Chinese Exclusion acts: Objective conditions
The Chinese Exclusion Acts consisted of two acts passed by the Canadian governement; the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923. The first of these two acts; the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 enforced a head tax of $50 to any person of Chinese descent who wished to enter Canada. This head tax was later raised in 1900 to $100 and finally raised to $500 in 1903. The second of these acts; the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923 was an act forbidding any Chinese person to enter the Dominion of Canada unless a diplomat, a foreign student, or granted a "special circumstance" by the minister of immigration. This act caused the Chinese people to be the first and only race of people excluded from entering the Dominion of Canada on the sole grounds of race/ethnic background.
Since the main reason for the Canadian government to tolerate Chinese immigrants coming to Canada was so that they could build the Canadian Pacific Railway for a cheaper price, after the completion of the railway the Canadian government wanted nothing to do with Chinese immigrants and banned Chinese people from immigrating to Canada. This government decision was received with outrage, shame, and humiliation by the Chinese-Canadian population and so by the Chinese Canadian population Dominion Day is commonly known as "Humiliation Day" as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923 was established on July 1, 1923 on Dominion Day. This act was also received with much anger as even before this act was set in place, there were many examples of Chinese exclusion and discrimination. Even before the Exclusion Act of 1923 while building the Canadian Pacific Railway, Chinese immigrants and workers were discriminated against as they were payed less than white workers and were also forced to do the most dangerous jobs while building the railway which caused many deaths among the Chinese-Canadian population. These listed examples were just some of the many examples of discrimination that the Chinese immigrants would have experienced.
The photo shown above was taken from the Penticon Herald and showed one of the many events with the aim to rid the Dominion of Canada of immigrants of Chinese descent. This poster depicts a meeting at Steward's Hall in the town of Penticon on January second at 8 o'clock. The aim of this meeting is purely to talk about how Chinese immigrants should be rid from Canada and not permitted to enter Canada. This picture seems to have been taken by a proffessional to be published in books and to display how at the time Chinese immigrants were discriminated against publicly even by newspapers and by popular media.
I believe that this photograph was taken to represent how people talked about how they wanted Chinese people to get out of Canada publicly and how whole towns would get together to discuss these matters. I believe that this picture at the time that it was published in the Penticon Herald would have gotten many people with the same beliefs and ideals to band together and try to rid Canada of Chinese immigrants while it also would have made any Chinese immigrants who saw this fearful and angry. This picture is a piece of objective evidence as it came from the newspaper published in the town of Penticon in the Penticon Herald publicly and displayed the overall mood of the town to immigrants of Chinese descent.
I believe that this photograph was taken to represent how people talked about how they wanted Chinese people to get out of Canada publicly and how whole towns would get together to discuss these matters. I believe that this picture at the time that it was published in the Penticon Herald would have gotten many people with the same beliefs and ideals to band together and try to rid Canada of Chinese immigrants while it also would have made any Chinese immigrants who saw this fearful and angry. This picture is a piece of objective evidence as it came from the newspaper published in the town of Penticon in the Penticon Herald publicly and displayed the overall mood of the town to immigrants of Chinese descent.