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Pa rr had interviewed some of the female workers in H anover, she might have discoveredthat they were able to devise certain networks or strategies that served to enh ance theirpower an d a uthority within this male-dominated comm unity. One also is left to w onderwhether P aris'men were really as accomm odating an d helpful within the hom e as we areled to believe. Wh ile Pa rr ha s used the testimony of seven wom en to reach th e conclusiontha t the men w ere often quite willing to engage in some of the chores aroun d the ho me,she might have discovered that the majority of men were not quite as liberated had sheinterviewed a larger segment of the population.

Aside from these minor quibbles, m e G ender of Breadwinners is a wonderfullywritten piece that makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of genderrelations within two very different local settings. Parr creatively uses sources such asmunicipal assessment rolls and company payrolls to produce a chronological,occupational, and gender breakdown of both Paris and H anover's workforce. She alsorelies on these two sources to determine the age, m arital status, and living accommo da-tions of the workers. Her usage of these types of sources, as well as the oral historyprojects that she undertook, could open up new avenues of research for labourhistorians interested in docu men ting the activities of workers in local industries. F inally,Parr's study has mad e a stro ng and vital con tribution to the larger field of local labo urhistory. H er new a ppro ach has provided a more dyn amic alternative to the old and stalestudies tha t focused m ore on w orkers' industrial and organizational activities. Instead,Pa rr introduces a more com prehensive a nd co mplex analysis of w orking people's livesby taking into co nsideration impo rtant forces such as gender, ethnicity, com munity a ndreligion, all of which help to sh ape the lives and experience of Canad a's wo rking class.Ellen Sch einbergNational Archives of Canada

White Man's Province: British Columbia Politicians and Chinese and JapaneseImmigrants, 1858-1914. PATRICIA E. ROY. Vancouver: University of BritishCo lum bia P ress, 1989. xvii, 327 pp. IS BN 0-7748-0330-4.In Sep temb er 1988 the Conservative governmen t of Brian M ulrone y, on behalf of allCanadians, formally apologized to the Japanese Canadian community for themistreatment accorded them during the Second World War when thousands wereuprooted from their coastal homes an d businesses and relocated t o the interior of BritishColum bia. Co mpen sation for their econom ic losses was awarded to the survivors andtheir relatives upon validation of their claims by the Secretary of State. The JapaneseCanadian community felt vindicated after many years of pressuring the Canadiangovernm ent to right the wrongs of nearly fifty years ago. Othe r ethnic groups who alsofelt unfairly treated at the hands of previous Canadian governments took heart. TheChinese Canadians began to press for redress of the infamous "head tax" of $500imposed on each imm igrant from China who entered Ca nad a to find w ork during theearly part of this century. The Ukrainian Canadians renewed efforts to obtain somecompensation for their ancestors, who had settled in the prairie provinces andsubsequently were deprived of their property when about 5,000 were interned as"prisoners of war" during the First World War; a further 88,000 had to carryidentification cards and report to the police regularly. Recently the Prime Minister

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apologized to Italian Canadians whose relatives were also interned as "enemy aliens"during the Second World War. It seems as though the "sins of our forefathers" havefinally caught up to this present generation of enlightened Canadians who want toredress past wrongs.

O r are we so enlightened? While most C anadians dismiss misgivings about certainethnic groups as products of a bigoted mind, many display ambivalent views onimm igration. The y distinguish between "deserving" immigra nts, such as those refugeesfleeing from genuinely oppressive political regimes and those so desperate to come toCa nad a that they will d o almost anything, including providing false documentation toprove legitimate refugee status. The latter are looked upon with hostility and told toreturn to their countries and apply from there. Th e Sikh R C M P officer who won theright to wear the Sikh turban as part of his uniform is still an object of hostility andderision by some groups who refuse to respect the argument that the turban is animpo rtant religious symbol in the Sikh religion. The two teachers, one in A lberta andone in New B runswick, who question the existence of the H olocau st also indicate thatbigotry, prejudice, and intolerance still exist in ou r country . Racism-that is,stereotyped an d often dero gatory views of various groups in society based on physicalappearance, religion or other beliefs, customs or standard of living - s not justsomething that happened in the past, o r exists in other countries, but is still somethingthat confronts Canadians today. To understand the roots of these attitudes, it isnecessary to study the past.Patricia Roy's book, A White Man's Province, attempts to d o just that. ProfessorRoy concentrates on the anti-Asian sentiment that dominated British Columbia foralmo st the first one hundred years of its existence. In the foreword she explains that herinterest in this subject stemmed f rom her focus o n the exclusionary C hinese Immigra tionAct of 1923 and the removal of the Japanese Canadians from the coastal areas of theprovince in 1942. Sh e decided to star t her research with the comm encement of the FirstWorld War. After investigating a number of sources including archival records andprimary printed material, Professor Roy concluded that "one could not fullyunderstand the animosity British Columbians felt towards East Asians after 1914without com prehending w hat w ent before. Indeed, the logical starting date w as 1858, theyear the colo ny of B ritish Colum bia was created a nd Chinese residents first arrived" (p.vii).This publication is the result of tha t perceptive conclusion. Mo reove r, Professor R oydoes not limit her study to the exposure of racial attitudes and actions by the BritishColu mbia population. She clearly indicates that how the economy developed in that

