Photo detail from the monument unveiling poster
What do your imaginings of pre-Confederation Newfoundland look like? Fishermen, fishwives, merchants and sailors? If you’re going by the history books, Newfoundland and Labrador Headtax Redress Organization (NLHRO) think you might be forgetting something.
On September 17th, NLHRO will be unveiling a monument in the park adjacent to the City Hall Annex building, between New Gower and George street, commemorating the pioneers of the Newfoundland Chinese Community. The monument sits at the site of the first Chinese laundry in Newfoundland, opened in 1895. It’s the first of a four-part initiative, funded by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and sponsored by the City of St. John’s, the Grand Concourse Authority, and the NLHRO.
“We’re also developing a website where you’ll be able to learn what the headtax was in Newfoundland, how it came about, who paid it, and read stories from original immigrants,” explains Gordon Jin NLHRO president.
From 1906 to 1949, Chinese immigrants, about 330 of them, were required by the government of Newfoundland to pay a $300 headtax if they wanted to call the dominion their home. Danny Williams issued an apology for the racist headtax via press release, in 2006, one week after Stephen Harper issued an apology for Canada’s Chinese headtax.
“The apology came, the apology went, but nobody seems to know what happened back then in Newfoundland,” says Jin. “We felt that it was deficient in the history books… Sons and daughters of headtax payers, their grandkids, they don’t even know what happened to pave their way to come to the dominion or the province that they’re living in.”
“I’m a descendant of a head tax payer and I think that the trials and tribulations that my father and those 330 colleagues of my father went through… It’s just a forgotten thing,” he says. “Many of these people couldn’t speak a word of English, and they came when they were very young – my father was sixteen. In those days, $300 was equivalent to two years’ salary. You can imagine the hardships.”
“The Chinese restaurants, the laundries that were here for many years, would not be here if it weren’t for these pioneers,” he adds.
May 16th, 2011 at 1:14 pm
We need to learn more about our history and its less-than-happy elements. The people who paid the head tax here were seen as undesirable, so we milked them for $300 before allowing them to enter.
Their work, though, was valued. How many people in St. John’s remember the Chinese laundries? And, growing up, Chinese take-out food was a treat.
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