Identités et échanges
English · Première générale · BO : B1+ ; visée B2 vers C1
A crowded, dark office with a low wooden ceiling: emigrant families in coats and shawls wait in line behind a wooden barrier while officials at desks check papers.
Felix Schlesinger (1833 to 1910), In der Pass- und Polizeistube vor der Emigration (In the passport and police office before emigration), late 19th century. Oil on canvas, 81 × 108 cm. Private collection; sold at Hampel, Munich, 12 April 2013, lot 1359. Public domain. Image via Wikimedia Commons, not cropped or retouched.

S4 · Closed Doors: The Head Tax and the Komagata Maru

Recap: what do you remember?
  1. Who was Clifford Sifton?
  2. What kind of settler did he want?
  3. What was “The Last Best West”?
Answer key
  1. Canada’s Minister of the Interior from 1896 to 1905, who recruited settlers for the Prairies.
  2. A strong farmer from a farming family, with a wife and many children.
  3. A government advert of 1907 inviting settlers to the Canadian Prairies.
In this session you will
Key question: Why did Canada close its doors, and why did it apologise?

Look at the painting

Describe, then interpretCore

  1. Where are these people? What are they waiting for?
  2. Who has the power in this room? How can you tell?
  3. Why is this painting a good image for this session?
Answer key
  1. In a passport and police office, before emigrating; they are waiting for their papers to be checked.
  2. The officials at the desks, behind the wooden barrier: they hold the papers and decide.
  3. Before any journey, someone checks papers and decides who can go or come: the door can be closed.
Document 1 · The Head Tax

More than 15,000 Chinese labourers came to Canada to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Once the railway was finished, the government decided to stop immigration from China. The Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 imposed a Head Tax of $50 on every Chinese newcomer. It was raised to $100 in 1900 and to $500 in 1903. In 1923, a new law banned most Chinese immigrants until 1947.

Source: Government of Canada, “Prime Minister Harper Offers Full Apology for the Chinese Head Tax”, 22 June 2006.

A printed certificate with a photograph of a young Chinese man, stamps and handwritten details, stating that the sum of five hundred dollars head tax has been paid.
Head Tax certificate of Lee Don, 2 August 1918: “the sum of five hundred dollars being the head tax due under the provisions of the Chinese Immigration Act”. Vancouver Public Library, VPL 30625, no known copyright restrictions. Image via Wikimedia Commons (cropped by Commons to the front of the certificate).

Read the certificateCore

  1. What is the name on the certificate, and what is the date?
  2. How much did he pay, and why?
  3. How many years after 1885 is this certificate?
Answer key
  1. Lee Don, 2 August 1918.
  2. Five hundred dollars: the head tax under the Chinese Immigration Act.
  3. 33 years.
Document 2 · The Komagata Maru, 1914

On 23 May 1914, the steamship Komagata Maru arrived in Burrard Inlet, Vancouver, with 376 passengers from Punjab, in British India: Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus. They were all British subjects. A Canadian law said that immigrants had to arrive by a “continuous journey” from their country, which was impossible from India. Only about twenty passengers, who had lived in Canada before, were allowed to land. On 23 July 1914, the ship was escorted out of the harbour and forced to return to India, where 19 passengers were killed and many others imprisoned.

Black and white photograph: many Sikh men in turbans stand crowded on the deck of the steamship Komagata Maru.
Sikhs on board the Komagata Maru in English Bay, Vancouver, 1914. Photographer unknown. Library and Archives Canada, a034014. Public domain. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Document 3 · Two apologies
“For over six decades, these malicious measures, aimed solely at the Chinese, were implemented with deliberation by the Canadian state. This was a grave injustice, and one we are morally obligated to acknowledge.”Prime Minister Stephen Harper, apology for the Chinese Head Tax, House of Commons, 22 June 2006 (Government of Canada).
“Those passengers chose Canada. And when they arrived here, they were rejected. […] For all these things, we are truly sorry.”Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Komagata Maru apology, House of Commons, 18 May 2016 (Prime Minister of Canada).

UnderstandCore

  1. Why was the Head Tax introduced after the railway was finished?
  2. Why was the “continuous journey” rule a trick?
  3. Find two strong adjectives in Harper’s apology.
  4. What does Trudeau say the passengers did, and what did Canada do?
Answer key
  1. Canada no longer needed Chinese workers and wanted to stop Chinese immigration.
  2. No ship could sail from India to Canada without stopping, so the rule excluded Indians without naming them.
  3. malicious, grave.
  4. They chose Canada; Canada rejected them.

The language of apologyStretch

Compare the two apologies. Who speaks, to whom, and in whose name? Why apologise when the victims are no longer alive? Write 120 words using to acknowledge, to take responsibility for, to make amends, it was not until… that.

Answer key

Model: Both prime ministers speak in the House of Commons, in the name of the Government of Canada, to the communities and descendants. It was not until 2006 that Canada acknowledged the Head Tax as a “grave injustice”, and not until 2016 that it apologised for the Komagata Maru. The victims cannot hear these words, as Trudeau admits, but an apology takes responsibility for the past, makes amends to descendants and tells newcomers today that the country has changed. Harper also announced symbolic payments to living Head Tax payers and to the living spouses of deceased payers.

Expanding your vocabulary

WordMeaningExample
a head taxa tax paid by each person who arrivesChinese newcomers paid a head tax.
to excludeto keep someone outThe 1923 law excluded most Chinese immigrants.
to be denied entrynot to be allowed to enterMost passengers were denied entry.
discriminatorytreating a group unfairlya discriminatory law
to apologise forto say sorry formallyCanada apologised for the Head Tax.
descendantschildren, grandchildren and later generationsThe descendants heard the apology.
Petit glossaire en français

head tax : taxe d’entrée · exclude : exclure · denied entry : refoulé · apologise : présenter des excuses · descendants : descendants

Mediation

In French, explain to your class the difference between a law that names a group (the Head Tax) and a law that excludes a group without naming it (the continuous journey rule).

Homework
  1. Learn the vocabulary.
  2. Write a short news report (100 words) for a Vancouver newspaper, 24 July 1914.
  3. Note one place in Vancouver today that remembers the Komagata Maru.