Migration, Ethnic Relations and Chinese Business

Kwok-bun Chan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781134203246
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Incorporating research carried out over the last twenty years, this book documents the personal and collective responses of Chinese migrants and refugees to the prejudice and discrimination they have experienced. Using case studies of Chinese communities in Canada, Chan explores the different defence mechanisms Chinese migrants have created in order to escape the systemic and institutionalized discrimination they face. In particular, the book analyzes Chinese entrepreneurship, arguing that it is a collective response to blocked opportunities in host societies.

Drawing upon empirical and theoretical literature on the sociology of race and ethnic relations, the book stresses the variety in Chinese culture and its ability to exploit an emergent ethnicity as individuals, groups and communities.

1 Coping with racism

How and to what extent were the Chinese subjected to racial discrimination in Canada? How did the Chinese react to and cope with racism? In resisting racism, to what extent did the Chinese mobilise community and organisational resources within and outside their own community, use media to publicise their cause or contact public officials or politicians for advocacy, support or protection? Is there evidence of the Chinese having used tactics such as petitions, marches, rallies, boycotts, strikes, sit-ins, demonstrations or protests? In other words, what precisely did the Chinese do or not do to combat racism, and why? The focus of such a perspective is as much on documenting how the Chinese reacted to and coped with discrimination as on the discrimination itself.

Racism in Canadian social science literature

One curious fact about the existing literature in Canada on racial discrimination is that a relatively large proportion of it was produced either by the government or by government-affiliated, government-funded organisations, often in the form of in-house research, special task forces or commissions, or through research contracted with university-based academics or private research and consultation companies. The bulk of this literature was produced to generate ʻknowledge or informationʼ about a specific ethnic group or a specific facet of ethnic relations hitherto unexamined or not well understood, or to respond to the perception that a particular ethnic group had been affected by racial discrimination.

A case in point was the series of Royal Commission enquiries into the ʻChinese questionʼ in 1885, 1902 and 1908,¹ although one may see, in retrospect, that the enquiries were undertaken with the motive of generating information to justify and rationalise racism against the Chinese in the west coast, rather than to formulate federal policies or strategies to combat racism. Ironically, considering the motive, the Royal Commission enquiries are today the single most comprehensive testimony of personal and systemic racism against the Chinese in Canada.

In 1965, the Ontario Human Rights Commission, ʻinterested in the impact of human rights legislation on communities in which problems in intergroup relations have arisenʼ (Helling 1965: 1), commissioned a study of the blacks, Chinese and Italians in Windsor. The report concluded that the Chinese suffered from considerable self-segregation, partly caused by the residual attitudes of government officials towards them; it was also reported that the Chinese had difficulties in setting up shops and stores and in accessing health services.

Between 1974 and 1978, within a span of five years, four major governmentsponsored reports were released on racial discrimination (Henry 1974; Head 1975; Pitman 1977; Henry 1978). All four reports were about ethnic relations in Ontario, and three of them concerned Toronto. The Franklin Henry and Head reports were both commissioned by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, the Pitman report by the Council of Metropolitan Toronto, and the Frances Henry report by the Human Rights Directorate of the Secretary of State of Canada.

In Headʼs study of perceptions and practices of discrimination against blacks in Metropolitan Toronto, about 60 per cent of his black respondents reported having personally experienced discrimination in some form in Toronto. Both black and non-black respondents stated that most instances of discrimination involved housing (renting or buying) or employment. Head also reported that only sixty-two of the 123 who had experienced discrimination took some action following the particular incident, and only about 20 per cent, or twelve respondents, reported the matter directly to the Ontario Human Rights Commission or to a superior (or, in the case of housing discrimination, to the superintendent). About 48 per cent of the black respondents took no action. No satisfactory solution ensued from most instances of lodging a complaint.

The Pitman (1977) report was produced in response to rising racial tensions in Toronto, particularly between the South Asians and the Toronto community at large, especially as evidenced by a series of subway beatings that culminated in a multiple assault on New Yearʼs Eve of 1976. The report detailed testimonial evidence of racism on the part of the media, the schools, the public services and the police force against the South Asian community in Toronto.

