Life of Early Chinese Immigrants in Toronto, 1911

The Life of Early Chinese Immigrants in Toronto, 1911

Introduction

The first wave of Chinese immigrants who came to Canada were motivated by environment in China, as well as the factors outside of the nation. (History of Canada’s early Chinese immigrants, 2017). In common with the many immigrant groups who settled in Canada at the turn of the century, came in search of economic betterment (Nipp, 1985). The push factor, such as the poor living conditions and difficult political time, made it hard for people to earn money, and even survive.

According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, the first Chinese immigrants arrived in British Columbia in 1858 as gold prospectors. During 1880 and 1885, increasingly more Chinese people came to Canada, and over 15,000 Chinese laboured under appalling conditions to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Due to the build of trans-Canada railway, Chinese communities developed across the nation. In addition, the 1887 anti-Chinese riot in Vancouver drove the Chinese people out of town. Numerous unemployed Chinese railroad navvies migrated to eastern Canada, and these railway workers became the first Chinese immigrant group in Toronto (Chinese Canadian, n.d.).

This research focuses on how the early Chinese settlers lived in the city of Toronto sometime around the year 1911. Their places of habitation, gender distribution, marital status, place of birth, religion distribution, occupation, and community organization will be further studied. Thirty-five household heads were selected by a Simple Random Sampling method from Census of Canada 1911 as the basis of raw statistical data.

Early Chinese Settlers’ Living Places in Toronto in 1911

Source: Census, 1911.

Figure 1, illustrating the place where the early Chinese settlers lived in Toronto in 1911, shows that there were even number of households lived in the northern, southern, eastern, and western part of Toronto. While 40% of the households lived in Centre Toronto, bounded by Bloor Street East, Spadina Avenue, Queen Street, and Sherburne Street, where was the very beginning of Today’s Chinatown.

Map of electoral district of Toronto Centre, Ontario in 1911 (Source: University of Toronto Library, n.d.)

Toronto’s Chinese did not live together in a specific neighbourhood until the time of 1915 (Chan, 2011). The early community moved from York Street to Queen Street, then moved north up again to Elizabeth Street towards Dundas Street West due to redevelopments of the city (Kaitlin, 2012). The new living neighbourhood was then located at the heart of downtown Toronto, surrounding by Yonge Street, College Street, University Avenue, and Queen Street, and it was known as the Ward later (Chan, 2011). A large amount of early Chinese settler as well as new immigrants were willing to stay in this area because it offered a relatively cheap housing for the city’s poorest citizens, and also was close to the railway station (Chan, 2011).

Table 1: Toronto’s Chinese Population, 1870-1931

Source: Valerie Mah, An In-Depth Look at Toronto’s Early Chinatown, 1913-1933 (master’s thesis, University of Toronto, 1977).

However, Torontonians would not be unnoticed about the significantly increased number of Chinese residents and their accompanying businesses. Toronto’s Saturday Night, a local newspaper, warned the public of the potential influence brought by Chinese and advocated “keeping the Chinese on the move (K. Paupst, 1977).”Obviously, these negative printed opinions directly affected Torontonians’ attitudes towards Chinese. This led to an intended effect to the Chinese community, while Chinese people became more determined in staying closer to support each other (Chan, 2011). Hence, this gathering place was regarded as a safe haven, as well as a spiritual consolation from the hostile society (Chan, 2011).

Serious Gender Imbalance in the Toronto’s Chinese Community in 1911

（Source: Census, 1911）

Based on the data, the male Chinese household heads occupied 100% of the sample, and there was no Chinese female as a household head at the time of 1911 (figure 2).

In 1885, the B.C. Government pressured the Federal Government to impose every Chinese immigrant a head tax of $50 to dampen the population growth of Chinese immigrants . At that time, Chinese labourers only had an income of $225 a year on average. After deducting food, clothes, rent, medicine and other expenditures, he could only save approximately $43 a year (Simon Fisher University, n.d.). In this way, the it was impossible for him to pay for a spouse or a child to come to Canada with his mean wage and the $50 head tax.

What’s more, the head tax not only set a financial barrier on Chinese immigrants, but also changed Chinese migratory pattern (Chan, 2011). In other immigrant groups, men were the first to move abroad, followed by women, children, and parents. However, this sequence did not take place within the Chinese immigrants’ community. Because of head tax, it created the serious gender imbalance. According to the 1911 Census, it showed that the male-female ratio of Chinese was 28 to one (Chan, 2011).

Consequently, majority of the Chinese in Canada were men who left their families behind in China and came alone. In the sample group, some were single, the rest were married men, who came to be known as bachelor husbands (Chan, 2011). Their wives were living in China so they lived their lives in Canada like single men. Only a small part of them such as merchants were fortunate enough to make sufficient money in order to bring their families to Canada (Chan, 2011). Moreover, few Chinese women ventured overseas, not only due to the head tax, but also because of cultural taboos. By gender roles in tradition, Chinese women were very family-centred since when they were daughters at the young age till their death (Chan, 2011). In this way, both the prohibitive cost and influence from China’s patrilineal society lead to the rarity of Chinese women at that time.

