Chinese Islanders: Making a Home in the New World
Description
Contains Photos, Illustrations, Maps, Bibliography, Index
$24.95
ISBN 0-919013-46-5
DDC 971.7'004951
Author
Publisher
Year
Contributor
James D. Cameron is an associate professor of history at St. Francis
Xavier University in Nova Scotia.
Review
A Taiwanese immigrant, Hung-Min Chiang taught psychology at Prince of
Wales College and then the University of Prince Edward Island from 1967
to 1991. Chinese Islanders is a methodically researched study of the
Chinese P.E.I. experience from the mid-19th century to the present.
Chapter 1 provides an account of the first Chinese arrivals, including
the intriguing story of a Chinese woman who raised a family on the
Island from 1850 to 1888. The next chapter establishes the historical
context of Chinese migration to Canada, with a focus on conditions in
19th-century China and the discriminatory legal barriers in Canada that
marginalized the Chinese and diminished the possibility of normal family
life. Subsequent chapters recount the entry in the 1890s of young,
single, male migrants who commonly established laundries and
restaurants.
Over the decades, most Chinese immigrants settled in either
Charlottetown or Summerside. Chiang uses the fragmentary record to
underscore the standard Chinese Island experiences of loneliness,
hardship, family separation, and determination. Thankfully, the eras of
legal disabilities—characterized by disenfranchisement, a head tax
(1885–1923), and exclusion (1923–1947)—were superseded by the
restoration of basic rights (1947) and fairer immigration laws (1967).
Thereafter, the Island’s Chinese immigrants were often well-educated
professionals, like Chiang himself, who encountered a much more
hospitable society.
Perhaps the greatest strength of Chiang’s well-illustrated, clearly
written, and appropriately documented history is that it focuses on the
Chinese Islander’s experiences and not merely on the actions and
attitudes of the host society.