23 Facts About Chinese Canadians

Chinese Canadians are Canadians of full or partial Chinese ancestry, which includes both naturalized Chinese immigrants and Canadian-born Chinese.

Demographic research tends to include immigrants from Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, as well as overseas Chinese Canadians who have immigrated from Southeast Asia and South America into the broadly defined Chinese Canadians Canadian category.

The Chinese Canadians were the only ethnic group that had to pay such a tax.

However, those Chinese Canadians wishing to go to Canada began to save up money to pay the head tax, which led to agitation, especially in British Columbia for the Dominion government to ban Asian immigration.

The prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, did not want Chinese Canadians to serve in the military as he knew that veterans would demand the right to vote just as Chinese-Canadian veterans had done after World War I, but strong pressure from the British Special Operations Executive, which needed Asian-Canadians to work as agents who could go undercover in Japanese-occupied Asia, forced his hand.

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Unlike in the First World War, where about 300 Chinese Canadians had served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, this time Chinese Canadians serving in the Canadian military were given officers' commissions.

All three services were reluctant to have Chinese Canadians given officers' commissions as having Asian men serving as officers giving orders to white men challenged the racial hierarchy.

About 150 Chinese Canadians served with the SOE Force 136 behind Japanese lines in Burma.

The willingness of Chinese Canadians to fight and if necessary die for Canada in the war changed public perceptions, and for the first time newspapers began to call for the repeal of the 1895 law which forbade all Asian-Canadians to vote or hold offices.

Many Chinese Canadians argued that if Canada was fighting against not only Nazi Germany but her racist ideologies such as the Volkisch movement, then it was hypocritical for so many white Canadians to support attitudes of white supremacy back home.

However, it took another 20 years, until the points system was adopted for selecting immigrants, for the Chinese Canadians to begin to be admitted under the same criteria as any other applicants.

Since the mid-20th century, most new Chinese Canadians come from university-educated families, who of still consider quality education an essential value.

The main reasons Chinese Canadians businesspeople want to move abroad was for some educational opportunities for their children, advanced medical treatment, worsening pollution back home and food safety concerns.

The Chinese Canadians are the largest visible minority group in Alberta and British Columbia, and are the second largest in Ontario.

The highest concentration of Chinese Canadians is in Vancouver and Richmond, where they constitute the largest ethnic group by country, and one in five residents are Chinese.

The Riversdale neighbourhood of Saskatoon has a historical Chinese Canadians settlement dating back to the early 1900s, where Chinese Canadians immigrants were employed by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, and established businesses within this district.

In 2001, collectively, the varieties of Chinese Canadians are the third-most common reported mother tongue, after English and French.

The main reasons Chinese Canadians businesspeople wanted to move abroad was for greater educational opportunities for their children, advanced medical treatment, worsening pollution back home, concerns of political instability and food safety concerns.

However, there is a trend that Chinese Canadians move toward small towns and rural areas for agricultural and agri-food operations in recent years.

Canadians of Chinese origin have established a presence in the Canadian media scene spearheading several Chinese language media outlets in Canada.

Concurrently, though, over one in three over Canadians of Chinese origin reported that they had experienced discrimination, prejudice, or unfair treatment based on their ethnicity, race, religion, language or accent in the past five years, or since they came to Canada.

Canadians of Chinese descent born in Canada who have mostly assimilated into Canadian culture mainly self-identify as solely Canadian while others primarily self-identify as a mixture of the being both Chinese and Canadian.

Culturally, many Canadians of Chinese background who were born in China and immigrated to Canada in their late childhood years are brought up with a more Confucianist-style upbringing with families emphasizing respect for elders, academic achievement, kinship, and taking care of the parents when they're old.