"The first overt racial recognition of 'whiteness' in Canadian law"

[breathedout]

First enacted in 1912 [in Saskatchewan], An Act to Prevent the Employment of Female Labour in Certain Capacities is politely titled in racially neutral phraseology. The actual text, drafted in rather ponderous prose, reads: 'No person shall employ in any capacity any white woman or girl or permit any white woman or girl to reside or lodge in or to work in or, save as a bona fide customer in a public apartment thereof only, to frequent any restaurant, laundry, or other place of business or amusement owned, kept, or managed by any Japanese, Chinese, or other Oriental person.' The statute is anything but racially neutral in its text, with the Japanese, Chinese, and 'other Oriental' communities explicitly targeted because of their race. The designated female group is also defined by race, as the prohibition is expressly restricted to 'white women.' Prior to this act, most racial designations in Canadian statutes purported to classify peoples of colour. Various enactments dealt with 'Indians,' 'coloured people,' the 'Chinese, Japanese, and Hindu.' Racial designations in law are typically assigned by whites to non-whites. While the property of 'whiteness' is clearly a definable asset from which all manner of privilege and power flows, it usually tends to disappear into invisibility in legal terminology. The 'White Women's Labour Law' thus constitutes a rather startling development. It appears to mark the first overt racial recognition of 'whiteness' in Canadian law.

—Constance Backhouse, Colour-Coded: A Legal History of Racism in Canada, 1900-1950

The so-called White Women's Labour Law was backed by a coalition of (a) all-white, nationalist trade unions looking to make it more difficult for Asian business owners to compete with white business owners, and (b) Protestant evangelical moral crusaders and white feminist women's groups trafficking in racist hysteria about the supposedly devious, weak and asexual Chinese male employer looking to push white female employees into the arms of opium addiction. It was actually even more restrictive than it seemed: while Asian employers were ostensibly left their pick of employees from the pool of white men and non-white women and girls, in practice the high wages commanded by white men priced them out of the market, First Nations people were largely unavailable due to their geographic isolation, and racist immigration restrictions limited the numbers of Chinese and other women (and men, but particularly women) of colour. So this law severely hampered Asian business owners' ability to operate at all, while also decreasing economic opportunities for the white women it purported to protect. The Saskatchewan law was quickly followed up by similar laws, or discussions of similar laws, in other provinces:

The province of Manitoba was so impressed by the Saskatchewan initiative that it adopted identical legislation on 15 February 1913. Due to opposition from the Chinese community, the law was never proclaimed. In 1914, the Ontario legislature passed a similar enactment, although it was not proclaimed until 1920. British Columbia sallied forth with its own version of the 'White Women's Labour Law' in 1919. In Alberta and Quebec, despite expressions of interest, no such act was passed. There was discussion from Nova Scotia municipal politicians about drafting a similar measure, but nothing came to fruition in the Atlantic provinces either.

ETA: The more I think about this, the more what stands out to me between the lines is that there was plainly a very activated, politically organized presence in the Chinese Canadian communities in many of these provinces, in order for so many of these initiatives to have been scuttled due to opposition. That is a VERY impressive result, when you think about all the other institutional obstacles these folks were facing (including immigration quotas that artificially limited their numbers), and about the strong coalition of political forces that were allied against them. At the same time, it also makes me think about the amount of mental/emotional/political/energetic space that it must have taken to mobilize against these kinds of initiatives as they were sweeping from province to province. The fact that so many of them were not proclaimed is a testament to the organizing ability of the Chinese Canadian population, but even in provinces where things only reached the "discussion" phase (as in Nova Scotia, Alberta, and Quebec), energy was no doubt still required to prevent them going any further. And that's energy that these people were unable to expend on whatever they would have been pursuing if they'd lived in a less hostile environment.

Comments

[lazaefair]

Thanks for linking this. I hadn't thought about the history of whiteness being defined or not defined in legislation, nor had I read much about historical racism in Canada. I mean, of course Yellow Peril happened outside the US, too. What was the joke Andy Samberg used at the Golden Globes? "The world is and always has been a nightmare, it just seems worse now because of our phones."

[chestnut_pod]

Not Canadian, but one of the keystone texts of U.S. whiteness studies and law is Ian Haney López's White By Law, which is certainly not unflawed but which is thorough, clear and easy to read, and deeply interesting. It's really all about the, "You can't have whiteness without something to define whiteness against," argument, which I think is applicable beyond the U.S.' borders. It's good!

