Expanding the Frontier of Asian-Canadian Research: A Comparative Review of Three Studies

Reviewed by: The Triumph of Citizenship: The Japanese and Chinese in Canada, 1941 – 67 William Jenkins (bio) Patricia E. Roy. The Triumph of Citizenship: The Japanese and Chinese in Canada, 1941 – 67. UBC Press. x, 390. $32.95 This is the third instalment in Patricia Roy’s trilogy on the experiences of Chinese and Japanese immigrants and their descendants in Canada. [End Page 376] While British Columbia was the focus of her first two volumes, this book’s treatment of their story during and after the Second World War adopts a national perspective, not least because of the well-known displacement of Japanese Canadians from their centres of settlement along the bc coast. The book is not a systematic comparative history of all aspects of the two groups’ fortunes during this period, however. Instead, Roy concentrates on the interrelations between politics and (largely white English-Canadian) public opinion and how these shaped and reshaped attitudes towards her two groups of study and, ultimately, the place of ‘race’ in Canadian immigration policy and notions of citizenship. Through the use of a wide range of sources (mainly provincial and federal departments’ records, private papers of politicians, newspapers, and associational records), she thoroughly and effectively charts the long trudge towards full citizenship for both Chinese- and Japanese-Canadians that ended only in 1967 with the introduction of an immigration policy in which race was no longer a consideration. Of the seven main chapters, five concentrate on Japanese Canadians, and for understandable reasons. The first half of the book traces a rising climate of fear among white British Columbians about the possible arrival of Japanese bombs after the fall of Pearl Harbor, Singapore, and Hong Kong, which in turn translated into a general atmosphere of hostility towards the Japanese residents of the province and their locally born descendants. Long-held white assumptions about the ‘British way of life’ and the ‘Oriental mind’ now mixed with accusations of disloyal ‘fifth-column’ activity, eventually resulting in the upheaval of the Japanese to the provincial interior and points further east. While a grudging acceptance of the Japanese was the norm in their new locations, Chinese-Canadians’ wartime experiences were far less dramatic, and their wearing of national buttons in public served further to convince the majority that not all ‘Orientals’ were the same. With the cessation of hostilities, a new Canadian Citizenship Act granted Chinese Canadians the vote and in 1947 repealed the 1923 act banning immigration from China. In 1949, Japanese Canadians regained the freedom to move within Canada. New conceptions of citizenship and human rights and a general revulsion of racist Nazi ideology did not immediately herald a new era of civic inclusion for the Chinese and Japanese in Canada, however. Even with Canadian citizenship, they could not sponsor as wide a range of relatives as could white Europeans, and those stranded in Asia during the war with family members in Canada had difficulty returning. These frustrations, and the political efforts made to counter them, are recounted in the second half of the book. In an effort to improve conditions for family reunification, tireless Chinese lobbyists such as Foon Sien contended with persistent fears of a new ‘flood’ of immigration from Asia (not helped by [End Page 377] newspaper headlines of Chinese immigrant racketeering in 1960), while economic prosperity in postwar Japan reduced the attractiveness of Canada as an emigrant destination. Though these later chapters highlight increasingly liberal attitudes and sympathies towards the Chinese and Japanese by white Canadians and their politicians, a mixture of caution and inaction by successive governments clouded prospects for immigration policy reform. ‘Opening the gates’ could still be seen as problematic, and Roy’s use of political cartoons is suggestive of how politicians’ instincts did not always gel with more widely held opinions. But politicians were not the only influential state-based actors in this regard. As Roy notes, officials in the Department of Immigration ‘did not share the same liberal ideas as the politicians,’ offering useful insight on how long-held visions of a white Canada enjoying ‘British-style’ freedoms were not easily turned around. These bureaucratic dimensions of the history of Canadian immigration policy emerge as factors of...

