Yellow Peril Revisited: Impact of SARS on the Chinese and Southeast Asian Canadian Communities June, 2004 Project Coordinator and Author: Carrianne Leung Author, Media Analysis: Dr. Jian Guan, University of Windsor Advisory Committee: Suyin Looui, CCNC-National Tam Goossen Dr. Jian Guan, University of Windsor Cynthia Pay, CCNC-National Ito Peng, University of Toronto Grace Tong, Solutions Research Group Consultants Inc. Victor Wong, CCNC-National This project was coordinated by: The Chinese Canadian National Council-National Office (CCNC-National) The Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) was founded in 1980 with a mandate to promote the rights of all Canadians, especially those of Chinese communities, and to encourage their participation in all fields of society. Since its inception, CCNC has been a leading voice in our communities on issues of equity, social justice, human rights & community organizing. Solutions Research Group Consultants Inc. assisted in the initial design stage of the qualitative section of the research project. The SARS Documentation project and report were made possible through funding from Canada Heritage. Table of Contents I. Introduction ............................................................................................. …..2 II. Executive Summary...................................................................................... 4 III. Part 1: History Matters… .............................................................................. 6 IV. Part 2: The Racialization of SARS: A Media Analysis (by Dr. Jian Guan) ..... 7 V. Part 3: Social, Economic and Political Impact ......................................... 11 a. Media Perceptions………………………………………………………………..12 b. Alienation, Discrimination and Harassment……………………………………16 c. Economic Impact………………………………………………………………….21 d. Employment……………………………………………………………………….23 e. Community Organizations……………………………………………………….28 f. Impact on Self-Image and Sense of Belonging………………………………..30 g. Community Response……………………………………………………………34 VI. Conclusion ................................................................................................. 36 VII. Recommendations .................................................................................... 36 VIII. References ................................................................................................. 39 1 I. Introduction News of SARS first hit us in Canada in early March, 2003. For the duration of the spring and into the summer, extensive media coverage with headlines like “U.N. warns of worldwide threat from killer ailment” and lack of access to accurate information contributed to a climate of fear, panic and insecurity. During the months of March to June, Chinese and Southeast/East Asian communities were doubly burdened, fearing for their own health and well-being, and bearing the stigma of this disease on themselves and their communities. This report shows that these communities were racially profiled through the media and state discourses of SARS. It attempts to tease out some of the complexities of how this disease became constructed as an issue of race and how targeted communities experienced this crisis. The intent of this report is threefold. One objective is to document our communities’ experiences so that we may better understand how racism operates during a moment of moral panic. The other objective is to give opportunity for people within the Asian community to voice their concerns through this documentation. Throughout the barrage of media reporting on SARS, very few media outlets addressed the social alienation, discrimination, racist practices that Asian communities experienced during this time. Finally, based on the data collected, we developed a list of recommendations to help prevent this from happening again to marginalized communities. This report is written in four parts. The first section gives a historical context of the marginalization and exclusion of Chinese Canadians in Canada. This history is an important lens in framing the contemporary representation of SARS as a Chinese or Asian disease. There is evidence that the racial discourse of SARS is not a new one but one that is embedded in the nation’s consciousness. The second is an analysis of mainstream media portrayal of SARS between March and June 2003. By using a content analysis, 2 national newspapers and 2 national magazines are surveyed. This section discusses how the mainstream media constructed a media event out of SARS and fueled public fear and panic. It further explores how the media contributed to racializing SARS and therefore contributed to the marginalization of Chinese and Southeast/East Asian Canadian communities. The third section documents personal narratives collected through focus groups, interviews and e-mail submissions. These narratives describe the broad impact that the SARS crisis had on these communities. Finally, the last section outlines a list of recommendations based on the evidence that we have collected. Data was collected through focus groups, interviews and e-mail submissions. I want to thank the participants for their involvement and trust in revisiting often painful and stressful experiences. Most names and organizations have been kept anonymous to protect confidentiality. This report is not an exhaustive investigation of the issues experienced by our communities that resulted from the racialization of SARS. Rather, it is a broad outline of some of the adverse effects and an illustration of the wide impact this racialization has had on Chinese and Southeast/East Asian communities. Time and resources did not permit us to widen the study to include the effects of this racialization on East and Southeast Asian communities across the nation. Respondents in this project are drawn mainly from Toronto, where Chinese and Southeast/Asian communities were most affected. 2 SARS was named a “crisis” in the context of public health, but this report alerts us to the fact that a social crisis accompanied it. This “social crisis,” at its core, is constituted through racist ideology and unlike SARS, its effects still linger with us on many levels. . 3 II. Executive Summary The Impact of the Media Dr. Jian Guan from University of Windsor, conducted a media analysis focusing on the representation of the SARS crisis in the media, and its role in generating public hysteria in reaction to the disease and to Asian communities. Dr. Guan systematically examined media reports on SARS from mid-March to June 2003, focusing on two national magazines, Time (Canada), Maclean’s, and two newspapers, The Globe and Mail and the National Post. The analysis found that the media generated public fear directed toward Chinese and Asian Canadians through the repetitive association of the disease with Asia, ethnic information provided about some SARS patients, and repeated visual references such as masked Asian faces. Members of the Chinese and Southeast Asian Canadian communities felt that the media directly racialized SARS, leaving their communities vulnerable to blame and discrimination. Alienation, Discrimination and Harassment As a result of the SARS crisis, members of the Chinese and Southeast Asian Canadian communities felt stigmatized and experienced incidents of alienation, discrimination and harassment. These incidents included ostracization, discrimination by landlords, employers, businesses and public institutions; and hate. Despite appearances by various politicians in Chinese restaurants, members of the community felt that leaders needed to take a stronger stand against the backlash against Asian Canadians. The work of community organizations was also impeded by the impact of SARS, having to respond to the compounded issues of their clients. Economic Impact SARS affected businesses across Toronto but hit Chinese-owned businesses and those located in Chinatowns even harder. According to various media and business accounts, loss of income was estimated at 40% to 80%. Many respondents reported that public funding for festivals and advertising did not reach the industries and individuals who were impacted the most. Employment The economic impact of SARS lead to job loss, in particular among non-unionized, low wage, non-status and service sector workers. Many of these workers could not access Employment Insurance Benefits. Health professionals, many of whom were Asian Canadians, faced isolation and discrimination because of their work with SARS patients. Some Live-in Caregivers, the majority of whom come from the Philippines, faced unfair dismissals that threatened their status in Canada. Self-Image and Sense of Belonging Aside from the material losses and damage suffered by businesses, Southeast/East Asian communities were affected in ways that are not quantifiable. The crisis also took a mental, 4 psychological and emotional toll on members of these communities. The effects of racism are complex, affecting self-esteem, self-identity as well as shaking confidence in the environment (school, workplace, public spaces, the city or country in general) as “safe.” It had a profound impact on people’s sense of belonging and well-being in Canada. Community Response Two main organizing efforts occurred as a response to the racial profiling of SARS. CCNC National and CCNC Toronto, along with other activists launched a press conference to raise public awareness on the social impact of the crisis on Chinese and Southeast Asian Canadian communities. This group continued to monitor the situation and participated in recommendations and inquiries in the wake of SARS. The Community Coalition Concerned with SARS, representing 26 organizations and led by Dr. Ming-Tat Cheung and the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto, set up a Support Line and challenged the Toronto Sun on a racist cartoon in the editorial. 5 III. Part 1: History Matters… In order to understand the racialization of SARS, it is important to contextualize this event in history. Chinese Canadians have been a presence in this country for over 150 years. Their contribution to the nation has been enormous but at the time of the beginning of their migration, there had been strong resistance to Chinese settlement. Recruited for their cheap labour, an estimated 17,000 Chinese men came to Canada to build the railroad thus allowing the land to be opened up for white settlement and enterprise. When the railroad was completed in 1885, a $50 head tax was imposed upon entry on Chinese migrants as a way to discourage further landing. This tax was quickly increased to the sum of $500, an exorbitant amount of money at that time. The head tax was in place until 1923 when the Exclusion Act became enforced. This Act barred any further immigration of people of Chinese descent up until 1947. Besides stemming the entry of Chinese people from coming to Canada, there were organized efforts to drive those that were already here out. Anti-Chinese organizations like the Chinese Exclusion League based in British Columbia were formed, resulting in raids, riots, assaults, destruction of property against Chinese communities. The xenophobic panic that emerged from the arrival of the Chinese sojourners was fueled by the media of that period. The view of the Chinese as a debased and uncivilized race was espoused by many Canadian papers in the west coast. For example, in 1900, a Victoria daily asked, Are we to have this great big province - a land of virtual milk and honey - conserved for the best interest of the white British subject - English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh. etc... - Or must it be given over entirely to the yellow and brown hordes of China and Japan? (Chan, 17) One newspaper called the Jack Canuck specifically targeted the Chinese communities. One columnist in 1911 wrote about the Chinese communities in Toronto: There are no less than 25 Chinese stores, laundries and restaurants in the blocks bounded by King, Queen, and Yonge and York Streets. How many of them ‘dens’ (sic) are in Police court parlance? One need only to stroll through the above mentioned blocks and notice the throngs of Chinese lounging in the streets and doorways to realize that the ‘Yellow Peril’ is more than a mere word in this city. (Wright,101) Chinese communities were referred often as the “Yellow Peril,” comparing the presence of Chinese people to that of the plague. Chinese settlements and expansions were regarded with