Chinese Immigration: An Immigration Of Indifferences

Pope Francis once said during a visit to the island of Lampedusa “We are a society which has forgotten how to weep, how to experience compassion – ‘suffering with’ others: the globalisation of indifference has taken from us the ability to weep!” (Liaugminas). Pope Francis was bringing to light the issues surrounding the topic of immigration and indifferences and such globalisation of indifference can be seen in the history of Chinese immigration and in contemporary Australia. Such indifferences are the reasons behind why people come to Australia as well as the indifferences of our experiences and the difficulties the Chinese faced while immigrating here. There are many cases throughout the history of Australia of Chinese immigration and each and every one of them portray difficulties that had to be overcome. Even up to contemporary Australia, we see many examples of Chinese immigrants and their later generations still experiencing cases of discrimination, racism, and essentially the same difficulties faced by their earlier immigrant ancestors.

Though there were earlier cases of Chinese immigration, the earliest significant case of Chinese immigration occurred with Chinese men arriving to Australia as indentured servants. Arriving from the southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, these men were the results of the ceased operation of the convict transportation in the 1840s. During this time, there were concerns that the indenturned servants system was in a sense, a way around the abolishment of slavery and that the indentured servants were treated essentially the same as slaves. In an editorial to denounce the Chinese importation of indentured servants, “examples of violence and the appearance before the benches by Chinese labourers located in the Northern Districts were reprinted and used as evidence of their debased ways” and also it was written that “the trade was aligned with the slave trade, questioning the inability of the Chinese to '...become, to any extent, free and intelligent British subjects’” (Darnell 10). Interestingly, the amount of Chinese immigrants coming to Australia not as indentured servants was quite small. This could be because there was no pushing or pulling influence for the Chinese to immigrate as it was written in the Australian Bureau of Statistics that “only 28 having arrived in New South Wales during the three years ending 1849” (Feature). This however, changed with the 1851 Gold Rush.

The 1850s introduced a large influx of Chinese immigration as news of a new gold rush reached parts of southern China. These immigrants were leaving a country in the midst of revolution and also the effects of overpopulation and the opium trade. This is quite interesting as it depicts that during this time, not only was there a pull factor of a new gold rush, but there were also push factors that influenced this large movement of Chinese immigrants. One common obstacle that the Chinese immigrants during this time had to face was simply the journey itself to Australia. A voyage from the Guangdong province to Melbourne took around 3 months and the fare was often paid through a credit-ticket system that had high succession in exploiting them. Eric C. Rolls wrote in his book, Sojourners, 'About one third of those who came to Australia paid their own way. They came as artisans, shopkeepers, merchants, a few as gaming-house keepers. The rest came on credit tickets, not on contract. They borrowed the money to come from money-lenders, bankers, village elders, families or entrepreneurs. They put up their land as security; in some cases they mortgaged their very families. People were saleable” (Rolls 106). Mr Lester Holland, President of the Young History Society, said that these miners under the credit-ticket system were split into groups of 150 people and 100 of those people would be responsible for the building of infrastructure, farming, building of mining tools, and other jobs while the remaining 50 “would be involved with the actual 'winning' of the goldbearing clay and dirt” (Yimei). This resulted in the surface alluvial gold running out and the men being unable to pay off their debt. This shows that the Chinese were very easily exploited and many were not very fortunate leaving them in debt, poverty, and distress.

It did not take long for the Chinese immigrants during this time to be treated and seen with contempt and racism. Mr. Lester Holland had also said that the Chinese gold miners were “more organized” and “were able to extract more gold from a given area” (Yimei). This along with the fact that there were many indifferences in culture, lifestyle, traditions, and habits fostered hate from the english-born gold miners. These in turn, eventually led to the first anti-Chinese legislations being passed as well as riots and a long history of discrimination. In June 1855, the colony of Victoria passed its first anti-Chinese legislation called the The Victorian Act of 1855. This was used to restrict the flow of Chinese immigrants through the use of a poll tax. The poll tax worked by imposing ten pounds on every Chinese immigrant and limited the number allowed on each vessel per tonnage of shipping. Interestingly, according to La Trobe University, this poll tax “did not distinguish between naturalised, British citizens, Australian-born and Chinese-born individuals” (Humanities). In an article by Culture Victoria, they state that New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia mirrored these anti-Chinese legislations and then in 1857, “additional annual residents' fees of between 4 and 6 pounds were imposed on Chinese on top of the poll tax” (Discrimination). Culture Victoria also mentions that these additional fees were quite hefty considering that the “1854 Eureka rebellion took place over the cost of a monthly 1 pound 10 shillings tax which was then considered exorbitant” (Discrimination). It was only until the 1860s was when this poll tax was repealed.