Colon cancer is one of the most common cancers and the second most common cause of cancer mortality in Western societies. Population screening has been introduced as a means to reducing its impact; however, there are little or no data on the incidence of this disorder in the different populations that comprise the Canadian population. To retrospectively determine the incidence of colorectal cancer in selected racial populations of British Columbia. The British Columbia Cancer Agency database was used to retrieve information on the incidence of cancers occurring during the years 1994 to 1998, with the British Columbia and national population censuses used to derive the age-specific and age-standardized incidence rates of colorectal cancers. Surnames were used to identify the origin of individuals from South Asian and Chinese backgrounds. For the Caucasian Canadian (C) population, the weighted age-standardized incidence rate ranged from 51.99 per 100,000 in 1995, to 57.68 per 100,000 in 1998. For Chinese Canadians (CC), the range was 39.2 per 100,000 in 1996, to 31.2 per 100,000 in 1998. For South Asian Canadians (SAC), the range was 7.40 per 100,000 in 1994, to 24.85 per 100,000 in 1998. The RR for the development of cancer were significantly different when comparing C versus CC (RR 1.9; 95% CI 1.58 to 2.31; P<0.001), C versus SAC (RR 7.1; 95% CI 4.20 to 12.0; P<0.0001) and CC versus SAC (RR 3.7; 95% CI 2.14 to 6.5; P<0.0001). Significant differences in the incidence of colorectal cancers have been defined for the first time in various racial subgroups in British Columbia. This finding may have important implications for both screening and understanding of the environmental factors influencing the biology of these lesions. Because SAC have among the highest incidence of atherosclerotic heart disease and diabetes, it suggests that unidentified genetic and/or environmental protective factors are capable of countering the traditionally recognized risk of high saturated fat intake for the development of colorectal cancer.

This research described in this chapter delves into the social issue of equity representation of visible minorities, specifically Chinese Canadians, in leadership roles. The author describes her qualitative study which investigated the career experiences and perspectives of Chinese Canadians working in large financial institutions in Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, British Columbia. This research goes beyond the paradigm of employment equity to explore bicultural identity within an organizational context and to critically investigate power structures that determine senior leadership roles. The study relied on a blended methodology of social scientific quantitative measures and phenomenography. It also is built around an interdisciplinary framework that is comprised of labor studies, race and cultural studies, organizational behavior, economics, and leadership studies. The findings suggest that, within this large financial institution, bicultural leaders are not ascending to senior leadership roles due to unintended cultural biases in organizational practices and norms. They further suggest that bicultural leaders within this organization contribute valuable skills, attributes, and leadership practices that are unrecognized in the current organizational culture. The research affirmed that Chinese Canadian employees contribute important skills, intercultural competence, and perspectives that enhance the practice of leadership, but that their leadership potential may not be fully recognized due to unintended organizational bias. The phenomenographic study also revealed career conceptions of acculturation for Chinese Canadians within this financial institution. The discussion suggests that this financial organization needs to adapt to the changing workforce demographics and create an inclusive organizational culture that engages the talents of bicultural leaders.

In broad terms the aim of this paper is to encourage historical research on the Chinese communities of British Columbia.* It is intended therefore to be suggestive rather than conclusive. I hope to interest students of British Columbian history in the sociological and historical problems arising from the presence of a Chinese population and its relations with the other settlers of this province for, despite the importance of the Chinese in the building of British Columbia, little scholarly attention has been directed towards this group. However, before turning to a sociological examination of Chinese history in BC, it may be useful to examine in some detail the provenance of the Chinese in Canada with a view to understanding their emigration in such large numbers. With very few exceptions, overseas Chinese throughout the world come from two provinces in southeastern China — Fukien and Kwangtung — and except for a handful of immigrants from north China, the Chinese in North America are from Kwangtung Province, almost all of them from a small region southeast of Canton only thirty miles in radius. Southeastern China is a region of cultural and linguistic diversity — at least six different Chinese languages are spoken in Kwangtung Province alone. Nearly all the Chinese in North America, however, speak Cantonese, albeit in several dialects, and of the more than 80,000 Chinese in Canada

