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.