Canadian Social History

In 1987, Denise Chong and her mother took a trip to China and the village of her grandfather’s birth.  There, in her grandfather’s house, Chong found a few treasured relics and photographs as well as a small packet of letters written by her grandfather to his wife and son in China. These letters would prove to be the inspiration for the book The Concubine’s Children: The Story of a Family Living on Two Sides of the Globe.  In The Concubine’s Children, Denise Chong uncovers a family history that emanates from the decision of her grandfather, Chan Sam, to leave his wife in China and migrate to “Gold Mountain” – North America.  This detailed and often complex family history raises a fundamental question about whether the lives of immigrants, such as Chan Sam, were shaped more by new or old world influences.  While the argument could be made for either/or, I would argue that historians should take the approach of studying the interplay of both new and old world influences in shaping the lives of immigrants such as Chan Sam.  As such, in this post I will explore Chan Sam’s life, analyzing how old and new world influences played off each other to forge a transnational duality that neither Chan Sam nor Denise Chong’s family could ever escape.  In doing so, I will analyze the push and pull factors behind Chan Sam’s initial decision to migrate and explore how those factors continued to frame Chan Sam’s life.  I will conclude with an analysis of whether Chan Sam’s experience was atypical for Chinese immigrants in Canada or whether historians should view immigrant history through the same lens of transnational flux that Chan Sam viewed his life.

Push and pull

Analyzing the causation factors behind migration to Canada creates an important vantage point from which historians should start exploring the influence of old and new worlds on each other.  In the case of Chan Sam, we see a path to Gold Mountain previously forged by an earlier generation combining with the pressure of contemporary push and pull factors to shape his decision to leave China.  As Chong notes, “those who could raise money did what their fathers had once done and went abroad.”  The push of instability in China meant “some sojourned in Hong Kong, some in southeast Asia. Others, like Chan Sam, chose Gold Mountain.”  For Chan Sam, the pull factors focused on financial opportunities, especially the earning potential in the new world in comparison to the old.

Old World and New World Links

However, rather than separating Chan Sam from the influence of the old world and launching him into the sphere of the new world, these push and pull factors illustrate how closely the two worlds were linked.  In fact, old and new worlds coexisted as building blocks for Chan Sam and his family.  Before leaving China, Chan Sam promised to maintain a relationship with his homeland, telling his wife “that he would struggle and save, that he would remit enough to cover her expenses at home.”  Chan Sam also pledged “to return before too many years for a visit, and one day, to come home for good.”

Interestingly these same push and pull factors would forge a platform from which Chan Sam would steer the rest of his life.  The financial pull of the new world with the possibility of earning more in a day in Canada than a month in China, created a cultural discourse that Chan Sam psychologically brought into and in fact perpetuated.  As Chong writes, “to have money sent from China to Canada would have unraveled Chan Sam’s reputation, built upon years of exile from his homeland, as a provider for his family.”  Chong adds, “Chan Sam did not even consider the possibility of turning around and going back [to China].”  Even so, Chan Sam did not turn his back on China completely.  At times, Chan Sam did return to visit his home village to build upon his reputation and legacy.  Notably, the visits were always temporary in nature, with Chan Sam conscious of keeping the door open for a return to Canada.  Chong writes that on an extended visit home Chan Sam “did not want to jeopardize his chances of reentry by staying away any longer than he had to.”  Chong adding that with the treat of all-out war and economic chaos in China, Chan Sam knew “his best prospects remained in Canada.”

Family History in Perspective

As with all family histories, Chan Sam’s story is highly personalized.  However, as historians should we frame Chan Sam’s experience as atypical for Chinese immigrants or does Denise Chong’s family history have wider implications?  Interestingly, Paul Yee’s article, “Business Devices from Two Worlds: The Chinese in early Vancouver,” suggests a commonality between Chan Sam’s experience and that other Chinese immigrants.  As Yee notes, like Chan Sam, most Chinese that migrated were “chiefly motivated by economic aspirations.”  Significantly, Yee’s article goes on to suggest a commonality between the old and new worlds.  Yee writes that, “immigrant adjustment is profoundly affected by the similarity of culture and institutions in both Old and New Worlds, and the early Chinese settlers in Canada arrived with values and skills highly compatible with the industrial capitalism then gripping North America.”  As such, this compatibility suggests the need not to separate the influence of old and new worlds, but to see the common links and exchanges between them.