Among the G8 countries, Canada is home to the highest proportion of foreign-born residents, who constitute approximately 20% of the population and live primarily in urban areas.2 The proportion of Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants in Canada has seen considerable growth over the last four decades, increasing from a reported 8.5% in the 1970s to 60% in 2011. At approximately 1.3 million, Chinese Canadians are the country's second-largest visible minority group; only the South Asian population is larger.2 Despite the significant growth of the Chinese immigrant population, however, research exploring the influence of Chinese culture and health behaviours has been extremely limited.3 Similarly, there has been limited acceptance or integration of traditional Chinese health practices into Western medicine.3 Canada's health care system has historically been medically oriented and focused on acute disease management.4 With an ageing population, however, demand is shifting toward chronic disease management; because our health system is poorly equipped to cope with this shift, many people with chronic illnesses do not receive appropriate and effective care.4 Although stroke, a chronic illness, is the leading cause of long-term disability in Canada,5 cerebrovascular disease is much more widespread in East Asian populations, likely because of greater dietary salt intake and the resulting uncontrolled hypertension.6 As the population ages over the next two decades, the incidence of stroke—and thus the number of adults with disabilities—will only increase.7 Of those who experience a stroke, 75% will have a residual disability, and 40% of these will have moderate to severe impairments8 that result in significant personal, financial, and economic costs. Stroke, like many chronic illnesses, is treatable and preventable, which suggests that greater emphasis should be placed on developing healthy lifestyles.7 Canada needs not only to change systems of care to accommodate the changing face of illness but also to recognize how the intersection and interaction of chronic illness management with our significant ethnic diversity will affect the lives of all Canadians. Li and colleagues thus raise an important question when they examine how culture influences the uptake of health care education among Chinese Canadians (CCs).1 A recent publication by Teoh and colleagues (2013),9 who investigated the identification and management of patients at elevated cardiometabolic risk (CMR) in Canadian primary care, is not only sobering reading but highlights a lack of knowledge relating to ethnicity. The authors were not able to account for ethnic differences, as ethnicity was identified as missing data in 63% of practices surveyed, primarily primary care teams (PCTs). This lack of data is disturbing, given that patient information in PCTs is more likely to be collected using electronic medical records (EMRs),9 which means that collection of data on ethnicity could easily be mandated. This information could prove very useful and important in retrospective studies. Of the 2,461 patient assessments examined by Teoh and colleagues, almost 60% included a diagnosis of dyslipidemia, more than 50% had type 2 diabetes, and more than 66% had hypertension.9 While these figures are alarming for Caucasians, the corresponding numbers for CCs are even more alarming: Li and colleagues found that CCs had a slightly higher incidence of diabetes and almost twice the incidence of high blood cholesterol. Teoh and colleagues also found that of the group of patients with significant risk factors (dyslipidemia, type 2 diabetes, hypertension), 85% had a body mass index (BMI) of ≥25kg/m2, which is considered overweight (“normal” BMI is considered to be between 18.5 and 24.9kg/m2). Interestingly, epidemiological studies report that Asian people tend to have relatively higher total body fat content and abdominal fat distribution than Caucasians; therefore, the suggested “normal” BMI for Asians is <23kg/m2.6 Although Asian diets are typically lower in animal protein and have a higher total carbohydrate intake and lower fat intake than Western diets,6 it is possible that as CCs assimilate into a Western culture, they consume higher amounts of saturated fats, animal protein, and sugar, which, combined with their culturally higher salt intake, places them at even greater cardiovascular risk. The literature also suggests a positive correlation between increasing CMR factors and increasing urban living,9 also a factor of immigration.1 Even though the “2012 Update of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Dyslipidemia for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in the Adult” emphasizes the importance of managing health behaviours such as diet and exercise, in particular to reduce the risk of developing diabetes,10 Teoh and colleagues found that few patients were counselled on these benefits, while many received drug therapy.9 This is surprising, as several of the PCTs in this study included diabetes educators and dieticians.9 In addition, the Canadian Cardiovascular Society guidelines identify only South Asians and First Nations, not Chinese, as being at increased cardiovascular risk.10 The significant gap in knowledge and awareness of patient diversity with respect to CMR factors is illustrated by Teoh and colleagues;9 it is this issue that Li and colleagues seek to address. While clinical practice guidelines emphasize the need for assessment to take ethnic-dependent parameters into account, and the Chinese population is a rapidly growing “at risk” population,9 the juxtaposition between traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, combined with cultural differences that influence health behaviours, has meant that health services and health research for a significant proportion of the Canadian population receive little to no attention.3 Many foreign-born Chinese immigrants maintain their Chinese cultural beliefs and health practices and may therefore limit their exposure to Western health practices.3 Li and colleagues' study supports this claim. Poor patient compliance continues to be cited as the primary barrier to the treatment and management of cardiovascular disease.10 However, the findings of both Teoh and colleagues9 and Li and colleagues1 suggest otherwise. Raising awareness of important cultural differences and of how different ethnic groups seek health information is key to successful patient knowledge-translation strategies. Although discussion between patients and their primary health care providers is seen as essential to improving patient understanding, and thus to increasing compliance,10 this assumes that such a relationship exists, which may not be the case for members of minority ethnic groups in Canada. Likewise, the impact of a patient encounter sheet to facilitate assessment of CMR factors during visits to a doctor's office11 will likely be limited for CCs. Novel strategies that seek to disseminate health information through community groups may be a more successful approach to reach CCs. Clearly there is still much work to be done, including identifying whether socio-economic factors such as level of education, income, and vocation also contribute to the uptake of health care education independent of cultural background.