The Marital Status of Chinese People in Toronto in 1911

（Source: Census, 1911）

In the above pie chart, it shows the martial status of the Chinese household heads from sample. There were 21 single Chinese in the sample, which accounted for 60% of the total. The number of married Chinese was less than single Chinese, which was 14 people and occupied 40% of the total.

In 1911, the Chinese community was a special single-sex group, basically dominated by male. Most of them were married and had children in China. They came to Canada alone to work to support their families. In 1905 Toronto had a population of 130,000 and the Chinese had 1,036, while only 35 were women (Chan, 2011).

 Under this huge difference between the number of males and females Chinese, the marriage between Chinese and whites was not accepted but it was ubiquitous. Under normal circumstances, Chinese single men would go back to China to marry and return alone. As time went by, the high head tax for Chinese made them feel that they could never bring their families to Toronto far away from China. Therefore, they started getting married with local white women in Toronto. In 1906, 18 of the 23 married Chinese males in Toronto had white wives. (Toronto Star, 1906) This was because there were only seven Chinese women in the city, and only of them two were single. In this way, the phenomenon of single Chinese male marrying a “foreign” wife became popular in the Chinese community.

Place of Birth of The Early Chinese Immigrants in Toronto, 1911

By looking through the Census of Canada in 1911, it displayed that most of Chinese people, not only in Toronto, but all over Canada, were only born in China instead of Canada or any other country in the world. In the sample, all 35 household heads researched were all Chinese, and 100% of them were born in China. It implies that the Chinese community in 1911 in Toronto were all immigrants.

The gold rush and the construction of Pacific railway were the main reasons for Chinese peasants and laborers coming to Canada in the late 19^th century. Although emigration was a crime in China during that time, these immigrants still left their country because of the poverty, wars, natural disasters, and a corrupt Qing dynasty (Chan, 2012). By 1881, there were only a dozen Chinese in Toronto. According to the investigation and analysis of historical researchers, these Chinese came from the United States, because of the racism in California and the economic depression in the eastern America. Coming to Canada was a great opportunity for these Chinese people to turn over a new leaf (Watson, 2000).

On the other hand, most of the Chinese immigrants in Canada went to British Columbia first. The population growth of Chinese community was slow in the city until the railway was completed in 1885 and the Chinese people in the western Canada started to move towards east for escaping the anti-Chinese racism in British Columbia.  

The Diversity of Religious Believes Among the Chinese Settlers

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(Source: Census, 1911)

By looking at the pie chart (Figure 3) of the distribution of the religions of Chinese people in Toronto in 1911, it shows that there were 3 religious beliefs among 35 household heads, including Presbyterian, Church of England and Methodist. The Presbyterians accounted for 40% of the total number of household heads in the sample. Next comes people who were belief in Church of England, whose percentage was 31%. The percentage of Methodists was slightly less than 30%. From late 19^th century to early 20^th century, Methodism, Church of England and Presbyterian started to gradually play important roles in the city of Toronto religiously, culturally and politically, and Chinese people in the sample were all followers of them.

Chinese residents in Toronto in 1911 were mostly born in China, and China was a country that strongly influenced by Buddhism and Confucianism. Although Chinese in China or Canada were deeply affected by Confucianism in ancestral worship and ethical precepts, Chinese people were not religiously disposed, and they believed that Christian churches would undermine the solidarity of Chinese community (Li and Eva X, 2014). Furthermore, some of the missionaries thought that Chinese could be saved through assimilation, but another group believed that “White Canada” should be protected by limiting the immigration of Chinese people (Wickberg, 1982). Also, there were few priests who knew Chinese in the church at the time. This language barrier, cultural differences, and the paternalistic style of some church missionaries enlarged the distance between most Chinese and Christian churches. Therefore, Protestant missions did not success in the Chinese community from late 19^th century to early 20^th century.

The sample of 35 household heads shows that Chinese people in Toronto in 1911 were Christianised. This was because most of Chinese immigrants could not speak English well, and they were so pragmatic that they went to churches actively to join the language and social programs hosted in the church. The Toronto YMCA in 1882 reported that nine of sixteen Chinese living in Toronto attended the bible study class at Queen Street West. The 1910 Cooke’s Presbyterian reported that the class after the evening worship attracted more than 100 Chinese students, and they learnt the alphabet and simple words in the class, sang hymn and studied bible.

Another important service that the churches provided for Chinese was medical assistance. Under the background of widespread discrimination to Chinese people in Canada at that time, Chinese people did not have the most basic civil rights, and there was no basic medical insurance and services for them. Consequently, these churches were one of the first groups to provide medical assistance to Chinese people.

In conclusion, from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, few Chinese people were willing to contact the Christian Church or seek Christianity as a spiritual sustenance because the racism and many other reasons. However, a small number of Chinese began to walk into the Christian churches for other purposes such as the need to learn language and medical assistance, but not because of their belief of Christianity.

