that it is good to be
assimilated, and in order to be counted as being completely assimilated,
an immigrant should only have friends from the "host society." Her study
also implies that Canada is egalitarian, and that the two sub-categories
(p. 10 above) is of no substantial consequence. A club is a physical
expression of class relation, as its membership is a mark of status, and
a badge of social certification, to establish friendship, to entertain,
and to make deals. How could such a glaring reality be ignored? More-
over, if the immigrants are fully absorbed economically, their occupa-
tional distribution ought to lean towards certain sectors, for example,

service occupations. This is because immigrants are admitted into

12
Canada to perform certain economic functions. Her assumption (I) regard-
ing occupations (p. 11 above) is simply wrong! The identity of the immi-
grants is not based on ”cultural norms," but on a series of constraints
on the roles that the immigrants are eXpected to play. The integration
of an immigrant group cannot be considered apart from these constraints.

In summary, then, the selected examples are well recognized by the
academic circle in North America. It is largely on this basis that they
are included in this review. Their chief contribution lies mainly in the
empirical data concerning the ethnic Chinese communities which have ex-
perienced rapid social change or simply disappeared. Typology comes to
play a major role in the handling of these data; there is cultural
patterning, as exemplified by the American vis-a—vis the Chinese pattern
in Hsu (1971); cultural isolates, as exemplified by the Chinese vis-a-vis
Canadian culture in Lai (1971); institutional types, as exemplified by
Lee's (1948) classification; social types, as exemplified by Donald
Willmott's (1960) "middle-men" and "gentry"; and "internal structure,"
exemplified by both Willmotts' descriptions of social organizations or
the overt hierarchy of social institutions. In these studies all these
entities are timeless, and severed from their historical and overall
social contexts. History is treated both as a flow of events and as
autonomous from the method of analysis, which is carried out without re-
ference to time.

In cases where social change is analyzed, it is treated as a process
of "cultural blend" as differing types come together, to use Gordon's
(1964: 74) expression. Lee (1949) refers to the process as "contact,
competition, accommodation and assimilation"; Hsu (1971), "a series of

bifurcated adjustments"; and Lai (1971), "cultural" and "structural

l3

assimilation." In the study of this process of cultural blending, class
relations and the material basis underlying freedom of choice are not
considered. To these writers, the criteria for the eventual assimilation
rest on the observable characteristics of the ethnic community itself,
rather than on the structural conditions of the social whole. Assimila-
tion is monitored but not explained. It is on this basis that the
erroneous assumptions are made in the case of the Toronto Chinese, and
that Lee's (1949b) clarion call for the ultimate goal of full assimilation
is made in vain. These writers have substituted their wishes for reality!

Barth (1969), in an introductory chapter to a collection of papers
resulting from a symposium on ethnicity, examines major concepts and
approaches involved in the analysis of ethnic groups. This has been a
well-known publication and used astextbook in a number of universities in
North America. Barth (1969) maintains that in one major approach, the
observer sees each ethnic group existing in relative isolation and through
a history of adaptation by invention and selective borrowing, and in
response to local ecological factors (ibid., pp. 11-12). The ethnic group
is regarded as a population which is largely biologically self-perpetu-
ating, which shares basic cultural values, and which constitutes a field
of communicating. The diagnostic factors for membership of an ethnic
group lie in the objective differences in cultures and factors generated
by ecological conditions (ibid., p. 11). This approach leads the observer
to prejudge and preconceive of what are the major factors in the genesis
of ethnicity. This shortcoming is readily illustrated by concepts such as

" cultural patterning, and cultural blend examined in

"internal structure,
the present literature review. Almost all the publications reviewed fol-

low this approach essentially.

l4

Barth (1969) advocates an alternative approach which he calls the
generative viewpoint. It purports to explore the process in generating
and maintaining ethnic groups. It focuses on the socially relevant
factors which become diagnostic for membership. In other words, it
focuses on only those cultural features which the actors in an poly-
ethnic system use as signals and identities. The ethnic identities are
not static but vary with the changing interacting situation. Barth
further argues that people's experiences affect and have feedback to the
ethnic identities (ibid., p. 30). This feedback is consequential with
respect to the following: Firstly, there establishes a conventional
definition of the situation in social encounters, so that ethnic dichoto-
mies may be retained and reinforced. Revision occurs only if it is con-
sistently both materially and socially to act according to the conven-
tional definition (ibid., p. 12). Secondly, radical differences in cul-
tural values are often denied and played down, so that interaction may
generate a congruence of codes and values (ibid., p. 16). Thirdly, the
feedback from the interacting situation may result in variations in the
number of characteristics subsumed under the ethnic labels. Some individ-
uals show many and some show few of these characteristics (ibid., p. 29).
In sum, ethnic identities are at once a question of sources of origin as
well as of current identities.

In his study of ethnicity, Barth (1969) attempts to include a num-
ber of variables, including, among others, social stratification, ecology,
and demography. In a section entitled ecologic perspective, he con-
structs the following typology of different forms of adaptation:

(1) [Ethnic groups] may occupy clearly distinct

niches in the natural environment and be in minimal
competition for resources. In this case their

15
interdependence will be limited . .
(2) They may monopolize separate territories,
in which case they are in competition for
resources and their articulation will involve
politics along the border, and possibly other
sectors.
(3) They may provide important goods and
services for each other, i.e., occupy reciprocal
and therefore different niches but in close
interdependence. If they do not articulate very
closely in the political sector, this entails
classical symbiotic situation. . . If they
also compete and accomodate through differential
monopolization of the means of production, this
entails a close political and economic articula-
tion, with open possiblities for other forms of
interdependence as well. (ibid., pp. 19f).

In another section entitled demographic perSpective, (ibid., p.
20), he discusses the problems of number and balance of a population in
its adaptation to an ecological niche. He maintains that any stable
adaptation entails a control of population size. The upper limit on the
size of the population corresponds to the carrying capacity of that niche.
If two populations are ecologically interdependent, any variations in the
size of one must have important effects on the other (ibid.).

In still another section entitled ethnic groups and stratification
(ibid., p. 27) he notes that where one group has control of the means of
production utilized by another group, a relationship of inequality and
stratification obtains. That is to say, a stratified poly—ethnic system
exists where groups are characterized by differential control of assets
that are valued by the groups. For example, in the Pathan area one finds
stratification based on the control of land, Pathans being land owners,
and other groups cultivating as serfs (ibid.). Barth argues that they
share certain general orientation and scales, on the basis of which they

arrive at judgements of hierarchy, and on the basis of which the poly-

ethnic system is integrated.

16

At the same time, he notes that in many cases stratification is
simply based on the notion of scales. This he exemplifies with the Indian
caste system which, to him, is a stratified poly-ethnic system. Ethnic
groups are successfully ranked in the hierarchical system by their ac-
ceptance of the value scales defining their degrees of ritual purity and
pollution (ibid., p. 28).

Apparently, the article includes a broad range of topics which are
significant and relevant in the analysis of ethnicity. The point at
issue is the pluralistic viewpoint which results in a series of sections
not being systematically linked up. For example, two sections contain
closely related topics which do not constitute two different perspectives.
Yet, the sections are entitled ecologic perspective and demographic per-
spective respectively. Barth fails to explore systematically the inter-
play between the various demographic factors such as population pressure
and migrations on the one hand and his typology of ecological adaptation
on the other hand. His typology, as it presently stands, has not gone
beyond the literal meanings of minimal competition, monopoly, and symbi-
osis (ibid., pp. 19f; p. 18 above).

On social stratification, he is aware of the effects of the dif-
ferential control of the means of production (ibid., p. 27; p. 15 above).
This observation, however, is followed by the argument that the ethnic
groups share general orientation and value, on the basis of which they
arrive at judging the hierarchy and its integration (p. 15 above). His
analysis of ethnicity is essentially confined to the level of meaning and
symbolism. It is the status as recognized by the poly-ethnic system that
confers the characters of the individual actors. They enact to conform

to the conventional expectations. The ordering of relationship according

17
to this meaning system is necessary to the existence of the poly-ethnic
system. While the meaning system is regarded as the foundation of the
stratification, the function of the propertied relationship concerning
ownership is not further investigated.

Consequently, the distinction of the two kinds of social relation-
ships in his social stratification is omitted. Where he is concerned with
differential control of valued assets by interacting groups, he is actu-
ally talking about class relations; where he is concerned with groups
ranked in terms of notions of scales, which he illustrates with the Hindu
caste system, he is actually talking about ethnic relations. To him,
both kinds of social relationships are simply social stratifications with
their underlying meaning system and assumed integration.

Lastly, his obsession with integration is overwhelming. Internal
conflict is regarded as contributing towards the stability of the system.
One may refer to the quotation concerning his typology of ecological
adaptation again (ibid., pp. 19f; p. 18 above).

If they also compete and accommodate through
differential monopolization of the means of
production, this entails a close political and
economic articulation, with open possibilities

for other forms of interdependence as well
(emphasis mine).

 

 

To compete, to accommodate, and to monopolize is to achieve interdepend-
ence. The disintegration or the demise of the poly-ethnic system is off
the limit of analysis for Barth.

In sum, Barth (1969) has called for a generative viewpoint, focus-
sing on the process in generating and maintaining ethnic groups. This is
highly commendable. Together with Barth (1969), the present study re-

jects the viewpoint that sees ethnic groups as isolated cultural groups.

18

However, he must be criticized in his application of the generative view-
point. It becomes pluralistic and descriptive by failing to explore the
interaction of the major variables. It becomes idealistic by focusing on
the meaning system and ignoring the significance of the underlying mate-
rial basis. And it becomes presumptive by making a priori arguments con-
cerning integration.

Before ending this review, Ken Adachi's (1976) monograph on

Japanese Canadians The enemy that never was, is examined. This allows a

 

comparison of the historical experiences of the ethnic Japanese and

Chinese on the Canadian west coast, and a supplementation of the delinea-
tion of ethnographic facts as presented in the previous section. Adachi's
descriptive history leads through the attacks on the Japanese as cheap
labor, the Vancouver anti-Asian riots of 1907, the attempts to restrict

the ethnic Japanese to a particular area of work such as fishing, and the
role of the politicians of British Columbia in aggravating ethnic preju-
dices against the Japanese. On these scores, the historical experiences of
both the Japanese and Chinese are parallel to each other.

The unique experience on the part of the Japanese Canadians came
with their forced removal from Vancouver and other coastal areas and their
internment in the interior of British Columbia after the Pearl Harbor
attack. The provincial politicians used the attack as a pretext for ex-
pelling Japanese competitors and seizing their assets. In spite of the
advice of both the Canadian military and the RCMP that the Japanese com-
munity was not a threat to the defence of North America, the Prime Minis-
ter, MacKenzie King, bowed to the pressure of British Columbian politicians
and initiated the removal of the community. At the end of the war, King,

bowing again to the pressure of the politicians, attempted, but failed, to

l9
deport most of the ethnic Japanese, regardless of citizenship. While both
the Japanese and Chinese labor forces were regarded as a threat, only the
Japanese experienced this trauma of internment. This was because of their
ethnic identification with their country of origin, which was a non-
European country at war with the Allies. International setting has sig-
nificant ramifications in local ethnic communities. The present disserta-
tion will show that the expressions of these ramifications vary in accord-

ance with different ethnicities and class relations.

Theoretical Orientation

 

In order to move beyond the descriptive accounts of the assimila-
tionist writers, the epistemological position taken in this study is one
which directs the researcher to look at the society from a broad histori-
cal perspective, with an emphasis on the social relations which dominate
the material process of production. Integrated with this emphasis is the
emphasis on class relations. These are defined not in terms of a syn-
thetic scale of a number of factors, such as education, income, and so on
which are not necessarily commensurable to each other, but rather on one
criterion, the sharing of long-term economic interests.

In societies of large scale immigration, class relations cannot be
severed from ethnic relations, dialectically interacting upon each other.
Ethnic relations are based on a series of constraints on the roles that
the ethnic group is expected to play. Class relations constitute a major
constraining factor. Literature on ethnicity has significantly omitted
the dialectic interaction between the two types of social relations. This,
however, will be fully explored in the present study.

The methods of analysis that correspond to this epistemological

20
position consist of a synthesis of the concepts of three groups: (1) the
French structural Marxist writers including Friedman (1974), Godelier
(1972), and Terray ’1975), (2) writers who focus on the world system in-
cluding Wallerstein (1974), Frank (1942), and Galtung (1971), and (3)
sociologists who study class and power in the advanced industrial socie-
ties, including Parkin (1971) and Clement (1975).

In the model as envisaged by the French structural Marxist writers,
the totality of the system to be analyzed is termed the social formation,
which may be defined as the total structure that unifies the elements of
infra- and superstructure in a historically specific way. The social
formation includes several distinguishable functional levels: (1) The
infrastructure or mode of production consists of the totality of the
productive forces and the relations of production. The forces of produc-
tion refer to the raw materials and equipment used in the process of pro-
duction as well as the state of science and technology, the organizational
techniques of production, and, significantly, the abilities of the produc-
ers. The relations of production are those social relations which deter-
mine the economic rationality of the material process of production. More
specifically they concern the ownership of the means of production, the
division of productive labor, the question of who shall and who shall not
work, the forms of appropriation and distribution of the social product
and the utilization of the surplus, and, in short, the rationality of the
economic system. Occupations, which receive major attention in this study,
are specific functions within a social division of labor, as well as skills
sold for income on a labor market. (2) The superstructure contains the
ideas and systems of authority such as political, legal and military organ-

izations, which support the class structure of that society. The

21
(superstructure rests upon the economic base and is essential for the main-
tenance of the social relations of production that constitute a part of
the infra-structure (Friedman 1974: 445, 1975: 162-5, Godelier 1975: 18).
The link between the infra- and superstructure is not one of simple
cause and effect. A purely unidirectional analysis of the link would be
grossly inadequate. Each of the structures is irreducible to each other;
each has its own historical dynamic, content, mode of functioning, and
evolution. Given this relative autonomy of structure, there is a limit

to the functional compatibility of different structures. If a structure

has been transformed, its change will affect the conditions of existence
of the other structures, which are compelled to modify themselves. In
other words, these limits are the limits within which the structures can
remain constant, allowing certain amount of variations in the related
structures. The relative autonomy and mutual constraint of structures
form the basis of the notion of contradiction. Such a contradiction may
appear within and between structures (Friedman 1974: 447-9, Godelier 1972:
350-5, also see Footnote 1).

Moreover, this contradiction is never anyone's intention or con-
sciousness, and entirely the result of the development of the system it-
self. A contradiction may not be observed on the level of the visible
social relations, for each observable occurrence, event or single relation-
ship is an appearance whose full meaning or reality is only expressed by
integrating it theoretically within its total structure (Geras 1971: 80,
85).

Within an infra-structure are a series of different positions, re-
cruiting various categories of a population. A class as indicated by such

a position is an economic group, which in social terms may be only a

22
quasi-group or defacto group holding a common set of interests in the
working of the system, and is characterized by its function in the infra-
structure. Therefore, class relations in an industrial society such as
Canada have to be understood in the context of the genesis and functioning
of the capitalist mode of production. One basic problem in coming to such
an understanding lies in explaining the existence of surplus value. For
money to be turned into capital, one has to be able to buy a commodity
which, when used, can create value. This commodity exists in the form of
a labor power, and this happens at a historical stage when the producers
are severed from the means of production. The producers must be free--
that is to say, they are not slaves--but, at the same time, they are
obliged to sell their labor power. When a man works, he creates not only
the equivalent of the value which his wage represents but also something
more than the value which is directly paid to him. This unpaid work con-
stitutes the substance of surplus value appropriated by the capitalist.
However, in the eyes of all the actors concerned, everything occurs as if
the wage paid for all labor provided by the worker, as if the profit were
the product of capital, and as if capital had of itself the property of
automatic growth. The appearance of economic relations conceal and con-
tradicts their essence and the underlying class relations (Godelier 1977:
231; 1972: 336).

It should be noted that a designation of class ordering in this
study bears a resemblance to the studies of social stratification in the
use of terminology. The terms of corporate elites (the upper class), the
middle class (the white-collar groups), and the working class (the blue-
collar groups) resemble, for instance, the six classes formulated by Warner

and Lunt (1941) in their studies of the Yankee City - the upper-upper,

23
lower-upper, upper-middle, lower-middle, upper-lower, and lower-lower.
However, the resemblance ends here, for the underlying concept of class
relations is different. Warner and Lunt, to use them as an example again,
conceived of a few important indices of class membership: occupation,
source of income, rental value of housing, and residential area. In con-
trast, the formation of class relations as taken in this study is ir-
respective of social and political organizations, and the visible day-to-
day social relations. Moreover, the categories of occupation and source
of income as such cannot explain surplus value which can only be revealed
in the holistic perspective as taken in this study.

In advanced capitalist society, an ever greater proportion of the
adult population is drawn into the labor market. The mode of production
cannot be simply studied in terms of property ownership or of capital
versus the labor, but also significantly in terms of market advantages
in general. This refers to the entire reward system and a hierarchy of
broad occupational categories each representing a different position in
the scale of material and nonmaterial benefits (Parkin 1971: 24). On the
basis of this approach, Parkin (ibid.), a British sociologist, reveals the
class-dividing line between the white-collar or non-manual groups and the
blue-collar or manual groups.

A class is defined minimally by its relationship to the means of
production or, in other words, the sharing of permanent or long-term
economic interests is an important characteristic of class membership.
However, this relationship cannot by itself account for the identity of
concrete social groups, nor does it directly serve as the basis of the
distinctions between them (Terray I975: 93f). This identity will only

come about when the social group is conscious of itself and capable of

24
collective action involving the political and ideological conditions of
the superstructure.

In societies of large-scale immigration, class relations are seldom
free of the tangle of historically rooted ethnic factors, stemming, for
example, from believing in a common ancestral origin, being born into a
particular religious community, speaking a common language, and so forth.
In analyzing ethnicity, the focus is on the interaction taking place
among ethnic groups (Barth 1969 and Blom 1969). The interaction involves
ideas of appropriateness, assumptions, emblems of differences, and dia-
critical features such as food, speech, and phenotypic character that
individuals may look for and display to show identity. On the one hand,
the identification of a person as a fellow member of an ethnic group im-
plies an assumed common understanding and value system. On the other hand,
the identification of others as members of another ethnic group implies a
recognition of limitation on shared understanding and differences in the
standard by which performance is judged. However, ethnic groups do not
arise from contrastive cultures as such. They used to live apart or were
non-interacting, historical conditions resulting in their interaction in
a society. On this basis, one may say that historically the Inuit have
been isolated cultural groups until they become integrated into a national
society, and they are then regarded as ethnic Inuit.

As indicated above, ethnic identities are superstructural elements,
and can neither be defined in terms of the functions in the relations of
production nor in terms of labor organization. These constitute the domain
of class relations. With respect to the infra-structure, the superstruc-
ture retains some autonomy of internal structural properties. The vari-

ation and development of the superstructure depend directly on its

25

internal structure and internal contradiction on the one hand, and on the
constraints of the infra-structure on the other hand. For example, the
social organizations and world view of an immigrant group are constantly
subject to the constraint of the dominant ideologies and juridico-poli-
tical structures--governmental policies towards particular groups, organ-
ized labor, schools, the mass media, and so forth. At the same time, the
eXpressions of ethnic identities of the immigrant group are also subject
in complex ways to the constraint of class relations.

While the relations of production are recognized as dominating
the entire functioning of the larger system, there is also a reciprocal
action of the superstructure on the base. For example, the kind of jobs
people get is in part related to whom they know, which, in turn, is based
on kinship and ethnic affiliation. Also, employers may give differential
treatments in hiring to various ethnic groups. Such ethnic factors may
result in the clustering of certain ethnic groups in certain kinds of
occupations and affect the appearance of division of labor.

Moreover, if ethnic specialization is carried to an extreme form,
it may result in the composition and recruitments of classes out of ethnic
groups. Material disadvantage occurs precisely on account of ethnic dis-
tinctiveness; class relations and conflict take the form of conflicts be-
tween ethnic groups. In other words, classes and class contradictions do
not emerge as such (Terray 1975: 93-5). Ethnic relations become mani-
fested parallel to class relations, instead of cross-cutting each other.
Ethnic identities remain superstructural elements, however, as Feuchtwang
(1975: 68) generalizes, "ideological production, the production and com-
munication of ideas, is no more purely ideal a practice than economic pro-

duction is purely material."

26

Plan of Dissertation

 

With the theoretical orientation as presented, the plan of approach
proceeds as follows: In Chapter II, the history of Chinese immigration in-
to Canada is discussed with reference to the existence of the modern world
system. The historical events and Canadian policy with respect to Chinese
immigration are described. Also dealt with in this chapter is the early
Chinese community in Vancouver before the eastward movement to the various
major cities, including Winnipeg. The Vancouver data are significant
because they provide a historical background to the study of the Winnipeg
Chinese community, and because the theoretical issues of class and eth-
nicity can be further examined in the light of these data so that general-
izations developed may be applied to the study of the contemporary Chinese
community in Winnipeg.

Chapter III is a transitional chapter to the study of ethnic and
class relations as revealed in the occupations, social organizations and
life histories in the contemporary Chinese community in Winnipeg. This
chapter, then, consists of a discussion of the contemporary setting on
both the national and local levels.

In Chapter IV, the occupations of the Chinese in Winnipeg before
1947 and after 1947 are discussed as 1947 is the date of renewed immigra-
tion. While the occupational distributions in both periods are presented,
the predominant restaurant business is discussed in greater detail. The
chapter also examines how the occupations stand in the symbolic meaning
systems of the Canadian society, and into the ramification of the world
system in area of occupation.

In Chapter V, the social organizations that the local community has

established before and after 1947 are discussed. In particular, attention

27
will be given to the interaction between the old and new middle class
groups in ethnic affairs, the central role of the middle class vis-a-vis
the working class, in the areas of social organizations, the world system
and the underlying class and ethnic relations.

In Chapter VI, individual life historieswill be described and the
random and contingent features in these histories will be discussed in
terms of the structural condition previously presented. This chapter
transcribes on a small face-to-face scale the problems which have been
analyzed in the previous chapters.

Chapter VII consists of a summary of the discussions as presented
and a final elucidation of the structural conditions of the social forma-

tion underlying the local ethnic community.

Fieldwork

I am a member of the Chinese community in Winnipeg. If I claim
that my study actually involves the standard procedure of participation
observation, I am not honest to my discipline. No one in daily life,
however, can simultaneously participate in all the institutions of one's
community. Without a conscientious investigation, no one can claim to
understand the overall picture of one's community. Although I am a member
of the community, my daily activities do not usually involve Chinese in-
dividuals. If participant observation is properly reserved for the ethno-
graphic study of other societies, I claim to follow the spirit of partici-
pant observation in the present study.

Because of fieldwork, I became involved in activities that I would
have normally not participated in my personal life. In the process, I

came to know individuals whom I would have not met otherwise. As much as

28
possible, I took part in public meetings sponsored by community associa-
tions. I tried to be flexible in my probing for information, and tried
to play various roles. I took part in festival meetings, and acted as
secretary and treasurer in two community clubs. The Chinese community in
Winnipeg is divided into contending factions. One cannot move easily from
one faction to another. This limitation is not necessarily an inherent
weakness of an ethnographic study by an observer who is at the same time
a member of the community. Even in a cross-cultural setting, an impartial
observer cannot move from one contending faction to another without being
suspected and rejected by both.

At times, I lingered around those places frequented by community
members. However, I only went to some frequented places where one's
reason for being there was taken for granted, for example, the corner
stores, churches, and restaurants. There were times when my presence
was solely for the purpose of observing.“ At other times, my interaction
with Chinese individuals was simply a part of my personal social life.
Only a few persons knew of my research design. However, I did not invade
anybody's privacy. The empirical facts as presented in this study were
commonly known among the Winnipeg Chinese. I try only to reveal the over-
all situation systematically with respect to some social theories.

Much information was obtained from Chinese language publications
in Canada, local dailies, old newspapers, and the Henderson's Winnipeg
Directory. Publications of Statistics Canada were instrumental to estab-
lish population structure and pattern of migrations. Statistics Canada
kindly provided a special tabulation from the 1971 census data base with
respect to the number of individuals in the labor force showing Chinese

ethnic origin by occupation and sex from Winnipeg.

Chapter II

IMMIGRATION: ITS HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND ITS BEGINNING

Introduction

 

The problem in this study concerns both class and ethnic relations
among the Chinese majority of Winnipeg vis-a-vis the white majority in
Canada. In order that social events and institutions are understood in
the total context of history, the first task is not to describe the local
ethnic community, but rather to identify the important features of the
social formation as revealed in the historical context and the wider
social milieu. In this chapter is included an overview of the historical
context of Chinese immigration, ascertaining the existence of the modern
world system, the Canadian policy towards Chinese immigration, the impor-
tant social events, and the interaction of various groups concerning the
employment for indentured Chinese laborers. The total picture thus gained
becomes an important basis for the understanding of the society as a sys-
tem of classes and ethnic groups on the one hand, and the origin and de-
velopment of the social formation underlying the local ethnic community

of Winnipeg on the other hand.