the same hysteria as an infectious disease spreading across Canada. A Commissioner reported to the House of Commons in 1885 that Vancouver’s Chinatown was an “ulcer,” “lodged like a piece of wood in the tissues of the human body, which unless treated must cause disease in the places around it and ultimately the whole body” (Anderson, 81). In this statement, the city is an allegory for the human body while Chinatown is the disease, the foreign substance threatening to 6 engulf and destroy the whole body. Governmental officials and newspapers often mentioned disease and filth when referring to Chinatowns. Many containment campaigns were conducted in the name of “sanitation reform.” These state strategies ensured regular interventions into the public and private spaces of Chinatown. In the mid-1890’s, the Vancouver municipal council designated “Chinatown” as an official entity in the medical officers’ health rounds and health committee reports. Chinatown was listed as a category along with “sewerage,” “slaughter houses” and “pig ranches” (Anderson, 84). This brief historical overview shows that Chinese Canadians, their communities, and Chinatowns have long been viewed as a problem of public health and national security. It is important to refer to this history in studying the racialization of SARS. The contemporary rhetoric of SARS echoes very clearly the historical discourses that attempted to contain, regulate and prevent the inclusion of Chinese Canadians in Canada. IV. Part 2: The Racialization of SARS: A Media Analysis (by Dr. Jian Guan) This section of the report employs a media analysis to investigate the effects of the SARS outbreak on Chinese and other Southeast/East Asian communities. The analysis focuses on the representation of the SARS crisis in the media, and its role in generating public hysteria in reaction to the disease and to Asian communities. It systematically examines media reports on SARS from mid-March to June 2003 through a subject keyword web search and a content analysis of major Canadian newsprints. Data was collected, utilizing the meta-search engine Vivisimo, which combines mainstream news sites with several major search engines, in addition to Google and Yahoo key words searches. Current news databases were also investigated including ABA/OMFPR Global and Canadian Newsstands, which also contains local news reports. The key words that were searched included but were not exclusive to, the combination of “SARS” with other words like “Asian community,” “Chinatown,” “panic,” “rumour,” “racism,” and “stigma”. We conducted content analyses with the following media outlets: newspapers, the Globe and Mail and National Post and the magazines, Maclean’s and Time [Canadian Edition] between mid-March and June, 2003. The SARS epidemic became fodder for headlines when the first case was reported in Canada. It can also be observed that the coverage of SARS almost completely pre-empted the war in Iraq (Lok, 2003). During the three months between mid-March and mid-June 2003, Maclean’s published twenty articles and Time [Canadian Edition] magazine had eight on SARS in Canada. At the same time, Globe and Mail published 366 articles on SARS, and National Post [National Edition] and [Toronto Edition] together had 1,082 articles mentioning SARS. The media content analysis reveals that SARS was described as a “deadly,” “fearful,” “mysterious,” and, more importantly, as an “exotic” peril, leaving readers terrified. Most of the newsprints used such intimidating words to generate a discourse of panic and insecurity. For example, among Maclean’s twenty articles, five of them used the word “panic/anxiety,” fifteen used the word “fearful/frightened,” and all the articles but three used the word “deadly/fatal/kill”. Other words frequently used were: “mystery/mysterious,” “exotic” and “crisis”. Some articles 7 even used these words in their titles. For example, one article had the word “mystery,” another had “killer,” and two had “fear” running through the headings. Among the eight articles on SARS in Time [Canadian Edition] magazine, “deadly” and “killer” appeared twice in the headings, “scared” once, “fears” once, and “mystery” once. The same words and other similar words repeatedly appeared in main texts. Time added fuel to the flame by describing the epidemic as a “mass-murder” that “terrified the entire planet” (Lemonick 2003a: 42) during the early stage of the SARS outbreak when there were only eight to nine deaths at the global level. The media not only resorted to the use of provocative words and phrases, but also instigated public hysteria by comparing SARS to other deadly epidemics. For example, CBC News reported: “Health officials are calling SARS an epidemic, a word that evokes some frightening history and which, for many, brings to mind a single word: flu. Influenza had been one of the great mass killers in human history and its most lethal version was the Spanish flu epidemic in the fall of 1918 (Bjarnason and Rowland 2003). Although information given out by health officials was often insufficient, the moment that SARS was dubbed an epidemic, the media immediately correlated it with the Spanish Flu. Time magazine [Canadian Edition] provides another telling example. After stating that SARS was “evidently much less contagious” and “not nearly as deadly” (death rate was 3.7%), it went on to say that “infectious-disease specialists are haunted by the great Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-19; it killed fewer than 3% of its victims but infected so many that at least 20 million people died in just 18 months” (Lemonick 2003a: 43). Similarly, an opinion article called “The Cycle of Death” in the same magazine predicted: “There is only one thing of which we can be certain: that it [death like Spanish flu] definitely will happen again, we can also be sure that, as so often before, it very likely may begin in southern China….Wait to see if SARS can adapt with the same deadly efficiency as influenza - and once a virus achieves airborne transmission from one person to another, the consequences might be as brutal as the 1918 flu that killed 1 in 60 of all the people on earth.” (Davies 2003: 48). The Globe and Mail also ran an article comparing SARS to the “1918 Redux” (McIlroy 2003: F9), while Time [Europe] described it as a “Peril from the East” in the title (Lemonick 2003b). The media by connecting SARS to the Spanish Flu intensified public panic. Media discourse further illustrates how this panic was directed towards Asian populations by repetitive presentations of the origin of the disease (such as country, region, and patients’ personal background information including individual names) and the identification of SARS’ patients’ racial and cultural information. For example, at the early stage of the SARS outbreak, Maclean’s published the article “The Mystery Ailment Spreads” and cited the names of the first patient and her family members (Howaleshka 2003: 33). Time [Canadian Edition] also gave the patient’s name and described her as a “superspreader,” “who carried SARS from Hong Kong to Canada and who may have infected as many as 155 people” (Lemonick 2003a: 44). In a later issue, Time [Canadian Edition] mapped the transmission of this case to others through a diagram that listed different individuals’ names (Frank 2003a: 22-23). The Toronto Star repeatedly published the names of the first two patients. Between March 16 and 26, 2003, eight of its reports had listed these names (Kalinowski 2003, Mawhinney and Mascoll 2003, Owen and Van Rijan 2003, Palmer and Talaga 2003a, 2003b, 2003c, Talaga and Palmer 2003a, 2003b). The National Post also released the ethnic backgrounds of the first 10 Canadian SARS patients based on articles in the New England Journal of Medicine in early April (Blatchford 2003). The individual ethnic backgrounds of the earlier cases were repeatedly stated – a woman from Hong Kong who passed the virus to her sons and daughter, then passed the virus to many others (BBC 8 News 2003b, Reuters Health 2003). Although the discovery of the source of disease is crucial in controlling epidemics, making it public is contrary to bio-ethics (Kidder 2003). By repeatedly revealing the identities of the SARS patients, the effect of mainstream media coverage was a public antipathy towards Chinese and Southeast/East Asian Canadian populations. Visual references in the media, especially those of masked Asian faces, played an equally important role in marking Chinese and Southeast/East Asian communities in the SARS crisis. For example, Maclean’s used masked-facial images during a continuous stretch of four issues (from March 31 to April 21, 2003) since its first report on SARS. The media used other visual strategies as well to fuel SARS panic. Often, Canadian SARS reports were juxtaposed with photos taken in Asian countries. For example, a Time [Canadian Edition] article, “Will SARS Strike Here?,” published a picture of six Chinese women walking on a Hong Kong street with their faces covered by surgical masks. This photo took up substantial print space in a report on SARS here in Canada (Lemonick 2003a: 42-43). Similarly, The Globe and Mail had an article with the title “Lack of SARS Cure Frustrated Physicians” describing medical concerns about SARS in Canada. The article was accompanied by an image of a Chinatown street (Picard 2003: A5). Another article titled “Settlers Quarantined to Contain Disease” reviewed the Canadian history of quarantine, but had a picture of primary-school children in Hong Kong wearing masks in the classroom (Perkins 2003: A14). While these strong, often misleading, visual images served the purpose of the media, they powerfully communicated an image of SARS as a mysterious, “Oriental” disease causing further mass hysteria. When the media released a surfeit of images of Asian people wearing masks, people began to associate the mysterious virus with Asians, avoiding Asian communities for fear of risking their health. National Post, [National Edition] and [Toronto Edition] together, published 120 pictures accompanying to their reports on SARS during the three months between March to June, 2003. Among these pictures, 95 pictures (82.5%) were images with masks, 65 (54.2%) were images of Asian people and their living environments, and 60 (50%) were Asian people with masks. The Globe and Mail put out 119 pictures during the same period. Among these pictures, 68 pictures (57.1%) were with masks, 52 pictures (43.9%) were images of Asian people, and 41 (34.45%) were Asian people with masks. Maclean’s had 27 pictures in its ten issues between April and June. Among these pictures, 17 pictures (63%) were with masks, 8 (29.6%) were Asian images, and 6 (22.2%) were Asian people with masks. Time [Canadian Edition] published 17 pictures in its seven issues during the same time. Among these pictures, 15 (88.2%) were images with masks, 8 (47%) were Asian images, and 6 (35.3%) were Asian people with masks. 9 Table 1: Visual Images of SARS in Newsprints (March to June, 2003) Newsprints People Asian Asian People With Masks People with Masks Others Total ____________________________________________________________________________ National Post 95 (82.5%) 65 (54.2%) 60 (50%) 16 120 The Globe and Mail 68 (57.1%) 52 (43.9%) 41 (34.5%) 40 119 Maclean’s 17 (63%) 8 (29.6%) 6 (22.2%) 8 23 Time [Canadian Edition] 15 (88.2%) 8 (47%) 6 (35.3%) 0 17 Recent research has documented the media in representing migrants as the embodiment of danger, and immigration as the threat to the physical, moral, and political security and well-being of the nation. (Greenberg and Hier 2001). Yet, mainstream news is constructed as neutral and fact-based, thereby acquiring a normative position in the representation of issues and events. (Greenberg 2000). In the context of the SARS coverage, mainstream media relied on already circulating ideas about immigrants as a threat to national security and health. Immigrants and Canadians of colour are further conflated to create a racialized moral panic (Hier and Greenberg 2002). In the context of public health, disease has often been associated with filth, foreignness and nonmodernity (Trumper and Phillips 1997). Recent anti-immigrant sentiment in North America has been justified through the SARS crisis, which lead to the closing of borders with Asian countries. Such moves have no doubt been aided by the Internet, which provides another forum for the perpetuation of racism against minority communities. For example, the anti-immigrant website, CanadaFirst.ca, published five articles on SARS “superinfectors” to convince its readers that “immigration can KILL you.” Another website, VDARA.com, linked its anti-Asian propaganda to immigrant legal status, cultural difference, and disease, and argued that people in North America were particularly under the risk of the SARS because of: “Massive, unassimilated enclaves of ethnic Chinese in North America - Vancouver, Toronto, San Francisco-Oakland, Los Angeles, New York - often crowded, unhygienic… Language differences, eating habits, illegal immigrant fear of authority, magnet effect (infected Asians come straight to their communities), packed living conditions—all mitigate against effective control: the isolation of those infected and quarantine of close contacts…the massive flow of illegal aliens into this country, and the authorities’ inability to track them after arrival, will make the job of disease control almost impossible” (Pringle 2003: 1). 