Human rights invoked in the international context are often treated as having self-evident content. The focus is on implementation and enforcement. The urge to enforcement is especially strong when...

White Man's Province: British Columbia Politicians and Chinese and Japanese Immigrants, 1858-1914 by Patricia E. Roy

With the rise in global neoliberalism and right-wing populism, higher education in Canada is at the forefront of the battleground for racial equality, multiculturalism, and diversity efforts. This essay argues for the importance of Asian Canadian Studies (ACS) as a means to combat ongoing manifestations of racism and racialization in the academy. We examine the necessity of ACS as an emancipatory project—its objectives and the challenges it faces. There are currently three existing ACS programs in Canada, and we will focus in particular on the University of British Columbia's Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program as an illustrative example of how to promote social justice and civil rights in Canadian higher education. The importance of ACS and its effectiveness are discussed in the context of university settings.

Reviewed by: On the Edge of Empire: Gender, Race, and the Making of British Columbia, 1849–1871 Fiona Paisley Adele Perry, On the Edge of Empire: Gender, Race, and the Making of British Columbia, 1849–1871 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001) On the Edge of Empire is a wonderful study of the formation of an early colonial society. Perry provides us with an exemplary work — beautifully structured, extremely well written and meticulously researched. By bringing together colonial and migration histories, she exposes the ‘double need’ of colonial societies, dispossession of indigenous peoples and the building of a settler population. And through careful analysis, she contrasts the colonial fiction that dispossession and resettlement are discrete aspects of the colonizing project with the complexities of British Columbian gender and race relations. Thus she reveals the ‘fragile heart’ (123) of colonization in early British Columbia and elsewhere. She argues compellingly that it is through gender that the ‘abiding bonds’ between dispossession and resettlement are most discernable and the considerable social powers of those bonds become apparent. Perry makes great use of extensive primary research to contrast the anxieties of journalists, missionaries and officials for the purity of white settlement with the interconnected lives of First Nations peoples and early settlers. Holding the complexity of her material to the clarity of her argument, she begins with white men’s homosocial culture, continues with mixed race relations, and then considers in turn aims to reform each. Finally she shifts her attention to the incoming populations of white women, discussing their inevitable failure to provide the ‘civilising’ force aniticipated by social reformers. Perry interweaves her account with individual stories, statistics, missionary accounts, government documents, and a wealth of other sources including newspaper articles, letters, diaries, poems, illustrations and photographs. The latter are scattered throughout the text to great effect; along with the extensive footnotes and bibliography they indicate that University of Toronto Press’ Studies in Gender and History is prepared to support excellent research as it deserves. This book is a delight to read and will provide a great resource to teachers and researchers alike. Much of this book is a timely application of recent work in whiteness, such as that by Ruth Frankenberg. In On the Edge of Empire, Perry argues that contemporary criticisms of white male sociality in British Columbia expressed a middle-class pessimism towards masculinity — white men had to be regulated, whether by white women or through family and other normative institutions, if they were to behave appropriately as citizens and civilizers most particularly in the colonial context. But white men on the frontier lived suspiciously close to First Nations peoples, bringing whiteness and the legitimacy of the colony itself into question. Fears about the blurring of boundaries between settlers and natives