The Historical Context

 

The scale of emigration in the nineteenth century was unprecedented
in China's history, while the addition of Chinese labor was typical of
many countries. For example, in the eighteen forties and early fifties
Chinese indentured labor was brought to Cuban plantations, to Peruvian

29

30
guano beds and coastal plantations (Krutz 1971: 321-333), and to railway
construction in Panama (Cohen 1971: 309-320). Also, both free and in-
dentured laborers migrated to California to work in gold mines. Poverty
and overpopulation alone do not explain the movement, as they have long
existed in southern China. The movement has to be explained in terms of
the historical context of the nineteenth century. This is the existence
of a single world system, resulting from the economic and political dom-
inance of the west since the fifteenth century. (See Wallerstein 1974a
and 1974b, and Frank 1972). Many countries were involved in a quest for
labor to work the lands they had laid open. Already in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, the plantations in the Americas were responsible
for the largest forced migration in world history. Africans were rounded
up and sold as slaves to work in the plantations in Colonial America and
die Caribbean. Permanent and total submission to the profit aspirations
of owners circumscribed the slaves' position. In the nineteenth century,
indentured labor was recruited from the underdeveloped countries. Unlike
slaves, indentured laborers were not subject to permanent bondage, but
contracted to work for only a number of years overseas. It was in this
historical context that large scale migration out of China occurred.

The first large scale migration to Canada was in connection with
the construction of the western section of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Between 1881 and 1884 during the construction, over 15,700 Chinese labor-
ers arrived in British Columbia (Royal Commission of Canada 1969: 21). At
that time Canada was open to the immigration of all nationalities. How-
ever, on the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, parliamentary
actions culminated in the passage of legislation in 1885 stipulating that

as a condition of entering Canada, Chinese laborers would be required to

31
pay a head-tax of fifty dollars. In 1901 this head-tax was increased to
one hundred dollars; and in 1904, to five hundred. This was paid by all
Chinese immigrants "except consular officers, merchants and clergymen and
their families, tourists, men of science, students and teachers" (Canada
Year Book 1930: 175).

At the turn of the twentieth century, countries with populations
of EurOpean ancestry, including the United States, Canada, New Zealand,
Australia, and Mexico, began to restrict Chinese entry. In Canada, the
Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 restricted the entry of persons of
Chinese origin. (See Table 1, p. 32). This was irrespective of citizen-
ship, "other than governmental representatives, Chinese children born in

Canada, merchants and students” (Canada Year Book 1930: 174ff).

 

Between 1925 and 1946 Chinese immigration into Canada almost
completely stopped. As shown in Table 2 (p. 33), from 1931 on the popu-
lation began to decline. Between 1931 and 1951 there was a drop of 13,991
or almost 30% of the 1931 figure. This was the result not only of absence
of immigration but also the paucity of women. In 1941, the sex ratio of
the Chinese population was 7.8 males to one female (see p.53 below).
Moreover, many returned to China over the years.

While most of the immigrants in the 1930's were in their forties
and early fifties, by 1947 they had become communities of old men. (See
Table 5, p.62 below for the age distribution among the Winnipeg Chinese).
In the 1940's, when the Chinese population was rapidly dwindling, it was
often thought that the number of Chinatowns in Canada would be reduced
radically. However, this did not happen. The year 1947 was a turning
point in Chinese immigration. Regulations for Chinese immigration were

changed; new immigrants comprising wives, husbands and children of Chinese

TABLE 1

ARRIVALS OF CHINESE IMMIGRANTS (1901-1966)

Year Arrivals
1901 2,544
1910 2,302
1915 1,258
1920 544
1924 674
1925-46 16
1947 21
1948 76
1950 1,476
1958 2,630
1959 2,586
1960 1,402
1961 894
1962 876
1963 1,571
1964 3,210
1966 5,178

(Canada Year Book 1937: 205; 1942: 156; 1947: 133; 1950: 189; 1952-53: 169;

 

1961: 188; 1965: 211; 1967: 221; 1968: 235).

33

TABLE 2

POPULATION OF ETHNIC CHINESE IN CANADA (1881-1971)

.1335 Population
1881 4,383
1901 17,312
1911 27,831
1921 39,587
1931 46,519
1941 34,627
1951 32,528
1961 58,197
1971 118,815

(Canada Year Book 1947: 118; 1952-53: 149; 1975: 169; 1961 Census of

 

Canada 1964: Bulletin 1.3-9, Table 114-2).

34
residents of Canada were allowed to enter. In 1947 two thousand persons
departed for China (Morton 1974: 252). However, unlike the situation in
the earlier years, many returned to Canada with their wives and children
whom they had not seen for years.

Under the immigration regulations of 1947, there were numerous
cases of illegal entry by people from Hong Kong, which involved forgery,
impersonation and international smuggling rings. In 1960 Chinese com-
munities in the major cities across Canada were raided by the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police. In response to the police action, Chinese
voluntary associations presented their case through the mass media, asser-
ting that the publicity concerning illegal entry was exaggerated. In the
same year the Federal Government offered amnesty to the illegal entrants.
Pamphlets in Chinese were distributed to Chinese residents declaring that
the illegal entrants, as long as they were not assisting the racketeers,
would not be prosecuted and deported.

As a result of these events, the Immigration Department took
stricter measures in admitting immigrants from Hong Kong to make sure that
they were authentic. Consequently, in 1960 the number of entrants of
Chinese origin drOpped to about one-half of that in 1959; in 1961 and 1962,
one third; and in 1963, one half. Only in 1964, did the number of entrants
return to the general trend of increased immigration. (See Table 1, p. 32).

Since 1962, a Chinese immigrant may enter the country as an inde-
pendent immigrant on the basis of the "point system" of the 1962 Immigra-
tion Act. On August 15, 1973 legislation enacted to allow those who did
not have landed immigrant status (i.e., permanent resident status) to
regularize their position. The purpose of this was to reduce the backlog

of cases before the immigration Appeal Board and to modify the appeals

35
system for the future. By the deadline on October 15, 1973 a total of

49,900 persons had registered under the program (Canada Year Book 1976-77).

 

Many Hong Kong students holding student visas also took this opportunity
to become landed immigrants.
From 1974 onwards, in order to deal with the current unemployment

and inflation, the Immigration Department requires applicants to have a
firm job offer from a Canadian employer. However, the Immigration Depart-
ment maintains that sponsored depedents are not affected by this require-
ment. Although the objectives of Canadian Immigration are supposedly non-
discriminatory, the actual conditions of immigration into Canada reflect
this country's traditional geographical preferences, much as they are
expressed in the following passage from Prime Minister Mackenzie King's
diary dated February 13, 1947:

There should be no exclusion of any particular race.

That I think had really been wiped out against the

Chinese but a country should surely have the right

to determine what strains of blood it wishes to have

in its population and how its people coming from

outside have to be selected (as quoted by Pickersgill

and Foster 1972: 33).
Finally, besides knowing the law, it is necessary to understand the way
in which it is applied and consequently affects various people and the
actual conditions of immigration. As shown in the later chapters, by a
controlled measure of exclusion and selection, the end result of Canada's
immigration policy is to maintain the status guo of the sitting incum-

bents--the dominant ethnic groups who have arrived first and who determine

the conditions under which other groups may enter.

The Early Immigrants: the Indentured Laborers
At the time of the Confederation of Canada in 1867, the dominant

commercial class continued to assert a vision of Canada placing the St.

36
Lawrence region at the centre of an east-west nexus of trade. The policy
of continental exPansion maintained that rail transportation was a pre-
requisite to extracting Canadian staples and moving them to the markets
abroad. Railways and the associated activities, it was argued, would
"spin off" a series of financial and industrial benefits which would pro-
ject Canada into a leading industrial nation by the twentieth century
(Clement 1975: 62-3).

The construction of a transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway
had to be realized. The contractor for the construction in the mountain-
ous section, Andrew Ondertonk, found difficulty in securing enough white
labor. In 1880, there were about 35,000 white citizens in British
Columbia. The contractor needed at least 10,000 workers to build the
mountainous and westernmost section of the railway, and perhaps many times
more because of the turnover. He had to look elsewhere for much of the
needed labor force. The labor problem was resolved by importing and em-
ploying Chinese labor. He had the support of Sir John A. MacDonald, the
first prime minister of Canada, to take the measure in order to meet the

temporary exigencies. According to The Colonist, May 1882, MacDonald told

 

the Parliament that,

when there was a railway stretching across the
continent, and there was a means of sending in
white settlers, he would be ready to join . . .
in preventing the permanent settlement in the
country of Mongolians or Chinese immigrants. But
at the present it was a question of Chinese labor
or no railway (as quoted by Morton 1973: 92).

In British Columbia, some people also pleaded for the Chinese
immigration; however, they did so only on the basis that it was economi-
cally sound for the province. "It was a hard, cold matter of dollars and

cents," Morton (ibid.), the historian, notes. At this time, anti-Chinese

37
sentiments and activities, however, had spread from California, and an
Anti-Chinese Association had been formed in Victoria in 1873. In 1879,
the Association sent a petition to the Dominion Government requesting the
prohibition of "Mongolian labor" on the railway. There was no difficulty

obtaining newSpaper publicity. The British Colonist in early January,

 

1880 voiced the fear that Ondretonk would exclude "white free labor .
and by the employment of Chinese slave labor conspire to send beyond the
seas the eight or ten millions of Canadian money required to be spent on
the work of construction" (as quoted by Berton 1971: 194).

After the contractor arrived from eastern Canada, on April 11, 1880
he met a deputation from the Anti-Chinese Association requesting informa-
tion on the class of labor to be used on the railway (Morton 1974: 77).
Contractor Ondertonk told the delegation that he would give white labor
preference in all cases. When the white labor of the province was ex-
hausted, he would fall back on the French Canadians of eastern Canada;
should that not be sufficient, he would with reluctance engage Indians and
Chinese (Berton 1971: 194). Included in the deputation was a city council-
lor of Victoria who had publicly stated that he would rather vote against
the transcontinental railway than see Chinese employed upon it (Morton
1974: 74).

Moreover, the opinions elsewhere in Canada, though less intense,
were generally against the Chinese. Almost all newspapers were editori-
ally opposed to Chinese immigration. In Winnipeg, where Chinese were
practically unknown, the Times published a fairly typical series of
opinions about "the beardless and immoral children of China"; their brains
were "vacant of all thoughts which lift up and ennoble humanity" (Berton

1971: 195). The Trades and Labor Council of Toronto wanted them banned

38
outright from Canada (ibid.). The following quotation from the Report of
the pral Commission on Chinese Immigration (1885:13) is fairly repre-
sentative of the various harsh and unfavorable testimonies given to the
Commission, and of the major section of the public opinion of the time:

The Chinese know nothing of our institutions,

except the prisons. They do not know or care

about citizenship, only to evade the merest duties

or burdens of it . . . As a rule they are ignorant,
slavish, submissive and often brutish in their

manners, living in hovels, poorly fed, worse clad,
over-worked, profane, and immoral in the extreme [sic].

In spite of the ever-increasing anti-Chinese agitation, railway
construction started in 1881 and was completed in 1884. When the last
rails had been laid, and there were encouraging signs to most Victorians
that the Chinese were leaving, the Anti-Chinese Union still held weekly
meetings, the Knights of Labor were promoting Anti-Chinese legislation,
and the Colonist (Oct. 9, 1885) was expressing its usual nominal tone:

Below decks, there were squeezing and pushing .

They jabbered away at a rate that gave the notion

of what Babel must have been (as quoted by Morton

1974: 134-5).
Ethnic prejudices from both the politicians and the white ethnic groups
were, of course, not confined to the Chinese community, but were also
directed at the other Asians on the west coast. As shown in the ethno-
history by Adachi (1976), the Japanese had similar experiences.

Ethnic prejudice has an ideological basis. Many Euro-Canadians
were led by their ethnocentrism to regard the non-Europeans and non-
Christians as a negation of Euro-Canadian values, and as a failure to
measure up to proper standards of Euro-Canadians. This ethnocentrism,

though extended to a broad section of the public, was most consciously

and vocally expressed among the labor unionists, local politicians, and

newspapers in British Columbia. They had regarded the indentured labor

39

as a source of competition in the labor market, while the dominant com-
mercial class based in eastern Canada equated the employment of the in-
dentured labor with the success of the railway. Ethnic prejudice has an
ideological basis. However, the variation in the expressions of the
ideology among groups was a relevation of the underlying class relations.

What parts, then, did the Chinese play in the railway construction?
Why were they hired as indentured labor? How was the community organized
during the railway construction? Chinese labor was imported, because
there was little white labor available, owing to the railway boom in the
Far West of the Continent. To import labor on a large scale from overseas
would mean relying on some middlemen or the "coolie agents" who had both
the knowledge, and means to recruit the necessary laborers. From the
railway contractor's point of view, it was far more efficient to deal with
the coolie agents rather than with a mass of laborers. While working on
the railway, the Chinese laborers were directly under the control of a
number of Chinese headmen. If a laborer was discharged because of mis-
conduct, his headman was always in a position to find a substitute. These
reasons alone are sufficient to bring about the hiring of indentured
laborers rather than laborers employed on an individual basis. Moreover,
contracts concluded with the agents stipulated that the laborers were to
buy their provisions from the railway store where the prices were inflated;
otherwise, the laborers would only be paid eighty cents per day, instead of
the regular wage of one dollar per day for the Chinese. This compared with
one dollar fifty to one dollar seventy-five per day for the whites (Berton
1971: 197).

To the contractor, the Canadian Pacific Railway and the government,

the Chinese were the indispensable laborers. Moreover, they formed good

40
working relationships with the foremen and other railway officials, and
were often regarded as reliable, cooperative, and efficient. However, to
the white labor, the fact that the Chinese came in as organized groups and
accepting lower wages seriously cut their bargaining power with the employ-
ers.

The organizations that played the role of coolie brokers in North
America were known as the Six Companies, transliterated as the Sam Yup,
Yung Wo, Kong Chow, Wing Lung, Hop W0, and Yan We of San Francisco. The
directors of these Companies associated themselves with wealthy merchants
in China, and dealt with American and Canadian interests, such as the
Ondertonk Company, desirous of securing indentured labor. It was through
these coolie brokers in San Francisco and Hong Kong that the contractor
brought in ten shiploads totalling about six thousand indentured laborers
from Hong Kong. Between 1881 and 1884 during the construction, over
15,700 Chinese laborers arrived in the province (Royal Commission of
Canada 1969: 21).

When they arrived, they were received by the agents of the Six
Companies. In the words of Thomas H. King, a merchant of San Francisco,
ten years a resident of China, and “active man in [the U.S.] Consul's
office at Hong Kong,"

They are packed like hogs to such companies, having
his [sic] contract vised, and commences his fees to
insure his care of sick, and return, dead or alive,
but not his pay from the contractor, but that he

shall fill his part, if able to compel him, the

coolies to do it, or prevent his return until he

does [sic] (Royal Commission 1885: 188).

Again, historian Berton (1971: 199) reconstructed the scene. In

Canada, in the winter of 1881-82 the first two sailing ships, each bringing

in one thousand coolies from Hong Kong. Arriving in New Westminster, B.C.

41
they were "penned in the wharf overnight like so many cattle," and then
packed aboard a little sternwheeler and then transferred to flat cars at
Emery. From here they were sent directly to the railway camps to begin
work. Morton (1974: 135) noted that 1,500 died over the five year period
of railway construction: the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Bi-
culturalism (196: 21) noted, "It has been said that a Chinese is buried
beneath every mile of track of the railway through the mountains of
British Columbia."

Very essential to such a system of recruitment and organization of
labor force was internal discipline. The indentured laborers were honor-
bound to fulfill their quota of "work years" in North America. Again,
King, the merchant, testified,

When breaking his contract the companies' spies
bound him to prevent his return to China, by
arranging with the steamship company, or through
Chinese in the steamship company's employ, to
prevent his getting a ticket, and if obtained by
others for him he will be forcibly stopped on the
day of sailing by the large force of the Sox Companies
highbinders . . . . Highbinders are men employed by
these companies here to hound and spy upon these
Chinese, and pursue them if they do not comply with
their contract, as they see fit to judge it. All
coolies returning to China complain of the extor-
tions, deception, and arbitrary conduct of the
companies here (Royal Commission 1885: 188).

Other sources also testify that for many years, the Companies kept
a contingent of policemen capable of using coercive force and violence,
and kept close connections with the shipping companies on the West Coast.
Any attempt by indentured laborers to get on board any ship without the
approval of the Six Companies would be thwarted. Moreover, the Companies
retained competent lawyers who were frequently in court seeking the appre-

hension of absconding laborers.

Had the use of coercive force and violence been the only means of

42
keeping internal discipline, the Companies probably would not have lasted
long on the west coast. The laborers had to rely on the Companies in
order to make a living. The contractor, the Ondertonk Company, dealt with
the Six Companies, and not the laborers. This constraint in the relations
of production was sufficient to keep the laborers in law and order.

The Companies legitimized their authority in another way. They
maintained private hospitals, and if someone fell sick at the job site,

a team would be sent to look after him. However, in the case of the in-
dentured laborers of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Companies failed

to provide adequate medical attention. The Companies also provided social
club, recreation, women occasionally, familiar food, and, above all, a
link with the homeland.

Moreover, the Six Companies were recognized as the legitimate
Spokesmen of the whole Chinese community. In a letter to President Grant
of the United States, the presidents of the Six Companies wrote, "In the
absence of any consular representative, we the undersigned, in the name
and on behalf of the Chinese people now in America, would most respect-
fully present for your consideration the following statements regarding
the subject of Chinese immigration to this country" (as quoted by Baldwin
1890: 40). At a later date the attorney of the Companies, Colonel
Frederick A. Bee, proclaimed himself the Consul of China in San Francisco,
and identified himself as such during the hearing of the Royal Commission
on Chinese Immigration to Canada in 1885.

To the public, the Six Companies stressed both the monolithic nature
of the Chinese group as represented by the Companies themselves, and the
common heritage of being Chinese. The Companies attempted to link individ-

ual members from top to bottom across class line, and to divide them

43
according to places of origin. Besides receiving payments from the rail-
way contractors, the Companies, according to the testimony given by
Colonel Bee, collected a fee of two dollars and fifty cents to ten dollars
from the individual workers. The actual amount one had to pay depended on
how many of one's countrymen were represented in the company; the more
countrymen one had in the company, the less one had to pay (Royal Com-
mission of Canada 1885: 19). The Chinese were mostly from the counties
of Taishan, Chungshan, Hsinhui, Enping, and Foshan, situated in the Pearl
River delta. Thus, if one came from Hsinhui, and belonged to Yan Wo where
there were more Hsinhui persons, one's payment to the company would be less
than that of a Foshan person. Although the dialects of the five counties
were distinctive, they were similar enough to each other so that there was
no problem of communication.

Lastly, these Companies were commercial firms which monopolized a
good proportion of the trade between China and San Francisco. They also
handled the remittances made by the Chinese sojourners to their kin at
home. The Companies reached the height of their power during the 1870's
and early 1880's. With the completion of the railway, the Companies could
no longer play the role of coolie brokers. Consequently their control over

the Chinese population diminished.

Summary and Discussions

 

Class and ethnicity are two pertinent issues in the study of the
social formation at the time of Confederation. The Chinese community was
internally divided in response to the demand of the existing reward struc-
ture. Many of the Chinese came as a group to take up a particular occu-

pation, so that among them, class relations became manifested parallel to

44
their marginal ethnic identities. Of those owning and controlling the
Six Companies, their relatively prestigious class identities were severely
under the constraint of their marginal ethnic identities. Their central
position within the ethnic community, however, owed as much to the overall
ethnic relations as their role as coolie brokers. Among the Euro-Canadians,
people were also divided in response to the reward system.

In the dialectical interaction between class and ethnicity, four
major collectivities can be distinguished: (l) the state elites and the
dominant commercial class, based in the Toronto-Montreal region and prima-
rily of Anglo-Saxon ancestry; (2) the mainstream Euro-Canadians excluding
group 1; (3) the Six Companies comprising the elitist Chinese merchant
class; and (4) the Chinese laborers.

In this study the existence of a modern world system has been
stressed. This is seen as a single system with many polities and cultures.
Parallels can be drawn between the modern world system and the local set-
ting involving a single market system and a multiplicity of ethnic groups.
On the basis of the knowledge gained in the enquiry of the modern world
system, a model may be built to illuminate the studies of both class and
ethnic relations between dominant and subordinate ethnic groups on local
setting. Galtung (1971) explains both the dominance relations within and
between nations and the ability of some nations to affect the outcome of
major decisional outputs of other nations. He sees the world as consisting
of Center and Periphery nations, and each nation as consisting its center
and periphery. Within each nation, there is disharmony of interest between
the center and the periphery, each pursuing incompatible goals and interests
as measured by such indicators as income, standard of living, and notions

of quality of life.

45

Between the Center and Periphery nations, dominance relations are
based on political, economic, and social/cultural bridgeheads. These the
Center nation has established in the center of the Periphery nation,
serving as a transmission belt for value forwarded to the Center nation.
Because of this brokerage function, the center in the Periphery nation
grows more than its periphery. The value forwarded enters the Center nation
in the center with some of the value drizzling down to the periphery of the
Centre. While Galtung (1971) acknowledges the disharmony of interest be-
tween the Center nation as a whole and the Periphery nation as a whole, he
stresses that this must not blur the other relations among the collectivi-
ties. There is harmony of interest between the center in the Center nation
and the center in the Periphery nation; there is more disharmony of inter-
est within the Periphery nation than within the Center nation; and there
is disharmony of interest between the periphery in the Center nation and
the periphery in the Periphery nation. Moreover, within the Center nation,
while the two parties may be opposed to each other, in the total game, the
periphery seees itself more as the partner of the center in the Center than
as the partner of the periphery in the Periphery (Galtung 1971: 84).

The above outline of Galtung's "structural theory" will be used as
a model for the study of both ethnic and class relations on local level.
Parallels will be drawn between the interaction of nation states and that
of ethnic groups. In drawing such parallels, the model would take on
analogic and metaphoric characters. If this is a shortcoming of the ana-
lytical device, one should remember that the linguistic and organic models,
popular among social anthropologists, are highly metaphoric also. Moreover,
a model tends to formalize and simplify an empirical situation. Still, the

model remains a heuristic device to locate gap in the student's knowledge,

46
and to come to grips with certain essential relationships among the
elements of the system that he might otherwise have missed.

In the context of the empirical situation described in this chapter,
the four major collectivities (p. 38 above) are regarded as follows:
group 1 is termed as the center of the Center (Cc); group 2, the periph-
ery of the Center (Cp); group 3, the center of the Periphery (Pc); and
group 4, the periphery of the Periphery (Pp). These terms are not only
analogous to those set up by other students of the modern world system,
such as Frank's (1972) metropolis/satellite and Wallerstein's (1974a,
1974b) core/periphery.

In terms of the generalizations set up, the ethnographic facts can
be reduced to these bare essentials. The center of the Center cannot deal
with the periphery of the Peripheral group directly; they need a brokerage
in the Peripheral group. The Chinese merchants become the center of the
Periphery by virtue of its connection with the center of the Center. The
Six Companies merchants were given the supervisory role in the organiza-
tion of labor, and this accentuated the rigid class relations between the
center and periphery in the Periphery. In any case, to play the role of
middleman,the Peripheral center is tied to the Center center with the best
possible tie: the tie of harmony of interest, as measured in terms of in-
come, living standard in the usual materialistic sense, as well as the sub-
jective notions of quality of life (Galtung 1971: 83).

There was disharmony of interest within the Center. In spite of the
strong opposition from the white labor, the Center center ventured to im-
port Chinese labor, equating it with the success of the railway construc-
tion which would "spin off" a series of financial and industrial benefits.

However, the Center center, consequently, created a labor market differ-

entiated in terms of price, and turned toward the cheaper labor pool as a

47

more desirable work force, a choice consistent with the simple pursuit of
higher profits. Higher priced labor resisted being displaced, and the
racist organizations such as the Anti-Chinese Association and labor unions
that the labor erected were antagonistic to the interest of the center of
the Center. [Seee Bonacich (1976) for a similar situation between the
blacks and whites in the United States.] Conflicts between ethnic groups
could conceal the contradiction within the structure of the relations of
production. It was obvious that there was disharmony of interest between
the two peripheries. However, in the final analysis, it was at their ex-
pense that both centers benefitted themselves by the coupling.

