Canada's future includes head-tax descendants

Todd Wong

Contributing Writer

My ancestors first arrived in Canada in 1888 and 1896.

They weren't railway builders or gold seekers. My paternal grandfather, Wong Wah, was a respected merchant in Victoria, and my maternal great-great-grandfather, Rev. Chan Yu Tan, was a respected pastor for the Chinese Methodist Church. My family has lived in North Vancouver since 1974. I am a fifth-generation Chinese-Canadian head-tax descendant.

My name is Todd Wong, and I am active on the B.C. Coalition for Head Tax Payers, Spouses and Descendants. As well, I devote community service to the Save Kogawa House campaign, the Asian Canadian arts community, and dragon boats. I am also currently a director for the Canadian Club. Every September, I speak at Terry Fox Runs as a Terry's Team member, serving as a living example that cancer research has made a difference.

But I am better known around the Lower Mainland as Toddish McWong - the creator of Gung Haggis Fat Choy, a Robbie Burns Chinese New Year dinner, which is increasingly recognized as a unique cultural fusion event, which also inspired a CBC television performance special that aired in 2004 and 2005.

Multi-racial harmony and understanding cultural diversity is important to me, and increasingly important to both Canada and the North Shore.

It is unfortunate that so many people criticize Chinese head-tax redress payments as wrong and a burden on Canadian taxpayers. They say that head-tax descendants should move on and "get over it." But how can you move on, when it has been ingrained over decades - over a lifetime - that you are inferior, second-class, and worth less than white Canadians?

Both the Japanese-Canadian and the Chinese-Canadian communities were victims of the Anti-Asiatic League in the 1907 riots by white Canadians who attacked both Chinatown and Japantown. Yes, the Chinese pioneers had a choice to come to Canada, but being victimized by social and legislated racism is not a choice.

Systemic racism continued long after Chinese were finally given enfranchisement to vote in 1947. They believed in the ideals that Canada stood for, equality and fairness, despite understanding the notion of having a "Chinaman's chance" in a court of law. The early pioneers learned to keep their heads down, not make a fuss, and be "good Canadians." Rev. Chan Yu Tan emphasized that his family learn Canadian ways, and he successfully appealed the wrongful conviction of Chinese houseboy Wong Foon Sing for the murder of Scottish nanny Janet Smith.

My father taught me early on that because I was born of Chinese heritage I had to work harder than white people to prove myself equal. His elder brother graduated near the top of his UBC engineering class, but was not hired. Chinese were disallowed from being members of professional organizations because they weren't allowed on voting lists until 1947, but racism continued beyond that. Barred from living in West Vancouver's British Properties, Chinese-Canadian pioneers and their descendants were challenged to overcome the learned helplessness created in the face of racism.

My mother remembers taking the ferry as a child from Vancouver to North Vancouver and having picnics in Mahon Park and Horseshoe Bay. The North Shore has a rich and hidden Chinese-Canadian history, descended from those pioneers who paid the head tax. They came to Canada like emigrants from Scotland, England, France, Russia and Italy. Yet only the Chinese were so unwanted and treated so badly that legislation was passed to create an immigration deterrent called the Chinese Head Tax followed by the outright banning of all Chinese immigration from 1923 until 1947 under the Exclusion Act. It was the contributions of Chinese Canadian veterans in the Second World War like my Uncle Dan and his brothers who helped overturn it.

Not many Chinese lived here in North Vancouver's early days, but gradually it would become home to some of our greatest role models. Former North Shore resident Bev Nann received the Order of British Columbia in 2001. Retired high school teacher Bill Chow taught generations of students at Balmoral and Windsor secondary schools. Donna Wong-Juliani has made incredible contributions to the Vancouver-area arts scene. She both grew up and still resides in West Vancouver. The granddaughters of Alexander Won Cumyow, the first Chinese born in British Columbia, went to school with me at Balmoral and Carson Graham. Next in line is my second cousin, 14-year-old Tracey Hinder, national CanSpell finalist last year in Ottawa.

The Chan family was featured in the Chinese Cultural Centre exhibit Three Pioneer Chinese Families in 2002, and we have just been approached by CBC television to be the subject of one of their episodes for a future series titled Generations. Our family contains two Miss Canada contestants (one Caucasian, one Chinese). Cousin Rhonda Larrabee is chief of the Qayqayt First Nations and her daughter lives on the Burrard Band Indian Reserve. Rhonda jokes that her mother's side of the family lost their land, while her father's side had to pay the head tax. Our family is "so Canadian."

But no government should be allowed to profit from racism. Twenty-three million dollars was paid to the Canadian government in blood, sweat and tears - above and beyond what any other immigrant was forced to endure to become part of Canada's society. The symbolic return of the $23 million should be viewed as a tax refund which is simply 80 years in the making, albeit without interest!

In 2004, The United Nations asked Canada to make an apology and financial redress, following New Zealand's example. Canada needed to make the apology so that our country could move forward in its cultural and social development. Financial redress is simply an important part of that process. Future generations of multi-racial Canadians and head-tax descendants need to know that Canada recognized its wrongs, and did not refuse to make a fair and honourable redress while head-tax payers, spouses and descendants were still alive. This is the legacy, not a burden, which we leave to all our children and all their children.

We must believe that for the healing of our country - our inclusive, multicultural country - nobody should be left behind.

published on 06/25/2006