The 'Invasion of the Yellow Race': Anti-Asian Discourse in Early Twentieth Century Niagara

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, Chinese entrepreneurs in Niagara were subjected to racist attacks in the media, experienced discriminatory treatment from local authorities, and even became the targets of mob violence in downtown St. Catharines. Using newspaper accounts from the period, this essay illustrates how late Victorian moral reform ideologies influenced anti-Asian discourse and behaviour. ‘Foreigners’ were seen to threaten the virtue of the nation’s women and girls, and by extension, the purity of the Anglo-Saxon race. In March 1918, an inflammatory front-page editorial in Grimsby’s weekly newspaper urged citizens to stop a Chinese restaurant from opening in their community, using provocative rhetoric to incite moral panic about Asians. Nativist government measures such as the federal head tax and provincial legislation prohibiting white women from working in Chinese restaurants, attempted to shield white Canadians from Chinese entrepreneurs by curbing their economic viability. Despite the xenophobia, Chinese immigrants embraced western culture and melded into community life through everyday encounters with Niagara residents in public spaces like restaurants, laundries, and grocers, contradicting a narrative positioning them as undesirable malfeasants.