Look at them this way.
Those poor Chinese labourers were not allowed to bring in their wives. With no helpmates, they had to toil very very hard from dawn till after dark all through their lives with no breaks for recreation and much less time for learning English. I believe the rampant and severe discrimination they experienced throughout their lives in Canada destroyed whatever motivation there was to learn English. Perhaps by the time they could begin to learn English, their backs were bent from hard labour and their eyesight was dim with age, and there was no more motivation left. By the way, here is an old Indian saying: "O Great Spirit, never let me criticise my ABCXYZ until I have walked a mile in his moccassins."
By the way, have you read Pierre Berton's "The Last Spike" regarding the construction of the railroad in western Canada? In it you will see that Chinese work gangs were the most honest, disciplined and reliable workers. Yet, despite all those desirable qualities, they were paid at most only half the wages paid to white workers who did only about half of what they were supposed to do. And mind you, the Chinese workers were always assigned the most dangerous blasting jobs. As a consequence many of them lost their lives needlessly. How many Canadians today know of the contributions of the early Chinese in Canada to that vital Canadian Railway? And have you been to Barkerville, BC, and seen what the Chinese miners were able to achieve there from the mid to late 1800s?
Discrimination against non-white folks, according to my Chinese and other SE Asian friends is still very much alive and well in BC today. And believe it or not, there is now much jealousy of the success of Chinese and others in business and in the professions and the success of their children in academic studies. And, by golly, Asian immigrants have been blamed time and again for stealing jobs from Canadians -- jobs that the Canadians themselves would not do because those jobs were so demeaning to them.
So, Stephen O, as an English immigrant who hadn't lived most of your life in these parts, you will do well to keep yourself up to snuff first before you criticise any people or thing you know little about.
. |