Lastly, another parallel situation may be drawn between the local
and international conditions. The statuses of ethnic groups are in some
ways parallel to the international statuses of their countries of origin.
Clement (1975), in his analysis of Canadian corporate elites, shows that
Canada has been from the time of Confederation a society controlled by
elites essentially of Anglo-Saxon origin. To the extent that in a stable
society, the function of the superstructure is to reproduce the mode of
production and existing class relations, Clement (1975: 259-63) shows the
extensive interconnection between both the corporate and state elites.
Accordingly, immigration process may be used to make invidious judgment
about the appropriateness of various groups coming to Canada, with the net
result of reproducing the existing class relations and the social norm of
the chartered ethnic group. The other ethnic groups are then identified
with positions peripheral to the dominance of chartered ethnic group which
traces its ancestry to a core state in western Europe.

In sum, ethnic differentiation, as it exists in Canada today, begins

with the internationalization of labor as a consequence of the functioning

48
of the modern world system. The analysis of the various groups involved
in the employment of Chinese indentured labor force has resulted in the
formulation of the interplay of ethnic and class relations. The resulting
model would be applied to the empirical conditions of the Chinese community

in Winnipeg.

Chapter III

THE CONTEMPORARY SETTING

Introduction

 

This chapter is to continue exploring the nature of the social
formation underlying the local ethnic community as revealed in the wider
social milieu. Because complete description of both the Canadian society
and its history is beyond the scope of this study, only trends and forces
which are pertinent to the understanding of the context of the local com-
munity are abstracted. Consequently, this chapter is a transitional
chapter to the studies of occupations, social organizations, and life
histories of individuals of the contemporary local community rather than
a complete presentation of the Canadian society and its history as such.
The contemporary setting is presented on two levels. While on the
national level, the dual economy of urban centers, the center of the
Center, and the demography of the ethnic Chinese will be discussed, on the
local level, the physical setting of the City of Winnipeg, the growth of

the City, and its ethnic groups will be discussed.

The National Setting

 

The scheme of dual economy, as formulated by sociologists such as
Bluestone (1968) and Harrison (1974), are reflective of the general
picture of employment in urban centers in Canada. In their analysis of
the dual economy of the advanced industrial societies, they see a strati-

fication of a core and a periphery. In the core, production is typically

49

50
of large scale and markets are normally national or international in
scope. The core is also labelled as the monopoly sector by sociologist
O'Connor (1973: 15f, Footnote 2). The barrier to the entry of new capital
in the core is exemplified by the high capital requirements, high overhead
costs, advertising, and brand loyalty (ibid.).

The central institution of the core is called the primary labor
market. This is characterized by the high productivity which ultimately
is a function of the capital equipment, by the non-poverty wages, and by
the stability of the labor force which feeds back to the wage-bargaining
process and union formation. The central institution of the periphery
economy is called the secondary labor market. This is characterized by
low productivity, low wages, the instability of labor force, and weak
unionization or the absence of it (Harrison 1974).

Moreover, the core industry is publicly visible, relatively speak-
ing. The large firms are more subject to public scrutiny in terms of their
profits, wages, and working conditions. In contrast, the periphery indus-
try is less subject to public scrutiny. Consequently, poor wages and work-
ing conditions have a much better chance of survival (Bluestone 1971: 105).

The contemporary core of the economy in Canada had been established
by the first decade of this century. The merchants, financiers, railway
magnates, and members of the state elite based in Toronto and Montreal
began to move into manufacturing concerns. These had been small establish-
ments of entrepreneurs. The effect of this movement was that firms became
consolidated; manufacturing, concentrated; and opportunities, limited.
Also, accompanying this shift was the movement of branch plants of the
powerful U. S. corporations into Canada. Social scientists, such as

Clement (1975: 71) and Acheson (1973) regard this transformation at this

51
time as the shift from "entrepreneurial to corporate capitalism."

With regards to the ethnic composition of the elites, Porter (1965)
provides an analysis of the Canadian resident members in the 1950's. They
are largely the kin of earlier elites and big businessmen of the Confeder-
ation, and still hold a predominant place in the power structure. Only
6.7 per cent of the elite members were French Canadians, while other ethnic
groups represented insignificant numbers in the elites and the rest were
Anglos (Porter 1965: 286). This illustrates that ethnic differentiation
had remained as significant for access to the economic elites in the
1950's as it had at the time of Confederation.

Has the power establishment changed since the nineteen fifties?
Sociologist Clement (1975) shows that the elites are actually becoming
more exclusive in social origins and more closely knit by family ties than
in the nineteen fifties. He maintains that advantages deriving from social
origin ease the career avenues to centers of decision making. There has
been no substantial entry into the board rooms of the major corporations
of Canadians who are not Anglos in their ethnic origins. He summarizes
his findings:

They [the elites] preside over the corporate world,
using as their means of power, the central institu-
tion of the Canadian economy--113 dominant corpora-
tions, their subsidiaries, affiliates, investments,
interlocking directorships with smaller corporations,
family ties and shared class origins. Their power is
reinforced by control over the major sources of
capital, especially the key banks and insurance
companies . . . With increasing economic concentra-
tion over the past twenty years, the structure has
become increasingly closed thus making it more
difficult for those outside the inner circles of
power to break through (ibid., p. 125).

Moreover, there is a qualitative difference in the relationship to

capital and the control of it that the corporate elite and the middle

52
class are able to exercise. For example, in the ownership of stocks among
members of the middle class, this ownership tends to be dispersed with
small portfolios valued in the thousands; the capital is mobilized, as an
investment or capital appreciation but not for control. On the contrary,
the controlling interests constituted by the upper class families are able
to dismiss technocrats and monopolize economic decisions. Above all, in
view of the popular image of Canada as an open society, one cannot over-
emphasize the fact of perpetuation of economic power and its increasing
concentration in fewer hands in contemporary Canada.

In the segment of periphery are located the occupations of the
great majority of the ethnic Chinese. After the completion of the
Canadian Pacific Railway, the Chinese population began to diSperse into
various Canadian cities. The great majority of them became self-employed
enterprisers or employed in small Chinese business shops. Because of the
nature of the occupations, the peripheral ethnic group had to proportion
itself according to the size of the core population. Migrations to the
east began in about 1890 and Montreal, the largest city in Canada, was the
main focal point of settlement. By 1920 there was a Chinese population of
just under a thousand in Montreal. Toronto, which became the main focus
for migration in later years, had a Chinese population of about one-half
that of Montreal. Migrations to the prairies did not start until 1901,
when the wheat boom, which was characterized by rapid urbanization, favor-
able economic circumstances, and a huge inflow of European settlers, was
well under way. While the rapid phase of western settlement was over by
1913, Chinese migrations to the prairies continued into the late 1910's.
If the dispersion period of the Chinese population in the United States

occurred between 1880 and 1910 (Lee 1949: 426), the diapersion period in

53

Canada occurred between 1890 and 1920. The time lag of ten years appar-
ently reflected the different timing of urbanization in the two countries.
After 1920, the Chinese population in the major Canadian cities became
stabilized. The migration pattern is consistent with the nature of the
occupational structure to be discussed in the next chapter. The great
majority of the Chinese population had been settled with some occupations
adapted to the local urban settings. The larger the metropolis, the
larger was the clientele available for the Chinese enterprise. (The fore-
going construction of the migration pattern is inferred from figures by
Statistics Canada. See Tables 3 and 4).

The population of ethnic Chinese in Canada in 1931 was 46,519 or
0.4 per cent of the Canadian total; and in 1941, 34,627 or 0.3 per cent

(Table 2, Canada Year Book 1945: 93). On the basis of the 1941 census,

 

the sex ratio of the Chinese population was 7.8 males to one female. By
1951, this had changed to 3.7; in 1961 to 1.63. In other words, before
1947 the ethnic Chinese were mostly men who were either single or who had
left their wives in the homeland. After 1947, the sex-ratio is becoming
more balanced with the renewed immigration and the increasing percentage
of locally born Chinese. With these two factors, the average age of the
ethnic group also decreases. The population was 32,528 or 0.2 per cent of
the Canadian total in 1951; 58,197 or 0.3 per cent in 1961; and 118,815 or

0.6 per cent in 1971 (Canada Year Book 1975: 169, Footnote 3).

 

A major aim of contemporary Canadian immigration is to help reduce
labor shortages in certain expanding sectors of the economy. The result
is the recruitment of many unskilled workers and additional labor force in
the servicing sector. A researcher of the Department of Manpower and

Immigration notes,

54

TABLE 3
DISTRIBUTION OF CHINESE POPULATION IN CANADIAN CITIES

(1921, 1941)

Cities .1221 1241
Vancouver 6,484 7,880
Calgary 688 799
Edmonton 518 384
Winnipeg 814 762
Toronto 2,134 2,559
Montreal 1,735 1,865

 

(Canada Year Book 1922-53: 162; Eighth (1941) Census of

Canada 1946, II: 508-511.)

55

TABLE 4

DISTRIBUTION OF CHINESE POPULATION IN CANADIAN PROVINCES

(1901-41)

Provinces 2221 .2211 ‘2221 1251

B.C. 14,885 19,568 23,533 18,619
Alta. 235 1,787 3,581 3,122
Sask. 41 957 2,667 2,545
Man. 206 885 1,331 1,248
Ont. 732 2,766 5,625 6,143
Que. 1,037 1,578 2,335 2,378

 

( Canada Year Book 1912: 24, 25; 1922-23: 160-161; Eighth

 

(1941) Census of Canada 1946 11: 283-317.)

56

For a long time, Canada Manpower Centres of the

Department of Manpower and Immigration have

experienced problems in supplying the hospitality

industry with suitable manpower. The turnover in

the industry is high because wages and working

conditions are not sufficiently attractive to

keep workers in the industry . . . (Bossen 1971: 2).
In addition to the unskilled workers, there are many Hong Kong immigrants
who are well-educated, thoroughly fluent in English before emigrating, and
many are graduates of Canadian universities. From 1965 to 1973, a large
number of visa students from Hong Kong became landed immigrants; many of
them were landed by making use of the amnesty offered by the 1973 legis-
lation. These university graduates have emerged to constitute, as what is
called in this study, the new middle class. Their occupations tend to be
in the core sector of the economy. The large number of immigrants landed
during the 1960's and early 1970's did not choose Winnipeg as their desti-
nation. They chose to go to Toronto and Vancouver where the number and
variety of job openings and business opportunities were greatest, and where
the range of social amenities was most appealing.

During the last decade, major cities in North America have attrac-
ted considerable capital from Chinese financial groups based in Hong Kong,
Southeast Asia and Taiwan, for the investments in finance, real estate,
newspapers, commerce and restaurants. For example, in 1977 a financial

group based in Taiwan invested millions of dollars in the opening of a

Chinese language newspaper called the World Journal in New York. Restau-

 

rants owned by international financial groups are mushrooming in Toronto,
San Francisco, Vancouver and New York. These investments are small in
comparison with those of the giant corporations. In any case, such out-
side investment is not noticeable in Winnipeg; this is reflected in the

failure of a Chinatown redevelopment program which will be described

57
briefly on pages 113 and 114 below. Although a huge amount of money had
been spent on a feasibility study project, the redevelopment program
itself failed to materialize because investment of any kind was not
forthcoming.

Lastly, the ethnic Chinese are far more conspicuous than the size
of the ethnic category (0.3 per cent of the Canadian population in 1961)
would suggest. In a survey of young peOple's impressions regarding the
visibility of the ethnic categories living in Canada, the listing corre-
sponds moderately well to the size of various ethnic minorities in
Canada. However, the Chinese were cited relatively more often than would
have been predicted by their numbers in the actual population. Of the
twenty-three ethnic minorities in the survey, the Chinese were third
after the Italians and Germans in the ranking of relative visibility
(Johnston 1969: 40-41).

However, one has to add that the ethnic categories according to
these young people's codification of ethnicity does not necessarily coin-
cide with Johnston's. The young people may well include Japanese, Filip-
inoes, and Koreans under the ethnic category of Chinese; likewise both
Dutch and Austrians may be regarded as Germans. Still, this qualification

should not obliterate the significance of Johnston's survey.

The Local Settigg
The city of Winnipeg, the capital of the Province of Manitoba, is
located in latitude 49° 54' N. and longitude 970 08' W., at the conflu-
ence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, 60 km. south of the Lake Winnipeg
and 100 km. north of the boundary between Canada and the United States,

and nearly midway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Winnipeg has a

58

continental type of climate, with great temperature variation through the
year. The average wind chill in January is more intense in Winnipeg than
in other cities in North America. The wind that sweeps down the plains
in winter makes Winnipeg the coldest city in the Continent. Frost-free
days in the Province range from sixty days in the north to 120 days in the
south. The annual precipitation in the Prairies is light ranging from
thirty to fifty centimeters. However, heavy precipitation falls in early
summer before the heat becomes great enough to cause excessive dryness
and evaporation. This early summer rain and spring meltwater, followed
by dry weather, makes agriculture feasible and forms an excellent regime
for wheat cultivation. Also, the soils of the hinterland are productive.
For the most part, the surface soil is a black or greyish black loam, and
varies in depth from a few centimeters to a meter.

Winnipeg began as a trading post in 1870 and was incorporated in
1873 with a population of 1,869 almost all of British ancestry. Its
history as a metropolitan city began in 1886, after the completion of the
Canadian Pacific Railway across the Continent (Bellan 1978: 39). It was
then referred to as a gateway city to the west. In addition to the
Canadian Pacific Railway, twelve more railways had focused on Winnipeg by
1890, giving it access to all the settled areas in the west of the Conti-
nent. Because of its geographic position, the City became the administra-
tive center of the prairie wheat trade. In 1890 the Federal Government
allowed Winnipeg to establish a grain exchange to inspect and grade all
grains shipped west (Kuz 1974: 10).

As a regional metropolitan city, Winnipeg is closely related to the
vicissitudes of the hinterland and its wheat economy. At the turn of the

century, the Western countries entered an era of massive economic

59
expansion. The prosperity of the wheat economy produced a huge increase
in the demand for metropolitan services in Winnipeg. These were to
handle the rapid increase in both the volume of new settlers to the west
and of the staples to be marketed abroad (Bellan 1978: 59). The city grew
and prospered. This expansion was expressed in more new buildings, new
transport facilities, rapid population growth, and a prevailing optimism
on the part of residents.

Winnipeg, however, was only a gateway city; its control over the
commerce in the hinterland could not last forever. The opening of the
Panama Canal influenced marketing patterns on the Prairies. Vancouver
became a new gateway to the west and was able to capture a large part of
Winnipeg wholesale trade in the 1920's (Bellan 1978: Chapter XII).

Today, Winnipeg is still in control of a large portion of Canadian
wheat sales and shipments. It is still a major grain center, a provincial
capital, and the location for a large number of administrative offices of
the Federal Government. However, the city has become less specialized; a
great portion of its economy is now devoted to serving the needs of the
city itself and the nearby area. In the early 1970's, food and beverages,
textiles and clothing, metal fabricating, transportation equipment, and
printing and publishing have been the largest employers of labor (Kuz 1974:
15).

Winnipeg's population is expected to increase at 1.1 per cent
annually; by comparison, Calgary and Edmonton of oil-rich Alberta have
expanded at 3.1 and 2.2 per cent respectively between 1971 and 1976.
Also, the growth in the provincial economy will be slow considerably in
the next decade, according to an inter-governmental task force studying

the Greater Winnipeg Development plan (Winnipeg_Free Press, July 14, 1978,

60
pp. 1 and 4). Growth in the employed labor force in Winnipeg is rated as
the slowest among ten major cities in Canada, and will be depressed during
the next ten years to between 0.5 and 1.7 per cent from 2.2 per cent pre-
viously (1212.). This fact helps to explain why Winnipeg attracts com-
paratively small numbers of Chinese immigrants.

Winnipeg's inner city, like the counterparts in many North American
cities, is degenerating. The same inter-governmental task force reports
that the exodus of Winnipeg's population to the suburbs continues apace,
with population declining in the inner city since 1971 at a rate of 8.1
per cent per annum ($232.). The total population in 1971 was 540,260
comprising the following major ethnic categories, in order of size:
British numbering 232,125, Ukrainians 64,305, Germans 61,995, French
46,205, Polish 25, 915, Jewish 19,385, Scandinavians 17,535, and Nether-
landers 15,020. Among the Asian minorities, the Japanese numbered 1,225,
and the Chinese 2,535. The Filipinoes are among the late comers to the
city, and apparently constitute the largest Asian ethnic group. However,
since the National Census Bureau does not regard the Filipinoes as a
category, its population figure is not listed (Table 6. Population by
ethnic group and sex. For census metropolitan area, urbanized core and

fringe, 1971. Pp. 6-7 and 6-8. In Population: Ethnic Groups 1971, by

 

Census of Canada, Statistics Canada).

The immigration of Filipinoes to Canada has been mostly within the
last two decades. The recent immigrants are mostly females, comprising a
large number of garment factory workers and nurses. Several of these have
entered into mixed marriages with other ethnic communities such as Indians,
Pakistanis and Chinese, in which the males are more numerous. The Filip-

inoes are frequently customers of ethnic Chinese stores located in the

61
vicinity of the garment factories.

The presence of three Chinese in the city of Winnipeg was first
reported in 1877 (Manitoba Free Press, Nov. 19, 1877). By 1921, the
Chinese population had grown to 814; by 1941, 762 (Table 3); by 1971,
2535 (as mentioned above); and by 1976, about 3,400. (See Footnote 4 for
the estimation of the last figure). Before 1947, the population was al-
most entirely male (Table 5, p. 62 below). The age distribution of the
population in 1946 (Table 5) shows that 85 per cent of the population were
above 45 years of age, and 53 per cent were above 55.

By 1947, the Chinese community in Winnipeg had become a community

of old men. This prompted the Winnipeg Free Press on July 30, 1947 to

 

paint a bleak picture which was both literally and metaphorically true of
the community:

It was a blistering night, and in every doorway

were aged and wizened orientals, seeking a breath

of air. Some were perched on chairs and stools,

brought from rooms above Chinese stores and

restaurants. Others huddled together beneath

corner street lights, smoking their pipes and

chatting in their native tongue. They looked

old, very old . . .
The population could not reproduce itself and was dwindling. When the new
immigrants arrived after 1947, they found the Winnipeg Chinatown in effect
a huge old folks home, with the old sojourners resigned to spending their
twilight years in Canada. In addition to the aging population, the new
immigrants also saw signs of senility in the dwellings surrounding. The
houses of such residents are found among the poorest-lighted apartment
blocks inhabited by poor white pensioners, Metis and Indians, and there

were some old, probably substandard, frame houses along a couple of

streets.

62

TABLE 5

AGE DISTRIBUTION AMONG WINNIPEG CHINESE IN 1946

 

 

Age Total EELS £39313
0-4 2 2 0
20-24 3 2 1
25-34 13 10 3
35-44 70 65 5
45-54 170 166 4
55-64 173 172 1
65—69 65 55 0
70 37 37 0
Total 523 509 14

 

(Dominion Bureau of Statistics 1949: p. 121, Table 40,

Census of the Prairie Provinces 1946.)

 

63

Very few of the new arrivals took up residence in the Chinatown.
Most of them are dispersed throughout the inner city, and some are follow-
ing the city's population in its exodus to the suburbs during the last
decade. The contemporary Chinese enterprises are scattered in the city.
Map l (p. 64) indicates diagrammatically the locations of Chinatown and
Chinese-operated restaurants in the city in 1976.

The Chinatown, located in the heart of the inner city, has always
been small, covering only six city blocks. The Chinatown is still func-
tioning as a commercial and social center where foodstuffs and other
commodities from the Far East can be purchased, where Chinese movies are
shown periodically, and where festivals and social events are held. By
1979, in Chinatown, there were five Chinese restaurants, two grocery shops,
one tailor-and-laundry shop, a steam-bath, two travel agencies, one in-
surance agency, six voluntary associations which may or may not be func-
tioning, one church, and an old folks' home. The Chinatown is a heritage
from the old immigrants who have constituted a very peripheral ethnic
group, and who have taken up residence here sometime after the "wheat
boom" and the huge influx of European settlers. With this summary state-
ment, the attention in this study now turns towards the occupations of the

peripheral ethnic group in Winnipeg.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘ . "Chinatown"

Main St.

.

 

Portage Avenue

 

 

 

i __i________fi.
1 3/4 Mi.
Scale: “Hr—~——4

 

O

 

 

Figure 1. The City of Winnipeg, with the approximate locations of
Chinese Restaurants shown.

Chapter IV

OCCUPATIONS

Introduction

After the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Chinese
immigrants, instead of confining themselves to the west coast, began to
disperse into various major cities in Canada. Owing to the service nature
of the occupations, the immigrants had to apportion themselves according
to the size of the Center population. They became entrepreneurs, no
longer employed as organized labor as in the previous era. The major
questions in this chapter include the following:- In what ways do the
occupations reflect the underlying class and ethnic relations? How do the
occupations stand in the symbolic meanings of the Canadian society? In

what ways are occupations affected by the world system?

Before 1947

 

The sources of information concerning the occupations in this era
consist of the Henderson's Winnipeg Directory which has been published
yearly until the present, the 1931 national census, and conversations with
a dozen elders of the community. In the 1931 census (Table 6, p. 66),
there was no mention of laundry business under the category of ethnic
Chinese. However, laundry business was a Chinese enterprise commonly
found in Canadian cities from the 1880's to the 1920's. According to the

Manitoba Free Press on November 19, 1877, the first three Chinese arrived

 

65

66

142L322

THE IMPORTANT OCCUPATIONAL GROUPINGS OF GAINFULLY
OCCUPIED CHINESE IN CANADA IN 1931

 

 

 

 

 

Occupations No. of Persons Percentage
Service 21,095 52.4
(Personal Service) (14,564) (36.2)
Manufacturing 1,054 2.6
(Food Products) (744) (1.8)
Trade 2,733 6.8
Lumberman 649 1.6
Agriculture 4,718 11.7
Total Occupations 40,263 100.0

 

(Seventh (1931) Census of

Canada 1936, VII:

430-43.)

67
by stagecoach in Winnipeg to open a laundry business. This became almost

solely a Chinese enterprise in the city. The Henderson's Winnipeg Direc-

 

Eggy (1917) shows a total of 163 laundry shops in the city in 1917. All,
except sixteen, have names reflecting ethnic Chinese ownership. While a
great majority of the Chinese population in Winnipeg was employed in

laundry business until the 1920's, in the late 1920's laundry shops were
disappearing rapidly. By 1939, only about nineteen laundry shops in the

city were of Chinese ownership (Henderson's Winnipeg Directory 1939).

 

Laundry machines had displaced the Chinese laundry business.

According to an elder, a laundry shop usually had a red and white
sign-board, and house plants decorating a front window. On opening, a
front door jingled a chain of small bells and metal pieces. Inside a
laundryman stood behind a counter; beyond this were ironing tables and
shelves. Farther in was a washing and drying area; at the deep interior
end was the laundrymen's living quarter, consisting of a kitchenette, a
bedroom and a toilet.

The number of laundrymen in a shop varied from one to four, working
and living together and sharing the profit equally. They worked hard,
from early in the morning until midnight. While everyone was expected to
do some washing and ironing, one was assigned to pick up and deliver
laundries; one to take care of the kitchen and grocery; and one, relative-
ly fluent in English, to keep the counter. Usually, they washed on
Monday, Tuesday and Friday, and ironed on Wednesday and Thursday. On
Sunday, they went visiting, and enjoyed themselves in restaurants and
gambling dens in Chinatown. This widespread laundry business has con-
tributed significantly towards the ethnic identity, and, until present

days, has often been referred to as the traditional occupations of the

68
Chinese. This reference illustrates the ideological component of ethnic
identity. The laundry business, in reality, is not more traditional than
gold mining, railway work, or restaurant business, for each has its own
historical context.

By 1931, the occupations of ethnic Chinese in Canada were predomi-
nantly in the category of personal service which included mainly cooks,
domestic servants either in private households or hotels and restaurants,
cafe and lunch-counter keepers (Table 6, p. 66). While the numbers of
laundry shops decreased rapidly over the period of 1917-1930, Chinese
restaurants increased steadily over the same period. In 1917, there were
only three restaurants and cafes in Winnipeg operated by Chinese. At that
time, as an elder remembered, the Whites called £22!.9££E worms. However,
the restaurants had increased to eleven by 1930, and eighteen by 1939

(Henderson's Winnipeg Directory 1930 and 1939). In addition to Chinese

 

owned restaurants, individuals were employed in stations of the Canadian
National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway, hotels and lunch counters
in the city in 1939. Both the laundry and restaurant enterprises catered
largely to the Center population, which had founded the booming city. A
peripheral population, which came later, provided a part of the essential
urban service.
A significant minority of the Winnipeg Chinese population con-

sisted of operators of grocery shops. There were eight Chinese grocery
stores in 1917 catering to the needs of the Chinese; in 1930 there were

still eight; and in 1939 there were three (Henderson's Winnipeg Directory

 

1917, l930,and 1939). The decline reflected the dwindling Chinese popula-
tion in the city. According to an elder, in the 1930's and before, there

were some Chinese truckers selling produce from door to door on buggies.