The Frances Henry study in 1978 was particularly significant: it used a 100- item questionnaire to measure the racial attitudes of a random sample of 617 whites in Toronto. The study reported that 16 per cent of its sample could be considered extremely racist; 35 per cent inclined towards some degree of racism; 30 per cent inclined towards tolerance; and 19 per cent were extremely tolerant. In the same report, Henry cited two earlier studies of immigrant adaptation. Richmond in 1976 reported that blacks and Asians were four times more likely than whites to report employment discrimination and eight times more likely to report housing discrimination. Ramcharan in 1974 reported that 58 per cent of West Indians claimed to have encountered employment discrimination, 37 per cent housing discrimination and 16 per cent discrimination in other areas.

In 1979, the Canadian Human Rights Commission ʻtook the pulse of the Canadian population in relation to . . . discriminatory practicesʼ by conducting a survey of 2000 Canadians. Two-thirds of the respondents (67 per cent) believed that some people were excluded from certain social and economic activities because of discrimination; and the most commonly mentioned ground on which respondents believed people were discriminated against was race or colour. In her review of the Canadian attitudinal survey literature (e.g. Gallup polls, nationwide surveys of ethnic attitudes), Henry (1986) concluded that between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of the Canadian population were extremely intolerant towards non-whites.

In 1982, Mr Jim Fleming, the Minister for Multiculturalism, commissioned situation reports on problems and difficulties in the area of race relations in ethnic and racial communities in eleven Canadian cities. The cities and their researchers were: Vancouver (Jobidon), Williams Lake (author not mentioned), Calgary (Buchignani), Regina (Collier and Baiton), Winnipeg (Kane), Windsor (Chacko), Toronto (Lowe), Ottawa (Tepper), Montreal (Malik), Halifax (Mensah) and St Johnʼs (Darisme). These situation reports were commissioned to provide a general information base on race relations in Canada, which would then be used ʻto establish funding priorities and develop federal programsʼ in combating racial discrimination and other problems faced by Canadaʼs ethnic communities. Taken together, these reports represented a body of knowledge on the state of race relations in the major urban areas of Canada at the time. As well as attesting to the existence, prevalence, magnitude and impact of racial discrimination, the majority of these reports invariably put forward specific policy recommendations, often in a manner and tone that evidences the severity of racial discrimination as a social malady and the urgent need for governmental and community interventions.

In 1978, a study of ethnic pluralism in Toronto (Breton 1978) reported that three-quarters of West Indians and 24 per cent of Chinese felt that employment discrimination was a serious problem. Twenty-eight per cent of West Indians and 29 per cent of Chinese respondents reported having experienced such discrimination.

One important source of data on the existence and impact of discrimination comes from studies of minorities in the workforce. Marrʼs (1976) study, using the 1971 census, found that unemployment rates for third-world immigrants in Ontario in 1969–1971 were twice as high as those for other immigrants. In another survey conducted by the Department of Manpower and Immigration in 1974, it was found that third-world immigrants, while suffering from high unemployment rates and low income, were also frequently unable to find work in their chosen fields. A 1973 study by Goldlust and Richmond suggested that persons of black and Asian origin were earning $2,900 less than expected, a finding they attributed to discrimination. In analysing the mobility patterns of males in the workforce, Richmond and Verma (1978) underlined the economic deprivation of persons of ʻotherʼ origins, which consist of native peoples and those of black and mixed racial groups. Also, Reitz and colleaguesʼ (1981) study found that West Indian men and women underearned considerably compared with other immigrants when factors such as education, knowledge of English and work experience were controlled.