That said, Fanon and DuBois (and others) wrote about constructions of whiteness way ahead of the American academy for… obvious reasons. It's just a little harder to find a definitive "DuBois on Whiteness" text.

[breathedout]

Oh this will have to go on my list as well, for a future time when I'm not trying to focus on Canada. (I think it's actually been recommended to me before, but didn't make it all the way to my wishlist.) Thanks for the rec!

[breathedout]

LOL, I had not heard that quip, but I agree with it 4000%. We did not evolve to have information about all the catastrophes everywhere in the world accessible at our fingertips 24/7!

Anyway, yes, I'm also much more conversant with US history, and starting to read more Canadian history for my current novel project is an exercise in exploring what feels like a kind of mirror-verse. A lot of the same stuff was going on, but the contextual differences mean they just manifested a little differently. In the chapter I quoted, Backhouse goes on to say that even in the US, where many states had laws against interracial marriage (which no Canadian province did, although it was discouraged in other ways), there was nothing like the 'White Women's Labour Law.'

[teaforlupin]

That's really interesting, I hadn't thought about the ways in which whiteness had to be explicitly or implicitly defined in texts like these before...

[breathedout]

Yeah, interesting stuff, isn't it? If I weren't trying to focus my research efforts on Canada right now, I'd check out the book chestnut_pod mentions above, which goes into the legal constructions of whiteness in the US. So many books, so little time...

[oulfis]

This is SO INTERESTING, and I am really excited to be learning much more about Canada by proxy as you venture onward with this project.

Canada really does feel like a "mirror universe" US in a lot of ways, tbh -- one of the things I always tell people about the culture shock of moving here, which was MOSTLY very minor, is about how hard it suddenly became to SHOP for things. Like, it suddenly exposed all our cultural ideas about what things belong in a store together as totally arbitrary. Where do you buy basic no-frills silverware? CANADIAN TIRE. Where do you buy a hot water bottle? ANY BOOKSTORE. Where do you buy underwear? I ACTUALLY DO NOT KNOW, I STOCK UP IN AMERICA. (Is it The Bay? I think I'm probably supposed to buy a lot of things from The Bay, but also when I mentioned to someone once that I tried and failed to buy a winter hat at The Bay, they laughed and said The Bay was for old people?)

Especially with Canadian Tire -- which does, yes, sell tires! and gasoline! -- I feel like I can see how a specific individual business (somebody's tire store) expanded to fill 'universal' ecological niches based on highly local circumstances.

[breathedout]

L O L Canadian Tire?! That's wild! I love the cold-weather adaptation of hot water bottles & books going together, though, that's so cozy. Even if I am, simultaneously, glad that I don't live in a climate that would give rise to such a combo.

Anyway, yay for learning more about Canadian history together! I didn't really think about it when I was planning the novel (basically, they're in Canada because Canada entered WWI so much earlier than the States), but I'm finding the similar-but-slightly-differently-manifested quality of the reading I've been doing super fascinating, and I'm happy to spread the love. :-)

[oulfis]

Bookstores really are coziness stores! Which, haha, definitely says something about Canada's climate. The whole first floor of every book store is basically just home goods, all selected for their conceptual coziness. If you want books you have to go upstairs or downstairs.

You can buy socks (but not underwear) at a bookstore. You can buy pajamas (but not daytime clothes). You can buy throw blankets and throw pillows (but not lamps). You can buy mugs and glasses (but not plates or bowls). You can buy purses and decorative backpacks (but not backpacks large enough to fit a laptop). You can buy oven mitts (but not towels). You can buy a laundry hamper (but not a trash can). You can, obviously, buy candles (but nothing to light them with). Starting after Thanksgiving, they're taken over with, essentially, Stocking Stuffers: you can buy small boxes of chocolate (but not other snacks) and attractive bottles of maple syrup (but not, needless to say, any other condiments) and any number of minor household objects that I find impossible to locate the other 10 months of the year and thus SNAP UP when the bookstore stocks them.

It's definitely bizarre to try to shop for needed goods in a business that is so committed to such an aspirational idea of "comfort" -- but at least at the bookstore across the street from me all of this also all offered in a "rose gold and roses" aesthetic style that exactly suits my own taste, so I always want the bookstore version of an object if the bookstore has it on offer, and thus run a lot of errands there first.