69
Among the Chinese occupations in Canada, trade was third in importance,
about one-half of the individuals in this category being listed as owners
and managers of wholesale and retail stores (Table 6, p. 66 above).

An important omission in the 1931 census was the fact that many
individuals were employed in gambling dens in Canadian cities. According
to a few elders, there were five gambling dens in Winnipeg from the nine-
teen twenties to the forties, and during the war years, the gambling dens
were at their peaks when remittance to China stopped. During these years,
fifty persons were employed in each of the five dens. The earning in each
den amounted to about $2,000 per month, with about $600 going to the owner
and the rest to the workers; this was divided in a ratio of 3 to 7, two
alleged magic numbers on which the elders could not elaborate. However,
while the average income of each employee was about $28 per month, some
actually earned more. An elder said that during the Second World War, for
three years he made his entire living by working in a gambling den. These
dens were registered as private clubs, and the membership was never
checked by the police, unless whites were involved in club activities. On
Sunday and public holidays, when shops were closed, people usually gather-
ed in these gambling dens for an exciting and enjoyable afternoon.

Some individuals occupied themselves in various other ways in the
periphery of the Canadian economy. For example, according to an elder,
there were three Chinese-operated coal-heated greenhouses over 1917-39,
although only one was listed in the annual publications of the Hender-

son's Winnipeg Directory during the same period. Also according to the

 

1931 national census, agriculture was second in importance in occupation-
al groupings; this included many farm laborers and truck gardeners in

British Columbia (Table 6).

70

A great majority of the Chinese population, then, consisted of
free, self-employed entrepreneurs and unskilled workers in the periphery
sector. In contrast to the organized labor in the previous era, the
small business did not involve the workers' unions, and consequently the
issue of labor diSplacement did not occur. Moreover, the periphery was
not only compatible with the core development but also contributed to—
wards the deveIOpment of a harmonious ethnic relationship in the absence
of ngpp competition between the periphery of the Center and the Periph-
ery population.

Ethnic Chinese now appeared as people of curio shops, laundry shops
and exotic dishes, hardworking, persevering, kind towards children,
respectful towards elders, and law-abiding. Appearing at this time, not

accidentally, was Pearl Buck's book, The Good Earth, which described

 

Chinese favorably. However, also published in the 1930's and popular in
the same decade was the Irish-American writer Sax Rohmer's book about Dr.
Fu Manchu, an embodiment of crafty evil Chinese; revengeful, sinister,
wicked, the commander of a host of thugs and slaves, and a master of ori-
ental drugs. Perhaps a slight emphasis should be given to the word pygpp
above, for the characterizations concern essentially the visible social
relations which are not to be equated with the underlying structural con-

ditions.

After 1947

An Overview of the Occupational Distribution

 

While still oriented largely towards personal service, the occu-
pational distribution begins to ramify into other categories. This rami-

fication has already been reflected in the 1961 census (1961: 111, 1-15,

71
Table 21). In "service and recreational" occupations, Asians were still
the most over-represented (24.5 per cent as compared to 8.5 per cent of
the total labor force in Canada). However, in "professional and technical
occupations" also, Asians were slightly over-represented (9.6 per cent as
compared to 7.5 per cent of the total labor force in Canada). Specific
information about the Chinese population is not available; however, it is
listed as constituting 47.7 per cent of the Asians in Canada.

In the 1971 census, specific data about the Chinese in Winnipeg
are available, and provided with special tabulation from the 1971 census
base by Statistics Canada, on the request of this study. All figures in
this tabulation have been subjected to a confidentiality procedure to
prevent the possibility of associating small figures with any identifi-
able individual. All last or unit digits in the table are randomly
rounded to "0" or "5." The writer has used his knowledge of the Winnipeg
community to make necessary adjustments of these figures which have been
randomly rounded. The figures from Statistics Canada are summarized in
Table 7, p. 72.

Table 7 shows that the service category, as in the previous era,
remains prevalent among the occupations of Winnipeg Chinese. Within this
category, about one hundred and fifty are listed as chefs, cooks and
occupations related to food preparation; about forty-five are listed as
waiters, hosts and stewards. The large number of cooks in relation to
waiters and hosts is striking. This, however, is an illusion of the
counting system. In reality, in the late nineteen sixties and 1971, a
large number of students from Hong Kong were legally permitted to seek
jobs in Canada. They worked as waiters full-time in the summer and part-

time in the winter. In the 1971 census, they were registered as students

72

TABLE 7

NUMBER OF INDIVIDUALS AGE 15 AND OVER IN THE EXPERIENCED
LABOR FORCE SHOWING CHINESE ETHNIC ORIGIN BY DETAILED

OCCUPATIONS AND SEX FOR WINNIPEG, 1971

 

 

Occppations Male Female Total
1 Service occupations 205 35 240
2 Clerical and related occupations 25 70 100
3 Product fabrication, assembly and
repair occupations 25 60 80
4 Occupations in medicine and health 30 3O 65
5 Occupations in natural science,
engineering and mathematics 40 10 50
6 Sales occupations 15 25 40
7 Teaching and related fields 10 15 20
8 Transport equipments operating occupation 15 O 15
9 Artistic, literary recreation and related
occupations 10 5 15
10 Occupations in social science and related
fields 5 S 10
ll Machining and related occupations 5 0 10
12 Construction trades occupations 5 0 10
13 Matters handling and related occupations 10 0 5
14 Crafts and equipments operation
occupations 5 0 5
15 Occupations not stated 70 35 105
Total occupations 475 290 770

 

Source: Statistics Canada: Special tabulation from the 1971 census

data base.

73
not regarded as a part of the labor force. Moreover, a foreign student
adviser in a local university recently revealed that during the academic
year of 1979-80, fifty-six students from Hong Kong were deported for
having been illegally employed. This shows that visa students continue
to form a part of the labor force, though often with disastrous conse-
quences.

There are then the two main groups in the labor force. Firstly,
there are students who are in the labor market of the service sector out
of expediency either legally or illegally. Their ultimate aims are in
professional fields, although some of them may return to restaurant
business later in life. This group is a ready availability of substitute
labor. Because of it, restaurants are unlikely to encounter extended
periods when the labor that they need is scarce and therefore expensive
to recruit. Again, this pool of surplus labor is possible partly because
food preparation and servicing can be made relatively easily in compari-
son with the technologies and organizations in the core industry. The
high rate of turnover makes unionization among serving personnel practi-
cally impossible. None of the Chinese restaurants in Canada are union-
ized. Secondly, there are those who are in the labor market of the
service sector to make a career. The working experiences of such indi-
viduals will be discussed in a section devoted to restaurant business
after an overview of the occupational distribution.

In the 1970's, Chinese restaurants in Winnipeg experienced rapid
expansion. While in 1939, there were eighteen Chinese-operated restau-

rants (Henderson's Winnipeg Directory 1939) and fifteen in 1968 (Hender-

 

son's Winnipeg Directory 1968), listings in telephone directories show a

 

total of seventy in 1972 and 1973; sixty in 1974; seventy-four in 1975;

74
seventy-six in 1976; and seventy in 1979. In each of these years in the
1970's, only six or seven are patronized by Chinese customers. This
shows that Chinese restaurants exist essentially for the service of white
customers. Indeed, the expanding Chinese restaurant business has to be
seen as a part of the general trend of the fast expanding restaurant
business across Canada.

The general expansion of the restaurant business is related to the
working wife, who brings home a second income, and does not particularly
enjoy cooking at home after a full day's work outside the home. The
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (National News, 23 July,l977) predicted
that by 1980 many Canadians would be eating out every other night. This
trend of development would have profound effect on ethnic restaurant
business. Reflecting the market demand is shown in Map 1, in which the
new immigrants' shops are seen scattered throughout the city, serving the
population of the immediate district and forming an important visible
landmark.

The prediction of C.B.C. is consistent with that by an economist
of the Canadian Employment and Immigration Commission, who forecasts that
service occupations will remain in the greatest number of job Openings for
Manitoba workers without university degrees for the years 1974 to 1982.
The forecast adds that clerical, sales and service occupations would
account for about 55 per cent of manpower needs during the eight-year

period (Winnipeg Free Press, August 23, 1978, p. 3).

 

While the trend of restaurant business is one of general expansion,
the number of Chinese restaurants actually declined during 1973 and 1974.
This coincided with the dispersal of both the Chinese-operated business

and population from Chinatown. During these years, buildings there had

75
become so run-down that they failed to obtain fire insurance coverage.
Consequently, a whole block consisting of an apartment complex, a club,
a grocery shop and two restaurants was demolished. In these years, an-
other restaurant was burned down. These three restaurants were not re-
established until a year later outside the Chinatown area. In 1973 four
more restaurants owned by the old immigrants from China had to close
because of the owner's retirement.

If 1973—4 was a period in which the enterprises of old immigrants
had critically declined, 1975 marked the beginning of investments by new
immigrants. One of the four restaurants closed down was bought by an
immigrant family from Hong Kong. Late in the year, three more restau-
rants were established by new immigrants from Hong Kong admitted into
Canada because of their substantial capital investments. All in all,
however, investments by outside capital have never been Spectacular in
Winnipeg.

In Manitoba, nearly all the town with a population of 2,000 and
over have one or two Chinese-operated restaurants or cafes. Among forty-
eight towns and cities of this size, excluding Winnipeg and Brandon,
there were 58 restaurants owned by Chinese, according to the listing of

Chinese Telephone Directory of 1974. There were five Chinese restaurants

 

in Brandon, the second largest city in Manitoba. Again, because of the
importance of restaurant business in the economic life, this study will
return to the discussion of restaurant business after an overview of the
occupational distribution. The work organization and the factors leading
to the choice of such an occupation will be discussed.

As shown in Table 7, the second largest category of occupations

consists of the clerical and related occupations totalling one hundred.

76
The great majority of this consists of book-keepers, accounting clerks,
tellers and cashiers, totalling forty-five, with thirty-five being
female.

The third largest category (Table 7) consists of the "product
fabrication, assembly and repair occupation," totalling eighty. Essen-
tially, this consists of women working in textile factories in Winnipeg,
comprising fifty-five individuals. In addition, five men are listed as
tailors and dressmakers. Garment factories of Winnipeg on a few occa-
sions advertised in Hong Kong newspapers to hire workers. The required
qualification consists of the ability to speak simple English and working
experience in garment factories.

In 1977 a group of twenty-four was recruited by one garment
factory in Winnipeg. One of these recruited said that the hiring was
approved by the Immigration Department and assisted by the Canadian
Pacific Airline. The same person also said that the employer preferred
hiring Phillipino who tended to stay longer at the jobs. They have im-
migrated in large numbers in recent years as unskilled labor, and now
constituted the largest Asian minority in Winnipeg.

The fourth largest category (Table 7) consists of the "occupations
in medicine and health," totalling 65 :_5, comprising about 23 physicians
and surgeons, 8 dentists and 18 in nursing and physical therapy. Accord-
ing to the writer's own counting, in 1977 there were 19 physicians and
surgeons and 5 dentists.

The fifth largest category (Table 7) consists of the "occupations
in natural science, engineering and mathematics" totalling 50 1,5. This
comprises about 10 civil engineers, and about 20 taking up occupations in

life science technology.

77

The sixth category coming down in the list (Table 7) consists of
the "sales occupations" totalling about 40 persons. Essentially, this
consists of "sales clerk of commodities, not including salesmen,” total-
ling about 20. There were about 5 persons working as insurance salesmen,
and significantly there were no real estate agents in 1971. There were,
however, six real estate agents in 1977. This number reflects the growth
dFa middle class among the individuals who have immigrated and graduated
from Canadian universities in the late 1960's and in 1971 and 1972. Two
of the original six of 1977 switched to restaurant business in 1979.
Again, this shows the central position of restaurant business in the
economic life of the community, serving as an haven for individuals
dropped out of other occupations. The number of real estate agents in
1979 remained at six.

Included in this category are individuals who are willing to work
long hours in nickel-and-dime grocery stores. Their stores stay small,
with the children and perhaps the grandparents helping out to avoid hir-
ing outsiders. Often the grocery business is only a second source of
income for the family to supplement the husband's earning from outside
employment. Often the store provides the living quarters for the family.

In 1976, there are five Chinese grocery sh0ps, selling sundry
goods from the Far East, and located in Chinatown and the nearby downtown
area. At least five Chinese-owned grocery stores are located in various
uptown areas, catering to the needs of the mainstreamers. However, the
downtown Chinese grocery shops are experiencing the competition of the
supermarkets. One store owner said that the Chinese customers did not
want to buy from him commodities available in supermarkets. Moreover, in

the summer of 1976, the Manitoba Government began to observe the Sabbath

78
day ruling strictly, forcing the Asian grocery stores to close on Sunday.

There are three Chinese-owned curio shops selling art objects,
handicrafts, and antiques, jewellery and ornaments imported from the Far
East. A commercial firm, China Commodity Import of Montreal, which
monopolizes importing many items from China such as wall carpets, imi-
tated antiques, handicrafts and so on, is providing wholesale transactions
to these curio shops. On the basis of their connections in Hong Kong and
Taiwan, the shop owners themselves also import commodities from these
places. One of the three shops is located on a busy street, a second one
in a supermarket plaza, and the third one in the Convention Centre, all
catering to the business of tourists.

There are also individuals who use their connections with business-
men and the manufacturers in Asia to make a living. One such person has
a B.Sc. degree in statistics. He uses connections that his family in
Hong Kong has established with the jewellers in Bangkok, and is selling
precious stones, pearls and the like to local jewellers in Winnipeg. He
is also acting as a middle-man for big distributors such as Eatons, Sears,
K-Mart and Shell for such items as vacuum bottles, and toys from Hong
Kong.

Coming down to the seventh place in the occupation list in Table 7
were about twenty-two persons in teaching and the related fields, five of
these being teachers in the two local universities. Lastly, a case, not
particularly belonging to any of the above categories, should be described,
as it is related to certain theoretical issues in this study. Although
it deals with a local ethnic group, attempts have been made to relate the
subject matters holistically to the world system. An aforementioned in-

dividual conducts a sort of import and export business by using his

79
personal connections in Asia. Business on the international setting may
come also in the form of private schools, organized for the purpose of
making a good profit. In Winnipeg, in 1977, a few intellectuals, of both
Chinese and European ancestries, who had been either unemployed or under-
employed, started a private school. A representative was sent to Hong
Kong; advertisements were placed in local newSpapers, including photo-
graphs of science laboratories, a gymnasium, a swimming pool, and student
residence, and including the names of four famous Manitobans, supposedly
constituting the so-called board of trustees of the school. The tuition
fee plus room and board cost each student $4,000 Canadian, which was non-
refundable. Consequently, thirty-four students were recruited from Hong
Kong. When they arrived at Winnipeg in 1978 they found that they could
only meet in two classrooms rented from a public school, and for living
they had to cramp themselves into two apartment suites. None of the
advertised facilities existed, and the four famous Manitobans did not
know that their names had been used in advertisements. Moreover, the
school offered only mathematics and English, which were conducted after
the normal school hours. These courses alone did not qualify the stu-
dents to be matriculated. They took their grievances to their lawyers
and the Immigration Department. While the school was closed in December
1978, the fact remained that the school had collected $4,000 from each of
the thirty-four students. The case described here exemplifies several
private schools that have catered to the patronage of Hong Kong students,
and that have appeared recently in the major cities in Canada. Again, in
this study, occupations have been related to the wider context of the
reward system, taking into consideration of the world system, crime as a

quick means to become rich and education as a capital investment--these

80
issues being illustrated by the empirical data provided here. (The data
are based on a conversation with one of the students, reports by the

Winnipeg Free Press, 29 Sept., 1978 and 20 Oct.,l978, and a C.B.C. tele-

 

cast on 19 Oct., 1978).

The occupations have been described, and now the question that
confronts us is: How does the distribution of these occupations stand in
the symbolic meaning systems of the Canadian society? A part of the
answer may be derived from the occupational prestige scale of Canada as
constructed by Pineo and Porter (1967: 24-40). According to their study,
the average prestige scores by occupational group in Canada consists of
the following: the professional have a mean score of 72.0; managers,
proprietors, officials of large organizations, 70.4; semi-professional,
57.7; managers, proprietors, officials of small organizations, 48.8;
clerical and sales, 38.6; skilled manual, 38.8; semi-skilled manual, 32.9;
and unskilled manual, 23.5. The distribution of occupations of Chinese
in Winnipeg in the hierarchy of occupations by Pineo and Porter is sum-
marized in Table 8.

Certain amendments must be made with respect to Table 8. Among
the Winnipeg Chinese, managers, proprietors, officials of large organiza-
tions are absent as indicated by the table. This is indeed the case.
However, a certain percentage from the Service occupations (l) and sales
occupations (6) should be classified as managers, proprietors, officials
of small organizations, but their numbers cannot be ascertained from the
data of 1971 census. Also, the chefs in restaurants can be classified as
skilled or semi-skilled workers; in 1972 there should be 70 chefs for the
70 restaurants, for example. If in 1971, there were the same number of

restaurants, the rest of the 150 chefs and cooks are unskilled workers,

81
as they were actually kitchen helpers. Having made these allowances, one
still has to conclude that Chinese representation is very low in both the
skilled and semi-skilled manual labor; dominant in both unskilled manual
and professional (again, the latter being 20. 78 per cent-~Table 8--well
over-represented in comparison with the 7.5 per cent of total labor force
of Canada in l96l--p. 71 above) and unrepresented in the occupational
groups of "managers, proprietors, officials of large organizations." In
other words, the Chinese in Winnipeg are dominant in the "top" and
"bottom" strata of the occupational hierarchy, with the prestige scores
of 72.0 and 23.5 respectively.

However, the prestige scale is not a moral referendum across the
society but a reflection of the dominant value as distinctive from two
other symbolic meaning-systems: the subordinate and the radical value
systems (Parkin 1971; 81f). (For Parkin's definitions, see Footnote 5.)
The scale is not necessarily the individual's private evaluation of the
social worth of occupations but simply a measurement of his perception
of how the actual rank order works in daily life, as a result of the
normative socialization of one class by another. He has seen certain
criteria by which occupations are ranked as relevant, such as education
and technical skill, rejecting others as irrelevant, such as dirt and
danger QEEH': pp. 41f). Because of the selected criteria, the profes-
sional occupational group tends to stand high in the scale of material
and symbolic advantages, while the unskilled manual are least well re-
warded.

Now the high proportion of the professional group among the
Chinese both in Winnipeg and Canada is the result of the large number of

visa students who have turned landed immigrants upon graduation. Job

82

TABLE 8

WINNIPEG CHINESE BY OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS AND PRESTIGE SCORES, 1971

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

occupational Categories Occupational Per cent Prestige
Group (Table 7) Group Total in the Total Score
Professional 4 (65)

5 (50)

7 (20) 160 20.78 72.0

9 (15)

10 (10)
Clerical & 2 (100)
Sales 6 (40) 140 18.18 38.6
Skill and 11 (10)
semi-skill 12 (10) 25 3.24 38.8 /
manual 14 (5) 32.9
Unskilled 1 (240)
manual 3 (80) 340 44.16 23.5

8 (15)

13 (5)
Occupations
not Stated 105 13.64

 

Total 770 100.00

 

83
vacancies associating with industrial growth in the post-war period and
1960's have made the switch in status possible. This professional group
constitutes in this study what is called the new middle class--a salaried
group in contrast to the self-employed restaurateurs.

By the early 1970's, the Department of Manpower and Immigration
still reported labor shortages: in 1967, there were 2069 vacancies; in
1968, 1,900; in 1969, 1,646; in 1970,],043; in 1971, 817; and in 1972,
854 (Epstein 1975: 13). Given that some professional bodies do not report
vacancies to the Manpower, these figures are probably incomplete. More-
over, the Department also reported that many native-born professionals
have tended to concentrate their job searches in the major centers like
Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, and would not consider jobs outside
these centers. Immigrants must be recruited to fill these local labor
shortages (22322: p. 14).

However, the figures above show that the vacancies are fast dwin-
dling by 1972. After 1973 visa students were not allowed to apply for
permanent residence in Canada. There are reports of engineering gradu-
ates who try to return from Hong Kong but are rejected. The percentage
of professionals among the Winnipeg Chinese will not increase, as in the
past, by the recruitment of immigrants.

At the same time, the Department of Manpower and Immigration re-
ported that there had been a long term labor shortage in the service
occupational group. For example, in l97l,the vacancies in this group
were 1,150; in 1972, 2,175; in 1973, 2,300 (gp;g., pp. 13f). The
Specific numbers of Hong Kong restaurant employees immigrated into
Winnipeg are not available; however, lately a spokesman for the Canadian

High Commission in Hong Kong indicated the number of cooks admitted into

84

Canada between April 1978 and April 1979 being 150. The reason for ad-
mitting them was that "there are new Chinese restaurants opening every

month--especially in Toronto" (Winnipeg Free Press, Aug. 29, 1979, p. 20).
The recruitment of garment factory workers in Hong Kong and other areas

in the Far East has been mentioned on pages 75 and 76 above. Apparently
the proportion of unskilled and semi-skilled manual labor will gradually
increase among the Winnipeg Chinese with the expanding demand of the

service sector.

The Restaurant Business

 

This section is concerned with the work experience of the serving
personnel and entrepreneurs, the work routine, the social factors leading
to the choice of occupations in the restaurant circle, and an 22.222
organization of restaurateurs. A description of the restaurants should
begin with a corner in Chinatown where the West Lake Restaurant, one of
the oldest and the largest Chinese restaurnats, is located. Like many
restaurants established before 1947, the West Lake is named after a
geographic feature in China. The original owner used to keep a laundry
shop until he Opened the restaurant in 1933. During the war years, its
clientele grew until the restaurant became a full-fledged licenced dining
room with forty tables and expanded to occupy the main floors of three
adjacent shophouses. With the renewal of Chinese immigration, the
owner's nephew immigrated into Canada from China in 1948. Before the
owner's son could arrive from China, the owner passed away, and the
nephew took control of the rapidly expanding business. He is now the
legal owner of the West Lake, while the original owner's son is working

as a chef overseeing the culinary operations in the kitchen.

85

The daily schedule of the West Lake involves long hours of work.
At 6 a.m. on weekdays, two cooks who hold keys to the kitchen first
arrive. One of them specializes in roasting ducks, chicken, suckling
pigs and pork. The other cook prepares noodle doughs, egg rolls, and
wanton, which consists of cases of this noodle dough containing meat or
shrimp. By about mid-morning, the executive chef arrives. Besides over-
seeing culinary operations in the kitchen, he is responsible for making
purchases. For these he usually deals with a grocery shop across the
street which imports goods manufactured in the Far East and vegetables
from Vancouver. At 11 a.m. two waiters and two kitchen helpers arrive,
although they are supposed to start working at 12:00 noon. The West Lake
requires its employees to arrive one hour ahead of working time in order
to change clothing and have lunch. The kitchen helpers are responsible
for washing dishes and utensils, and dicing ingredients. At 4 p.m. eight
other waiters arrive. On Friday and Saturday, two or three busboys also
report to work at the same hour.

The busy hours begin at 5:30 p.m. and taper off after 10 p.m.

From Monday to Thursday, the restaurant closes between 12:00 midnight and
l a.m. On Friday and Saturday, the restaurant remains open until 2:30 or
3:00 a.m., and on Sunday, until 10 p.m.

At the end of the long work day, both the employer and employees
are eager to clean up as soon as possible. The West Lake has found an
effective way to deal with customers who linger around. A Contonese
opera album is played over a hi-fi system, and the sudden burst of aria,
gongs, cymbals, drums and stringed fiddle is found quite effective to
drive customers away. After the last customer has left, the restaurant

is locked up and a dinner for both the employers and employeees served.

86
In Manitoba employers are required by law to provide to employeees trans-
portation after midnight. In the West Lake, a member of the employer's
family drives the employees home.

The long hours of work are typical of many Chinese restaurants in
Winnipeg. Many individuals go to bed just before dawn and sleep until
early afternoon. They rarely see sunshine, and this is particularly true
with those who play mahjong after work in the morning. They wake up only
in time to go to work, and arriving at the restaurant, they repeat the
work routine in the dimly-lighted dining rooms and the oily kitchens.