Using as direct measures of employment discrimination the procedures of in-person testing and telephone, by which white and black job applicants were actually sent out to job positions, Ginzberg and Henry (1984/1985) found that employment discrimination, either in the form of clearly favouring a white over a black or in the form of treating a white applicant better than a black one, took place in almost a quarter of the 201 job contacts tested. The results of the telephone testing procedure indicated that a white Canadian had to make about eleven or twelve calls to secure ten potential job interviews while members of the racial minorities had to work harder and longer: they had to make about eighteen calls to get the same number of potential job interviews. Henry and Ginzberg (1985) combined the results of the in-person and telephone testing to develop an Index of Discrimination of three to one: whites had three job prospects to every one for blacks. The two authors concluded that their tests supported the findings of studies using indirect measures of discrimination such as large-scale attitudinal surveys, Gallup polls and analyses of disparities in job status and income between whites and non-whites. A more important conclusion from the study is that racial discrimination in Canada, and specifically in Toronto, ʻis systematic in that there appears to be a system-wide bias against hiring non-whites and treating them fairlyʼ (Ginzberg and Henry 1984/1985). In a brief but incisive and comprehensive review of three different sources of evidence of employment discrimination (Ontario Human Rights Commission caseloads, attitudinal surveys, and studies of income and employment status of minorities), Muszynski (1983: 9) arrived at a similar conclusion and argued that the data taken together ʻoffer a compelling case for recognising discrimination against racial minorities as a systematic phenomenonʼ. While analysis of human rights caseloads and attitudinal surveys document the existence and prevalence of discrimination, data from statistical studies of disparities in income and employment between whites and non-whites, as well as from field testing, provide objective information on the magnitude and impact of such discrimination.

In their survey of a stratified, random sample of 199 employers representing all sectors of the Metropolitan Toronto economy, Billingsley and Muszynski (1985) found a high degree of informality in employment recruitment (e.g. through ʻword-of-mouthʼ) as evidence of systemic discrimination on the part of employers and its correlation with low representation of non-whites both in organisations and in prestige occupational positions. The survey also found a lack of recognition among personnel managers of the correlation between their personnel procedures and discrimination.

The landmark 1984 federal government Report of the Special Committee on Visible Minorities in Canadian Society, Equality Now, provides a most insightful analysis of racial discrimination. The list of eighty recommendations put forward in the report is also the most comprehensive and broad based that Canada has ever seen.

Frenetteʼs (1985) study of perceptions among Haitians in Montreal found considerable racial discrimination in employment and housing. Job ghettoisation of Haitians and other instances of employment discrimination were found in other studies (Dejean 1978; Labelle et al. 1983). Racism against Haitian school children was also reported (Pierre-Jacques 1978). LaFerrière (1983) sees blacks as ʻminorities among minoritiesʼ in a double minority bind in Quebec, while Locher (1984) describes the anglophone West Indians in Montreal in terms of ʻtripleʼ minority status (racial, demographic and linguistic) and predicts a rather bleak future for them in Montreal. In a 1981 report (cited in Henry 1986) for the Mouvement pour combattre le racisme, black and other visible minority immigrants were asked about housing discrimination. A total of 22 per cent of respondents had encountered racial discrimination in housing, and many more had heard of others ʼ unpleasant experiences. More than three-quarters had been told that an apartment was ʻjust rentedʼ. These findings led the author to conclude that housing discrimination against visible minorities is severe in Montreal, while Teitelbaum and Bérubé (1983) note the increase in housing segregation in Montreal due to the difficulty visible minorities have in freely choosing living arrangements.

Most studies of the racial situation in Montreal seem to suggest that much of the discrimination in the city is institutional and systemic in nature. An example of systemic discrimination is the denial of equal opportunity, especially in the area of employment. An interdepartmental committee set up by the Quebec government in 1981 recognised the problem of under-representation of minorities in the civil service (CIPACC 1982). It was estimated that, in 1979, only 2.7 per cent of the provincial employees came from cultural communities (CIPACC 1981).

Two conferences held by the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations (CRARR), one on Visible Minority and Native Youth (1986) and the other on Racial Harassment in the Workplace (1987), highlighted the difficulties encountered by visible minorities, especially the youth and female members, in the job market. They have to overcome systemic and historical barriers to enter fields of their choice and then face harassment as a permanent condition at work.

