Excerpt from Brokering Belonging: Chinese in Canada’s Exclusion Era, 1885–1945

Brokering Belonging traces several generations of Chinese Canadian "brokers," the ethnic leaders who acted as intermediaries between the Chinese and Anglo worlds of Canada.Before the Second World War, many Chinese Canadians were illegal immigrants, and most could not vote. 1 Brokers therefore played an informal but necessary role as representatives of their community to the larger society during a period of anti-Asian sentiment and exclusion.Using new Chinese language evidence, my investigation of dramatic power struggles shows how Chinese immigrants became significant players in race relations and had an impact on policies that affected all Canadians and Americans.Chinese brokers' work offers a transnational perspective on the process of political integration.Most studies of foreign migrants' political integration focus on immigrants who could eventually become citizens.2 While this was the norm for European immigrants, policies in Canada and the United States did not allow Asian immigrants equal access to voting and naturalization privileges.3 Chinese brokers' use of power also reflected their roles as representatives of a migrant community that stretched across Canada, China, and the United States.Commonly, immigrant leadership has been conceived as domination of naive new arrivals by English-speaking merchants, labor contractors, interpreters, and professionals.4 Brokering Belonging conceives of transnational migrants' integration into settler societies in more pluralistic terms: it focuses on the changing political relations between ordinary people, their leaders, and their institutions in the Pacific world. 5 Canada implemented its first anti-Chinese immigration act in 1885, just as Chinese workers were completing the nation's first transcontinental railway.The first and second generation of brokers, backed by wealthy Chinese merchants, acted as representatives for the disenfranchised, establishing themselves among the community.These traditional brokers prioritized assuring a steady stream of Chinese immigrants.With corrupt or sympathetic partners in Anglo politics and business, the brokers helped many Chinese newcomers to evade anti-Chinese immigration laws.Even the legal route through Canada's borders was tightly controlled by these brokers and their allies in China.To this end, Chinese brokers often secured official immigration interpreter posts by making alliances with ruling party factions and by bribing politicians.6 Brokers also merged their Chinese clients' aspirations with British legal institutions.Chinese Canadians contended with laws and a justice system that frequently treated them unfairly.When Chinese appealed to Canadian and British Empire courts to rectify these wrongs, judges often upheld the white majority's right to discriminate against them.7 Despite these challenges, Chinese Canadians found ways to influence the larger legal culture.Chinese brought from China and the United States strong traditions of litigation, so they often turned to Canadian law to resolve disputes.Because British Columbia did not permit Chinese to practice law, Chinese legal interpreters worked as unofficial "Chinese lawyers" in legal negotiations that often expanded the Canadian state's influence in Chinese Canadian affairs.Chinese in the United States similarly dealt with popular demands for the rule of law and with racial barriers in the legal profession.8

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