Conclusion

In conclusion, returning to the initial question of whether Denise Chong’s family history was shaped more by new world or old world influences.  For a historian, to answer this question with an either “more” or “less” approach is problematic.  I would argue that such an approach negates the tension at the heart of this family history and of immigration history as a whole.  Rather than a “more” or “less” answer, as historians we should analyze how the dynamic interplay of new and old world influences helped shape not only Denise Chong’s family history but of immigration history.  New and old world influences should not be separated, but rather be understood in the context of the duality that many immigrants such as Chan Sam navigated their often fluid lives within.

References

Denise Chong, The Concubine’s Children: The Story of a Family Living on Two Sides of the Globe (Toronto: Penguin Books, 2006), ix, 20, 55, 95.

Paul Yee, “Business Devices from Two Worlds: The Chinese in Early Vancouver,” BC Studies, 62 (Summer 1984), 44-45, 63.

On April 16, 1911, in Sault Ste Marie, Angelina Napolitano killed her husband, Pietro, with an axe.  In the article, “Murder, Womanly Virtue and Motherhood: The Case of Angelina Napolitano, 1911-1922,” historians Karen Dubinsky and Franca Iacovetta explore the causes behind the murder, the resulting trial, and its fallout.  In doing so, Dubinsky and Iacovetta argue that “the social meanings attached to the woman’s life, and especially her crime, were profoundly shaped by prevailing assumptions about gender, race, and class.”  Dubinsky and Iacovetta draw this conclusion by taking what could be categorized as a “gender history” approach to their subject.  But what is gender history and how does it differ from women’s history?

Gender History vs Women’s History

Gender history while looking to understand the experience of women does so by emphasizing the interconnectedness and complexity of multiple categories such as gender, class, and race/ethnicity.  This differs from women’s history where the focus has been on understanding the historical role and identity of women as women.  As such, gender history, while being relatively new, has undoubtedly changed the historiography in regards to studying women.  I believe that the main reason behind the historiographical shift is the methodology driving gender history.  A gender history approach reframes our understanding the role of gender in constructing race/ethnicity and class identities.  This reframing, in turn, allows historians to explore the gendered nature of society.  For example, Dubinsky and Iacovetta in their article, analyze the ethnic/racial and immigrant background of Angelina Napolitano in relation to her gender.  While Dubinsky and Iacovetta note that “Napolitano was an atypical victim of abuse,” they argue that the resulting trial and subsequent social fallout, “sheds light on situations that, to varying degrees, many more immigrant and non-immigrant women faced during the period.”   In fact, as Dubinsky and Iacovetta saliently observe, their method of historical analysis not only helps understand the experience of women, their analysis also “contributes to the literature on immigration and to studies of racial ethnic prejudice.”

Domestic Violence

In this post, I will explore Dubinsky and Iacovetta article, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of gender history in studying the history of women.  Firstly, I would argue that by employing a gender history approach, Dubinsky and Iacovetta help reveal how gender-based ideologies are constructed.  They do so by considering the “theme of domestic violence.”  Through exploring this theme, Dubinsky and Iacovetta reveal “the varied meanings contemporaries attached to more general notions of marriage, womanhood, and motherhood, and to women who act as agents.”   However, in revealing how gender-based ideologies are constructed, Dubinsky and Iacovetta focus less on femininity and rather instead stress more the importance of males and masculinity in the lives of women such as Angelina Napolitano.  This, in turn, raises fundamental questions about the future direction of gender history and candidly asks how far away from the traditional emphasis of women’s history is too far.

Gendering class

Unquestionable, nevertheless is the significance of Dubinsky and Iacovetta’s article in broadening our understanding of the relationship between gender, class, and race/ethnicity.  The strength of the article stems from the way gender history offers multidimensional perspectives that ultimately produce new and fascinating directions for further study.  For example, Dubinsky and Iacovetta look to place the actions of Angelina Napolitano in a socio-economic context by analyzing class in relation to gender.  Firstly, they describe the deterioration of the Napolitano marriage “against a backdrop of acute financial insecurity and Pietro’s deepening sense of failure as the family’s chief breadwinner.”  By viewing this sense of failure, through a lens of what I would call “gendering class,” Dubinsky and Iacovetta are able to argue convincingly that, “[Pietro’s] crisis in masculinity appears to have been triggered by his inability to purchase a family home and manifested itself in bouts of drunkenness and increasingly cruel behavior towards his wife.”

