Whitehorse Star, July 1902

SEMI-WEEKLY STAR PERPETUATED RACIAL DISCRIMINATION.

In Canada the most complex process of racial intermingling occurred in British Columbia, where during the second half of the nineteenth century a culturally heterogeneous native population was overwhelmed by massive white immigration and lesser number of immigrants from China and Japan.

Generally speaking, Natives were settled on reserves which were located in areas remote from white settlement or, when found in close proximity, remained separate enclaves. Some Natives became integrated into white urban life, but they constituted only a small minority. For the most part they were ignored, for officials of the Department of Indian Affairs served their federal masters far more than their Indian wards.

Chinese and Japanese communities, on the other hand, relied heavily on their consular and diplomatic officials to represent their interests in Canada through Ottawa - in the east. The white west coast population believed eastern Canadians did not comprehend their problem; here they were with mountains on one side and on the other, open ocean beyond which lived millions of Asians. Who was going to hold back the "yellow tide" wondered the xenophobics?

British Columbia and the Yukon's reception of immigrants had a peculiar British twist. British-born and native Canadians who identified themselves primarily as British were unusually prominent in these areas and wanted to keep them "British." In the Anglo-Saxon Imperialistic scheme of things this meant "White."

As a result anti-Asian sentiment was encouraged: Orientals, it was said, were godless, they ate dogs and cats, and either smoked opium all day or worked so hard for so little money that no sensible labourer could, or even should, compete with them.

To be kept alive racist attitudes such as these must be fostered, and it is to the STAR'S shame that it did just that. By supporting "citizens committees" with front page stories and editorializing in the July 2, 1902 manner, acceptance was given to what was essentially mob justice, and credence given to "heathen-oriental" myths. As a result perpetual discriminatory treatment of Asians by successive generations of whites was encouraged.

It is a dismaying fact that even though the country of origin of immigrants may change over the years, the citizens committees and racist editorial comments that sometimes greet them can stay remarkably the same.

Editorial, Semi-Weekly Star. July 2, 1902.

CHINESE AND-"OTHERS."

The excitement caused by the arrival of five Chinamen in Whitehorse on Friday of last week and their deportation next day by a committee of citizens, has died down, but the feeling of determination to oppose to the utmost the advent of even one of this undesirable race into the Yukon is as firm and immutable as the laws of the Medes and Persians.

A majority of the citizens of Whitehorse were one time residents of Vancouver, Victoria and other cities and towns of British Columbia, where the labor market is overrun with these Mongolian interlopers, and where white labor is ruthlessly pushed aside to make room for the almond eyed followers of Confucius.

No ordinary occupation is free from their encroachment- cooks, waiters, laundry men, chambermaids, janitors and a string of other vocations longer than the moral law are filled by them, while white men, women and children walk the streets in a vain endeavor to secure work.

The attempt of Friday was, we believe, but the forerunner for a flooding of the Yukon with cheap Chinese labor, and if we had allowed them to settle down peaceably and without protest the territory would within a comparatively short time have become a dumping ground for hundreds, if not thousands, of them. We believe, also, that our prompt action will have a salutary effect in stopping further attempts of Chinese to enter Yukon Territory.

The agitation of the Chinese question has been the means of directing public attention to an evil, probably as great, that has been allowed to flourish in our midst at the expense and to the detriment of one of the most important branches of business in Whitehorse.

We refer to the cheap Japanese restaurants on North Front street. They furnish meals at 25¢ each, and receive their patronage mostly from people who should be, if they were to stop to consider their own interests, the last to enter their doors viz: working men.

The reason of these restaurant being able to serve meals for 25 cents each where other houses in the same line of business have hard work to do so at double the price, has long been an open secret and of such a nauseating character it is a matter of surprise that the health officer has not long ere this closed them up.

Their stock and trade consists of the refuse and leavings from the higher priced restaurants and it is a daily occurrence to see them carrying loads of this abominable stuff through the back alleys to their own places where it is doctored up and served out to a "discriminating" public of "honest toilers" who, although some of them receive as high as $7 per day for their labor, eat this conglomeration of filth in preference to paying a legitimate restaurateur at the rate of $9 per week for board.

Their are stringent laws throughout the whole of Canada in regard to the handling and sale of adulterated or unwholesome food and probably Whitehorse enjoys the unenviable distinction of being the only town within its broad domain where such a state of affairs would be allowed to exist for a single day.

We desire to call the attention of the proper authorities to the matter and to demand, for the good of the community, that immediate steps be taken for the abatement of the evil alluded to.