were given new impetus during the smallpox epidemic of the early 1860s, ‘crystallising white fears of sexual and social contact in the Aboriginal community’. (111) The goal to eradicate First Nations peoples from the homes and urban spaces of British Columbia ultimately foundered on the high incidence of mixed race relations especially between white men and First Nations women. While these were never abolished, neither could they be made over to suit the colonial imaginary where impossible boundaries between colonized and colonizer were clear and complete. To prospective immigrants in Britain British Columbia was a land of good wages, land, gold, all possible through honest work. This was the ‘white man’s province’ of colonial rhetoric. Here the Aboriginal population was represented as cooperative and in any case dying out, and even the climate was suited to the white man, unlike Canada (too cold) and Australia (too hot). White women brought over by immigration schemes were to reform outback homosocial culture, intervene in the central ‘problem’ of white-Aboriginal conjugal relations, and at the same time provide much needed domestic servants while alleviating Britain’s population pressure. While white women were to bring respectability and morality, anxieties about their moral standing and status further legitimated segregationist goals. Keeping these women ‘respectable’ became another way for reformers to promote the necessary exclusion of First Nations peoples from urban areas. Perry finds that: ‘white women, like their male counterparts, frequently failed...

To compare the prevalence of diabetes, hyperinsulinaemia, and associated metabolic abnormalities in immigrant Asians, Asians in India, and native white British men. Case control study. Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester, United Kingdom, and Maulana Azad Medical School, New Delhi, India. Men with angiographically proved coronary artery disease; 83 British Asians, 87 white men, and 30 Indian Asians with age matched controls. Fasting lipid concentrations, serum glucose, and total insulin concentrations were measured in the fasting state and one and two hours after a 75 g glucose load by mouth. All subjects had a physical examination by the same observer. Asians in the United Kingdom and in India had a higher prevalence of diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance than the white British men. Patients in all three ethnic groups had higher total insulin concentrations than their controls in the fasting state and after the glucose load. British Asian and Indian Asian patients and controls had higher total insulin concentrations than the white men in the fasting state and after the glucose load. Total insulin concentrations were similar in British and Indian Asians, though fasting concentrations were higher in British Asians than Indian Asians. White men had similar cholesterol, lower triglyceride, and higher high density lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations than Asians in the United Kingdom and in India. British Asian patients had higher cholesterol concentrations and British Asian controls had higher triglyceride concentrations than the Indian Asian groups. Asian patients and controls were more active. British and Indian Asian patients had higher waist to hip ratios than controls. The waist to hip ratio was positively correlated with insulin and triglyceride concentrations and negatively correlated with the high density lipoprotein cholesterol concentration. Fasting insulin and high density lipoprotein concentrations were independent predictors of coronary artery disease in white men, whereas in British Asians the waist to hip ratio was the strongest independent predictor. In Indian Asians the waist to hip ratio and high density lipoprotein concentration were independent predictors of coronary artery disease. Central obesity in the subgroups of Asians studied showed a close association with hyperinsulinaemia and the risk of coronary artery disease. A predisposition to insulin resistance and its metabolic abnormalities in this group of Asians seems to be genetically determined, environmental changes after migration having only a small additional effect.