10 The example above illustrates that that the new manifestations of racism do not solely rely on overt forms. Racism, at any particular time is fluid, dynamic, and ever-changing (Brandt 1986, Fleras 2002, Goldberg 1990, Hall 1978, Satzewich 1998). Racism is embedded in public life and social relations, often making it invisible to those whom it privileges. Instead of the expressing itself through overtly negative feelings or actions such as physical assaults, defacing and destruction of property, and other aggressive anti-social behaviours, racism in contemporary Canada is often much more subtle, reserved, and rationalized. This is evident in the concept of “democratic racism” (Henry and Tator 2000). People of colour experience these types of racism as everyday glances, gestures, encounters, and actions that may not register in the consciousness of its perpetrators, but are immediately and painfully felt by the victims (Fleras 2002, Ramcharan 1982, Wotherspoon and Satzewich 1993). Democratic racism is a result of the retention of racist ideology within a collective belief system. It expresses itself through popular culture (Hebdige 1993), cultural representation (Goldberg 1993), and cultural discourse (Fiske 1994, Wetherell and Potter 1992). Within such social structures, prejudices and discriminative practices are often covered up or legitimized by rational arguments: “Obfuscation and justificatory arguments are deployed to demonstrate continuing faith in the principles of an egalitarian society, while at the same time undermining and sabotaging those ideals” (Henry and Tator 2000: 289). It is doubly difficult to overcome this type of racism because of practical support and political legitimacy. Any anti-racist move is perceived to be in conflict with the egalitarian principles of liberal democracy. In fact, the racialization of SARS is a clear manifestation of this process of democratic racism. By labeling SARS as an Asian virus, media sensationalism and its resultant public panic toward Asian Canadian populations have been rationalized and, therefore, justified. V. Part 3: Social, Economic and Political Impact This section highlights some of the responses we gathered from focus groups, interviews and email testimonials. The main objective of this part of the report was to document how various members of the Chinese and Southeast/East Asian communities had been directly affected by the SARS epidemic; and to understand how the media (both local, national and international – Canadian and ethnic media) had affected perceptions among members of the community itself. The narratives describe some of the ways in which people perceived the media representations of SARS and their communities. The narratives then discuss the myriad of discrimination, alienation and harassment experienced and/or witnessed during the height of the panic. Respondents also discussed the economic impact of SARS on businesses and employment. Finally, the report outlines the racialization of SARS and its impact on Chinese and Southeast/East Asian communities on their self-perception, sense of confidence and of belonging within the nation. Methodology The collection of the data for this qualitative section of the report stemmed from several sources including: 11 1. Focus groups: 2 groups were conducted with a total of 20 participants -1 in English and 1 in Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin) – among members of the Chinese community. It represented sub-group differences relating to age, gender and immigrant status including new Canadians from Hong Kong and mainland China, as well as Canadian-born of Chinese backgrounds. All participants were drawn from a variety of occupations and socio-economic strata. 2. One-on-one Interviews: Interviews were conducted among 11 members of the Chinese Canadian and Filipino Canadian community, including business owners, healthcare professionals and community workers. 3. Email and written submissions: A call for written submissions was sent through the community via email to gather personal experiences to supplement the focus groups. In addition, we approached parents of Asian backgrounds at a school in the Scarborough community who had personally felt the effects of the SARS crisis. They were willing to have their experiences documented but volunteered only written submissions, filling out a questionnaire adapted from our focus group discussion guide. a. Media Perceptions We asked respondents how they felt about the media portrayal of SARS both in mainstream media and Chinese media in Canada, and overseas. The public used mainstream media as its primary source of information. However, many of our respondents felt that the media had overstepped the boundary between giving information that would calm the public to producing a media sensation by enlarging SARS to plague proportions. Many felt the media created a climate of moral panic by sensationalizing SARS with a daily barrage of headlines and images. In most instances, respondents felt that mainstream media coverage directly racialized SARS, leaving Chinese and other Southeast/East Asian communities vulnerable to blame, exacerbating an already serious situation with social discord. Mainstream Media In the following testimonials, respondents discussed how the mainstream media fueled public fear. I’m not sure that SARS deserved constant coverage. It was constantly on the front page and seemed out of proportion with the issue. This made people more scared than they should have been. SARS-related news was taken so seriously. It was serious but really overemphasized. The media seemed like it was actually trying to make people more scared. Compared to China, there weren’t that many cases in Toronto. Media had overblown the severity of it here. There was a negative impact generated by the media. It tried to gain attention and not just give information. Toronto Sun portrays health care workers, especially nurses, very badly. 12 The Canadian media fueled a lot of fear. For example, the quarantines were a major focus – instead of making it look like a good preventative strategy, the media made it all look like bad news. The media reacted too fast and were too subjective. They exaggerated the impact of SARS before they were clear about what was going on. They made it sound like a big problem before they knew the details….The media made it sound like people could not be saved from SARS. The media gave people the impression that it sounded so terrible. People were scared that they would die if they were touched. So everybody was warned to be more careful. The report went to the extremity. They led people to feel as if it was the end of world. The epidemic was going to happen. They just scared people. But I felt that the media made a big impact because it already sounded like a big thing even before it really happened. The media kind of accelerated the issue. I am not saying that it is unfair. It just got ahead of itself and scared people a bit. Some respondents claimed that the media directly racialized SARS, leaving their communities vulnerable to blame. Their impact was big on Chinese and other Southeast Asian communities in Toronto. There was a lot of fear generated from the sensationalism. Some people concluded, based on the hysteria that this was a “Chinese” disease so the media was a huge influence because often they were the primary source of information. The media kept talking about a specific travel pattern between Hong Kong, China and Toronto. I don’t know if it was deliberate or necessary to keep saying that. This constant mapping of the disease, of course, kept attention on Chinese in Toronto as if everyone was suspect. The media overreacted; some articles were not very fair to Chinese communities, as if disease only came from the Chinese community. But when I read mainstream newspaper, I can feel they have bias against Chinese. Because SARS started from China, so they related it to Chinese. You can not talk like that. I feel that the SARS coverage overall was slightly biased and sometimes made Asian people look pretty disease-ridden. This was heightened in a culture in which racism, particularly against Asian communities, already permeates the sub-consciousness. It truly reinforced the feeling of "other,” as an Asian person. The communities and media were reacting to the outbreak with fear, with confusion, with certain amount of hostility, very unfortunate that some of the negativity was generated from the Asian communities. 13 Within that coverage, there was a tendency to focus on the disease’s connection to Chinese communities in Canada or Asia with a total lack of concern with the effect overall. This is besides from the coverage being unnecessary, huge. Why so much time and energy devoted to this story? Of course there were deaths but there weren’t so many to warrant this kind of reaction. Uncertainty fuels this kind of panic. The media were unfair in not thinking about the impact of there portrayal. One respondent directly linked media coverage of SARS to experiences of discrimination. In fact, every time there is global news that involves something negative about China, I have been met with discrimination. Another stated that the racist representations by the media come from systemic racism that exists with us all the time. There is a general racism against Chinese communities and SARS was just one opportunity for this to manifest itself in a very public way. Before SARS and after SARS, the underlying racism is the same. If there wasn’t racism, this kind of reporting and the kind of responses we heard here at the clinic would not have happened. Chinese-Language Media versus Mainstream Media in Canada Based on the data we collected, it is difficult to assess the differences between Chinese ethnic media in Canada from news sources from China, Hong Kong and other parts of Asia. We found that many respondents drew on multiple sources, including English mainstream media. An important issue to note: many Chinese Canadians had already heard of SARS before it appeared in Canada. The news of SARS cases in China and other Asian countries had already become well known to the Chinese Diaspora. Since many people were consuming news from Asian sources, they were already armed with some information and foresight as to what could have happened in Canada. The Chinese ethnic media in Canada was also reporting the news of SARS in Asia. The severity of the spread of SARS in China and Hong Kong may have led to more fear among Chinese Canadians. In surveying perceptions of the Chinese-language media in Canada, some respondents felt ethnic media contributed to divisions within Chinese Canadian communities. For instance, one respondent felt that some reporting blamed Mainland Chinese (making a distinction from Hong Kong Chinese) as causing SARS. In terms of the ethnic media, I think there was some bad coverage that tried to make mainland Chinese people look very bad. Fairchild TV set up a SARS investigative team and went to China to do these exposes on the wild meat markets. It was really disgusting and I think it was meant to make us think “no wonder they got SARS” and it just reaffirmed these stereotypes that in China, people just eat anything. I guess this is something to do with internal racism or at least within our own communities. . Some felt the English mainstream media did a better job of reporting the SARS story. 