Distribution of Occupations- Chinese Hand Laundries in Toronto

(Source: Census, 1911)

(Source: Census, 1911)

In figure 5, the bar graph shows the occupational distributions of the sample of Chinese people in Toronto in 1911. Obviously, the major job for the Chinese people in Toronto at that time was laundry worker which made up for 85% and 30 people in total. Next came to lodge officer, grocery store worker, restaurant, merchant retail and tea agent, whose percentage was same to each other which was about 3%, and there was only one person taking them as their jobs respectively.

Combining the Figure 4 above, there were 6 occupational categories of Toronto workers during 1850-1900, including unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled, clerical, business, professional. The pie chart indicates that the unskilled jobs, such as laundry worker, lodge officer, grocery store worker and restaurant employee, had the largest percentage of Chinese people in the sample taking them as their jobs which accounted for 94% and 33 people in total. Besides of the largest percentage “unskilled”, the category of business job takes part of 6% and 2 people in total, which includes tea agent and merchant retail. The lack of English ability and racial discrimination to Chinese people led most of Chinese immigrants to take these unskilled jobs, especially the hand laundries.

(Source: Toronto Star, 2017)        Chinese Laundry in Toronto in early 1900s

Also, the nature of their occupation was also a determining factor of establishing their businesses. Being different from cities like Vancouver in British Columbia, Toronto’s Chinese immigrants were rarely doing jobs in mining, construction, canning industry. Instead, they were mostly employed in secondary occupations of which laundries predominated (Nipp, 1985).

The 1878 Toronto City Directory showed that Sam Ching was the first Chinese resident to work in Toronto, and he operated a laundry shop on Adelaide East Street. In the following decades, the directory showed that the Chinese hand laundries was popular throughout the city. The number of Chinese laundries did not grow rapidly before the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed. The criminals burnt down some Chinese laundries during the anti-Chinese riot in 1887 in Vancouver, and the laundry workers in Vancouver forced to begin migrating eastwards along the CPR (Lee, 1984).

After the gold rush and the railway completion, Chinese immigrants in North America had almost joined the laundry industry. Before the popularity of Chinese restaurants, this was the career they could depend on for their livelihood. There was no exception for Chinese immigrants in Toronto, and almost everyone worked in the laundries. The reason for the Chinese to monopolize the laundry is simple— the industry was hard and only Chinese were willing to do it, or only the Chinese were willing to work so hard.

The life was not easy for the Chinese laundrymen, and their working environment was not satisfactory. The laundry was usually narrow, hot and steaming which might cause fire accidents. In the report of 1902 Royal Commission on Chinese immigration, the Chinese laundry business was depicted in one chapter. It said that Chinese laundries were set up in “a tenement that is not fit for anything else and were regarded as “a nuisance and menace by those who live in the vicinity (Lee, 1984).” In addition, people in Toronto were worried about the existence of a Chinese laundry in the neighborhood would devalue their property.

Community Organizations and Social Life for Chinese Residents

 Since Chinese was socially and residentially isolated from the mainstream Canadian society, they consequently developed their own social and economic circles. By traditions in China, businesses and organizations developed by a complicated network made of regional and political factors, so that they could provide leadership and community support to the overseas Chinese people (Chan,2011).

 At that time, businessmen or people with a relatively high social status were playing roles of governing and making political decisions representing the whole community. These community organizations provided service such as assisting new immigrants’ settlement and employment (Chan, 2011). As Chinese people were banned and denied from borrowing money from local banks, these associations were offering a function of the banking system. They operated in a way of getting groups of relatively wealthy people pool their financial resources together and helped people who need the financial aids.

 Also, the social life of the Chinese was largely dependent on the social and demographic characteristics of their community. Without any family life, lone Chinese men could go the community and seek for support of the hardship. These organizations responded to their needs and used common surnames and home counties as bases for recruiting members (Li, 1998). In 1910, there already were ten clan and two district associations in Toronto, and it was worth mentioning that the family association halls with high reputation were located in the centre of the Chinese community, where was around Elizabeth Street and Dundas Street (Chan, 2011).

Table 2: Clan and District Associations in Toronto, 1910

Source: Adapted from Richard H. Thompson, Toronto’s Chinatown (New York: AMS Press, 1989), 64.

Conclusion

 From the research, there were many stories reflecting the lives of Chinese immigrants in Toronto at the time of 1911 to tell. The overt hostility, such as the discrimination against Chinese, the rising anti-orientalism, and restrictions of the political and social rights of Chinese, led to many issues among the Chinese community. However, the early Chinese immigrants showed more determination in staying more united and stronger. The hardships of the early life and social injustice brought us lessons to learn from the past.

References

• Archives Canada. (2018, August 06). Census of Canada, 1911. Retrieved from https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1911/Pages/1911.aspx
• Archives Canada. (2017, April 19). History of Canada’s early Chinese immigrants. Retrieved from https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/immigration/history-ethnic-cultural/early-chinese-canadians/Pages/history.aspx#why
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