In this companion volume to A White Man's Province and The Oriental Question, Patricia E. Roy examines the climax of antipathy to Asians in Canada: the removal of all Japanese Canadians from the BC coast in 1942. Their free return was not allowed until 1949. Yet the war also brought increased respect for Chinese Canadians; they were enfranchised in 1947 and the federal government softened its ban on Chinese immigration.

The Triumph of Citizenship explains why Canada ignored the rights of Japanese Canadians and placed strict limits on Chinese immigration. In response, Japanese...

The Coast Salish peoples of western Washington and British Columbia have never been subjected to the same concerted anthropological scrutiny as have their Northwest Coast counterparts. For a long time they were viewed simply as a subset of the Northwest Coast culture area, and because they underwent assimilative pressures early on it was thought that little of their culture remained to be preserved. In the early 1950s, however, anthropologist Wayne Suttles was among the first to publish pioneering and sustained research about the Coast Salish, contending that they were worthy of study in...

Canada's early participation in the Asia-Pacific region was hindered by ?contradictory impulses.? For over half a century, racist restrictions curtailed immigration from Japan, even as Canadian entrepreneurs, missionaries, and diplomats manoeuvred for access to the Orient. Since then, Canada's relations with Japan have changed profoundly, and the two countries' political, economic, and diplomatic interests are now more closely aligned and wrapped up in a web of reinforcing cultural and social ties.

Contradictory Impulses is a comprehensive and richly documented study of the...

"We are not strong enough to assimilate races so alien from us in their habits ? We are afraid they will swamp our civilization as such. " -- Nanaimo Free Press, 1914

A White Man's Province examines how British Columbians changed their attitudes towards Asian immigrants from one of toleration in colonial times to vigorous hostility by the turn of the century and describes how politicians responded to popular cries to halt Asian immigration and restrict Asian activities in the province.

White workingmen objected to Asian sojourning habits, to their low living standards...

Born just months before British Columbia ceased to be a British colony, Richard McBride juggled his imperial, national, and provincial identities while developing one of the most important political careers the province has ever seen. McBride firmly opposed Asian immigration and often promoted industrial development at the expense of First Nations interests. But he introduced party lines to stabilize the BC legislature; vigorously supported provincial causes in Ottawa; and, above all, encouraged the building of railways.