14 The mainstream newspaper did more research; they got the information about SARS from the Ministry of Health and public health. . They talked about it a great deal not just part of it. Not like Chinese newspapers, they only said that SARS is deadly and once your contacted the SARS patient, you would die, but they did not mention what do they mean by contact. It should be in more detail. Others felt the ethnic media was better at conveying the important information regarding SARS. Yes, there were differences in the coverage between Chinese and mainstream news. The mainstream made more of an issue over SARS as an epidemic and something to be panicked about. The ethnic media tried to give more suggestions and advice. I am talking about Sing Tao and Omni 2. Responsibility of the Media and the Government Some respondents questioned the motive of the media and wondered if individual outlets were engaged in competition with each other to bring the most sensationalized news about SARS. It’s a possibility that they just wanted to increase their sells. Maybe SARS was part of the marketing strategy. Sometimes they fell short of the reality. Like maybe they exaggerate. It’s like if is a report about a "shooting in the area". When you just see that title, you will feel everyone wants to shoot. The paper is concerned with wondering if the headline is catchy and will get attention. If you did not read the article clearly, you may misunderstand and jump to conclusions without proper contexts. Like suddenly feeling like the city is very unsafe and there are shootings everywhere. The newspaper should research more and educate people, and public. Let them know what is going on. Then the answer will be better. Respondents felt the media should take a responsible role in being a resource to the public in giving information and assistance in moments of crisis. They need to be aware of the impact that their representations of issues can have on particular marginalized groups. The media should stick to reporting facts and give suggestions, information. NOT act like they were advertising SARS! It wasn’t the end of the world like they described it and certainly generating the kind of hysteria and panic that they did, was not helpful. The problem with the media is that a lot of people (especially within the Chinese community) trust “experts” and so when the media is representing an issue in the way that it did SARS, people panic. The media need to take more responsibility to how they affect people. The media need to truly understand how their reporting effects already marginalized communities…The mainstream media need to consider history and the way historical oppression plays out in social relationships, in their own representation of events and issues. 15 Some respondents felt that any unfair portrayal of SARS was connected to the lack of clear messages and coordination between the different levels of government and the media. Media coverage was affected by the total lack of coordination at the government level. There was no coordinated efforts, no consistent communications across the board between the various levels of government. This was clearly shown in the media coverage. This also made it hard for the media to follow. Therefore, there was a feeling that the media should have produced more work that targeted the flaws within government institutions in addressing SARS. Media coverage should reflect this reality and be more critical of the government actions during this whole period of time. Media should avoid sensationalism. Put things in proper perspective. SARS in Canada was predominantly an institutional epidemic, not a community epidemic. Some respondents felt that the media should have brought more attention to the discrimination that was happening to Chinese and Southeast/East Asian individuals and communities. Employment equity in media, have the staff across all levels and all sections of all media reflective of the population of the communities. Having a diverse workforce will enable the media to have better linkages with the various communities Many groups such as CCNC and Harmony Movement hosted community events and public education did not receive any attention from the media. The media was more interested in the slow down of businesses in our communities. Not to suggest the businesses, in particular, small businesses did not suffer, but the media should also focus on the impact of discrimination on individuals. b. Alienation, Discrimination and Harassment Our respondents listed various ways in which they felt they were victims of alienation, discrimination and harassment during the SARS crisis. Their narratives indicate that racism took on many manifestations. From feelings of isolation to acts of harassment, respondents described the general climate. Respondents discussed experiences of being ostracized. Chinese, Southeast and East Asian people were shunned in various spaces including schools, workplaces, public transportation. In public transport: Every time someone on the subway coughed, if they were out of my sightlines, I would pray that it was a white person. I felt as if all the e/se Asians in the car cast their eyes 16 down at the same time, when this happens. Then I am infuriated that if it was a white person people felt safe. And if was an Asian person they would be seen as filthy and diseased. During the SARS ordeal, it felt like white people (& others too, but most of all white people) had good coughs, good lungs, good breath. And Asians, especially Chinese people, looked hunched over, diseased, dirty, and unsophisticated. This is how I felt like people were being seen. My family members were not welcomed to sit with public during the whole subway trip. Non-Chinese all sat a certain distance from us. A lot of people avoided Chinese people. I know there were a lot of experiences regarding the subway. If you sneeze or cough, you could empty the train! I did take the public transportation and the drivers did ask me whether I am Chinese. I just said that I was Canadian. Why did they ask? What did they need to know? Some people from work asked me where I lived. When they acknowledged that I was from Scarborough, they didn’t want to talk to me because Scarborough was known as the SARS area. Especially since Scarborough Grace Hospital was so affected. In the work place: At work, my co-workers tried to stay a distance from me. Some even wore masks. I work in a medical building and during SARS, I happened to be in the hallway where there was a slight traffic jam with other Asians present. A white man walks by and immediately pulls his jacket up to cover half his face. People blamed the Chinese. Even my patient asked me if I’m from Hong Kong and told me that’s where SARS comes from. He’s not saying it in an offensive way but he is bringing up the question. I heard staff making inappropriate comments about different client groups (the nonEnglish clients). Comments such as: “As far as I am concerned, the whole community should be locked up.” “I think China was making bio-weapon and SARS is just one virus that escaped” Some respondents described what it felt like to look for employment during the months of SARS. I find it so hard to get a job in Canada as it is. This is because I am Chinese and an immigrant and everyone wants “Canadian experience”. A friend of mine really felt the difference before and after SARS. Before, he got lots of interviews and after, he wasn’t even getting called back. 17 A neighbour of mine is an engineer. He got interviewed for a job before SARS. He was offered a job before the outbreak and he negotiated to start at a later date but then SARS hit and after that, his job offer was suddenly withdrawn. At school: I am studying in the university. My friend told me that when he coughed on the hallway (he has no SARS, just feel uncomfortable). The mainstream and other ethic students were looking at him and run away from him. It made him feel very embarrassed and uncomfortable. When I dropped my kids to school, I heard parents talking about SARS spreading everywhere. When I tried to ask them about the situation, these parents just kept silent and nobody wanted to talk to me. They pretended they didn’t hear my question. After that, I waited for my kids far away in the playground and left quickly after picking them up everyday. My kid’s teacher told him that he was not allowed to bring certain kinds of food to school and advised not to share with classmates. In my kid's school, there were some people from other communities who told their kids to avoid playing with Asian kids and also to wear a mask to school. In the school, about half the children were absent because their parents felt it was not safe to go to school where there are lots of Chinese people. My son moved to Canada from China last year and I postponed enrolling him in school until the fall because I didn’t want to see him go through a hard time. At home: A friend of mine had employed a Personal Assistant for her elderly mother. The Personal Assistant withdrew her services during this time because she was afraid of contacting SARS from the family. They family had no symptoms of SARS, had not been to Hong Kong or China. In public spaces: The daily fear of being publicly shunned was very stressful on communities. They expressed feelings of fear, shame, anger, and depression. Even when racist acts didn’t occur, respondents described being braced for it to happen at any time, any place. Respondents spoke of ways they tried to minimize the risks of being targeted, by limiting their mobility or trying not to cough in public. During the crisis, people didn’t want to have physical contact with us, e.g. shaking hands. Unfortunately, we found this anxiety within our own community too. I have tried 18 to shake hands with others but no one wanted to do this with me, even in the Chinese community, it really upset me. I had a lot of allergies at that time and as soon as I sneezed, I noticed that White people would go somewhere else, away from me. At my church which is mixed race, a health care worker was concerned whether I had SARS or not. I definitely experienced a subjective feeling that I was being scrutinized. This may sound funny, but it was not when I felt I could not cough in public no matter how much my throat tickled. In some instances, the targeting of Chinese and Southeast/East Asian people took more overt forms. At grocery shopping, a white woman insisted on placing her box of groceries on the cashier line ahead of me, as if I ought to be ashamed of myself and should be last. A lady called CCNC-TO and left a message about “dirty Chinese” and blamed Chinese people for SARS. I was visiting a friend at her condo and we were sitting in the lobby when someone banged on the door to be let in. Our backs were to the door but I could see her in the reflection of the mirror. She pointed to her temples as if to say we are stupid. Then she yelled " Open the door you idiot" My friend got up to help her and I told her she had called us idiots. We did not let her in. When she did enter the foyer, I told her " If you want someone to help you, do not call them an idiot" to which she responded " GO back to your own country and stop transporting diseases here" Gay Asian men didn’t go out to the bathhouses or any events because they didn’t want to deal with the discrimination or bashing. So for those few months, everyone stayed away and kept to themselves. In April 2003, the media reported the link of SARS cases with the Filipino Canadian community. Regarding the portrayal of the Bukas-Loob Sa Diyos Covenant group, one respondent states, There was a stereotyping of Filipino people with that reporting. The portrayal really worked on the stereotype of us being fanatics or something. The group got represented as if they were a cult. This kind of representation enabled the public to define who they thought was ally or an enemy. In that situation, we felt we didn’t belong here. Besides the general social hostility experienced in public spaces, respondents also felt they were targeted in specific sectors. For instance, the Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic in Toronto assisted people who lost their housing at that time. At the clinic, we heard many cases where landlords wanted to get rid of Chinese tenants. In one case, white landlords kicked out a woman because her husband was coming to 19 join her from China. Another Chinese Canadian