Chinese Canadians

A Chinese Canadian is a person of Chinese descent or origin who was born in or immigrated to Canada. Considered from the perspective of China, they are a group of overseas Chinese.

History

Many workers from seaside provinces of China arrived to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 19th century. In order to support their large families that were still in China, many of them accepted the disadvantage of work long hours below minimum wage. Their willingness to endure hardship to get paid enraged fellow non-Chinese workers who thought they were unnecessarily complicating the labour market situations. Such attitudes and ideas that Chinese Canadians, first-generations or their descendants, are "foreigners" in Canada to replace "Canadians" and their jobs is still a persistent and unofficial image in the Canadian society.

Some of those Chinese Canadian workers settled in Canada after the railway was constructed. But most could not bring the rest of their family, even just the nuclear, to Canada, due to government restriction and enormous processing fees. Their contact with the Whites were restricted as well, officially and unofficially. They established Chinatowns and societies in undesirable sections of the cities.

Some educated Chinese arrived at Canada during the war as refugees, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson is from such a family. Since mid-20th century, most new Chinese Canadians are from university-educated families, one of whose most essential values is still quality education. These newcomers are a major part of the "Brain Gain" that inverse the infamous problem of "Brain Drain", i.e., Canadians leaving to the US.

Prominent examples

• Wayson Choy, writer
• Adrienne Clarkson, current Governor General of Canada
• Sandrine Holt, actress of Chinese and French ancestry
• David Lam, British Columbia Lieutenant Governor (1988-1995)
• Evelyn Lau, writer
• Sophia Leung, Member of Parliament
• Vivienne Poy, senator of Chinese ancestry
• Mina Shum, filmmaker

Education

Most second-generation Chinese Canadians, after school, are sent to Mandarin Chinese and/or Cantonese Chinese schools to maintain or improve their Chinese language ability. Many, but not all, first-generation parents encourage or persuade their children to attend the science or engineering faculties of universities, since they consider only those studies lead to a stable career and prominence in their society or societies.

Name

Most Chinese Canadians have the Romanization of their Chinese given names as their middle name, or the other way around, but generally prefer to be called in their English name. Some have French names, and those from Macao generally already have Portuguese names. However, some consider their names easily pronounced by non-Chinese, so their only given name is in Chinese. However, there are those whose first and middle names are entirely Western.

Culture and value

Many first-generation children who spend their entire childhood and adolescence in Chinese regions may find it, without proper guidance, extremely difficult to fit into the mainstream Canadian culture, and have thus isolated themselves individually or in a small group of Chinese-speaking Canadians. Among the group members, they discuss the popular music, news, and books of the Chinese, in Chinese. This trend may continue into university and after that into work, where they get employed in a Chinese Canadian-owned company. A small number of the isolated Chinese Canadians immediately returned to their birth countries or the USA after they received their education in Canada.

On the other hand, there are also those newcomers who try hard to participate in various aspects of the Canadian society and strive to speak native-level English or French. But such embraces of the Canadian culture does not necessarily guarantee a successful fit-in into the Canadian society. Wthey still find it difficult to get into any of the careers of their choice. As a result, some of such people also had to return to China. But due to their high degree of acculturation of the Canadian culture and growing distance from the Chinese culture, they sometimes have a difficult adjustment back into their Chinese society, most noticebly linguistically.

Non-Canadian Chinese in Canada

There have also been uneducated Fujianese refugees arriving to Canada by boat in late-20th century, but virtually none of them became Chinese Canadians and were mostly sent back to the People's Republic of China in a few months after time in isolated facilities.

See also: Asian Canadian, Chinese American