Though breast cancer is the most common malignancy among Chinese women, screening mammography is underutilized. This study examined barriers and facilitators of screening mammography among Chinese Canadian women.Using community-based sampling, Chinese women in British Columbia were interviewed in 1999 about multiple preventive health behaviours. We included 213 women in the mammography analysis; main outcome measures were ever having a mammogram and routine mammography.Seventy-five percent of women 50 to 79 years old reported ever having had a mammogram, and 53% had two or more mammograms within the last five years. Receiving a recommendation for a mammogram from medical personnel or from a family member, and believing that cancer cannot be prevented by faith were independently associated with both screening outcomes.A multifaceted approach to screening mammography promotion in Chinese Canadian women is suggested. Interventions that include education of and by medical providers and family members should be considered.

As globalisation encourages migration and the blending of diverse cultures, Canadian blood donation faces new opportunities and challenges. According to Statistique Canada, “there were more than 1.7 million Chinese people residing in Canada in 2021… representing 4.7% of the total population” and we can get more detailed content on Statistics Canada, the aticle is "Chinese New Year and quality of life among Chinese in Canada". As the Chinese population, including Chinese international students, permanent residents, and Chinese Canadians, grows in Canada, how to attract this group of donors is crucial to sustaining Canada's blood reservoir. For this reason, a self-report psychological survey was spread near Vancouver, British Columbia, directed toward participants who identified themselves as ethnically Chinese, or Chinese Canadian. To understand the Chinese donor’s psychological shifts and needs experienced by them during the process of donating blood, it was found through this psychological survey that Chinese donors generally feel psychological unease before donating blood, such as unfamiliarity with the blood donation process and worries about potential side effects after donating blood. Similarly, it is recommended to enhance communication efficiency between Chinese donors, who may not speak English fluently, and the staff members by employing more multilingual staff, along with considering the recruitment of a psychological counselling team, to strengthen the current blood donation system. Implementing improvements for raising awareness and publicising blood donation, generating a comforting experience and environment for Chinese donors, and strengthening safety measures and trust in the process are also essential. All the possible suggestions are proposed in the hope of eliminating the psychological anxiety of Chinese donors, which may enhance their willingness and motivation to donate blood and increase the blood supply for Canada’s blood reserve.

BackgroundPrevious data suggest significant ethnic differences in outcomes following percutaneous coronary revascularization (PCI), though previous studies have focused on subgroups of PCI patients or used administrative data only. We sought to compare outcomes in a population-based cohort of men and women of South Asian (SA), Chinese and “Other” ethnicity.MethodsUsing a population-based registry, we identified 41,792 patients who underwent first revascularization via PCI in British Columbia, Canada, between 2001 and 2010. We defined three ethnic groups (SA, 3904 [9.3%]; Chinese, 1345 [3.2%]; and all “Others” 36,543 [87.4%]). Differences in mortality, repeat revascularization (RRV) and target vessel revascularization (TVR), at 30 days and from 31 days to 2 years were examined.ResultsAdjusted mortality from 31 days to 2 years was lower in Chinese patients than in “Others” (hazard ratio [HR] 0.72; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.53-0.97), but not different between SAs and “Others”. SA patients had higher RRV at 30 days (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1.30; 95% CI: 1.12-1.51) and from 31 days to 2 years (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 1.17; 95% CI: 1.06-1.30) compared to “Others”. In contrast, Chinese patients had a lower rate of RRV from 31 days to 2 years (adjusted HR 0.79; 95% CI: 0.64-0.96) versus “Others”. SA patients also had higher rates of TVR at 30 days (adjusted OR 1.35; 95% CI: 1.10-1.66) and from 31 days to 2 years (adjusted HR 1.19; 95% CI: 1.06-1.34) compared to “Others”. Chinese patients had a lower rate of TVR from 31 days to 2 years (adjusted HR 0.76; 95% CI: 0.60-0.96).ConclusionsSA had higher RRV and TVR rates while Chinese Canadians had lower rates of long-term RRV, compared to those of “Other” ethnicity. Further research to elucidate the reasons for these differences could inform targeted strategies to improve outcomes.

