When the Chinese Exclusion Act got here into impact in 1923, it didn’t simply successfully halt Chinese immigration to Canada — it extinguished the household traces of 1000’s of labourers already right here.
Many had been condemned to bachelorhood or reduce off from family members in China, mentioned Catherine Clement, curator of the inaugural exhibition for the Chinese Canadian Museum that opens to the general public on Saturday in Vancouver’s Chinatown, on the a hundredth anniversary of the controversial legislation’s enactment.
“They just withered here,” Clement mentioned. “They had no descendants left to tell their stories. Nobody even remember they existed … they broke while they were here.”
Some ended up in psychological well being establishments, together with Coquitlam’s Essondale Hospital, mentioned Clement, calling them “the face of exclusion.”
Now their tales are being advised on the exhibition, “The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act.”
Executives on the Chinese Canadian Museum mentioned they selected its opening date as a poignant reminder of part of Canada’s historical past that has typically been neglected.
“I think many people felt that through their history lessons or through schooling, people never understood the full history,” mentioned Grace Wong, the museum’s board chair.
“We take that as our mandate, that public education is so primary to what we should do. And part of that is to help tell that full history.”
The museum opens its everlasting location in Chinatown’s historic Wing Sang Building after greater than six years of planning, beginning with then-premier John Horgan mandating the province’s Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry to ascertain the establishment.
The society behind the museum was launched in 2020 after group consultations, and the bodily location was present in 2022 after the province offered $27.5 million in funding.
An opening ceremony on Friday was attended by B.C. Premier David Eby and different officers. Eby praised Horgan for championing the museum as anti-Asian racism spiked through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Eby, who additionally highlighted the current election of Olivia Chow as mayor of Toronto, known as the Chinese Exclusion Act “the most racist piece of legislation ever passed in our parliament.”
Museum CEO Melissa Karmen Lee described the establishment as a startup, saying that the ability’s final success will depend upon what number of guests it could possibly draw.
Lee mentioned she hopes the museum can contribute to the revitalization of Chinatown and draw extra foot site visitors to the group.
“We hope to have partners and shops and cultural institutions also supporting us in moving and coming to Chinatown,” she mentioned. “We hope all that becomes a part of what it is to visit the Chinese Canadian Museum.”
Clement mentioned the topic of the exclusion act, often known as the 1923 Canadian Immigration Act, first caught her curiosity when she spoke to Chinese Canadian struggle veterans for an additional exhibit.
“I would say, where were you born?” Clement mentioned. “They would say Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary. And but, they’d pull out an immigration card, and virtually all of them had been dated 1924.
“Many years later, I realized they were evidence of the exclusion act,” she mentioned. “These are the guys who served in the war for Canada, and they were Canadian-born, and yet they have an immigration card. They were the only community in Canada where children were given an immigration card, who were Canadian born.”
Clement compiled the paperwork within the Paper Trail exhibit primarily by non-public collections and official information from establishments resembling psychiatric hospitals.
Lee mentioned the museum can also be that includes a second exhibit for its opening, centered on Chinese migration to Canada from as early as 1788.
The key, she mentioned, is to current a range of voices inside Chinese Canadian historical past.
“We have Chinese people immigrating to Canada not only from China, but also from Vietnam, from Cambodia, from South Africa, from Mauritius,” Lee mentioned. “So, we want to tell all of these stories when we talk about our exhibitions at the Chinese Canadian Museum.”
Ultimately, Wong mentioned the museum belongs to all Canadians no matter ethnic or cultural background. She mentioned she hopes folks from all components of the group will reap the benefits of the brand new facility to study extra in regards to the challenges folks confronted in striving for a multicultural Canada.
“It is for all of us because the Chinese Canadian history is fundamentally part of the full B.C. history,” she mentioned. “It’s fundamentally part of the full Canadian history, and it’s a very key moment for all of us.”
© 2023 The Canadian Press