woman living outside of Toronto was asked to move even though she had never been to Hong Kong or China. The clinic also discovered that staff at the Immigration and Refugee Board insisted on wearing faces masks during hearings concerning claimants of Chinese and other Asian claimants. These claimants were individuals who had been in Canada for at least a year because it took that long for the case to come before the IRB and there were no other precautions taken - wearing the masks – in non-Asian claimants’ hearings. For some, discrimination took place at international borders as the case with this woman and her parents. When my parents were going to enter Canada in Fort Erie border in April, 2003, the officer put her mask and glove on immediately when she heard that my parents had came from China a day ago. She didn't let them in because of SARS outbreak. She was too scared so that she maybe thought that every Chinese people might have SARS. Her bias is that you Chinese are spreading SARS. My parents have to stay at hotel in Buffalo and they suffered a lot physically and mentally. Another respondent tried to make arrangements for her friends who were visiting from China. I tried to get a hotel for a friend who was coming from Shenzhen. I remember 2 hotels specifically asked where my friend was coming from. When I said China, they said they were not accepting guests from China According to some respondents, the stigma from SARS still lingers, connecting the racism which emerged during the SARS crisis to larger attitudes towards Chinese and Southeast/East Asians in Canada. I could not believe up to this month April 2004, I would encounter someone jokingly and directly said to me "You’re Chinese. You are those famous ones who bring SARS to Toronto". This joke reflected how much it impacted on the Chinese community and for those who belong to this community. The statement shows that we are still held responsible for SARS and its consequences and this seems to be what people remembered, isn't it sad? I am concerned of this daily and casual conversation for one's perception, belief became excuse of discrimination, and may contribute to inappropriate and unfair attitude and behaviour towards Chinese. It’s not just SARS; it’s something that is always there. For example, in my office, there is a coworker who refuses to eat at Chinese restaurants. She says they are dirty. Racism is always there and systemic racism also. 20 There were not many clear policies and guidelines regarding SARS, especially during the early period of the crisis. However, it is apparent from respondents’ experiences that Canadians of Chinese and East Asian descent and those arriving from China and other destinations in Asia, were scrutinized and subjected to another set of rules that did not apply to other Canadians. c. Economic Impact SARS affected businesses across Toronto. Given the climate of fear and the World Health Organization’s travel warning to tourists, the city was badly hit with an economic slump. However, for Chinese owned businesses, and especially those in the areas designated as “Chinatowns,” the impact was substantially worse. The loss of income is estimated at 40% to 80%, depending on the type and location of business. The areas known as East Chinatown (Gerrard and Broadview) and West Chinatown (Dundas and Spadina) were virtually deserted. It seriously attacked the economy right away. People were nervous and no one went out to shop or to eat in restaurants. Some restaurants were the object of rumors that spread very fast. Someone would say so and so restaurant had someone with SARS and suddenly everyone avoided it. I came to work everyday in Chinatown and couldn’t believe how quiet it was. It affected East Chinatown a lot. I don’t need to say much. Everyone saw it. Some participants attributed the lack of business activity to the media’s influence on people’s consumer practices. I felt unhappy because business was so low. People were really affected by the media. The coverage had a lot of influence. Since the SARS began, the whole Chinese community seemed to go into the dead corner; everyone was worried and scared. They even did not go outdoors. It seemed very, very bad. The crowded Chinese malls were suddenly quiet, and the consumers did not buy the goods. Yes, non-Asian people paid special attention to people of Asian descent. It damaged Asian people’s image. You could not even see any other ethnicity in the Chinese shopping malls. Some respondents felt the visits to Chinatown by Jean Chrétien and other public officials did not make a big difference. There was a general feeling that it was too late and that it fell short of addressing the larger issue of the racialization of SARS. What they did was go to Chinatown and have lunch. Nobody wanted to touch the discrimination part or ask and answer the question of why Chinatown was so hard hit. 21 Those politicians just felt obligated after pressure to do something for those communities. They only wanted to show their faces and then get out. Martin and Chrétien had dim sum, so what? Political leaders have to speak out against the discrimination much sooner. They should have been saying that this is not a “Chinese” disease and stopped the backlash. Chrétien went to Chinatown but it happened pretty late already. More should have been done to address the racism. There needs to be more overall awareness that discrimination is a serious offense and not to be tolerated. The government should be proactive and not just reactive. Others applauded the intervention made by public officials and felt that the Chinese Canadian communities also had to take some responsibility for the economic disaster to Chinatowns. People said the Chinatown did not have any business. But we, ourselves did not go out to eat. Suddenly people all behave, they did not go out to eat. Instead the Prime Minster came out to eat. When Chinese people won’t go out to that restaurant, the Prime Minister went. It must be pointed out that Chinese Canadian communities were not immune to the hysteria that surrounded SARS and that they too, avoided Chinatowns. This suggests that internalized racism was another factor in shaping the behaviours of Chinese and Asian Canadians at the time. In many instances, Chinese Canadians were also demonstrating a general anxiety and fear of contacting the disease by contact with each other. Also it is important to consider that Chinese and other Southeast/East Asian Canadians were limiting their mobility in public spaces to avoid maltreatment by other Canadians. While Toronto was injected with funds to revitalize the economy post-SARS, some respondents expressed resentment that financial assistance was not offered to the industries and individuals who were impacted the most. At the city level, the City of Toronto put aside over $200, 000 to hold five festivals in various parts of the city but the funding went to a selected few business associations and a couple of community agencies. It did not reach the workers who were directly hurt by the crisis. Besides financial compensation, many respondents were frustrated that government officials did not incorporate an anti-racist strategy in their SARS recovery campaign. Millions were spent on the tourism industry’s recovery and yet nothing was offered to business in Chinatown, nothing on educating the public on racism. 22 d. Employment The large decreases to revenue also translated into job loss. The “Alternative Proposal”, a joint community effort put forth by Chinese Canadian, Filipino Canadian and other advocacy groups stated: When business goes down, these workers are the first to go without much warning and little compensation. The harsh reality is that many employers disregard their obligations under employment standards legislation, while the workers are ineligible for EI benefits even under the relaxed rules. Service Workers The Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic saw many clients who had suddenly lost their employment due to layoffs. Many of those affected were non-unionized workers, some of whom have no immigration status in Canada. The clients that came to the legal clinic at that time reported a lot of job losses because restaurants in Chinatown were lying off and in some cases, SARS was used as the issue. For example, a client was pregnant and employer told her to stay home for her own protection, but without pay. We have also heard from many workers of Chinese descent who had been terminated or were told to stay home because of perceived fear from their non-Asian colleagues. Respondents described the insecurity faced by many Chinese and Southeast Asian people at the time. At work, my husband reduced workload; normally he had 60 hours per week. After SARS, it dropped down to only 30 hours. Therefore, it affected our living. I was so worried that my husband would lose his job. It caused many people to lose their jobs. My husband was laid off in June because there was no business in the restaurant he worked at. There were less than 10 customers per night. People felt perplexed about the future; they did not know how to survive in the future since there was such an economic drawback. Lots of people lost their jobs and their lives were quite tough after SARS. The Clinic further contends that the many service workers who were laid off from restaurants, hotels and other service industries were left without adequate compensation from unemployment insurance or other sources. In many cases, poorly enforced labour laws, coupled with a lack of compensation, left many workers in desperate situations. Even more vulnerable were undocumented workers. 23 While they were out of a job, they had no access to unemployment insurance or other governmental benefits. They also dared not complain to the authorities when their rights were being violated. This loss of employment further exacerbated the situation of already marginalized members of our communities. These workers faced multiple oppressions as they tried to negotiate their lives within systemically racist structures. The SARS crisis was only one moment in the daily-lived marginalization that many people experience in this country. Health Professionals For nurses, being on the frontlines of battling SARS was a confusing and sometimes frightening period. Avvy Go, of the Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic pointed out that while discrimination was occurring against people of Asian descent, Chinese and Filipino nurses, doctors and health care workers were working hard under tremendous stress to stem the disease. Nursing is one of the few professions where Asians, particularly those of Chinese and Filipino descent, are proportionally represented. She states, It is not a coincidence that the two nurses and doctor, who died from SARS, were persons of either Chinese or Filipino descent. Regulations were ever-changing, giving cues that the governments were scrambling to coordinate a response. Nurses, doctors and other health care professionals took personal risks everyday to continue to provide their services to patients. A nurse shares her experience. Initially, we were really in a great mystery because no one knew what was going on, the managers were going into one meeting and then another with new regulations for confinement each time. The infectious control division asked us to isolate everyone, don the gown and gloves and one hour later, they would change their minds. Every 2 or 3 hours, the Ministry of Health would give new directions. Frontline staff was largely credited with containing the disease even as the infrastructures that they worked within were lacking. The federal and provincial coordinating effort and the Ontario public health care apparatus have been widely criticized for being fragmented and unprepared in dealing with SARS. Recently, the Campbell commission, appointed to investigate the SARS crisis, issued a detailed report that justified the criticism and pointed to the inadequacy of the federal and provincial strategy in addressing SARS. Health care workers continued to do their jobs and to accommodate new directives under incredibly trying circumstances. A lot of us were afraid. Everyone was scared to touch the elevators buttons, to close the door and touch the door knob. Everyone was getting paranoid. One of the symptoms was a high fever, and the nurses would think maybe they had SARS. We were sometimes panicked because in the early