The West Lake restaurant has a long history of underpaying its
employees. For example, in 1973 busboys and kitchen helpers were paid
at $1.35 per hour despite a provincial minimum wage of $1.75 per hour.
The employer justified this treatment by claiming expenses in lunches
provided to the employees. In the late 1970's, now that the busboys and
kitchen helpers are paid according to the minimum wage of $3.05, they
have always been well below the minimum wage, with two dollars per hour
at the present. They too have to pay for the meals. The low wage is
also justified by regarding tips as part of a waiter's wage. In the West
Lake, tips for a waiter range from $25 to $50 per day. Gratuities provide
extra, usually undertaxed or tax-evadable income, occasionally in substan-
tial amounts. It is subject to the seasonal fluctuation; for example,
between Christmas and the Easter is a period of lean months. Tips also
vary directly with the price range of dishes of the restaurants; most
Chinese restaurants have dishes priced between $3 and $4 in 1977, between
$4 and $5 in 1978, and between $4and $6 in 1979 and 1980. Canadians
usually provide 10 per cent tips or slightly below that level. Waiters

are expected to give a small portion of their tips to the busboys. The

87
total income of a waiter at the present in West Lake is about one thou-
sand dollars per month, with a good portion tax-evadable.

In the West Lake Restaurant, two female, middle-aged kitchen help-
ers are working full-time, earning supplementary incomes for their fami-
lies. Although both of the women have houses in the suburbs, both stay
in a rooming house in downtown Winnipeg during the winter months, because
West Lake refuses to drive to the suburbs when workers are sent home in
wintry night. One of the women's husband, nicknamed Old Golden Mountain,
is a pensioner retired from years of work in garment factories in Winni-
peg. During the winter, he stays mostly alone in his suburban home.
However, he commutes by bus between the suburbs and Chinatown almost
every day. There he wanders through Chinatown's restaurants, grocery
shops, associations, and clubs, chatting and playing mahjong. He also
manages to see his wife and son daily, the latter being a cook in a
restaurant near Chinatown and staying in an apartment nearby.

Old Golden Mountain has another son presently working as a chef
in military bases in northern Manitoba. Graduating from culinary studies
in a local technical college, he is known to be able to make both western
and Chinese dishes. Old Golden Mountain's kin circle is connected to
restaurant business also by an affinal relative, Ken Li.

Li is the owner of a restaurant with twenty-eight tables, and one
of the three partners of the Chrysanthemum restaurant near the West Lake.
Chrysanthemum is one of the two restaurants in Winnipeg that serve
Cantonese snacks such as shrimp dumpling, steamed beef ball, pork pun,
and egg tart, at noon on Saturday and Sunday. By the standard of Chinese
restaurants in Winnipeg, the Chrysanthemum is big, comprising of forty

tables and a bar. When it opened four years ago, it aimed to be a big

88
and fashionable restaurant. Besides the regular meals, it served Can-
tonese snacks at noon daily, and established dress rule in the evening.
However, the volume of business remained small, and after a few months,
the staff was slashed, the dress rule was discarded, and the snacks were
served only on Saturday and Sunday. The market conditions do not call
for ideals of style and big business. At the present, the restaurant
employs five waiters and two cooks from Sunday to Thursday, and six
waiters and three cooks on Friday and Saturday. According to one source
of information, Chrysanthemum is still losing money.

Near the Chrysanthemum is the small Dynasty restaurant, with nine
tables, two waitresses and a cook. The interior is brightly lighted,
with a blackboard at the center posting Special dishes in Chinese char-
acters. The Dynasty has received favorable comments from columnists of
the local press, and attracted both white and Chinese customers. The
success is attributed to the imaginative skill of the cook, nicknamed The
Sailor, and to the modestly priced dishes.

The Sailor is said to be an apprentice of a famous chef in Hong
Kong, and said to have worked on board a Hong Kong freighter as a chef
for many years. In 1973 he happened to visit Canada, and he made use of
the amnesty to illegal immigrants to become a permanent resident. With
the landing paper, he worked in a lumber yard on the west coast for about
two years until he went to a town near Winnipeg to open a small restau-
rant. [n 1976, having sold his restaurant, he began to work as an execu-
tive chef for a restaurateur who owned three restaurants. He was then
responsible for the culinary operations and making purchases for the
three restaurants. In 1978, he bought a restaurant from his employer.

He owned it for one year, and finding that he was losing money, he sold

89

it. He now works full-time as a cook for the Dynasty and part-time for
another restaurant. He stays in a townhouse in downtown Winnipeg with
his wife and two daughters who attend high school and work part-time for
a restaurant. The Sailor has a great deal of complaints about owning a
restaurant,

To open a restaurant? It is not worthwhile. There

are one thousand things that you have to watch out

as if they were your last chance. You think of the

food, fuel, customers, waiters, health inSpectors

and grocery dealers . . . You do the waiter's work

when he is not around. You do dishwashing when no

one will. You work and work just to make ends meet.

Then there are those students! They don't turn up

if they have exams, and they don't turn up if they

have dates. I would much rather work for someone

else. If I am sick of working for one boss, I can

simply pack up and go to another. Never again'

In a free standing one-storey shop house on a street near China-
town was Mrs. Huang's small and brightly lighted restaurant containing
nine tables. The sign on the windows outside boasted of Cantonese deep-
fried pastries. The owner, Mrs. Huang in her late forties, was a cadre
in a commune in southern China before her migration to Hong Kong in 1962
and to Canada in 1964. In Canada she taught herself to make yp tiao and
other deep-fried pastries, experimenting with flour and yeasts and rely-
ing on her sensitivity in such matters as the correlation between weather
and fermentation. She now owns and manages the city's only restaurant
which features Cantonese deep-fried pastries. She has the help of her
two sons whose university education is not related to running a restau-
rant in any way. She hired a woman who worked both as a kitchen helper
and a waitress.

This is Mrs. Chen, formerly a bank teller in Hong Kong until her

migration with her family--her husband and their eight—year old boy to a

mining town in northern Manitoba. In order to find a job, she had to

90
leave family for Winnipeg, where she found employment in a garment
factory, earning three dollars per hour as compared with the minimum wage
of $2.90 of the province in 1977. She soon told her friends that she was
not learning anything worthwhile by working in a garment factory. Chinese
restaurants appeared as an irresistible attraction to her. After working
for a month in the garment factory, she began to hold a second job in a
Chinese restaurant in Chinatown as a kitchen helper. Three months later,
she resigned from the garment factory and worked from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00
p.m. in Mrs. Huang's restaurant, maintaining her first restaurant job from
4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. The salary rate was the same as that of the garment
factory. However, she found better working conditions in the restaurants
and felt at home with the owners and colleagues. She soon told her
friend that she planned to open a restaurant herself in the near future.
However, until the present she is still working for Mrs. Huang and an-
other restaurant.

About two kilometers to the west of Mrs. Huang's was Mr. Hu's
restaurant. Mr. Hu had been an underground figure in Hong Kong involved
in gambling and prostitution business. Being a close relative of an old
immigrant, he was able to immigrate into Canada in 1949. Though inex-
perienced, he decided to open a restaurant in 1950. Because of language
problem, he caters largely to the patronage of Chinese customers. Now he
is producing some of the most authentic Cantonese dishes in the city.

On the west side of the city is Mr. Wang's restaurant, catering
mainly to white customers. In addition to working as a chemist in a
medical laboratory, he has been active in the ethnic affairs and par-
ticularly in the Chinese Benevolent Association. Also, in 1977, he ran

on a Progressive Conservative Party ticket in the Manitoba provincial

91
election and lost. He had come to know leaders of the Progressive Con-
servative Party through his restaurant establishment and his position in
the Chinese Benevolent Association.

As in the case of Mr. Wang, another restaurateur, Mr. Fung, is
holding his restaurant business primarily as a second job. He is working
full-time in an engineering consulting firm in Winnipeg since his gradua-
tion in 1971. In 1976 he opened a restaurant registered under his wife's
name, because his employer did not allow him to hold a second job. They
never had any restaurant cooking experience, and for this reason, his
uncle came from the U.S. to teach them northern Chinese cooking, which
became their famed dishes. Still, restaurant business is highly competi-
tive, and in order to develop an identity, something unique has to be
cooked up. The arrival of a small group of Vietnamese refugees provided
an unexpected source of labor. He found among them a cook in December
1978, and he renamed his restaurant "Chinese Vietnamese Food," which
became his advertised identity.

Though an engineer by training, Mr. Hsieh, unlike those two pro-
fessionals, is working full-time in his restaurant which is catering to
the businessmen in downtown. Coming from a well-to-do family in Hong
Kong, he was educated as an engineer in a Canadian university. He be-
lieved that only by being imaginative and entrepreneurial could he remain
wealthy. To his friends he often says, "There is only so much you can
earn by working as a professional. You cannot decide on what you want to
do. Also, as a Chinese you can never get to the top." At the present,
his restaurant is enjoying brisk business; however, he and his wife have
to put in long working hours--from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. from Monday to Satur-

day.

92

Lastly, the case of Miss Yang should be mentioned. Neither inter-
ested in being a waitress nor a restaurant owner, she was in restaurant
business only to use it as a springboard to goals unrelated to the busi-
ness. She was a graduate from a local university. Taking advantage of
the 1973 amnesty to illegal immigrants, she changed her status from a
visa student to that of a permanent resident. In 1976 she rented a
restaurant in a hotel, and by operating it, she earned thirty to forty
dollars a day by putting in long hours of work. The fact was that she
had been trying hard to Sponsor her father to immigrate into Canada, so
that he might in turn bring to Canada her brother who was under twenty-
one years old. The objective of the restaurant was to create a job for
her father, qualifying him as an immigrant. However, the immigration
officials rejected her application on the ground that the restaurant was
too small to be regarded as having a job opening. Undaunted, she pro-
ceeded to look for a large restaurant in an outskirt of the city and
bought it. While she was doing good business and made herself known in
the area, she told the city councillor representing the municipal that
she would have to close the restaurant unless her father was allowed to
come work in the restaurant. The councillor consented to write on her
behalf.

In 1977 her father arrived as a landed immigrant with his son.
Almost immediately she closed the restaurant and sold the building.
While she moved to Edmonton to find a job, the old man stayed in Winnipeg
with his son who began his education in a local university. Ironically
finding himself lonesome, he became a cook in a restaurant in Winnipeg's
Chinatown. He had not intended to take up such an occupation. However,

in spite of his manipulating daughter, how far could he escape the

93
shaping of social forces? At the time of writing, he is still a cook.

As described, the restaurant business is characterized by small
scale production and low capital requirement which ranges from a few
thousand to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the size and
style of the enterprise. Examples of the costs of essential equipments
are: restaurant range estimated $4,000, walk-in cooler, $2,500, dish-
washer, $4,000, fire-extinguishers, $700, twelve tables with four chairs
each, $2,400, glasses, silverware, china and chopsticks, $700, and menus,
$60, totalling $14,360. Other costs include those of supplies and ser—
vices, such as rent, telephone and yellow pages, electricity, gas and
water, garbage service, toilet items, dishwasher detergents; those of
labour, reduced to a minimal amount in most small Chinese restaurants;
and those of licences, legal fees and insurance. For most of the Chinese
restaurants in the city, the capital requirement in the first year ranges
from $30,000 to $60,000.

Some individuals, as exemplified by Mrs. Chen (pp. 89 f. above),
starting as garment workers and waiters or waitresses, visualize the
golden days when they open their enterprises. A waiter likes to remark,
"Whoever you are, as soon as you are here in Canada, pick up the kitchen
knife, carry the tray, cling to your life station, and become a Buddha.
How many restaurant bosses have started as waiters and cooks!" To this
waiter, "to become a Buddha" means to reach for the top or restaurant
ownership (footnote 6). In practice, one would have to raise a capital
of at least thirty-thousand dollars in order to arrive at this stage.
This sum is within the means of some unskilled workers after working for
a number of years in Canada. However, maintaining a restaurant is a

Constant struggle. Owning a restaurant, in the waiter's figurative

94
speeech again, does not amount to an emancipatory state of oblivion to
pain, care and social reality. At least one in every two restaurants
changes ownership or closes down within five years of opening. The
success story of the West Lake Restaurant exemplifies a minority of
restaurants. The Sailor's careeer of twists and turns is probably more
typical of the restaurateurs among the Chinese in Winnipeg. "Never
again! I would rather work for someone," this may well be the pro-
nouncement of many beginning restaurateurs.

In any case, the restaurants remain a lure to many immigrants.
Some choose to work in restaurants because of language difficulty and
kinship tie with restaurant owners who have probably sponsored their im-
migration into Canada. An individual such as Mrs. Chen prefers restau-
rant work to garment factory work because she is congenial in a Chinese
restaurant. Mr. Hsieh, the restaurateur who has been trained as an
engineer, expresses his perception of how the actual rank order among
ethnic groups would work. Ethnic consciousness and affiliation are im-
portant factors in their choice of occupations.

Two of the aforementioned restaurant owners are working as an
engineeer and a chemist. They might be attempting to increase their
wealth through the investment of surplus earning. This is a strategy
apparently common among professional people during inflationary period
such as the late 1970's. The investment in restaurant business is deter-
mined in the last instance by the relatively low overhead costs, the
relatively simple management, and the increasing demand of restaurant
service. The shaping force of the infra-structure applies not only to
the engineeer and chemist, but also to the bank teller, the cadre, and

the underground figure who have been lured into the restaurants. In

95
particular, the demand of restaurant service is a decisive material pre-
requisite which makes relevant the issues of ethnic identity and affili-
ation, individual ambition, planning and competition.

Just as the restaurants form important landmarks of the city land-
scape, the entrepreneurs become closely identified as an important
feature of Chinese ethnicity. For example, in a survey of the potential
voting pattern in the coming Federal election of 1979 a local newspaper
interviewed three individuals identified as leaders of the Chinese com-
munity, including a professor, a clergyman, and the owner of West Lake
Restaurant. He was identified only as a restaurant owner, but not as
the president of one of the most important associations in Winnipeg

(Winnipeg Free Press, May 7, p. 2). In this report was included a

 

photograph of the restaurateur holding a pair of chopsticks to his mouth,
apparently regarded as the diacritical feature of Chinese ethnicity shown
by a Spokesman of the community.

As Chapter V shows, the restaurateurs have long been active in
ethnic affairs. They play a critical role in community associations.
Although they do not form a corporate group to protect their vested
interests, recent events show that they can organize themselves on an ad
‘hpp basis, and affect governmental regulations perhaps to a much lesser
extent than the large corporations of the core industry can. These
events first drew the writer's attention in a Chinese restaurant in Winni-
peg, when the owner was seen passing a piece of paper from one table to
another. It was a petition issued by the National Committee to Save
Chinese Barbecued Products, organized by restaurateurs and food suppliers
mainly in Vancouver and Toronto. The petition protested against a food

and drug amendment, which affected the quality of Chinese barbecued food.

96

As quoted, the amendment of 1977 says:

No person shall sell meat that has been barbecued,

roasted or broiled and is ready for consumption

unless the cooked meat at all times has temperature

of 40°F (4.40C) or lower, or 140°F (60°C) or higher.
Anyone familiar with Chinese food knows that while suckling pigs and
ducks are cooked at about 220 degrees Celsius, searing the skin and
sealing in all the natural juices, it is kept at below 60 degreees until
served. If it is kept at the extreme temperatures stipulated, it would
become dry, overcooked, and tough or lose its crispness. Alas, in spite
of these culinary factors, health inSpectors clamped down on a number of
food suppliers and restaurants across the country. The petition respond-
ed, "The barbecued products have a tradition of two thousand years.
Still the Chinese people remain well and health."

The petition movement culminated on April 4, 1978 in a banquet in

a dining room on Parliament Hill. Attending were five hundred guests,
including five cabinet ministers and members of Parliament. They added

three hundred more signatures to the twenty-six thousand signatures al-

ready collected for the petition. (Chinatown Commercial News, April 2,

 

1978, pp. 1f). Perhaps the food was downright delicious, which made the
lobbying possible, and perhaps the politicians' liberal and sympathetic
attitude was consistent with the demand of the market system. In any
case, in Feb. 1979, the Health Protection Branch began to mail circulars
to food suppliers and restaurants across Canada, proposing that cooked
meat would be examined on the basis of bacteria intensity rather than
meat temperature, and that the new amendment be effective by June 1979

(Chinatown Commercial News, Feb. 18, 1979, p. 3).

 

As the food and drug amendment stands now, it seems satisfactory

97
to the enterprisers in food industries. Nothing more has been heard
about the National Committee to Save Chinese Barbecued Products. It is
organized by enterprisers mostly in Vancouver and Toronto on an 3g Egg
basis. If it has not been formally disbanded, it has become non-opera-
tional like many Chinese-organized associations which exist only in
names. The restaurateurs will remain as small, independent businessmen,
and unorganized just as their employees are not unionized. More than
their employees, they are seasoned by long hours of work in the oily
kitchens and dining rooms lighted by artificiallights of their restau-
rants. These they struggle to upkeep against the fierce competition
from their neighboring colleagues. Their arduous work identity has be-

come an important part of Chinese ethnic identity.

Summary and Discussion

The laundry business in the city was almost solely a Chinese
enterprise at the beginning of the Century. By the late 1910's the
number of Chinese laundry shops decreased rapidly, however, while the
restaurants were on the upswing. Both the laundry shops and restaurants
catered largely to the center population. Still, a minority derived its
income from grocery shops and gambling dens which catered to the internal
need of the peripheral population.

Among the new immigrants, while oriented largely towards personal
service, the occupational distribution begins to ramify into other cate-
gories. In response to the demand of the market, Chinese restaurants
experience rapid expansion throughout the late 1960's and 1970's. The
distribution in the occupational hierarchy consists of mainly unskilled

manual labor and subsidiarily professional people. As there has been a

98
long term labor shortage in the service occupations, the proportion of
unskilled manual labor will gradually increase.

The examples in this chapter Show that choosing the service occu-
pation is closely related to ethnic identity and affiliation, such as
language problem, ethnic ideology, ethnic congeniality, and the knowledge
of a particular style of food preparation. Closely related to ethnic
affiliation is kinship tie; some immigrants are occupied in restaurants
because of their kinship tie with the restaurant owners who may have
sponsored their immigration into Canada.

In the shaping of the structure of the community, the Immigration
Department is playing an important role. It is recruiting immigrants to
fill local labor shortages in the service occupations. A number of im—
migrants are known to have been admitted on the basis of their being
employed in restaurants or investments in restaurant business. Moreover,
garment factory workers have been recruited from Hong Kong and other
peripheral areas in the world. Limited social mobility within the per-
iphery of the economy is always possible. A projected garment factory
worker may often end up as a waiter.

While the unskilled workers are being recruited, the educated--to
be more specific, the graduates from Canadian universities--are often
barred from becoming permanent residents. The arguments of "brain
drain," that core states tend to draw intellectuals and the well-educated
from the peripheral regions, do not adequately explain Canada's immigra-
tion policy. Expertise as such is not called for; marketable skill--
rather than skill as such-~is in demand. This study predicts an increase
in proportion of unskilled manual labor in the occupational hierarchy

among Chinese Canadians for the near future. The peripheral nature of

99

the community has been, in a sense, fixed and formulated by law, mainly
through immigration process. In a stable society, the functions of the
superstructure is to reproduce the mode of production, and its existing
class relations. The Specialization in the service occupations by the
community may then be seen as being shaped and an expression of both the
class relations in Canada and the ethnic identity assumed by many of the
immigrants.

Again, as exemplified by the actions of the Immigration Depart-
ment, the first concern of the state is to protect the continued exist-
ence and stability of a given form of society. The state machineries
tend to favor the dominant class rather than the peripheral groups.
Social origins and advantages derived from social origins ease the career
avenue for centers of decision-making. In essence, the state is a poli-
tical manifestation of the values and interests of the center of the
Center. In this connection, Clement (1975) shows the exchange of in-
formation, influence, and personnel among elites, who are largely of
Anglo-Saxon ancestry.

While the center of the Center is dominant over the state machin-
eries, it also controls the core industries. In these the productions
are typically of large scale, and markets are normally national and
international in sc0pe. These industries are capable of shaping the
course of events in the world. Within the nation, the core industries
determine the rate of growth of the economy and the prosperity of the
society. That is to say, the fortune of the periphery of the economy
depends on the core which has its alteration of prosperity and depression.

The local ethnic community is related to the world system in a

very marginal way. Ethnographic data show that some resourceful

100

individuals and shopkeepers of the community are conducting import and
export business by making use of ethnic ties in the international setting.
Also, the modern world system serves as a labor market for Canada. The
railway construction workers, and employees in both the garment factor-
ies and restaurants exemplify labor from international sources. It was
mentioned that during the last decade, major cities in North America
have attracted considerable capital from Chinese financial groups based
in the Peripheral areas and nations in the modern world system, including
Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan, for the investments in finance,
real estate, newSpapers, commerce, and restaurants. These investments,
however, are small in comparison with those of the giant corporations
(p.50 above). In Winnipeg, a few restaurants were establiShed by
capital from Hong Kong; otherwise investments by ethnic Chinese in other
countries or areas are hardly noticeable (tn.75 above). Still, these few
investments were made only because the restaurant owners wanted to be
admitted into Canada, and were a part of the immigration requirements.

Occupational activities in a peripheral ethnic community do not
provide the information necessary for a comprehensive analysis of the
dynamics of the modern world system. In spite of this limitation, one
cannot overemphasize the fact that the modern world system is real and
forms an integral part of the social formation which constitutes the
foundation for the understanding of the local ethnic community and its
class and ethnic relations.

The analysis of the occupations has revealed both the pervasive
influence of the center of the Center and the peripheral nature of the
local ethnic community. However, the study has not explicitly revealed

the existence of a center of the Periphery. A corporation, similar to

101
the Six Companies playing a brokerage role in the recruitment of labor
and in the supervision of labor, is shown. If a center does exist, it
cannot be based on a role relating to work, and there can be no rigid
class relations between the center and the periphery. The nature of the
center would be vastly different from that constituted by the Six
Companies. Both the origin and nature of such a center, if it exists,
would probably be revealed by examining the social organizations of the

community.

Chapter V

SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS

Introduction

 

As residents in Canada, ethnic Chinese inevitably become involved
to a greater or lesser degree in various Canadian social institutions:
governmental, educational, religious, financial and others. There are
also associations, schools and churches that the ethnic categroy has
established mainly for the internal needs and interests of the community.
This chapter will include a discussion on these ethnic social organiza-
tions. Questions similar to those raised in the previous chapter will
be asked: In what ways do the social organizations reflect the under-
lying class and ethnic relations? In what ways do the social organiza-

tions show the ramification of the world system?

Before 1947

 

At the turn of the century in Winnipeg, about four
hundred or the great majority of the people came from
a village called Chen-shan Tsun in the Hoshan County.
The majority had the surname of Li. The early settlers
regarded the new comers of later date as encroaching
upon their territory. Once, sentries were posted at
roads and railways to prevent the arrival of Chinese
who traced their territorial origins to other counties.

This account of the early Chinese community in Winnipeg by an elder bears
a number of issues relevant to the study of class and ethnic relations
which are now discussed and elaborated upon in connection with the later

developments in Winnipeg. The belief system, organizations of

102

103
partilineage and territorial ties: these are superstructural elements
with striking parallels to ethnic relations. In particular, people of
different territorial origins have been regarded by some writers as sub-
ethnic or ethnic groups. How many groups might be divided out of a popu-
lation on the basis of a particular kind of social relationship would
depend on how the writer wished to state his problem. In the 1920's in
Winnipeg, there were six territorial associations, including those of
Taishan, Hsinhui, Enping, Chungshan, and Foshan. For the purpose of this
study, these are neither ethnic nor subethnic groups but simply terri-
torial groups. In any case, in these territorial associations there was
no formal membership or membership dues. Donations were made on the
occasions of each of the social events occurring during the year. These
associations were never strong in Winnipeg and existed for only a few
years in the 1920's. For one reason, the dialects as Spoken in these
counties were fairly similar. Moreover, the great majority of the popu-
lation, about seven hundred in Winnipeg, could Speak the dialect as
spoken in Taishan. Therefore, a visible symbol of territorial ties--
dLalects--is absent. In a small population, the identity of the local
ethnic community as a whole would soon over-ride the identity of terri-
torial ties carried over from the mother country.

In China, all those who bore the same surname were regarded as
being patrilineally related. This bond, in a way, united all those using
the same Chinese character for their surname, regardless of what part of
China they came from. The surname was traditionally exogamous and re-
mained so to a certain extent. The surname group was subject to seg-
mentation into innumerable local groups. These local clans, often occu-

pying a single or group of villages, were organized and under the

104
leadership of a recognized head, whose jural authority over all members
was often strong. Well-organized local clans normally possessed clan
lands.

