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ABSTRACT
British Columbia was long unique in Canada in having a significant portion of its settlers come from the west, that is, the so-called "Far East" of China and Japan. Although these people contributed to the development of the provincial economy, for a variety of intertwined reasons white British Columbians long opposed their immigration and attempted to restrict their activities.
In 1884, a federal government pamphlet reported that British Columbia was keen to have settlers; there was a caveat, they were to be white "to take the place of Chinese workmen, who are not regarded with favour...[because]... they form an inferior class apart, and are not adapted for mingling with or forming part of the civilization of the Caucasian or white race."' The Chinese continued to come. Within the decade, Japanese immigrants also began to arrive. They were equally unwelcome though not always for the same reasons. The basic arguments against the Asian presence were set in the first half century of British Columbia's existence from 1858 to 1914 when, alone among Canadian provinces, it experienced significant immigration from the west, that is, from Asia. By the time of the First World War, both the Chinese and the Japanese were well established and together formed seven to ten percent of the province's population.2
The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) allowed some Chinese to move east of the Rockies but about 70% remained in British Columbia where almost every city and town had a Chinatown. Some consisted of only a few individuals who operated restaurants and laundries or worked in nearby market gardens as in Vernon and Nelson; others such as Barkerville were relics of the gold rush era or, in the case of Kamloops, the construction of the CPR; some, Nanaimo and Cumberland, grew up around coal mines where Chinese had found employment after the gold rush faded. Several were quite large. In 1911, both Victoria and Vancouver had about 3,500 Chinese residents.3 A few communities such as Penticton and some Kootenay mining towns had driven out potential Chinese settlers and had no Chinatowns.
In contrast to the overwhelmingly male and widely dispersed Chinese population, the Japanese, who came later, brought in wives, formed families, and were concentrated at the coast....