Other studies dealt with problems encountered by visible minorities in various sectors. Laperrière (1983) and Le Comité sur lʼEcole Québécoise et les Communautés Culturelles (1985) recognised the difficulties minority children have in integrating into French schools. Newly arrived immigrant students are concentrated in ghettoised inner city schools with little contact with children of the majority group. In housing, Teitelbaum and Bérubé (1983) found that racial discrimination and, consequently, residential segregation critically affect black Montrealers, both anglophone and francophone.

Coping with racism

While there is no shortage of evidence on racial discrimination in Canada, relatively little is known about how members of the various ethnic and cultural groups react to and cope with racial discrimination. The 1975 Head report to the Ontario Human Rights Commission indicates that, although a considerable proportion of the studyʼs respondents were ʻangeredʼ (41 per cent) or ʻupsetʼ (28 per cent) by discrimination, only about half those who had experienced discrimination actually took some course of action, and another 19 per cent merely discussed the incident with a relative or friend. Only 10 per cent of the victims of racial discrimination reported the incident to the Ontario Human Rights Commission or to a superior. The more important finding is that almost half the victims of racial discrimination took no action at all.

In one of the eleven situation reports on race relations submitted to the Multiculturalism Directorate, Buchignani (1982: 53) reports that while ʻdiscrimination is a highly significant problem for visible minorities as a whole, it is nevertheless not of such prominence that it stands out from other common problems relating to settlement and inter-cultural contactʼ. In fact, the respondents of the study ranked discrimination in frequency of occurrence after problems with immigration bureaucracy, the weather, getting appropriate jobs, adjustment to Canadian values and access to education. Unlike the native people, South Asians and blacks, who perceive discrimination as a ʻhighly significantʼ problem, the other Asians (Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, Vietnamese and other South-east Asians) see discrimination as a ʻsignificantʼ problem only in selected spheres of life. As a group, the Japanese felt that discrimination was such a small factor in their lives that there was a general reluctance to respond to the survey (Buchignani 1982: 54). More significantly, respondents perceived ʻdo nothingʼ as a more frequent response to racial discrimination than, in order of decreasing frequency of occurrence, ʻreport incident to human rights commissionsʼ, ʻcall policeʼ, ʻreact directlyʼ, ʻfile complaint to human rights commissionsʼ and ʻreport to the mediaʼ. When asked about their preference for various public programmes and measures to reduce discrimination, respondents preferred an essentially educational approach that favours providing information to the public about racial groups over more direct and confrontational approaches.

This discrepancy between feeling upset and angered by having been discriminated against on the one hand and the relative lack of action (e.g. lodging a complaint with human rights commissions) on the other calls for analysis and explanation. Muszynski (1983: 9), in his attempt to look at human rights caseloads as evidence of racial discrimination in Canada, makes the following observation:

The way in which human rights enforcement bodies operate requires that, in most cases, the individuals who perceive themselves to have been discriminated against lodge a complaint. Because discrimination is very often subtle or unintentional, it is not obvious to the victim that they have been wronged. As a result most cases go unreported. There is also a fear of causing trouble which could have negative effects on a personʼs future employment-seeking efforts. And there is a general scepticism of the effectiveness of human rights bodies.

Such an explanation locates the causes of non-action in the technical procedures of the human rights commission and their perceived lack of effectiveness in enacting remedial measures; in the nature of racism as being difficult to identify (it is often subtle and systemic); and in the fear of loss of employment.

In her review of the literature on race relations research, Henry (1986: 19) emphasises the importance of empirical research on the victimsʼ strategies for coping with racial discrimination. Lamenting the lack of such research, she cites Baureissʼ (1985) discussion of how communities cope with racism, and Bretonʼs (1964; 1981) work on ʻinstitutional completenessʼ as major examples of such research.

Another interesting example of such research (Frenette 1985), cited in Henryʼs review paper (1986: 18), concerns Haitians in Montreal and their use of accommodation as a defence mechanism. In general, the study found that the Haitians have a rather practical attitude towards racism. They feel that they have to accommodate to it as part of their being in Canada. As one respondent put it ʻif the landlord does not want to rent to me, itʼs his loss, I can find another houseʼ.