In the urban situation in Canada, the surname group as a whole
took the place of the local clan. The immigrants came from the various
local clans and they did not group themselves in such a way as to dupli-
cate the kinship structure in the homeland on a miniature scale. They
could form associations on the basis of surnames in the Canadian cities
in which they lived. Among the early associations in Winnipeg was a Li

Clan Association {Li Shi Kung Sho), which existed until the early

 

1960's; however it did not deal with clan matters as such, but functioned
largely as a recreation club, where everyone in Chinatown could drOp by
for a game of mahjong. It occupied the main floor of a small shophouse
owned and attached to a major restaurant in Chinatown. While there was
no formal membership, 3 list of those with the surname of Li was kept in
the Association. It was largely under the management of this restaurant.

The brief description above of the Li Clan Association applies
well to many of the so-called traditional associations across Canada.
The general activities of these associations were not related to clan or
territorial matters p35 pp. A family life was mostly absent for the
immigrants, and marriages did not occur often. In general, the associa-
tions were looked upon as sources of financial and moral support, for
example, in the event of death, or business or legal difficulties. In
addition, some of the activities of the associations were for purposes
of entertainment and social gathering.

Also, according to the above quotation, the early immigrants

fought under the appearance of contentions between clans. Indeed, they

105
had to organize themselves on the basis of the meaning system already
familiar to them. However, the purpose of the contending factions was
to get access to the reward system as it existed in Winnipeg. An urban
center demanded only so many Chinese laundries.

The relationship between the infra- and superstructure is not
always readily observable, however. As stated in the Introduction
chapter, each of the structures filthe social formation has its own mode
of functioning and evolution. Superstructural elements, including class,
territorial ties, religious cults and arts, have been subject to the con-
straint of the agricultural infrastructure over the centuries. These
superstructural elements of the Chinese society that the immigrants
tried to realize were subject to the negation of the overall social
formation of Canada: social pressure, law, forces of production, legal
system, reward system, the facts of migration, and the identities of

The major associations of Winnipeg Chinese belong to the type
which claims to be community-wide in the recruitment of membership--i.e.,
associations based on the identity of being ethnic Chinese. Among the
earliest of such associations is the Chinese Dramatic Society, estab-
lished in 1923, and until 1945 the only Chinese organization active in
traditional music and dramas performance. The association entertained
the Chinese community occasionally on such days as Lunar New Year, the
Mid-Autumn Festival, the Double Tenth National Day. The association main-
tained regular contacts with other ethnic Chinese dramas societies in
Canada, especially the Chinese Dramatic Club in Edmonton, Alberta. The
self-employed laundrymen who formed the bulk of the membership had both

the time and freedom to make these trips possible. The association was

106
particularly active between 1939 and 1942 when it staged many plays to
help the war efforts in China. The Society apparently received wide
support from the community. According to one elder, once as many as
thirty persons gathered at the Society regularly in the evening to prac-
tise singing and instruments. While these were the activists, fewer
than half a dozen of men had official posts within the Society. gain,
membership was diffusive.

The Society has practically stOpped functioning, existing only in
name since the nineteen sixties. The Society is still housed in its
original small shop house at a street corner in Chinatown. The tiny
stage still stands, and some costumes which the old immigrants ordered
from Hong Kong are still preserved. However, the Society has become more
and more a gambling den.

Another community-wide association was one with lodges across
Canada, known variously as the Hung Men Hui, Chi~kung Tang and Chinese
Freemason. In Winnipeg, a lodge was established in 1921 in Chinatown.
The origin of Hung Men Hui is said traceable to the Triad Societies in
Southern China. These were secret and illegitimate organizations wide-
spread in Southern China during the 19th century.

The Hung Men Hui was widely distributed among the overseas Chinese
in Southeast Asia and Hawaii, and in Canada evidently many of the early
immigrants were Hung Men members. They remained anti-Manchu and observed
the rituals of the Hung Men, which consisted of series of solemn oaths
aimed at creating a sworn brotherhood. However, the organization was no
longer secret and the activities of the Hung Men were normally well pub-
licized and similar to the other associations in the community. Still,

at the turn of the century, they carried out their anti-Manchu objective

107

insofar as they gave financial and moral support to the Republican
revolution. The founder of the Republic, Sun Yat-sen, was in Vancouver
in 1897 and in San Francisco in 1904, and on both occasions he launched
Successful fund-raising campaigns with the members of the Hung Men Hui.
Today in Canton City, China, on the marble of a monument commemorating
the 1911 Canton Uprising, are carved the names of the various lodges of
Hung Men Hui in both Canadian and American cities including Winnipeg.

The Hung Men Hui has long maintained a Chinese language newspaper
in Vancouver for many years and a gymnastic society in Toronto. The Hung
Men Hui is said to have made significant investments in real estate and
remains a well-financed and well-supported organization in both Vancouver
and Toronto where the Chinese pOpulations are relatively large. However,
in Winnipeg, the Hung Men Hui has existed for a long time without any
Specific programs, and its activities are often for purposes of enter-
tainment and social gathering. In the era of pre-l947, there were less
than half a dozen of men managing the association, and they were also
leaders of the Chinese Dramatic Society. Today the association becomes
non-operational, like many Chinese organizations which exist only nomi-
nally. While the Sign of Hung Men Hui remains prominently displayed at
at the four-storied apartment block owned by the association itself, the
gathering place on the second floor is empty and forlorn.

In the 1910's an ancillary organization of the ruling political
party of the Republic of China, known as the Chinese National League or
Kuomintang (K.M.T.), was formed in Canada, with operational chapters in
Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminster, Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge,
Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax. In Winnipeg

a branch was formed in the Chinatown area in 1915, and was given the

108
certificate of recognition by the headquarter of the K.M.T. in Vancouver
in the following year. One of the primary objectives of this organiza-
tion was to keep the ethnic Chinese in close touch with China. The act-
ivities included the initiation and organization of the National Day, the
anniversaries of the Canton Uprising, and the like. AS quoted by a

Vancouver daily, The Province (Dec. 8, 1977, p. 31), the chief editor of

 

a K.M.T. controlled newspaper in Canada said the K.M.T. had 10,000
members in Canada before 1949, and 3,000 in the late nineteen seventies.
In Winnipeg. the membership stood at more than a hundred and fifty during
the war years, according to a few elders. The K.M.T. maintains five

regional chairmen and thirty-seven national directors (The Province,

 

ipid.). Apparently, many who hold membership and titles regard their
statuses as honors rather than actual government offices. Also, the
duties of the so-called directors and chairmen are not Spelt out to the
members.

Because of its connection with China, it is by no means an acci-
dent that its recognition and acceptance by the Chinese community were
the highest during the Second World War when the war effort had received
not only the enthusiastic support from the Chinese communities across
Canada but also the newspapers and general public. Because of this rec-
ognition, the leaders of K.M.T. became spokesmen for the Winnipeg Chinese
community, particularly in events concerning the War efforts against the
Axis. The connection between the Canadian government officials and these
associations leaders led to their being recognized as the center of the
Peripherial ethnic group. Already, the legitimacy of such a center has
been established by its connection with the Chinese government.

During the war years (1941-45), banquets were given on the Double

109
Tenth National Day in restaurants in Chinatown. These banquets were
attended by the representatives of provincial government, the city
council, the bench, as well as representatives from the Chinese associa-

tions in Winnipeg. The Winnipeg Free Press (Oct. 11, 1944, Wednesday,

 

p. 6), reported that on Oct. 10, 1944, a banquet was given by the Winnipeg
Chinese Patriotic League, a front organization of K.M.T. at the New Nan-
king Restaurant. At the banquet were governmental representatives and
guests of honour including Hon. R. F. McWilliams, Lieutenant-governor and
Mrs. McWilliams, and Winnipeg's first Chinese consul, Wen Tao Weng, and
his wife. (He was the only Chinese consul ever posted in Winnipeg,
established in 1945 and ended in 1950). The Double Tenth National Day
was then such a glittering occasion.

Apparently, in the minds of many public-Opinion makers, the
Chinese ethnic group had come to represent the Republic of China which
was then an important ally against the Axis. This was reflected in an

editorial statement by the Winnipeg Free Press (Oct. 16, 1942, p. 17):

 

A few days ago there arrived the Anniversary of

the foundation of the Chinese republic; today

among the most powerful allies which Canada has.

To our deep regret the day passed without the

hoisting of the Chinese flag [at the Free Press

Building], and to the Chinese people of Winnipeg

especially we offer our deep apologies for the lapse.
The ethnic Chinese became a part of the popular image of fighting China
and the heroic allies in Asia.

On the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, the Kuomintang launched

a world-wide fund raising campaign among overseas Chinese. In the United
States, sociologist Rose Hum Lee (1960: 150-155) reported that during the
1930's and 1940's the so-called voluntary taxes imposed by the K.M.T.

organizations became so burdensome that many Chinese left the cities in

110
order to avoid excessive contributions. In Canada the Chinese Patriotic
League took charge of the China Relief Fund. While contributions were
made in essence voluntarily, the fund-raising campaign sometimes involved
group pressure and probably imposition of fines. Among the documents
left behind by one Mr. Li who lived in Winnipeg in this period were some
receipts issued by the Chinese Patriotic League in Winnipeg. These are
listed in Table 9 (p. 111 below). In addition to these, he also received
two warnings from the League, dated April 15, 1940, and Oct. 20, 1940
which said ". . . the deadline has now been extended for two weeks. If
you failed to contribute by that date, you will be punished ."
These receipts certainly did not constitute the complete list of all
those Mr. Li had received. They, however, illustrate that the ruling
political party of Republican China, the Kuomintang, was interested in
the wealth of overseas Chinese, and illustrate a small part of the ex-
penditure of the Chinese residents in Winnipeg during the war years, and
the leadership exercised by the League.

Housed in the same building with the Kuomintang was the Chinese
Benevolent Association (C.B.A.), a branch of a continental-wide organ-
ization. Following the example of the Six Companies formed in San
Francisco in the 1850's, Chinese merchants in Victoria, British Columbia,
organized the C.B.A. in 1884. In 1906 a Chinese Benevolent Association
was established in Vancouver and ten years later it called itself the
official C.B.A. headquarter in Canada. According to a former president
of the Association, the Winnipeg branch was established in 1914.

The C.B.A. claims to be the spokesman of the whole Chinese com-
munity, and that it legitimately exercises leadership over other Chinese

associations. Consequently, the constitution of the C.B.A. stipulates

111

TABLE 9

DONATIONS FOR CHINESE RELIEF FUND, AS SEEN IN
MR. LI'S RECEIPTS

Diggg Amounts Purposes

22 March, 1940 $1 Winter clothings

8 June, 1940 $1 "Friends of soldiers"
20 Oct., 1943 $1 Winter clothings

17 Nov., 1940 $10 Chinese unemployment
5 Mar., 1942 $2 Winter clothings and

army relief fund

5 July, 1942 $1 "July 7" anniversary

7 July, 1943 $1 "July 7" anniversary

18 July, 1944 $5 "July 7" anniversary

19 Oct., 1944 $5 Double Tenth donation
16'uay, 1945 $5 Chinese Red Cross

17 July, 1945 $5 "July 7" Donation

16 May, 1946 $3 Residence for the Chinese

Consul in Winnipeg

112
that all Chinese living in Canada are automatically members of the
Association, and that there is no membership fee. However, those who
wish to take part in voting and play an active role in the organization
must donate a certain sum of money each year. All associations, clubs,
laundry shops, grocery Shops, restaurants, and famous individuals in the
community are expected to make donations. This is not written into the
constitution, but well-known in the community. A few leaders are drawn
from other associations, including the Li Clan Association, the Chinese
Dramatic Club, the Chinese Freemason, and the Chinese National League,
which acknowledge their subsidiary positions to the C.B.A. By occupa-
tions, its leaders, usually eight, are invariably restaurant owners.

The overall C.B.A. leadership generally overlaps that of the
Chinese National League. The eight leaders in one organization often
hold similar positions in the other. Owing to this linkage, social
activities can be conducted in the name of either organization. Most of
the community-wide activities during the nineteen forties and fifties had
been directed in the name of the Chinese National League. Since the late
1930's, in spite of the C.B.A. claim of leadership, the spotlight in the
scenario of ethnic affairs had been switched to the Chinese National
League. The C.B.A. only resumes its active role in community work just
prior to Ottawa's recognition of Peking in 1970. Since then the C.B.A.

has become persistent in its claim for leadership over other associations.

After 1947

 

The information on the social organizations before 1947 reflects
the existence of a center within the peripheral ethnic group. This

center is quite different from that constituted by the Six Companies.

113
There is no rigid class relation between this center and its periphery.
The center is not based on a role of brokerage in business transactions,
in recruiting labor, or in supervising labor. This center, constituted
by the leaders of K.M.T.-C.B.A. has emerged during the war years by
virtue of its recognition by both the Canadian officials and the Chinese
government. A few of these leaders remained active until the early nine-
teen seventies.

Communal affairs are now performed solely in the name of C.B.A.
under the leadership of about eight men, still largely restaurant owners
by occupations. Meanwhile, the K.M.T. Stopped functioning altogether as
an association. Its white and blue sign which had been hoisted for more
than Sixty years was taken down one evening in 1979.

In any case, the C.B.A. has laid claim to be the representative of
the whole Chinese community. Its representation, in order to be effec-
tive, has to be acknowledged by the governmental officials. This is
realized, at least, in the funding of an urban renewal project consisting
of a feasibility study for the redevelopment of a four-block area of
Winnipeg's Chinatown. Forming the core of the Winnipeg Chinese Develop—
ment Corporation (WCDC), the C.B.A. leaders made the application of the
finding. In announcing the initial grants of $16,000 by both the Provin-
cial Government and the City Council of Winnipeg, the News Service, an
organ of the Provincial Government, indicates that the proposal would be
based "on the references and aspirations of the predominantly Chinese
community and contain elements of orientation, spatial organization and
style derived from the culture of Southeast Asia" (News Service, April
27, 1974). By completion, the feasibility study project had incurred

$95,000 to $100,000 (WinnipegATribune, Aug. 26, 1974). Whatever may be

 

114
the ultimate goal of such a governmental funding, cultural or otherwise,
the business in the Chinatown area would benefit from the project if
materialized. The remaining pertinent fact is that C.B.A. leaders have
made the application, and are recognized as representing the well-being
of Chinatown.

However, by the mid-1970's, a new middle class constituted by the
professional has emerged. Consequently, the ethnic Chinese have become
dominant in the top and bottom strata of the occupational hierarchy
according to the dominant value of the society. A pertinent question is:
if the ethnic Chinese are dominant both in the top and bottom strata of
the occupational hierarchy, is it possible for those at the top to look
toward the bottom and other strata for leadership? To say the least, it
is unlikely. The individuals are not unconscious of their relative
material and symbolic advantages. Moreover, a new middle class has not
only emerged, but also found expression in a few social organizations.

In various ways, these organizations challenge the representation made by
the C.B.A. They are now briefly described:

Among the important organizations are two Chinese schools, includ-
ing the Manitoba Academy of Chinese Studies and the Institute of Chinese
Language and Arts, started in response to the increased number of locally-
born in the nineteen seventies. By this time, the visa students had grad-
uated from the Canadian universities, become landed immigrants, married
and reared children of school age. These children, growing up in the
suburbia, are essentially English speaking. Their communications with
certain members of the family become difficult. Often, interpretation by
bilingual members of the family is needed in discussions in complex

matters. Moreover, the gap between generations has developed to such an

115
extent that there seems to be an ethnic relation between them. While
the parents are regarded as uncouth in their Speech and mannerism, the
children are often regarded as extroverts who love white boys, white
girls, French fries, hamburgers and movies. On a few occasions Canadian-
born children were seen by the writer teasing each other, "He is
Chinese," and pulling up their eyes sideways. At least on these occa-
sions, there emerged two ethnic identities. The original objective of
the schools was--and still iS--to teach the children Chinese language.
This in reality may be extended :0 the teaching of the ways of the
Chinese and Canadians according to the parents' understanding. This
concern with ethnic identity becomes more transparent as these schools
play an increasingly active part in ethnic affairs.

Since its beginning in 1975, the Manitoba Academy of Chinese
Studies has kept a teaching staff of about twenty who are mostly high
school teachers, with a few from other professions. This teaching staff
constitutes the leadership of the school. Since its beginning in 1975,
it has drawn thirty-eight to sixty children, varying from year to year,
currently attending public schools in the city. The private school meets
on Sunday afternoon from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in a suburban public school.

Besides teaching Chinese language to children, the adults also

sponsor martial art training of tai chi chuan, choir, and folk dancing

 

classes during the school hours. Some members have come to regard the
school as a social gathering place, where one can while the Sunday after-
noon away by chattering, and where information about the community can be
exchanged.

Although the Academy receives a provincial government language

subsidy yearly, the Academy supports itself essentially by tuition fee

116
and membership fee. For example, during the 1976-7 academic year, the
Academy received a total income of $4,150 with $750 derived from govern-
ment subsidy. Most of the expenditure concerns the Chinese language

class and the News Letters, the official organ of the Academy. As much

 

as the other associations, the Academy takes an active part in the ethnic
affair, as exemplified both by its participation in meetings concerning
Folklorama (pp. 118f below) and in the Little World Canada sponsored by
an organization of merchants in a supermarket plaza. This program oc-
curred from the 18th of June, to the end of June, 1977, and participated
in by various ethnic groups of Winnipeg. Each ethnic group sponsored the
events for one week. For the Chinese week, the three organizations, in-
cluding the Academy, the Institute of Chinese Language and Arts, and the
Chinese Benevolent Association, agreed to present a single set of pro-
grammes, including the exhibition of antiques and art objects, the sell-
ing of Chinese pastries and souvenirs, and stage shows consisting of the
choir of the Academy, and lion dance by the C.B.A. and martial arts by
the Institute of Chinese Language and Arts.

The C.B.A.-K.M.T. has long maintained a private Chinese language
school in Chinatown. In the 1970's it has suffered a sharp decline in
enrollment after a faction within the C.B.A.-K.M.T. consisting mainly of
professional people, decided to organize a separate school for their
children. This is the origin of the Institute of Chinese Language and
Arts. The Institute meets in the governmental center which provides new
immigrants with various facilities, such as English translation and
learning. The Institute has a current enrollment of fifty and a teaching
staff of seven in addition to the principal. The school meets during the

week-ends. To maintain itself, the Institute relies on tuition fees,

117
donations from the parents and provincial governmental language subsidy.
The professed aim of the Institute is to "disseminate Chinese culture,”
to provide translation and English lessons for the new immigrants, and to
"promote good relationship with other ethnic groups." Apparently the
conflicts between the old center and the newly emergent professional
middle class can occur even within the same organization. This faction,
as much as the other faction, claims to represent the ethnic community,
to "disseminate Chinese culture" and to "promote good relationship with
the non-Chinese."

Prior to the discussion of the interaction of the social organiza-
tions, the Winnipeg Chinese Alliance Church should be mentioned as an
example of a relatively recently organized, highly ideological and well-
financed group. Started in 1970 by a few high salaried professionals,
the Church is now housed in a $180,000 building in a suburban area. It
has an all-Chinese congregation of about 250 in 1977. The Church also
provides Chinese language classes to fifty to sixty children of the con-
gregation. Apparently, the Church is constantly attempting to enlarge
its congregation by recruiting new immigrants. It is fundamentalist but
apparently ethnic in its work, proclaiming its own version of the ethnic
identity. "Don't forget the 800 million lost souls in Mainland China,"
the Church posters say. Although the Church stands aloof from ethnic
affairs such as meetings and festivals, its disengagement from the arena
of contention is not total. As much as the other organizations, the
Church is "disseminating Chinese culture" of its own version, and to
"promote good relationship with the non-Chinese" in its own way, in
addition to spreading the GOSpel.

A new middle-class has emerged and organized in various ways. If

118

the C.B.A. lays claim to a sole representation of the whole community,
such a claim would be challenged. This was demonstrated in a series of
meetings between C.B.A. and other associations in the preparation for
participation in an ethnic festival, the Folklorama. This is organized
by the Folk Art Council under the auspices of the City Council of Winni-
peg, and held annually since 1970. The participation by the Chinese has
been represented yearly by the C.B.A.

To prepare for the Folklorama of 1977, representatives of various
organizations agreed to hold a meeting in a restaurant owned by a C.B.A.
leader on Nov. 6, 1976. The Alliance Church was invited, but it de-
clined, apparently, to maintain itself clear of the local "politics."
During the meeting, the leaders of the C.B.A. and K.M.T. emphasized that
Folklorama committee had long existed in the C.B.A. and represented the
Chinese community year after year, and that there involved much red tape
in participating in the Folk Art Council and in the application for a
recognized pavilion. "You must satisfy all the conditions and there are
so many of them," this they stressed time and again. "The C.B.A. repre-
sents the whole Chinese community. To the dismay of the righteous people
the organization had been challenged and SUSpected. There is already a
community-wide organization. We do not need to set up another, but
rather to find talent to support the long existing organization. Already
the C.B.A. has all facilities, such as microphones, musical instruments,
and a lion head, necessary to take part in the festival."

To this a representative of the Institute of Chinese Language and
Arts responded, "Having been in Canada for fifteen years, I must say that
there is no single organization which can claim to represent the whole

Chinese community." The first meeting ended by appointing a three-person

119
committee to approach the C.B.A. executive to work out a solution for the
Chinese representation in the 1977 Folklorama.

In the second meeting held in the same restaurant on December 11,
1976 with thirty persons attending, the same arguments were repeated.
Also in this meeting, the C.B.A. leaders asked who were eligible to vote
in the decision making. A K.M.T. leader asked, "Can we Specify which
groups are qualified as community organizations? How many members must
there be in an organization in order to be qualified as a community
organization? Could we call a husband-wife team a community organiza-
tion?" After some heated arguments, the meeting passed by a simple
majority that "any interested persons" might vote, as most persons
argued that this was a gathering of volunteers and not a formal meeting.

The representatives of Chinese Student Association of the Univer-
sity of Manitoba, the Manitoba Academy of Chinese Studies, the Institute
of Chinese Language and Arts all stressed "equality, mutual benefit and
making public the budget." The second meeting resolved to send a three-
person committee to approach the C.B.A. again to discuss the Chinese
representation. A week later, the committee reported to the various
organizations that the C.B.A. would not cooperate with other organiza-
tions in organizing the Chinese pavilion; as in the past, the C.B.A.
would organize it on behalf of the whole Chinese community.

Before the C.B.A. formally rejected a joint effort to establish a
Chinese pavilion, a group from the Manitoba Academy of Chinese Studies
already met at a private home, and decided that the Academy should start
the momentum of organizing a group capable of handling the application
for an independent pavilion in the future, if not in 1977.

In the Folklorama, there were thirty pavilions representing the

120

ethnic groups in the city, including the West Indies, Irish, Hungarians,
Polish, Ukrainians, Mexicans, Romanians, Scottish, Croatians, Japanese
and so forth, with a few of them having more than one pavilion. Wide
publicity was given on radio and television in Winnipeg and in cities
across the U.S. border. The folk festival probably would enhance tourist
industry.

The C.B.A. proceeded to prepare for the Folklorama held from Aug.
14 to Aug. 20, 1971. The C.B.A. managed to pool together about six
thousand dollars for the festival expenditure from the Chinese business
circle of the city. The Chinese Pavilion was housed in the K.M.T.-C.B.A.
Building. A Miss Chinatown contest was sponsored, a week-long exhibition
of Chinese art objects was held, a lion dance was performed during early
evening hours at a street corner nearby, and souvenirs and pastries were
wold in an open-air basketball field adjacent to the building. A few old
pensioners were there regularly sitting, watching and whiling their time
away; a small crowd was attracted to watch the lion dance at the street
corner; and noticeably absent in the Chinese pavilion were activists from
other associations. Later, the C.B.A. president complained about the
Chinese community being non~cooperative.

To this a leader of the Manitoba Academy of Chinese Studies re-
sponded by saying, "Let's hope that they [C.B.A.] would not apply again

next year." Moreover, in its News Letter dated 27 March, 1977, the

 

Academy noted that "While we are experiencing a split in the Folklorama
[with the C.B.A.] we should now make a fair evaluation of our strength.
In two week's time, the Academy has played a major role in the Little
World Canada. If we had three months' preparation and more support from

the membership, we should be able to set up an alternative Chinese

121
pavilion." Given a chance, the Academy would not miss it to sneer at the
C.B.A.