period, we didn’t always know what was going on. 24 The Ontario Nurses Association recently supported a lawsuit on behalf of 30 nurses and their families who contacted SARS on the job. They maintain the Ontario government is responsible because the government instituted workplace safety precautions that were inadequate and did not properly protect the nurses from SARS. Their statements include: In addition to mandating that health care workers comply with inadequate precautions, the nurses claim the Ontario government failed to properly enforce occupational health and safety standards in hospitals, as required by the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The nurses also claim the government breached their Charter of Rights and Freedom rights to “life, liberty and security of the person,” because of the harm to their health. The political and economic interest rather than the well being of the citizens was the priority of the government resulting in devastating impact on the health care sector and the frontline workers For Chinese, Filipina and other Southeast Asian nurses, the stigma of SARS as an Asian disease, as well as working on the frontlines, caused them great isolation. A nurse from Scarborough Grace Hospital told us: Most of my colleagues were angry because they felt so isolated; no one wanted to come in contact with you. I heard people didn’t even want to drive past the hospital! Taxi drivers wouldn’t stop at the hospital entrance and dropped us off a distance from it. Even coming to work was hard! Amy Go of Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care, a long term care facility that provides ethnospecific services to seniors, states: It seriously impacted on Yee Hong; we were “accused” of having SARS by other “mainstream” long term care facility staff. Staff who worked in other long term care facilities was harassed for working in Yee Hong as well. Health facilities with a large Chinese clientele became stigmatized as a “SARS facility.” One RN refused to come in to work because she said we were lying to her about the truth i.e. that we had SARS patient. She refused to return phone calls from management. She hung up on management and left messages that the centre lied to her about SARS. The RN who was fired subsequently and was reported to CNO. During a meeting after SARS with management staff, the RN claimed that the other facility where she worked was giving her pressure not to come to work because the staff was convinced that her workplace had SARS. The RN did not challenge their perception but totally bought into it herself. As a health care institution providing care to Chinese Canadians, there was a perception that we had SARS cases. While we are no longer associated with SARS, the discrimination is still there. Recently, a group of English speaking residents moved back 25 to the facility that they were transferred from. Some of the families of these residents never accepted us and never showed any appreciation for the quality care that we provided. Their attitudes were condescending and disrespectful. Another respondent who works for a public-funded health institute indicated how the racial bias demonstrated during this period became also became a systemic issue in the workplace: I must say, some of my colleagues were admirable, dedicated, kind and accountable, but some of my colleagues exhibited unacceptable and racist attitude. One of our roles at work was to contact clients to inform them about quarantine. One evening, during our assignment allocation time, none of the staff were willing to take on a file with clients who only speak XX language. I do not speak XX language, but I offered to take the file because I felt that it was totally unacceptable for publicly funded health care staff to behave this way. This is against the human rights code and professional practice standards. But the story did not end there. While I was lining up to get the XX language file, the staff in front of me picked up her file and then said to the manager, “This file is full of Chinese names. I don’t speak Chinese.” Then she turned to me and said, “You speak Chinese, don’t you?” I said, “Yes, I do. I can take this file if you like. Would you take the XX language file then?” “No.” she said. So I ended up with both files. Despite the availability of language interpretation services, this staff refused to take on any non-English files; in fact the whole group of them refused. I felt wounded because I witnessed racism but I did not have the energy to challenge the managers for allowing it to go on; I did not have the energy to say anything to this staff; and I knew that if I said more, I would have put myself in a very vulnerable position. Yet, there did not seem to be much that I could do because the racism was not directly directed at me. A respondent points to the lack of support and understanding for staff during and in the aftermath of SARS: Yes, I would say that SARS did have an impact on me, not only because of my Chinese heritage, but because I also worked in the response to SARS. The whole experience was very exhausting for me, not only because we were dealing with a public crisis, but because I witnessed so much unfairness, oppression and prejudices embedded in the processes of the response everywhere – our different levels of government, health institutions, communities, the public… Personally, I feel that I still have not fully recovered; I feel the need for healing and I am working on that, on my own, without any support anywhere. Where do we go to talk about how the SARS crisis traumatized us? At our work, it was briefly addressed and then it was passed on and overcome by other more urgent issues. I talked to some other colleagues; they said that similar things – “I am not sure if we could ever recover from SARS” – but we are all saying this based on different reasons. Live-In Caregivers 26 Another vulnerable group in our communities during this period was the Live-in Caregivers. Of the total number of live-in caregivers in Canada, 70-80% is from the Philippines. Most are employed to serve the needs of elderly people and children. SARS greatly impacted all aspects of their well-being. Coco Diaz from Intercede, an advocacy organization on behalf of Live-in Caregivers shared with us: There were many cases of unfair termination of employment during SARS. They were dismissed as if they were already carriers of the disease. Employees were most concerned with the elderly or children in the family and yet showed little concern for their employees. Live-in Caregivers are not given the status of being professionals as in the case of doctors or nurses and yet they are also very important. Diaz further states that it can be said that live-in caregivers also were in the frontlines of the fights against SARS and yet they are not heralded as such by the media or public opinion. They also put themselves at risk to fulfill the requirements of their jobs. Unlike healthcare professionals, they have no guaranteed rights, protection or recourse as workers. For example, a live-in caregiver, who cared for an elderly person, contracted SARS by taking her employer to the hospital for health services. This woman spent 3 months in a coma and has to undergo many more months of rehabilitative care. In April, unfair dismissals intensified after the media reported the links of several new SARS cases to members of a Filipino Catholic group. Aside from the dismissals, some employers tried to control the movement of their employees. There are those who only go out for their day off. There became this awareness of this religious group and so employers were not even sure if their caregiver is involved or if they are in any way connected to them. Immediately, some employers started to think that just because the workers are Filipino, then no, they cannot come and work. They may say things like you were out, I do not know where you were. Your friends may have been in those places that were identified by the media. Or how about those Asian stores that you went to? There are other people who went there. I value the life of my children and so, don’t come to work. Do 10 day quarantine… After the 10 days, you know what happens? They are given 2 weeks notice that their services are not needed anymore. So to prove what I am saying is that I know these people who were terminated because of that. And another case is somebody who was in Niagara Falls, she came to Toronto on her days off. She was not allowed by her employers to come to Toronto. Her employers thought that she might be bringing back the virus to, so instead she was told to spend the day in the mall closer to Niagara Falls. She still insisted to come here. On her day off, she received a call from her employer asking where she was. When she said that she was in Toronto, they told her not to come back anymore. 27 Diaz from Intercede made clear that the loss of employment has a broad impact on the lives of live-in caregivers. The loss of the job means losing everything. For a live-in caregiver, you lose the income, you lose a home (because you are living with your employer), and you lose compliance with Immigration Canada and so jeopardize your status and immigration process. The process of being dismissed by one employer and finding another one is long, bureaucratic and arduous. There are no allowances made by Immigration for the length of time it takes to go through this process. It takes 4-6 weeks to get approval from the HRDC and then in two months, you receive another work permit. And then you can try and find another employer who will hire you. But during that time, no one was hiring Filipina workers. The Live-in Caregiver program is a joint agreement between the Canadian and the Philippine government. Live-in Caregivers must meet the conditions of the program and be employed for at least 24 months in a period of 3 years. When this is fulfilled, they are then considered landed immigrants and may work towards becoming Canadian citizens. Because in order for them to become a permanent resident or landed immigrant here, the longer that they can stay with one employer, the better for them because they are working in a very limited time frame. They have a time limit to complete what they call the 24 Live-In Work. And at the same time, for them to find a job too, its true that they are entitled to apply for EI, but what happens is that it is not their priority to apply for EI immediately, their priority is to find a new employer because of the program that they came to do. So despite that, they try to look for another job and there is already a stigma on them, why did you move out from your employer? So the next employer will have a big question mark about whether they should take her. So it’s not only financially, emotionally, but it’s also their immigration status here that is affected. For the woman who contacted SARS and was unconscious for 3 months, her immigration case is still tentative and INTERCEDE is advocating on her behalf. She was in coma, and she was terminated from her job and of course she cannot work. And luckily she survived. She is one of the SARS survivors. What happened with her now, in the 3 or 4 months that she is in coma, there is a big effect on her immigration status. And now, how can you have a family hire you knowing that you are a SARS survivor? When she was released from the hospital and OK to work, no one wanted to have her. And it seems like the government has a big responsibility in that. And they are not doing much about it. It’s because she is a caregiver. If she was employed in a hospital, or was one of the nurses or doctors, probably she would be given more attention. e. Community Organizations Community organizations were also very much impacted by the SARS crisis, particularly agencies which offer programs and services to Chinese and Southeast Asian communities. 