Gender and race/ethnicity

Dubinsky and Iacovetta’s analysis of race/ethnicity and gender paints a similar picture, emphasizing the centrality of stereotypical male traits in understanding the social depiction of Italian immigrants.  Dubinsky and Iacovetta first note how Italians were “treated as a highly suspect group prone to drink, overly sexual, and highly excitable and temperamental.”  They then argue that these stereotypes when viewed through a gendered lens illustrate how contemporaries held “deep-seated concerns about the sexual threats that men, especially foreign men, posed to women.”  These connections between race/ethnicity and gender are telling, especially in the example of the Napolitano case where Dubinsky and Iavocetta note how “Pietro Napolitano provided a fitting villain: the ‘foreigner’ who preyed on women’s bodies.”

Conclusion

So what can we conclude from Dubinsky and Iacovetta’s article?  What are the strengths and what are the weaknesses of gender history when studying the history of women?  Firstly, we need to understand the methodology involved in writing gender history.  The emphasis on the interconnectedness of categories such as class and race/ethnicity arguably pushes the role of males and masculinity onto centre stage.  Is this a weakness when studying the history of women.  Perhaps, as seemingly this marginalizes the role of women in historical analysis.  However, I would suggest that by emphasizing the role of males and masculinity, we can begin to understand the power dynamics that women such as Angelina Napolitano faced.  The actions of Angelina Napolitano, although murderous, suggest an attempt confront the unequal gendered world she lived in.  As such, I would argue that future historians of gender should seek a balance between the working of masculinity as well as femininity.

References

Karen Dubinsky and Franca Iacovetta, “Murder, Womanly Virtue, and Motherhood: The Case of Angelina Napolitano, 1911-1922,” Canadian Historical Review, LXXII:4 (1991), 506, 507, 508, 509, 518, 522, 523.

Introduction

Immigration has always been a fundamental part of Canadian history and society. However, arguably immigration after World War II took on a different extent and character.

Historiography

Franca Iacovetta studied Italian immigrants – stressed family formation during baby boom years.

Mostly males, then women and children.

Theories

Prior to World War II. majority of immigration to Canada was from U.K. and U.S.A.

By the 1970s, a shift toward Asia. With immigrants from China and India.

Push and pull factors.

Controversies

Involvement of the government in shaping immigration post World War II.

Sources and methods

The baby boom of the 1950s

Many of the 1.8 million immigrants that arrived in Canada between 1946-1962, were of child-bearing age. Embraced values of home and family.

Events and incidents

Policies aimed at attracting professional positions.

Federal government embraced a “points system” in 1967, applicants were ranked to objective criteria concerning education, skills, and resources.

Caused a dramatic shift from Europe to Asia.

Sponsored immigration tended to bring in less skilled

Conclusion

Why did the character and extent of immigration change after World War II? Increase government involvement in shaping society. The need for immigration for economic growth. The agency of people, connecting families globally.

An immigrant to Canada who murdered her abusive husband in 1911, igniting a public debate about domestic violence and the death penalty.

Connect the life of Angelina Napolitano with immigration at the turn of the century, as well as the rights of women, and the theory of separate spheres.

Term is used in regards to tracking population growth. Connect the term with baby boomers and immigration growth in post World War II Canada.

Approximately 40,000 Loyalists came to British North America from the late 1770s to mid 1790s.

The Loyalists emerged as an idealized group whose constructed history made them the founders of English Canada, and the group established for English Canadians an identity separate from that of Americans.

Values were conservative, emphasizing Canadian deference to authority, devotion to law and order, and willingness to employ the state on behalf of the common good.

Connections with British imperial sentiment of the late nineteenth century.

Introduction

Historical assessments of post-war Canada tend to conclude that the period from mid-1940s to early 1970s was one of economic progress and great prosperity. But who benefited from economic expansion?

Historiography

John Porter, The Vertical Mosaic, argues that Canada may have been a “mosaic” of different peoples whose diversity Canadians were proud to celebrate, but these same people were organized hierarchically, where race/ethnicity were closely interconnected.

Theories

Rising standard of living, increase wages, low unemployment rate – equated to the argument for economic prosperity.

Controversies

Increasing number of women joined the workforce. Taking employment that was segmented by gender, and paid less.

Race and ethnicity also factors in how others did not share the “great prosperity”. Unskilled Italian workers, south Asian agricultural workers.

The gap between the rich and poor remained the same.

Many of Canada’s poor were working poor.

Privileged social influence of two groups: men, and people of British heritage.

Sources and methods

Consumer culture

Agricultural work. Unskilled labour. The failed unionization of the mostly female workforce at Eaton in 1948.

Events and incidents

Quiet Revolution – increased role of the state.

Conclusion

Problem with defining economic analysis – the charting of economic prosperity. Doesn’t tell the whole story. Class, race, and gender tell a different story about post war Canada. Unskilled immigrant labour. Increase number of women joining the workforce, but in low paid unequal roles.