THE GREAT BETRAYAL – THE COST OF RESPECTABILITY With the end of the Chinese Exclusion Act, new beginnings arose for the formerly despised Chinese. The tainted baggage of mixed race association would be replaced with the wholesome identity of racial uniqueness. The intent of the Exclusion Act was to reduce the numbers of Chinese in the population. To this end, every means was directed against the source of potential births--Canadian-born women who befriended Chinese men. Drastic policies were implemented. The federal government designated the provinces to carry out their racist policies; white women were not permitted to work in Chinese restaurants. In British Columbia Indian women were included. The Chinese Exclusion Act reinforced the 1914 marriage to aliens law. A woman who married a Chinese man lost her citizenship—she couldn’t vote or hold a government position; if she left the country she couldn’t get back in. Some officials refused to issue a marriage license. Police would spy through the barely closed blinds of the window of a Chinese house where white women could be seen. It would be raided and declared a bawdy house (brothel). The RCMP would declare such establishment an opium den. The women would be arrested as “found ins” and charged as prostitutes. Ground in the dust of infamy is the mercenary whore who preyed on discarded men without sexual partners. It became the folklore that persists to the present day. The assault has been so profound that women have not raised their voices to protest the violation of their character and unjust imprisonment. By Velma Demerson
↧