28 Organizations like the Chinese Canadian National Council (National Chapter) were subjected to racist backlash during this period. Below is an example of the kind of hate mail that was received by organizations: Hello, hi, this is an ordinary citizen. I’d like to complain to you Chinese. Why you Chinese so dirty? You Chinese live like rats, pigs, so can you educate them, clean streets, and careful with the garbage. And you people live like rats and eat like pigs and spread dirty, dirty, deadly disease around the world. So I can tell you, you dirty Chinese, just please be clean and be clean and I’m fed up of the Chinese everywhere, I’m fed up, OK. At the Asian Community AIDS Services, a social service agency that serves Chinese and other East Asian communities, Patrick Truong told us that this occurred: On day at the office during the SARS crisis, this White guy came in and started yelling that “you people” were leaving garbage outside and making everything dirty. He was really scary and wouldn’t stop yelling “you people”. This organization also works with gay, lesbian, transgender/transsexual, bisexual and queer members of our communities. Truong describes the multiple oppressions faced by some people and how SARS made them more vulnerable: There is this regular club night called Asian Express. It was targeted by a queer publication, FAB last year. A writer made a joke that said something like “If you’re not afraid of getting SARS, then go to Asian Express”. We and other activists wrote them letters but never got an apology. Despite being easily-identifiable targets of this kind of violence, community organizations maintained their programs and tried to address the many social dimensions that this crisis brought to their communities. We had to cancel a lot of workshops because of SARS. Nobody showed up because they were scared and thought everything must be canceled. Especially in the pre-natal program that we run. Attendance was very low. In fact, numbers are still low. We haven’t quite recovered from it. A person called during that period and asked if Chinese women were coming to the prenatal class. This person said they were not coming if Chinese people were going to be around. Because there still wasn’t a lot of targeted information about how the virus was spreading, less people were coming in for services. Lots of meetings were cancelled and I think the media had a lot to do with it. People were scared and didn’t want to go out in case they get the virus or were going to be hassled At the time of SARS, everybody was panicked. It was not necessary to close programs, etc… By closing things, people become more panicked as if closing means someone is infected. It was a vicious circle. 29 For many organizations, the issue of client confidentiality is very important. Therefore, the guidelines and screening that these organizations had to impose were very sensitive service issues. People knew they were going to be screened and this is a sensitive point in our organization when we try to protect privacy and anonymity of clients. We had to put the notices on the door about the screening process, hygiene guidelines like hand washing, etc… We also had to think about how to deal with paranoia because this becomes a mental health issue too when a crisis happens, hysteria can also happen if proper information is not readily accessible. During SARS, our communities that are already dealing with issues of homophobia, racism, and aids phobia also have to deal with this new thing on top of it. We worried that some of our clients were going to become very isolated and so we tried to contact as many as possible over the phone and convey the most up-to-date information. People didn’t want to access health care in clinics and hospitals, etc. because they didn’t want the hassles of being screened and scrutinized. Organizations were also concerned that the most up-to-date information was not always readily accessible and attempted to address some of the barriers. We tried to get as much information to our clients as possible and translated them into Vietnamese, Tagalog, and Chinese. I work in a centre that studies disease and I was asked to review a SARS fact sheet translated into Chinese. I reviewed it quickly, knowing this was urgent information but with all the bureaucracy, it still took over a month for that fact sheet to be made available to the public. Aside from the additional work load brought on by SARS, organizations had to negotiate many kinds of complexities. They had to quickly assess the general information, make it accessible to clients, attend to their most vulnerable and isolated clients, address the issues of racist incidences and intensified discrimination while maintaining the level of service to communities. The impact to community advocacy and service agencies illustrate the complex and indirect effects of the SARS hysteria. f. Impact on Self-Image and Sense of Belonging Aside from the material losses and damage to business and employment that were suffered from the SARS crisis, Chinese and Southeast/East Asian communities were also affected in ways that are not quantifiable. The crisis also took a mental, psychological and emotional toll on members of these communities. The effects of racism are complex, affecting self-esteem, self-identity as well as shaking confidence in the environment (school, workplace, public spaces, the city or country in general) as “safe.” It had a profound impact on people’s sense of belonging and wellbeing. 30 Many respondents told us that they were reluctant to leave their homes. They curtailed their movements around the city for many reasons. They, like other Canadians, were alarmed with the daily headlines filled with stories about SARS. They also expressed fear about contacting the disease and unsure about the ways to avoid being in the line of transmission. I lost my mind and didn’t know what to do when going out because this virus was all over the place. Every object may have had the virus or germs on it. It was a pity that you couldn’t see it with your own eyes. So when going outside, I wondered if I was going to be affected by this virus. But people of Chinese and Southeast Asian descent were also doubly burdened. They also had to live with the perception that somehow they were to blame or that they were carriers of the disease by virtue of their racial identity. Given the experiences of discrimination and harassment during this period, respondents showed an awareness that SARS was being racialized and felt they would be the target of people’s anger and fear. I think a lot of people stayed home as much as they could because yes, they were afraid of contacting SARS – people still didn’t know how infectious it was and the constant media reporting made it sound really bad. But also, Chinese people stayed home because they were afraid of being treated badly. Asians were afraid to go anywhere. I think non-Chinese people had a very bad image of Chinese people at that time. They thought that the Chinese were dirty, would eat anything and that is why SARS happened. The impact of this is that Chinese in Canada (especially new immigrants) felt very bad and maybe even guilty, as if they did something wrong. It had a very bad effect on people’s self-esteem. I didn’t have any bad experiences on the TTC but I heard many people did. So, I tried to stay away from people during that time. I didn’t go out too much. Chinese and other Asian Canadians felt the need to justify their presence in some cases. For example, one respondent claimed: Management tried very hard to make sure staff would not be harassed or discriminated against. Still, there was a lot of pressure for the Chinese staff. For example, the receptionist felt she had to say that she didn’t have SARS to people who came in and were worried about coming into the building. Some respondents became aware that racism in Canada is always just beneath the surface. Some felt that SARS was just an opportunity for more blatant forms of racist practices to surface. The climate of panic and insecurity gives the illusion of legitimacy to racial profiling. 31 I would say that many underlying prejudices also surfaced in many people; these prejudices are related to assumptions and values from their past experiences, i.e., racialized stereotypes about ‘immigrants spreading TB, boat people invading Canada’s borders, Asian gangs, etc.’. In a public crisis, people revert to division – us vs. them – in order to gain a sense of control. What I am saying is that the racialization of SARS and the discriminations during SARS only reflected the ongoing and long standing prejudice and discrimination in Canadian society. It’s not just SARS; it’s something that is always there. For example, in my office, there is a coworker who refuses to eat at Chinese restaurants. She says they are dirty. Racism is always there and systemic racism also. Even the most reluctant member of Chinese Canadian communities have to talk about it – to address that yes, racism exists here. Business groups, cultural centres, etc… these institutions don’t talk about racism but suddenly they were receiving hate calls too and were affected. For the past 10-20 years, I have worked really hard to be mainstream. Incidents like SARS have made me realize that my skin is the first thing people will notice, no matter how much I think I am “mainstream.” There was a different self-consciousness from my side. I didn’t experience discrimination personally during the crisis, I don’t think but somehow I felt different. I felt like I really stood out. The Avian flu is similar to SARS. For example, in Vancouver, they have a strain of the Avian flu but it’s a completely different strain than the virus in Asia. One of my coworkers came to ask me about it. Why me? Why doesn’t she go to the internet or look it up somewhere else? We are treated to be dirty, unhygienic, uncivilized because there is this belief that we eat all kinds of animals. The stress and impact of the feeling targeted, “standing out,” suffering the humiliation of being alienated and ostracized in various spaces, led some to internalize the racist representations of Chinese and Southeast Asian Canadians. Some people may have felt ashamed for being Chinese. Martha Ocampo from Across Boundaries, a mental health service agency working with people of colour offered this analysis. It’s like the “Ben Johnson effect”. When Ben Johnson had his gold metal taken from him because of his steroid use, it was like the whole Jamaican Canadian community was responsible in the way the media and public treated it. Suddenly Ben Johnson wasn’t 32 perceived as Canadian anymore and was Jamaican. There were feelings of anger, shame, fear and being invisible within the community. It is a similar thing with SARS. Some respondents felt that the stress of being targeted led to divisions within the communities themselves. The communities targeted were not exempt from internalizing racism. Neither were they immune from the heightened anxiety that everyone was experiencing at that time. Intra-and inter-community discrimination did occur. Addressing these attitudes must be part of our strategy in opposing oppression in all its forms. There are different factions within our communities. Mandarin speaking people feel discrimination from Hong Kong Chinese. It appeared that SARS came from Mainland China and so Mandarin speakers were more blamed. This kind of blame was happening within our own communities too and this is very bad. I also want to point out that internalized racism and ethnocentrism also took place in the ‘Chinese’ communities – when I heard people making stereotypical comments about Chinese people from China. A relative called me to warn me against Filipinos (and therefore to stay away from churches, subways, etc., especially those darker-skinned Asians could-be-Filipinos). Aside from community belonging, the trials experienced in this period also led some people to question their belonging in a country that didn’t seem to want them there. These experiences really let me down. I realized I can’t get involved in this country. I can not establish a sense of belonging. I am proud of being Chinese but some people in this country still think the Chinese brought SARS here. I think they need to be more educated. If I am with my Chinese friends, there is no negative impact on my self-image. But if I am in mainstream, I think I have a little less self-esteem. I don’t love Canada. I like the freedom and the natural environment but it’s so difficult, especially to get a job. Once I was working for this union and, this guy in the middle of the meeting said, “Fucking Chinese” and this was during SARS. It scared me. I felt the way people perceived us was that we were not supposed to migrate to Canada, that we contaminate this country. Some respondents drew comparisons between what happened with SARS and Chinese and Southeast/East Asian communities with other events that greatly impacted other groups. SARS reminds me of things like 911 when Muslim and South Asian communities were targeted. They were treated like they are all responsible for terrorism. It’s racial profiling. Members of those communities have also talked about how they get regarded differently. There are similarities there. 