Buchignaniʼs (1982: 85) observation on the leaders of the Chinese community in Calgary showed a similar response:

Chinese tend to see the whole question of discrimination quite differently than any of the previous groups. Crudely put, the Chinese perspective is one of pragmatism; discrimination may exist, but one should fight it actively only when it directly conflicts with the achievement of valued goals.

Despite the above research, an adequate database on victimsʼ reactions to and coping mechanisms for racial discrimination in Canada is non-existent.

The Chinese experience with racism

In 1858, the first Chinese immigrants, who were almost exclusively male, came from California to the mining regions of British Columbia as part of the gold rush. Other Chinese joined them, coming mainly from Guangdong province in southern China. When the gold rush subsided, they entered the workshops of the western provinces or signed on to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. When the railway was finished, most of these men stayed in British Columbia as workers; some of them established themselves as retail traders, in the first Chinatowns in Victoria and Vancouver. In addition, some Chinese migrated to the eastern provinces of Ontario and Quebec where they opened small shops in Montreal, Toronto and smaller towns and cities. By 1901, there were 17,312 Chinese in Canada, mostly in British Columbia (14,201). Twenty years later, their regional distribution had changed slightly: 23,533 were residents in British Columbia, 7,579 in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, 5,625 in Ontario and 2,335 in Quebec. From 1923 to 1947, Chinese immigration to Canada was stopped. According to some sources, fewer than fifty Chinese entered Canada during these twenty-five years. Chinese immigration resumed in 1947, when newcomers arrived with their families. Some of these new immigrants obtained professional qualifications that enabled them to enter occupations that their predecessors could never have dreamed of.

The Chinese came to Canada as a labour force for the industrialisation of the nation. They contributed to the construction of one of the most important tools for national economic integration, the Canadian Pacific Railway, and worked in the nascent manufacturing and mining industries of British Columbia. From the time of their arrival, they were discriminated against by white entrepreneurs and workers: segregated into an inferior segment of the labour market; rewarded with lower wages than white labourers; rejected by white labour unions; and given only transient jobs. As impoverished artisans and peasants looking for ways to sustain their families in China, they had to endure harsh conditions in Canada.

Their inferior economic status was the direct product of capitalist expansion in Canada as individuals in the private sector exploited and discriminated against them. Almost every segment of the civil society contributed to this collective, public rejection of the Chinese immigrants. While other immigrants, including Americans, British and Australians, were also treated harshly, the Chinese drew particular attention because of their visibility. Poor white immigrants were considered assimilable, whereas the Chinese, along with the Japanese, East Indians, Native Americans and blacks, were perceived as a threat to the white cultural and political hegemony. Authoritarian regimes, poverty of the masses and lack of industrial development were at the roots of the white animosity towards the Asians and Native Americans, whereas the stigma of slavery was still attached to the blacks from the United States. Rich white entrepreneurs looked at the Chinese as a very useful labour force, but white farmers, artisans, traders and small workshop workers saw in the Chinese misery the very fate they would endure if they lost their economic and social autonomy through competing with the immigrants. In ideological defence, they accused those who seemed the most alien, and also the most visible and numerous, among the newcomers. They saw the Chinese as the culprits who were destroying their relatively easygoing life as independent workers. They protested violently against their entry into British Columbia and Canada and were opposed to their integration into the mainstream w...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 Coping with Racism
• 2 Ethnic Stereotypes in the Media
• 3 Ethnic Space, Displacement and Forced Relocation
• 4 Coping with Ageing and Managing Identity
• 5 Racial Discrimination and Social Response
• 6 Unemployment, Social Support and Coping
• 7 Adaptation of Refugees
• 8 Voluntary Associations and Ethnic Boundaries
• 9 The many Faces of Immigrant Business
• 10 Ethnic Resources, Opportunity Structure and Coping Strategies
• 11 State, Economy, Culture and Business Networks
• 12 Ethnic Capitalism
• 13 Singaporeans doing Business in China
• Notes
• Bibliography