An alternative pavilion representing the Chinese did not material-
ize neither in 1977 nor in 1978. The C.B.A. did not even attempt to con-
sult the other organizations in preparing for the 1978 Folklorama, but
simply put a huge sign at the entrance of the Association, saying,
"Talents among our compatriots are needed to help in our Chinese pavilion

n

. . . . The C.B.A. was determined to prove itself being the communal

representation ipso facto.

 

However, an alternative pavilion became materialized in 1979. A
planning committee consisting of fourteen members was drawn up, primarily
from the Institute of Chinese Language and Arts, and secondarily from the
Manitoba Academy of Chinese Studies, the Chinese Student Association of
the University of Manitoba, the Chinese Ladies Club (with twenty-six
members generally meeting in private homes) and the Kung Fu Club (a
student martial arts organization with less than twenty members). The
Folk Arts Council accepted the application from the planning committee
provided that it would not use the name of the Chinese Pavilion which was
regarded as the reservation of the C.B.A. pavilion. The alternative
pavilion was consequently called the Cathay Pavilion (China).

During the week-long Folklorama of 1979, the Cathay Pavilion pre-
sented a program more or less a duplication of the C.B.A. Chinese Pavil-
ion, consisting of an exhibition of some art objects mostly from Taiwan,
a fashion show, martial arts diSplay, snacks, souvenirs, and a bar fea-
turing mao tai and other liquor and wines from China. To indicate the
amount of transaction and participation by each of the organizations a

statement of receipts and disbursements by the Cathay Pavilion Committee

122
may be quoted. The receipts and disbursements amounted to $28,854 and
$24,021 respectively, with a net gain of $4,832. The statement indi-
cated that one third of this net gain would be used to fund the 1980
Cathay Pavilion, while the rest would be distributed to the participating
organizations in proportion to the man-hours spent by each organization.
According to this formula, the Chinese Student Association received the
largest amount with $1,089.72, and the Institute of Chinese Language and
Arts received the second largest with $972.

These figures were made accessible to the public by the Pavilion
Committee to Show that it was different from the C.B.A. by stressing
"equality, mutual benefit and making public the budget" (cf. p. 119
above). In any case, the new middle-class groups could now claim that
they had broken the C.B.A. monOpoly of recognition by the Folk Art
Council under the auspices of the City Council, and the monopoly of
facilities. The new middle-class groups have the bargaining power to
negotiate with the C.B.A. At the time of writing, the two sides have met
and agreed to form a committee of seventeen to explore the possibility of
forming a unified Chinese pavilion for the 1980 Folklorama. The new
middle-class groups are more and more in the Spotlight in ethnic affairs.

Another historical event, the arrival of Vietnamese refugees, also
serves to illustrate the C.B.A. long recognized role in community affairs.
One Sunday evening, Dec. 17, 1978, the C.B.A. sponsored a reception for
sixty Chinese Vietnamese recently arrived from Malaysian refugee camps.
The pertinent fact was the presence of the Manitoba Manpower Minister,
who headed a group of dignitaries, including representatives from the
Federal Department of Manpower and Immigration, the Secretary of State,

the Human Rights Commission and the Red Cross. A huge poster at the

123
entrance read, "Bless those of you from Vietnam who have come to Canada
and have escaped from behind the Iron Curtain," reflecting the K.M.T.
rhetoric of a monolithic international Communist movement. It probably
was truthful to the all-suffering refugees from Vietnam.

In its emergence during the war years, the old center, as consti-
tuted by the K.M.T.-C.B.A., was in part legitimized by its connection
with the Chinese government. As the international relationship between
this government-~now the Taipei government--and the Western nations
changes, this government has come to rely on the old center to perpetu-
ate a part of its influence in Canada. While the heydays of the K.M.T.-
C.B.A. are well over, the activists of the organization will struggle to
play a central role in the community affair.

The close connection between the C.B.A. in Canada and the Taipei
government was recently reported by two major Vancouver newspapers, Th3

Province and The Vancouver Sun. This government was said to have

 

attempted to gain control of all Chinese-Canadian social organizations by
planting and providing heavy cash subsidies to a puppet group in the head-
quarters of C.B.A. in Vancouver. The Taipei government maintains an
account at a branch of the Bank of China in New York, and funds are di-
verted to the C.B.A. The Taipei connections are also indicated by the
seventy-seven-year old C.B.A. chairman Lam Sai Ping. In a letter to his
executives defending himself against various allegations by party members,
Lam acknowledged that he was the Overseas Affairs Commissioner for Taipei
and the co-chairman of both the C.B.A. and the local K.M.T. in Vancouver.
He wrote, "Father Chiang [Kai-shek] appointed Sai Ping as the adviser to
the Central Government . . . This spring, President Yen [Chia-kan] and

Chairman Chiang [Ching-kuo] jointly issued a certificate for appointing

124

Sai Ping as the Commissioner of Overseas Affairs" (The Province, Dec. 8,

 

1977, p. 1; The Vancouver Sun, Dec. 8, 1977, p. l).

A copy of a 1971 C.B.A. financial statement obtained by The Sun
indicated the association received $2,000 from Taiwan to hold its annual
national conference in Vancouver. Other regular funding flowing to the
C.B.A. from Taipei includes thousands of dollars for the celebration of
October 10 National Day and Chinese New Year in various Canadian cities,
including Winnipeg.

The Province has obtained copies of both C.B.A. constitutions--the
1972 English version registered in Victoria, and a translation of the un-
registered Chinese-language constitution drafted in 1971. The unregis-
tered constitution says C.B.A. objectives are "to unite all overseas
compatriots in Canada, and to support the Republic of China" (Th3

Province, ibid.).

 

The Taipei connections of the C.B.A. are translated into concrete
local political support in Winnipeg. In 1975 the C.B.A. leaders, acting
as middlemen between Taiwan and Winnipeg, succeeded to urge the Winnipeg
mayor to send a delegation of "goodwill ambassadors" to visit Taichung, a
city in Taiwan which was twinned with Winnipeg in 1971, a year after
Ottawa recognized the Peking Government. The delegation was to have in-
cluded, along with the mayor of Winnipeg, the attorney-general and the
corrections minister of the provincial government and two Winnipeg city
councillors. But the Federal Government of Canada barred the delegation
and declared that Canada would not regard the twinning of Winnipeg and
Taichung as having any official status. The trip was to be paid by the
Taipei Government; however, the Federal Government vetoed it.

Among the old C.B.A. leaders, John Lee continued to pay birthday

125
tribute yearly to President Chiang Kai-Shek” on behalf of the whole
Chinese community of Winnipeg," right until Chiang's death in 1975. An-
other leader of the C.B.A. is a professor at a local university, a former
Chinese ambassador and a former vice-minister of the Taipei Government.
In 1970 when Ottawa was negotiating with the People's Republic of China
to normalize diplomatic relationship, he led busloads of Chinese met in
Toronto, to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa. They handed in
petitions and long lists of signatures, requesting the negotiation to be
stopped immediately. With the recognition of the Peking Government by
Canada, this professor became an unofficial representative of Taipei,
with the authority to issue permits to visit Taiwan. Recently Th3
Province (Dec. 8, 1977. p. 1) reported him as a member of the "Five-
member League of Chairmen" of the K.M.T. organization in Canada. However

The Province could not specify its role.

 

In contrast to socialist societies where there is a combination of
a central planning in the economic mode and a relatively monolithic pol-
itical order, in the western capitalist societies, there is a combination
of a market-based economy and a pluralist and diffused political order.
In the process of diplomatic recession beginning in 1970, the Taipei gov-
ernment has made use of both this pluralist feature and market orienta-
tion to maintain contact with western nations. As shown in the present
chapter, the Kuomintang has long maintained local ties in Canada. Con-
sequently, although Taipei cannot continue a formal diplomatic tie with
the Federal Government of Ottawa, Taipei carries on its contact with both
the provincial and city politicians as well as businessmen. Again, to

quote the Vancouver Sun (December 8, 1977, p. l), the control of the

 

C.B.A. "gives the K.M.T. a network to win overseas Chinese sympathy for

126
Taiwan and to promote its trade and commerce with the Western world."

The control of the C.B.A. represents Taipei's effort to perpetuate
its active participation in the world market. The ethnic and ideological
background of Winnipeg's long-time mayor--Ukrainian and anti-Communist--
might facilitate the twinning of Taichung and Winnipeg. There are de-
tails of interpersonal interaction between the C.B.A. leaders and the
mayor and other officials. Short of private detective work, these
details may never be known. The pertinent fact is that all these fea-
tures, random and contingent as they are, when put together, reflect the
underlying structural conditions including the existence of a world mar-
ket, a pluralist political order, and a market-based economic mode.
These structural conditions the Kuomintang has utilized quite success-
fully.

The success of the Kuomintang is related in a small way to the
relative absence of Peking's interest in local communities. On a number
of occasions, delegations from Peking were in Winnipeg to conclude wheat
deals with the Canadian Wheat Board. The delegations avoided contact
with the local Chinese. However, in May 1980, the Chinese Ambassador
made a special trip to Winnipeg for the first time to meet some local
officials and ethnic Chinese. This innovation may be meaningfully re-

lated to Peking's new emphasis on world trade.

Summary and Discussion

 

The early organizations of the Winnipeg Chinese consist of the
territorial and surname associations. These were hardly developed. The
general activities of these associations were not related to clan or ter-

ritorial matter as such, but more in the nature of financial and moral

127

support and entertainment. The major associations belong to the type
which claims to be community-wide in the recruitment of membership, the
most important being the Kuomintang and the Chinese Benevolent Associa-
tion which are continental-wide in organization. Their connections with
both the governments of China and Canada during the war years led to
their being recognized as the centre of the ethnic group. The old centre
remains instrumental to the Taipei government in maintaining contact with
influential persons on local level. In Winnipeg, the C.B.A. leaders
succeeded in twinning Taichung and Winnipeg, although this was not recog-
nized by the Federal Government of Ottawa. Again, this illustrates how
political manoeuvering can be associated with ethnic ties in the inter—
national setting. Although the old middle class has its local economic
roots, it is by no means severed from the world system. It should also
be mentioned that investment in Taiwan's industries by ethnic Chinese in
various parts of the world cannot be ignored by Taipei. Subsidies from
Taipei provide the old centre with an incentive to insist and exaggerate
its representation of the whole ethnic community. These subsidies will
form the basis, at least partially, for the reproduction of the old center
for the near future. However, changes in the course of events in the
world system will have their ramifications in the local level community.

By the nineteen seventies, a new middle class has not only emerged,
but also found exPression in a few social organizations. In various ways,
these organizations challenge the representation made by the C.B.A. The
old centre is instrumental to the Taipei government in maintaining con-
tact with influential Canadians on local level. By receiving substantial
subsidies from a foreign source, the C.B.A. holds a social advantage over

most other organizations, more elbow room and a wider range of choice in

128
most social situations.

The data show that while dissenting factions of an ethnic group
oppose each other, they are at the same time in solidarity with each
other. The conflicts among them do not rule out their unity as compon-
ents of an ethnic group. Territorial ties which form the basis of
factions within the Chinese community have been equated, and rightly so,
by some writers with ethnic relations. However, in the setting of this
study, ethnic group distinction is one of Chinese vis-a-vis non-Chinese.
In any case, territorial ties and other superstructural elements had
taken on an existential quality over the centuries in China; these the
immigrants tried to realize, but were subject to the negation of the
overall social formation in Canada. The current identity of the local
community soon overrode other historically-rooted identities.

In a community where a majority of the population was either self-
employed entrepreneurs or engaged in agrarian occupations, an elitist
group could not emerge on the basis of occupational rewards or class re-
lation. This elitist group emerged only during the War years, when the
owners of a few restaurants, by virtue of their status as association
leaders, interacted with high governmental officials. In this case,
status ranking is associated with historically rooted ethnic identity and
is functionally unrelated to the class relation.

After 1947, the status ranking of the old centre is visibly out of
alignment with its class position. A new middle class constituted by the
professional has emerged, and Stands high in the scale of material and
symbolic advantages. However, the debate among the organizations con-
cerned both the questions of both ethnic Chinese representation and the

dominant role of the C.B.A. in this representation. In other words, the

129
issue at stake was one of self-identity, and both the entrepreneurs and
the new middle class are competing for the central role in the representa-
tion.

Seen in the context of the total class relations among the ethnic
Chinese, the spotlight in the scenario invariably falls on the middle
class, while the unskilled workers play a peripheral role. This struc-
tural condition can be further elucidated by a comparative study of the
Winnipeg Chinese and the Mexican Americans in Border City, Texas as de-
scribed by Simmons (1961: 286-299):

Of a population of 17,500 of Border City in 1961, 56% were Mexican
Americans, mostly employed as farm laborers, shed and cannery workers,
and domestic servants. The middle class was small but powerful, compris-
ing of clerks, salesmen, and others. While they favored the retention of
Apanish culture, they put a premium on a command of Anglo-American ways
and flawless English, for this would promote "getting ahead" (1319.,

p. 293). Significant to this study is the critical role of intermediary
in negotiations with the Anglo-Americans that the Mexican-Americans of
middle class are playing. Moreover, while most Mexicans were well aware
of the Anglo-American expectations and practices with respect to the Mexi-
can ethnic group, only members of the middle class seemed to regard the
Anglo-American practices of exclusion affecting them. The Mexican work-
ing class did not regard participating in the larger society as being
necessary and the ethnic irregularity as severe as the middle class did.
The situation is markedly parallel to that of the Chinese community in
Winnipeg, where the working class participates in the ethnic affairs as
an adjunct of the middle class.

Simmons did not explain why the Mexican lower class was relatively

130
insulated. The problem lies in an analysis of work identity arising from
the rationality of the economic system and division of productive labor;
in other words, different work identities--i.e., self-identities and
identities by other ethnic groups--to members of an ethnic group. For
those in the menial occupations in laundry Shops, restaurants and garment
factories, it is meaningless to put a premium on a command of the Anglo-
Canadian ways. Any self-improvement along this line would not lead a
waiter to become a manager, and a cutter in a garment factory to become
a designer or to a sitting-down office job. Success in work eXperience,
if any, teaches a garment cutter to raise his level of piece-work, and a
cook or waiter to deal closely with his fellow ethnic colleagues and to
prepare more marketable ethnic food, with the sole aim of raising a capi-
tal to Start an ethnic food restaurant.

Furthermore, those in menial jobs are there precisely because of
their ethnic identities. For example, in a big luxurious hotel in Winni-
peg during 1970 and 1975, four Chinese house-boys were required to put on
Manchu or Ching costumes as they went about their chores. In the Border
City, the Mexicans are said to be inferior, "because they are so typic-
ally and naturally Mexicans!" (Simmons, 1961: 293). In Winnipeg, there
is no evidence to suggest that the ethnic Chinese are regarded as infer-
ior; nevertheless, the stereotypic image appears to be "Chinese are nat-
urally houseboys because they are so typically and naturally Chinese."

The work experience of both the new and old middle class is dif-
ferent from that of the working class. Firstly, the professional people
are scaling careers in a way which is rare among the working class. This
scaling involves not only keeping up the technical aspects of the profes-

sion, but also, importantly for individuals of the Peripheral ethnic

131
group, an ability to handle the ways of the mainstreamers. Secondly, the
old middle class stands to benefit economically from civic endeavor and
improvement. The old middle class people are truly local men. Folklor-
ama and other ethnic festivals in the city would benefit them immediately.
Any success in winning standing in either business or career has taught
the middle class to become conscious of its ethnic identity and of the
significance of gaining acceptance. The results of this comparative
study are twofold: (1) a further examination of the meanings of ethnic
identity, and (2) an illustration that class relations as defined by the
relations of production imposes the limit of functional compatibility on
the superstructural elements, including the forms of social organizations
and the expressions of ethnic identity.

Lastly, in the formal analysis of class and ethnic relations, four
interacting collectivities have been conceived. Towards the end of the
period after 1947, however, the local ethnic community is peripheral and
fractionalized, and the center is demising. With such an empirical situ-
ation, a confronting question is: should the model be reformulated so as
to remain viable for the study of the local community? An important
assumption of model building is that the model may or may not reflect the
empirical situation. The model tends to formalize and simplify the empir-
ical situation. The formulation of the four collectivities has succeeded
to call attention to the class and ethnic relations involved in the mani-
festation of state power which exercises a pervasive influence on the
local ethnic community, shaping its ways of making a living and its group
identity. For the Study of a peripheral ethnic group without a center,

the model would remain a useful heuristic device.

Chapter VI

LIFE HISTORIES

Introduction

 

Under the broad perspective adopted in this study, the continuity
of the individual life histories become blotted out. A coherent descrip-
tive account of the life histories of five selected individuals would
provide a different dimension of the Chinese community in Winnipeg; one
that dwells on small-scale and face-to-face interaction in their social
world beyond the topical bounds of occupations and social organizations
of the previous two chapters, and one that dwells on the unique events
and personal opportunities as one lives through one's life. In this
chapter, after the description of five individuals' life histories, the
random and contingent features in these histories will be discussed in

the light of the structural conditions already presented.

Eases
Case 1. Mr. John Lee was born in a peasant family in Taishan,
southern China in 1893. At the age of fifteen he immigrated into Canada
together with a few of his lineage brothers. In Winnipeg, he worked in
a number of laundry shops until 1914 when he found a job at a meat packer.
In 1923, he married a white woman who had a daughter from her previous
marriage. Because of his association with the affinal relatives, he came

to learn to speak English fluently, although he has little knowledge of

132

133
the written language. He worked at the meat packers until 1940 when he
became a partner in a restaurant which two of his lineage brothers had
established in the late 1930's. In 1914 he was elected as the president
of the C.B.A.

During the war years he came to know the celebrities of the city.
He was able to make Speeches concerning China's war effort over radio
stations, entertain high ranking governmental officials, and chair ban-
quets given on behalf of the Chinese community on China's National Day.
Towards the end of the war, he befriended the Chinese Consul Weng. A few
elders could tell stories about military police who responded promptly to
his telephone calls for help whenever returning service men became
troublesome in Lee's restaurant, and about city police who covertly pro-
tected him when he drove home at night.

At this point in time he was well recognized as the leader and
Spokesman of the Winnipeg Chinese community, to the extent that he was
called "the mayor of Chinatown" by the local newspaper. As recently as
February 25, 1977, an entertainment editor of a local newSpaper wrote,

My very first close Chinese friend in this city was

[John Lee] who moved with Mrs. [Lee] to Vancouver.

[John] is missed here because he was the "mayor" of

Chinatown and a natural leader of the community

(The Winnipeg Tribune, February 25, 1977).
After the war, he continued to function as the president of the C.B.A. and
a leader of the Chinese National League. In 1971 he worked hard to bring
about the twinning between Winnipeg and Taichung. After his resignation
of his position as the president of the C.B.A. he became the Associa-
tion's honorary president. He continued to travel to Taipei yearly to

pay birthday tribute to President Chiang Kai-shek until Chiang's death in

1975. In Lee's public life then, he strongly identified himself as an

134

ethnic or overseas Chinese. This ethnic identity constituted a major
source of political functions that he exercised. However, in spite of
this public identity, his family life was strongly identified with the
mainstreamers. His wife, daughter, and son-in-law were white people. In
any case, he had made use of his opportunities, and came to constitute
the symbol of the center of a peripheral ethnic group.

He was a restaurant owner for most of his life. During the war
years, his restaurant experienced rapid expansion to include a cafe, a
dining room and a night club. On the retirement of his two lineage
brothers in 1963, he owned the whole complex by himself. In his restau-
rant was his brother who worked for him as a chef for almost all of his
life. Lee had to retire in 1973, sold his business, and left the city
for Vancouver with his wife. He passed away in 1980 at the age of

eighty-seven.

Case 2. Mr. Li Yun Chi, a resident of Winnipeg, was born in the
county of Hsin Hui, Kwangtung in 1882. He was a peasant until 1913 when
a relative returned from Canada for a visit and told him of the oppor-
tunities there. The returnee also offered to lend him five hundred
Canadian dollars which he could use to clear the head-taxation on entry
into Canada. He decided to leave his wife, children, and kin and set
sail for Canada, with the hope of returning in a few years' time. He
followed his relative to Hong Kong where they took the British liner,
the "Russian Queeen," bound for Vancouver. In Vancouver, they went to a
hostel housed above a grocery shop, where the agency for the Canadian
Pacific Railway in the community was also located. After three days,
they went to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Together with one hundred Chinese

workers, they were employed in an abattoir. In his later days, he still

135
recalled the foreman as a kindly person, and that floor and carcass wash-
ings were done by the Chinese workers, while the Canadian workers did the
skinning and butchering. He worked for ten hours per day at thirty cents
per hour. In 1914, he was hired by the Canadian Pacific Railway for re-
pairing the construction. He remembered that many of his Chinese friends
found jobs in factories because, as he said, the whites had gone to war.
By 1918 he had earned enough to clear the debts he had incurred on immi-
gration to Canada and to make a return trip to China. On his return to
Canada the following year, he worked in a laundry shop in Regina, an em-
ployment which he kept until 1936.

In the 1930's, his letters indicated a strong wish to return to
his native place in Kwangtung. Although the conditions in Canada pro-
vided him with a relatively good source of income, they did not conform
to his notions of the quality of a good life. How many immigrants main-
tain such a sojourner mentality, though few of them actually leave their
country of residence?

The first letter was written by his relative to Li in Winnipeg on
May 6, 1932:

Dear Yun Chi:

I have come to work in the Victory Dry Cleaning
in Melville, [Saskatchewan], to substitute Mao Tsung
in the business. He and Hsin Nan have already returned
to China last year on board the Japanese Queen. Our
business is not doing well. Have you decided on a
date of returning to China? Please drop me a line.

I would like to mention that Ping Kuen because of his
unceasing coughing has decided to return to China;
Chao Hsing has returned to the ancestral land.

Yu Tsin

The second letter was addressed to Yun Chi by his brother in

China:

136
My good younger brother:

. Having received a draft of 50 yuan enclosed
in your letter of the 10th month, I gave 5 guan to
my daughter-in-law, the rest being the sum you gave
me as my pocket money. My good brother, you should
not have done this; you have made me uncomfortable

. Your mother visits us very frequently and is
enjoying the best of health . . . Ah Chuan's wife
has gone to Nanyang last year, leaving behind three
pitiful daughters. I mention this only in passing.
What else can I do? Your two sons are well, fre-
quently writing to us from Nanyang. As for my son
Shu Fang in Canada, he has been taught and well
treated by you as if he were your own son . . .
When you save enough, come home to console your
aging mother who has been waiting at the door day
in and day out . . . There is no harvest in the
village; fortunately, everyone is doing fine

Sung Mao
13th of 10 Month

He returned to China with the thought of settling down for the
rest of his life. However, he found that his native land was becoming
poorer and poorer; besides his eldest son and younger brothers had immi-
grated to Thailand a few years previously. When the Sino-Japanese War
broke out in 1937, he concluded that the comfort of a family life and a
kin circle was not for him, and once again he left his wife and ancestral
land for Canada, perhaps for the last time.

Back in Canada, he worked as a kitchen helper in a Chinese restau-
rant in Winnipeg until his retirement in 1947. He could not take up the
position of a waiter which had better pay because he could Speak little
English.

His response to the facts of low status during his life did not
necessarily entail a sense of abnegation. Inequality of classes, if this
ever occurred to him at all, might be seen as being inevitable as well as

just. To him ethnic irregularity was probably more transparent. Now and

137

then in his long retirement, he recalled, for example, how at one time
children trailed him and his friends, chanting:

Ching-chong Chinaman sits on the rail

wi' stolen chicken in his bail.

Policemen come and put him in jail.

Ching-chong Chinaman has long pig-tail
He scratches with long finger-nails

During his long years of retirement, he regularly sent a token sum
of money to his son and brothers in Thailand who were then his only sur-
viving relatives. After his retirement he began to attend church service
because he enjoyed the companionship there. Each day he Spent hours sit-
ting in an association, chatting and watching mahjong games. He died at
the age of ninety-one, leaving one thousand and six hundred dollars in his
bank account, more than sufficient to cover his funeral expenses. One
important item in his will was: "Be sure that everybody who attends my
funeral is treated to a sumptuous meal." Some writers would classify him
in the lower lower class. However, he was a far cry, for example, from
Liebow's street corner man who was "obliged to expend all his resources
maintaining himself from moment to moment" (Liebow 1967: 65). For little

that he had, he managed to share and be a gentleman in his own way.