33 This felt to me like post-911 when the Middle Eastern and South Asian communities were being targeted and racially profiled as terrorists and criminals. Whenever some group of people are linked up to an event and profiled and blamed. My sense of what happened last year is that when there is fear, there is prejudice and discrimination. When speaking of life and death, all civilized rules are suspended. In the 1920s and 30s in Canada, a lot of influenza happened in Europe and immigrants from Italy and Ireland were targeted for the blame. Asians, Chinese, we’re easy targets. While the health toll and the economic loss due to SARS have been easier to account for, the residual psychological, emotional, mental effects have been far more difficult to ascertain. Racism, in all its systemic, overt and environmental manifestations dangerously leads already marginalized communities deeper into feelings of non-belonging and exclusion in their own country. SARS had social and political dimensions and this impacted Chinese and Southeast/East Asian communities profoundly in how they saw themselves, each other, and Canada and their place in it. This shaken confidence requires an expanded understanding of how racial bias and profiling shaped the events that took place during the SARS crisis. As well, we all need to continue to acquire a larger analysis of all the insidious ways that racism operates so that we may be informed and prepared with the necessary support for and intervention to racialized communities. g. Community Response As the SARS crisis progressed, the impact on Chinese and Southeast/East Asian communities became more alarming. Within the Chinese Canadian communities, two movements must be noted for their efforts in countering some of the backlash. The Chinese Canadian National Council (both Toronto and National chapters), together with long-time activists Tam Goossen, Avvy Go, city councilor Olivia Chow and others became more concerned as they witnessed an escalating panic and racist targeting of the communities. Goossen recalls, The public mood moved very fast and we watched events unfold very carefully. When the Toronto Public Health Officer herself noted some playground bullying against Asian Canadian children, we decided to do something. With the additional support of MPP Marilyn Churley, the group organized a press conference to speak against the discrimination and harassment across the city and country. They described the hostile climate in which our communities found themselves, calling for an intervention to stem the scapegoating of the Chinese and other Asian groups in Canada. The press conference was well attended and the news was even publicized in Hong Kong. A respondent discussed how this strategy made a difference in curtailing further marginalization of the communities. If you asked anyone afterwards, you know they might not dare to say SARS is a Chinese or Asian virus. You know the perception is still there. But partly due to CCNC, people 34 wouldn’t dare say it out loud. CCNC’s voice was very good. Some people may say that it was exaggerated, that they didn’t need to go public like that. But others like me, we agreed with it. It made those who blamed the Chinese to back off. From that press conference on, people may have been very careful and more aware what they say and how they behave. So it was a good voice. On April 14th, the first Community Coalition Concerned with SARS convened. This initiative led by Dr. Ming-Tat Cheung and the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto had a membership of 26 organizations. They coordinated a multi-pronged strategy to assist their communities. This included conducting public education about the disease and raising consciousness that it affected Chinese and Asian people, as well as countering the stigmatization of Chinese Canadians. The Coalition also set up a Support-Line organized by physicians, social workers and volunteers to help callers adversely affected by SARS. The Coalition challenged the Toronto Sun for a racist cartoon that appeared in a column entitled “SARS is a stubborn, sneaky foe”. They brought attention to this case by writing letters to protest, contacting other media sources and generating discussion in their communities. Lorrie Goldstein, the editor of the Sun finally wrote an editorial stating the paper’s regret for the distress the cartoon had caused. These community efforts provided an alternative voice to media discourse as well as providing Asian communities with support and information during the critical period of SARS. It is evident from our participants’ responses that collective displays of public resistance were important and necessary responses to the racialization of SARS. From the history of this kind of thing in Canada, we have to stand up when this happens. For instance, HIV/AIDS was blamed on Africa at first when we now suspect that the virus originated in the US. Diseases are not just treated as illnesses. They are used as a way to judge certain places and cultures and races as inferior. Discrimination exists if we let it, and that is based on gender, ethnicity, and all kinds of things. If someone treats you unfairly, we should try to say something right away. It’s also good for self-esteem as well as a way to increase awareness. Respondents also demonstrated an awareness that Asian communities need to become more active beyond the SARS crisis. Chinese people traditionally don’t get too engaged politically. We need to build our communities to be more involved. Educating people on voting is important. If more people vote, the more political power we would have. It’s about the systemic barriers to power that we face. Community organizing and development are key elements that determine a community’s ability to respond in instances of racist targeting. The above comments gesture to the importance of strengthening and sustaining political involvement and engagement by our communities. 35 VI. Conclusion Since the outbreak of SARS in Canada last spring, there has been a concerted effort by public institutions to understand what went wrong during the crisis from a public health perspective and whether the various agencies could have done better in stemming the outbreak and managing the disease. Among the reports that have been produced, they include the recently released Campbell Commission’s findings. The goal of this report is to exist alongside these other studies, inquiries and recommendations about the handling of SARS. The social, political, economic impact on Chinese and Southeast/East Asian communities must be considered as valid and as serious as other effects of the crisis. In this moment when discourses around national security and fear are ever intensifying, the racialization of SARS is just one example among many of how ethno-racial communities are vulnerable to being subjected to further marginalization. It is our hope that the narratives in this report will bring heightened awareness to the wide effects on groups that are specifically targeted in moments of public panic, and draw attention to the fact that ideals of citizenship, civil society, democracy, anti-racism and human rights need to be perpetually upheld and defended. The adverse effects from the racial profiling of SARS, 911 and other such events have made many of us question the core values of what Canada really stands for. But it must also move us individually and collectively to take the nation to task so that the Canadian public, the media and the government can be made accountable to these principles. VII. Recommendations Media Portrayal Mainstream Canadian print media contributed to the racialization of SARS and generation of public hysteria. Despite its relatively low death rate, the SARS outbreak was repeatedly compared to the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918 to 1919, which killed at least 20 million people. The panic generated was directed toward Chinese and Asian Canadians through repetitive association of the disease with Asia, ethnic information about some SARS patients, and repeated visual references such as masked Asian faces. Members of the Chinese and Southeast Asian Canadian communities felt that the media directly racialized SARS, leaving their communities vulnerable to blame and discrimination. Recommendation 1 Mainstream media should initiate and strengthen measures to reduce racial stereotyping in its content, including the establishment of community editorial boards or regular meetings with members of racialized communities for feedback and information-sharing; and initiation of employment equity programs to improve levels of racial representation of staff. Alienation, Discrimination and Harassment As a result of the SARS crisis, members of the Chinese and Southeast Asian Canadian communities felt stigmatized and experienced incidents of alienation, discrimination and harassment. These incidents included ostracization; discrimination by landlords, employers, businesses and public institutions; and hate. Despite appearances by various politicians in 36 Chinese restaurants, members of the community felt that leaders needed to take a stronger stand against the backlash against Asian Canadians. The work of community organizations was also impeded by the impact of SARS. The backlash took a mental, psychological and emotional toll on members of these communities. Recommendation 2 Governments at all levels should initiate a comprehensive plan of action to fight racism and discrimination in Canada. Some elements of this plan should be: · Increased, stable funding for non-governmental groups who work in the area of anti-racism advocacy to support their public education and advocacy work. · Support accessible, well-resourced and effective human rights commissions at the federal level and in all provinces and territories. Recommendation 3 Public crisis response plans must include an analysis of and response to increased social tension, stereotyping and racism that can result from situations of crisis. Recommendation 4 Public health authorities at all levels of government must integrate diverse communities in their work. Some of the ways that this can happen include: · Ensuring that public health bulletins are available in major mother tongue languages and that ethnic/community media are included in all information releases and press conferences. · Including racialized communities in health research; ensuring funding for research of health needs of diverse/racialized communities; and providing funding for community-based research on health. Economic Impact SARS affected businesses across Toronto but hit Chinese-owned businesses and those located in Chinatowns even harder. Loss of income is estimated at 40% to 80%. Public funding for festivals and advertising did not reach the industries and individuals who were impacted the most. Recommendation 5 In future crises, a portion of public relief funding should be allocated to affected small businesses. Employment The economic impact of SARS lead to job loss, in particular among non-unionized, low wage, non-status and service sector workers. Many of these workers could not access Employment Insurance Benefits. Health professionals, many of whom were Asian Canadians, faced isolation and discrimination because of their work with SARS patients. Some Live-in Caregivers, the majority of whom come from the Philippines, faced unfair dismissals that threatened their status in Canada. 37 Recommendation 6 Improve access to Employment Insurance for part-time service sector workers, and implement special programs to respond to crises such as the impact of SARS to ensure that workers facing loss of work can access EI benefits. Recommendation 7 Provide landed status to Live-in Caregivers upon arrival to Canada. 38 VIII. References History Matters Anderson, Kaye. 1991. Vancouver’s Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875-1980. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Con, Harry et al. 1982. From China to Canada: A History of the Chinese Communities in Canada. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd. 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