Any discussion of Chinese Buddhist diaspora communities in Canada must account for the broader context within which they have been subsumed. To a great extent the timing and nature of Chinese Buddhist activity in Canada was determined by a legacy of racism and harsh immigration laws that were not fully reformed until the late 1960s. The first significant flow of Chinese migration to Canada began in the mid-19th century, commencing with gold rushes in California and British Columbia during the 1850s. Following this, construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (1881–1885), spanning a distance of approximately 4,700km between Montréal, Québec, and Port Moody, British Columbia, provided the impetus for a subsequent wave of Chinese migration for the purpose of providing rail construction labor on Canada’s west coast. Despite the presence of significant numbers of Chinese in Canada, there is very little evidence of Chinese Buddhist practice and certainly practice within institutional settings prior to the 20th century. Nineteenth-century Chinese religious activity, such as it was, took place in the context of centers serving as clan shrines with altars dedicated to local deities linked to clan home regions. Buddhist figures mixed with popular deities were associated with clan rituals informed by a cyclical calendar of rites. Development of the critical social mass needed for support of Buddhist temples and centers was severely curtailed by an absence of a basic supporting family structure, as the Chinese population was virtually all male through 1885. Subsequent modest population gains made in the first decades of the 20th century were reversed with passage of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. Historically, Chinese religious activity has had a strong public dimension that includes public, and often outdoor, festivals. This, combined with the distinct appearance associated with Buddhist architecture, would make Chinese Buddhist communities’ institutions and practices conspicuous during times when they were viewed with widespread hostility. Relegated to “Chinatowns,” there was little support for building Buddhist institutions and every reason not to make such conspicuous and dangerous cultural gestures. Following World War II, and coincident with the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, to which Canada was a signatory, things began to change for the better. In 1947 the Chinese were finally able to vote, though immigration legislation remained deeply racist. In 1967 Canada’s Liberal government under Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau (1919–2000) inaugurated the point system, permitting people to qualify for landed immigrant status without reference to their particular country of origin. In the same year this change was made the community roots of the first Chinese Buddhist institutions were established in Vancouver and Toronto. Major development of Buddhist institutions did not begin to gain any real momentum until the mid-1980s, with a significant increase in Chinese migration from Hong Kong. This accelerated as the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from Britain to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) drew closer. Significant social networks and an increase in economic resources finally made the purchase of land and the construction of Chinese Buddhist temples a reality. Canada’s demographics underwent a dramatic transformation as European migration that had peaked in the mid- to late 1970s was equaled and then eclipsed by migration from East Asia. In Canada, Pure Land Buddhist organizations such as Ling Yen Mountain Temple and Gold Buddha Monastery, with roots in Taiwan and the United States, and International Buddhist Temple, with roots principally in Hong Kong, led the way in the emergence of Chinese Buddhist diaspora communities. Through the 1990s Taiwan-based Dharma Drum Mountain, which provides both Pure Land ceremonies and Chan teaching, established itself in Vancouver, as did Tung in Kok Yuen, an organization originating in Hong Kong. A significant increase in PRC migration, concentrated in Montréal, Toronto, and Vancouver, did not bring with it any significant institutional ties, but the new immigrant population did provide a constituency from which temples could draw new members, though they competed in this regard with Christian churches. Through the early 21st century Chinese migration numbers have remained robust, and Chinese Buddhist communities in many cases continue to consolidate and grow with deepening and expanding local community roots and increasingly strong international ties and outreach.

As a historiographical analysis, this essay seeks to understand the idea of historical layering through the topic of Chinese immigration to Canada. It considers the following four works: In the Sea of Sterile Mountains: The Chinese in British Columbia (1974) by James Morton, White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy Toward Orientals in British Columbia (1978) by W Peter Ward, From China to Canada: A History of the Chinese Communities in Canada (1982) by Harry Con et al., and The Concubine's Children (1994) by Denise Chong. It does so in an effort to compare and contrast their approaches with regard to consensus and specialist histories, top-down and bottom-up approaches, as well as passive and active historical representations.