province helped to reinforce and exacerbate opposition to Asian immigration andsettlement. During the gold rush era, the Chinese immigrants were tolerated becausethey worked the old mines aban doned by white prospectors who had moved to morelucrative areas, kept to themselves, and were only in the country fo r a sho rt time beforereturning to C hina w ith their savings. By the 1870s, the tolerance chan ged to hostilityand resentment of the w hite populace w ho claimed tha t these men never "contributed"to building the new province by spending their money o r becoming interested in how th elocal municipality or province was governed. The cheap lab our provided by the Chinesearouse d the antipa thy of the trad e unionists. The change in attitude led to a long series ofmeasures by B. C. politicians to restrict imm igration from C hina throug h pressure onthe federal government, to disenfranchising Chinese and later Japane se immigrants, to

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prohibiting provincially chartered companies from hiring Asiatic labour and otherrestrictive me asures.In fact, the Chinese and Japanese, who represented a small proportion of thepopulation, were often used as pawns in the political chess game between the provincialand federal governments. Th e B.C. government often introduced and passed controlsaimed at these two ethnic grou ps just before an election. Ottaw a frequently disallowedprovincial acts considered to be ultra vires and British Colum bia was not excepted fromthis practice. When this happened, provincial politicians conveniently could blame thefederal government fo r making the problem worse because they were unsym pathetic toprovincial aspirations. (By the way, the book rightly points out that the anti-Asiansentiment was not confined just to British Columbia; these views were held by manyCanad ians, but were strongest in the W est Coast province.)Professor Roy also places the anti-oriental measures in the context of the strugglebetween capital and labo ur, a theme which runs throug hou t her study. The Chinese andlater the Japa nese were a source of cheap labour: they worked as domestics, gardeners,or labourers. They were generally hardworking and, more important from theemploy ers' poin t of view, were content w ith low wages, less inclined to belong t o a tradeunion or participate in a strike tha n their white counterparts. F or tha t, they incurred theenm ity of the trade u nion m ovement which saw them as a threat to its fight to o btainbetter wages and improved working con ditions. The Japan ese especially became sm allbusinessmen who com~etedwith the white businessmen for the same markets.Economic competition aroused further anti-Asian hostilities and contributed to thedeman d fo r restrictive measures on the im migration and movements of these people.Professor Roy concludes that the anti-Asian hysteria and its consequences in BritishColum bia were the product of a y oung province, economically, politically, and socially

unsure and u ncertain of its future. Only by the late 1940s was the province mature andself-confident eno ugh t o rem ove the last anti-Asian piece of legislation. Th e hostility hadnever been based on race alone. but on economic views that Chinese and Ja~aneseimmigran ts who intended t o return to their homeland would slow development of theprovince, that their acceptance of lower wages and wo rking conditions would reduce thestand ard of living, that they would "take over" certain industries, and tha t increasedimmigration from the Orient would ensure that eastern, not western standards,dominated. She has succeeded in demonstrating that the existence of hostility andprejudice towards "foreigners," in this case those immigrating from China and Jap an ,often had an economic base with resulting political overtones. The rhetoric thataccompanied the agitation frequently had racial overtones.Based on extensive use of primary printed material, especially British Columbia

newspapers as well as governm ent records (bo th federal and provincial), personal p apersof politicians (Laurier and King particularly), and church and labo ur records, A WhiteMan's Province is full of fascinating detail about the treatment accorded Asianimmigrants and its tragic consequences. It is well written and particularly welldocum ented. W hether o r not on e agrees with her premise that anti-Asian agitation waseconomically rooted and not rooted just in racial prejudice, the book provides a num berof insights and sho uld become a stan dard reference source for som e time t o come. Thispublication should assist not just Can adian historians but should also stimulate furthe rdiscussion by sociologists, political scientists, and ethnologists.

Judith Roberts-MooreNational A rchives of Ca nada