Case 3. Dr. Lloyd Jien was born in Vancouver in 1932. He was the
second of three sons born to a Chinese immigrant family. Like many of
the Canadian-born Chinese in Vancouver in his generation, he had no major
difficulty in accepting his identity as an ethnic Chinese. After his
graduation in the University of British Columbia, he went to Hong Kong to
study Chinese. There he was ordained as a theologian and minister and
headed the Hong Kong Baptist Church. He remained in Hong Kong where he

led various youth,low-income and civic groups and became rapidly the

138

focal point of many issues affecting the welfare of the low-income
Chinese. He returned to Canada and became a minister of Chinese Pres-
byterian Church in Toronto's Chinatown. He gave up his ministry and
joined the Department of Secretary of State in 1966 as an administrator
and officer and became increasingly active in civic work. Joining the
Liberal Party of Canada in 1971, Jien ran as a candidate in Federal
elections in Vancouver Center but lost by a very narrow margin. Failing
that, he went on to obtain his Ph.D. from the University of Boston by
writing a thesis on approaches to bilingual education in teaching Chinese
school children English as a foreign language.

He worked for nearly 12 years with the Department of Secretary of
State, travelling from coast to coast as a "social development officer"
aiming Specifically on the Chinese ethnic group. For the last six years
of his life, he stayed in Winnipeg where he was deeply involved in ethnic
affairs. Although he had developed terminal cancer, he volunteered to be
a secretary in projects such as the planning for a cultural center and the
staging of the Chinese pavilion in the 1976 Folklorama. He associated
himself with the Chinese Fellowship, the Manitoba Academy of Chinese
Studies, and was instrumental in obtaining a grant from the Federal Gov-

ernment for the compiling of Manitoba Chinese Directory, consisting of the

 

names, addresses and telephone numbers of Chinese in Manitoba. He spent
the last two months of his life by touring China. It was his first trip

to China, a trip which he had wished for for a long time.

Case 4. Mr. Joe Lee claims to be a third generation Canadian,
while he acknowledges that he and his ancestors were all born in China.

Born in 1941, he came to Canada in 1949 with his mother and lived near

the Winnipeg Chinatown. In 1950 his father, a teacher by occupation,

139
passed away. The boy and his mother continued to live in the Chinatown.
In 1954 after his mother remarried a Chinese man, the boy moved to live
with his grandfather until 1958. He did odd jobs and gardening and sold
Chinese vegetables outside school hours. During his high school days
(1958-1961) he became interested in drama performance and he performed in
an opera entitled South Pacific. Also in his high school days, he worked
in chain restaurants such as Champs and Town and Country, in hotels and
chopsuey houses. He attended both the Chinese United Church and the St.
Andrew's United Church which had a white congregation. In 1962, he
worked as a bank teller. In 1964 to 1968, he attended a local university
and married. He tried to study for a degree in commerce after his B.A.
but without success. In 1972, he was a manager of Lifetime Finance Serv-
ices Ltd. From 1972 to 1974, he worked in a travel agency. In 1974, he
ran for the city council and with the support of the population around
Chinatown, he was elected as a member of city council. During his term,
he was active in initiating certain projects including an old folks home
and a "cultural center" in Chinatown. He acted as the chief spokesman
for these projects, and negotiated with the government officials and
private individuals who owned the land.

In the City Council, he was identified as a spokesman for the
Chinese community. For example, in 1975 the mayor of Winnipeg was unable
to attend a banquet given by the K.M.T.-C.B.A. leaders for a number of
city councillors and the mayor. On the guest list Mr. Lee was noticeably
left out. However, the mayor, unable to attend, asked Councillor Lee to
read a message on his behalf, taking for granted that Lee had been in-
vited and on good terms with all Chinese. In reality, the leaders of the

Association disliked him, calling him a communist in his absence. The

140
inference was that they, but not Councillor Lee, represented the Chinese
community. In any case, Lee attended the banquet and read a message from
the mayor.

During his term of office, Councillor Lee continued to operate his
real estate agency, which was responsible for demolishing a block for the
construction of a new commercial complex in Chinatown and the construction
for an old folks home which he had actively initiated. He also operated a
travel agency near Chinatown, advertising for cheap fares to the Far East.
While he ran his business in the downtown, he lived in an affluent resi-
dential area.

In 1977, he broke away from the Progressive Conservative Party
which had supported his campaign for the city council in 1974. Instead,
he ran on the Liberal ticket in the 1977 provincial election. Another
Chinese person, a restaurant owner and a practicing chemist, also ran for
the same seat on the Progressive Conservative Party ticket. The seat went
to the incumbent, a candidate of the New Democratic Party. The Chinese
voters did not support the Chinese candidates. Some of them were heard
saying, "We don't want them [the whites] to think that we have a leader."

Private citizen Lee is now a thriving businessman. He has moved
his travel agency to the newly constructed commercial complex in China-
town. He is also one of the three owners of a restaurant located in the
same complex. He probably is an outstanding individual, and people like
to gossip about him. Presently, conversations in the Chinatown usually
concern his restaurant: "Dishes are good, but expensive"; "His chef

hired from Hong Kong has an annual salary of $12,000"; and so forth.

141

Case 5. Tony Tang immigrated into Canada from Hong Kong in 1968
through the sponsorship of a local garment factory. Because of this
sponsorship he was requested to work for this factory for one year. He
worked there for one year and then moved to work in a major department
store as a tailor until 1972. He was then no longer needed as a tailor,
and given a choice either to work as a car park attendant or to be laid
off. After working in the parkade for a few months, he developed reSpi-
ratory problems. He resigned.

He proceeded to rent a shop in the Chinatown, and started a tailor-
ing business. A year later, the block in which his shop was located was
up for sale. He and a friend nought the block, and there were five shop
houses in it. He used two of the houses for his tailor shop and one for
his steam bath. The other two Shops were used by his friend as a restau-
rant. Apparently, he enjoys being an entrepreneur. His tailor shop is
doing good business, and the old customers of the steam-bath which has
existed Since 1929 under the management of the previous owner of the
block are still coming regularly. Now he can afford to say, "Thanks to
that department store. Didn't it lay me off in order to bring me good
luck? This is my own business and I am my own boss."

However, his rewards owe as much to his hard work as to his entre-
preneurial skill and market system. He has to work almost seven days a
week and twelve hours a day. His wife is working five days a week and
eight hours a day at a garment factory. Having done all these long hours
of work, they now are owning a part of the commercial block, a residential
house for themselves, and a station wagon. Besides, they are bringing up
three school-aged children, and sponsoring his father, brother, and sister

to visit them from far-off Hong Kong.

142

At the back of his tailor shop is a living quarter for the family
and play area for the children. They attend one of the week-end Chinese
language schools described in the last chapter. The parents Speak only
in Cantonese to the children, while the latter respond in the same lan-
guage whenever they can. However, while a great deal of talking tran-
spires among the children themselves, there is little conversation be-
tween the children and parents. Apparently, like many Chinese children
in the seventies, the Tang children find difficulties in assuming the

parents' ethnic identity.

Summary and Discussion

 

The life histories are now discussed in terms of the major issues
of structural analysis raised in this study. The epistemological position
has been that the role and status of individuals, as much as any observ-
able occurrence, event or single relationship, constitute an appearance
whose full meaning or reality is only expressed by integrating them theo-
retically within their structures. However, the random and contingent
features in these life histories are not direct and mechancial reflection
of the overall structural conditions. The individual is not a microcosm
of his social world. Often he makes oppositional responses and enter-
tains personal vision against the internal logic of structural conditions.
At various points in life, he has his unique evaluation and image of the
social world and himself. Still, in the final analysis, an individual
cannot construct his social world in terms of a wholly personal vision.
Between his action and the underlying structures, the relationship is
dialectical. He generally makes adaptive rather than oppositional re-

sponses to his social world. He experiences varying degrees of freedom

143
of choice, arising from different ascribed characteristics such as age,
sex and place of birth. If he is regarded as an outstanding individual,
that is because he sees further than others. If he is an initiator, that
is because he can initiate some events on the basis of his understanding
which direction certain visible social relations are changing. In all
cases, he cannot combat the internal logic of the overall structural con-
ditions, which over-determine his actions.

For example, the individual of case 2, Mr. Li, held a personal
vision aspiring for a comfortable home in his native place. While he held
a sojourner's mentality, he was in practice a permanent resident, sed-
entary and forlorn, in Canada. He was socially and legally free to stay
in his native land. He could only perceive his reasons to leave home and
to take up residence overseas in terms of highly fortuitous social and
personal circumstances. His personal vision could not entail a macro-
social view of the power of the world market, which was not a normative
defined authority and yet exercised constraint over individual actions.
As compared with class relations as defined by the mode of production,
ethnic relations are more transparent and more easily perceived. The
life history of case 2 illustrates this generalization.

In terms of occupations, residence, and friends, the individJals
of both case 2 and 5 are deeply rooted and confined to the Chinatown
area. Both have only one set of ethnic identities-~the ethnic Chinese or
the Peripheral ethnic group. The class identities of the two individuals
are different, however. In case 5, skill in the job itself and entre -
preneurial skill in general permit a chance of social mobility of which
the individual of case 2 is deprived.

In case 1, the individual was not only deeply rooted in the local

144
community as in the two cases above, but also capable of interacting
closely with the local officials and mainstream Canadians. Given the
homogeneous nature of the Chinese community of his time and the need
for organization during the war years, the emergence of a center of the
Peripheral ethnic community was almost inevitable. This position the
individual was the most qualified person to fill. He was a promoter, his
initiation including his wartime Speeches, his close interaction with
high-ranking officials, and his attempts to bring about the twinning of
Taichung and Winnipeg. His far-sightedness and actions were quite
compatible with the structural conditions of the historical moments--the
World War II, the market-oriented economic base, and the pluralistic
political order. Had the individual of case 4 (the city councillor)
lived in the time of case 1, he probably could fill the position of the
center. He was an initiator of the same caliber of the individual of
case 1. However, authority, power, and leadership, these are expressions
of the underlying structures of the historical moments.

The individual of case 3 was quite capable of adapting to a great
variety of situations, being Canadian born, well educated, a minister,
and a government officer. Because of this wide range of Opportunities
made available to him, he could not identify himself with any local group
long enough to be its leader. A comparison of case 3 with cases 1 (the
restauranteur), 4 (the city-councillor and enterpriser) and 5 (the tailor)
provides an illustration that work identity importantly affects identities
in the superstructural realm.

In summary, the following illustrations have been made: the con-
straining power of the market, the relatively transparency of ethnic re-

lations, the historical nature of the center of a Peripheral ethnic group

145
and the constraint of underlying structures over social programs and
campaigns. While the constraint of structures has been stressed, the
relationship between individual behavior and the underlying structural
conditions is recognized as dialectical. It is upon this dialectical

relationship that individual freedom is built.

Chapter VII

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The problem in this study concerns both class and ethnic relations
among the Chinese minority of Winnipeg vis-a-vis the White majority in
Canada. The first task is not to seek out significant classes and ethnic
groups. It begins by assessing the origin, nature, and development of
the social formation underlying the selected local ethnic community. The
important features of the social formation first identified include the
following: Canada as an advanced capitalist state, the existence of a
modern world system, the immigration process into Canada and the scheme
of dual economy. The understanding thus gained becomes the necessary
basis for the examination of the ethnic and class relations as revealed
in the local ethnic community.

In order to critically examine class ordering in this context,
two sets of analytical terminologies have been used. The first set of
terms, the upper class, middle class, and working class, frequently
appears in studies of social stratification. For purposes of this in-
quiry, the old and new middle classes are distinguished in order to
differentiate between the entrepreneurs and the salaried professional
group respectively. The second set of terminology is formulated to ana-
lyze the interplay of class and ethnic relations in an advanced capital-
ist society, consisting of four interacting collectivities: (l) the
center of the Center, (2) the periphery of the Center, (3) the center of

the Periphery, and (4) the periphery of the Periphery. How the population

146

147
in a society is divided in terms of these collectivities depends on how
the writer wishes to state his problem. In order to focus on the Chinese
as the subject of study, the Center is regarded as constituted by the
whites, or, analytically speaking, non-Chinese. While analytical dis-
tinction of the particular ethnic groups among the whites is irrelevant,
the above formulation directs attention to the Anglo-Saxon group, which
constitutes the center of the Center. It determines the conditions under
which other groups may enter and makes invidious judgements about the
apprOpriateness of various groups coming to Canada.

During the era of early immigration, disharmony between the center
and the periphery in both Center and Periphery ethnic groups can be read-
ily demonstrated. To the center of the Center, the Chinese indentured
labor was indispensable in the development of continental transportation.
To the peripheral whites, however, the fact that the Chinese came as an
organized group and demand lower wages seriously cut their bargaining
power with the employers. The center of the Center turned, in part, to-
ward the cheaper labor supply constituted oy the indentured Chinese, a
move regarded by the higher priced labor as a threat of being displaced
from the labor market.

To deal with the periphery of the Periphery, the center of the
Center required a brokerage within the Peripheral ethnic group. The
Chinese merchants became the center of the Periphery by virtue of their
connections with the center of the Center. The Six Companies were the
agents for the import of indentured labor and the supervisors in the or-
ganization of labor. Rigid class relations between the center and the
periphery of the Periphery are obvious. When an ethnic center is at one

and the same time the employer and leader in local organizations, the

148
center is at its maximal degree of dominance. The constraints of the
mode of production would be sufficient to keep the indentured labor in
order; however, absconding would still be possible without the contin-
gent of policemen, lawyers and close connections with the shipping
companies by the Six Companies. The superstructure resting upon the
infrastructure is essential for the maintenance of the social relations
of production. Conflicts of interest between the dominant and subordin-
ate segments in the system were then more apparent and more violent than
during any other periods.

In this study a distinction is made between the primary and
secondary labor markets. The former is characterized by high product-
ivity, non-poverty wages, and stability in the labor force, which feeds
back to wage-bargaining and union formation. In contrast, the secondary
labor market is characterized by relatively poor working conditions, low
productivity, low wages, instability in the labor force, and weak union-
ization or the absence of it. In railway construction, the Chinese labor
force found itself squarely in the primary labor market, challenging the
existing organized labor force in Canada. The confrontation between the
existing labor force and the newly arrived group was overt. This antag-
onism would have been largely avoided, had the Chinese worked in the
secondary labor market alone from the beginning. This argument may be
substantiated by the historical experience of the Chinese population
after its dispersal into the major Canadian cities. A great majority of
the population consisted of free, self-employed entrepreneurs, and un-
skilled workers in the secondary labor market. The small business did
not involve the workers' unions, and consequently the issue of labor dis-

placement did not occur. There was no overt competition between the

149
periphery of the Center and the Periphery population. The ethnic Chinese
were largely performing work unwanted by the mainstream Canadians but
essential to the functioning of the infra-structure. The specialization
in the service occupations by the community is being shaped by the class
relations in the Canadian society. This occupational specialization is
reproduced in part by kinship and ethnic affiliations.

The work situations of restaurants after 1947 have been described
in some details. The work process exerts an all-pervading influence on
people's lives, shaping the conditions of their identities and existence.
As compared with the middle class, the unskilled workers do not regard
ethnic irregularity as severely, and participating in the ethnic affairs
as necessary. The middle class is more conscious of the importance of
gaining acceptance by the wider social milieu. The old middle class, in
particular, stands to benefit economically from civic endeavor and im-
provement. Moreover, while the new middle class tends to see job promo-
tion as a realistic possibility, the unskilled workers do not see their
jobs as part of an upward career, although many workers entertain the
vision of becoming independent entrepreneurs.

The examination of occupations point to a contradiction which is a
constitutional feature in the structure of relations of production in
Canada. Canada is underpopulated, and while admitting immigrants, Canada
experiences the losses of a substantial portion of its population through
emigration. The population remains low relative to its land expanse,
natural resources, and potential for capital accumulation. To realize
such a potential, new immigrants must be admitted. They provide for an
indispensable source of labor, but at the same time, become potential

competitors to the existing labor force. The key questionsin this social

150
formation are who shall and who shall not work, how shall one work, and
who shall enjoy greater material and social benefits in the division of
labor. This contradiction within the structure of the relations of pro-
duction is expressed in events such as the overt conflict between the
Chinese and the white ethnic groups, and the restriction of Chinese im-
migration from 1925 to 1946.

Over a certain period of time, this contradiction may limit the
necessary labor supply, and hence constrain the productive force. When
this is the case, a contradiction between the productive force and rela-
tions of production develops. Certain writers regard this controduction
between the structures as the basic one in an advanced capitalist
country; however, economic growth as such is well beyond the scope of
this study.

Returning to the observable interaction of the four collectivi-
ties, this study notes that given the egalitarian nature, the occupations
of the Winnipeg Chinese cannot by themselves form the basis of an elitist
group which automatically woyld evolve into the center of the Peripheral
ethnic group. The historical conditions during the war years gave rise
to such a center. Certain restaurant businessmen improved their overall
social standing by taking on non-work roles. Their leadership positions
in voluntary associations enabled them to associate with high ranking
governmental officials in connection with the war efforts against the
Axis. While these leaders came to constitute the center of the Periphery
by virtue of their coupling with the center of the Center, the Peripheral
center was weak in comparison with that of the previous period, when the
Peripheral center was one and the same time the employer and leader in

local organizations.

151

Among Winnipeg's ethnic Chinese, territorial associations existed
only briefly before 1947. Voluntary associations active in the community
largely belong to the type that claims community-wide membership and re-
presentation. The identity of the local ethnic group has over-ridden the
identity of territorial groups.

Among the most important of these associations are the Chinese
Benevolent Association and the Kuomintang. Their leadership has come to
constitute the center of the Periphery because of its connections with
both the Chinese government and Canadian governmental officials. For the
Taipei government this center is instrumental in maintaining contact with
influential persons on local level, and in maintaining the legitimacy of
the government as the government of all-China in the eyes of ethnic
Chinese. Subsidies from the Taipei government provide the old center
with incentive to exaggerate its capacity as representative of the ethnic
community. These subsidies will form the basis partially for the repro-
duction of the old center for the near future. This reproduction is sub-
ject to the constraint of the class relations in Canada, as exemplified
by the challenge of the new middle class, and the constraint of inter-
national development, as exemplified by the diplomatic tie between Ottawa
and Peking and the rising trade activities of the People's Republic.

This analysis also demonstrates that ethnic tie can play an important
role in the dynamics of the modern world system.

In the late 1960's, the occupational distribution of the Winnipeg
Chinese population began to ramify, with dominant representation in both
the unskilled manual and the professional categories, or the top and
bottom strata of the occupational hierarchy according to the dominant

value of the society. A new middle class, as represented by the

 

152
professional group, has emerged, and began to challenge the representa-
tion of the Chinese community laid claim by the C.B.A. Although the new
middle class groups and the old center of the Periphery are opposed to
each other, they are also in solidarity with each other. The conflicts
among them did not rule out their unity as components of an ethnic group.

While focusing on the local ethnic community, this study has, at
various places, elucidated the major features of the system of class and
ethnicity which Canada constitutes. It is now possible to predict a
future trend of the Canadian society. For the near future, the propor-
tion of unskilled manual labor will continue to remain dominant among the
Winnipeg Chinese. There exists a long term labor shortage in the service
sector in Canada, and to meet the demand in this sector, immigrants are
still being admitted. On the other hand, the proportion of the profes-
sional cannot remain dominant simply through immigration. Already, in
Canada job vacancy in this sector has been limited, and Hong Kong stu-
dents graduated from Canadian universities are no longer re-admitted into
Canada as landed immigrants.

For the near future, Canada will remain underpopulated; still, im—
migrants are largely confined to those who prove that they would do jobs
unfilled or that cannot be done by those in the mainstream of the Cana-
dian economy. The end result of the immigration process is to maintain
the status quo of the sitting incumbents and ultimately the legitimacy of
the structural position of the center of the Center. Contemporary con-
ditions point toward the same underlying structure of relations of pro-
duction that exists in the earlier periods.

In this study the analysis of the social formation has included

analysis of the existence of the world system and its ramifications in

153
the local community. The modern world system has developed from the
economic and political dominance of the west since the 15th century.
Firstly, the world system has been a source of labor. The railway con-
struction workers, and employees in both the garment factories and restau-
rants exemplify labor drawn from the international labor market. Inter-
national labor is recruited according to the following priorities: the
demand of both the primary and secondary labor markets, the Center pOpu-
lation's ethnic ties with western Europe, and the political conditions
in Canada, such as the opposition from the labor unions.

Indeed, class inequality and ethnic irregularity are associated
with the immigration process. Between 1925 and 1946 Chinese immigration
into Canada almost completely stOpped. Had this not happened, the social
organizations and occupational structure during this period would have
been quite different. There would have been stronger surname and terri-
torial associations; furthermore, there would have been more locally born
Chinese Canadians, and occupational specialization might not have occur-
red. Also, recently, Hong Kong students graduated from Canadian universi-
ties are no longer re-admitted into Canada as landed immigrants. These
factors further reveal the nature of both class and ethnic relations.
They should be appreciated in terms of the world context. In order to
come to grips with the reality of these social relations, one has to con-
sider not only those peOple who are present in the society, but also
those who should be around but are not around.

This study also notes that international financial groups and
entrepreneurs invest in the periphery of the economy, and that resource-
ful individuals and shopkeepers conduct some sort of imports and exports

by making use of ethnic ties in the international setting. An inference

154
is that the ethnic community is related to the world market in a very
marginal way, and its ramifications can be felt in the economic activi-
ties of the local community largely through the vicissitude of the core
industry.

In the last chapter is included a description of particular indi-
viduals who make life's passage in varying ways. While an individual is
seen as having varying degrees of freedom of choice, the constraints of
the underlying structures is dominant over individual action. Between
the last two entities, structural constraint and individual action, the
relationship is dialectical. Individual freedom has its basis on this
relationship, and on a recognition and management of reality by individ-
uals.

In summary of this chapter, then, four collectivities may be
distinguished, and their interaction over three eras observed. The
underlying structure of relations of production reveals that for Canada's
growth, immigrant labor is indiSpensable, still it is a source of chal-
lenge to a major section of the population engaged in the mainstream of
the economy. The superstructural elements underlying the local ethnic
community have been originated outside Canada, but are constantly subject
to the negation of the overall social formation. Again, this study is to
analyze the social formation underlying the local ethnic community in the
context of the world system, and aims to arrive at the hidden reality

which gives logic to the visible forms.

FOOTNOTES

155

The notion of contradiction here is formulated for the struc-
tural analysis as presented in this study. Contradiction does not only
appear within and between structures. The contradictions appear where
the elements are members of one totality, constituting a unity of oppo-
sites. Contradictions can exist in simple things such as the relations
between spouses, where the persons oppose each other, and where love
develops through struggle.

O'Connor (1973: chapter(l) sees two broad groups in economic
activities in the U.S.: - (a) industries organized by private capital,
and (b) those organized by the state. The former is divided into two
subgroups: - (l) competitive industries organized by small business,
which is equivalent to the "periphery" sector in the text of this study;
and (2) monopolistic industries organized by large-scale capital, equiva-
lent to the "core."

3 As a comparison, another Asian group in Canada, the Japanese
Canadians, does not show the same scale of increase. In 1951, the
population was 21, 663 or 0.2 per cent of the Canadian total; in 1961,
29,157 or 0.2 per cent; and in 1971, 37,260 or 0.2 per cent (Canada Year
Book 1975, p. 169).

According to the 1976 Census, there were 3,705 individuals whose
mother tongue is either Chinese or Japanese in Manitoba; and 3,670 in
Winnipeg. According to the same census, there were 495 individuals whose
mother tongue was Japanese, and according to one individual who has been
active in the ethnic affairs among the Japanese Canadians, there are
about 450 in Winnipeg. It follows that there should be about 3,220
Chinese-speaking individuals in Winnipeg. There are few second and third
generation Chinese Canadians in Winnipeg. Therefore the total population
figure of the Chinese ethnic group should be about 3,400 or slightly less
in 1976.

The 1976 Census is said to be a "small census" by one official
of Statistics Canada, and therefore would not list some figures which
would appear in the "big" census such as that of 1971 (Table 2. Popula-
tion by mother tongue and sex. For Canada and Provinces, 1976, p. 2-1.
Table 6. Population by mother tongue and sex. For census metropolitan
areas and census agglomerations of 25,000. In Population. Ethnic
Groups 1976. Census of Canada, Statistics Canada).

Parkin's definitions of the three value systems are: -

The dominant value system, the social source of which is the
major institutional order. This is a moral framework which promotes
the endorsement of existing inequality . . .
(2) The subordinate value system, the social scource or generating milieu
of which is the local working-class community. This is a moral framework
which promotes accommodative responses to the facts of inequality and low
status .
(3) The radical value system, the source of which is the mass political
party based on the working class. This is a moral framework which pro-
motes an Oppositional interpretation of class inequalities (Parkin 1971:
81-2).

156

6 Literally, "Buddha" is the title of Buddhists who have been
deified. Hence, "to become a Buddha" implies the reaching for the top
of one's career through dedication, and, in a way, self-abnegation.

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