History
Canada has a very long history of East Asian immigration over the past 100 years. During the 19th century, many Chinese arrived to take part in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Chinese who came from Guangdong Province blasted and chiseled the treacherous western stretch of railway through the Canadian Rockies. Japanese also had arrived in the 1890s and became fishermen and merchants in British Columbia. In 1923, the federal government passed the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, which banned all Chinese immigration. With this act, all other non-whites were restricted to come. In 1947, the act was repealed.
During and after the Vietnam War, a large wave of Vietnamese refugees began arriving in Canada. The Canadian Parliament created the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in 1985 to better address issues surrounding Canada-Asia relations, including trade, citizenship and immigration. When Hong Kong reverted to mainland Chinese rule, people emigrated and found new homes in Canada.
In recent decades, a large number of Indians from South Asia have come to Canada.
Today, Asian Canadians form a significant minority within the population, and over 3 million Asians call Canada their home.
Read more about this topic: Asian Canadian
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
But am forced to fret over insufficient details related to large
Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the point
Of being, with or without my help, if any were forthcoming.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)