To avoid the poll tax, many ships dropped off the Chinese immigrants in parts of South Australia like Sydney and Adelaide. According to an article from Culture Victoria, “this meant a 900 kilometre southward march from Sydney in NSW across the Murray River to the goldfields” or another route of a similarly daunting distance (Different). This journey was not only very long but there was also the risk of starvation, sickness and dehydration. In a book called Birds of Passage, the author, Brain Castro, writes about the past through what he perceives as the perspective of his own ancestor and in one part he writes about the journey from Robe, describing “They did not speak much. They tried to imagine the distance they still had to travel. It was difficult to grasp the idea that they had four or five hundred miles to walk” (Castro). The harsh conditions were not the only thing the Chinese immigrants had to deal with. Chinese immigrants going to the gold mines through South Australia would often pay guides and in accordance to Culture Victoria, these “travellers were often exploited by dodgy, inept or alcoholic guides and bullockies” as they would abandon them and repeat this exploit with another group.

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Those that were able to make it to the goldmines often found themselves among strong anti-Chinese sentiment. Such strong anti-Chinese sentiment caused by indifference as well as competition and envy led to a series of anti-Chinese violence. In 1857, there was the Buckland Riot where, pursuant to Culture Victoria, a mob of approximately 90 Europeans attacked the Chinese settlement in Buckland, “burning tents and buildings” and “beating Chinese people with sticks and stones and killing and wounding an unknown number” (Anti-Chinese). This riot was quite successful in their objective as many of the Chinese driven out did not return and few charges were made over the major offences. The more commonly known and infamous example of anti-Chinese violence were the Lambing Flat riots in 1860-61 in New South Wales. There was a weak police presence in Central New South Wales and several anti-Chinese riots that lasted around 10 months with the most serious and final happening on 30 June 1861 where, the National Museum Australia states, “250 Chinese miners were gravely injured and most lost all their belongings” (Violence). In response, New South Wales Government passed the Chinese Immigrants Regulation and Restriction Act to limit the flow of Chinese into the colony and this was later repealed in 1867 when all the gold had run out.

After the end of the gold rush, the population of Chinese in the mining colonies declined as people dispersed or returned to China. Culture Victoria indicates, as gold diminished by the 1870s, “Chinese immigrants lived in poverty and distress” and “there were high rates of suicide and mental illness amongst the Chinese population” (Discrimination). At the same time Chinese immigrants began moving into cities and establishing themselves in other industries and occupations other than mining. In some text written by Mo Yimei, who wrote the text to trace the history of Chinses Australians and in correspondence to a 50 metre scroll called the Harvest of endurance : a history of the Chinese in Australia 1788-1988, he writes, “The three most common occupations they found were market gardening, cabinet making, and laundering” (Yinmei 4). During this time, unions had quite an issue with the Chinese as they often advocated for immigration control while arguing that the Chinese “allegedly competed for jobs, worked for substandard wages under poor conditions, and refused to embrace unionism” as documented in Race and Organized Labor in Australia, 1850–1901 by Raymond Markey (Markey 350). Many sources such as the Migration Heritage Centre point to the Seaman’s strike in 1878 as a prime example where anti-Chinese sentiment rose as a result of a “decision by the Australian Steam Navigation Company’s (ASN) to replace Australian crews by Chinese crews at less than half the standard wage” (Prejudice). This prompted an anti-Chinese campaign that eventually led to the 1881 Influx of Chinese Restriction Act. These were laws passed in 1881 and 1887 restricted the influx of Chinese Immigrants who were making their into New South Wales from gold digging colonies. This, according to the Nation Archives of Australia, “applied an entrance tax of £10 and a limit on each ship of one Chinese passenger per 100 tons of ship's tonnage” and later it was amended to “raising the poll tax to £100 and the tonnage to one Chinese passenger per 300 tons” (Laws). There was little competition in the market gardening and laundering industries but the Chinese in the cabinet making industry were quite successful and this prompted unions to help pass legislation like the 1896 Factories and Shops Act in Victoria as they saw them as an economic threat to Furniture makers of European descent. This essentially subjected Chinese workshops and factories “to building codes, inspections and regulations while their European counterparts would be exempt” as reported by an independent, non-profit media organization called Right Now (Incognita). This Act paired with the effects of the The Australian Economic Depression of 1890 meant that many Chinese were forced to leave the industry.

In 1901, the six colonies of Australia federated and the Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed. One of the most famous anti-Chinese legislations, the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act or better known as the White Australia Policy was introduced and passed in this new parliament. This act, according to the National Museum Australia, “gave immigration officers the power to make any non-European migrant sit a 50-word dictation test” (White). What was interesting was that this dictation test could be given in any European language and was later changed to any prescribed language. This meant that it was essentially impossible for migrants to pass. This act was quite effective as National Museum Australia states that “The test was administered 1359 times prior to 1909, with only 52 people granted entry to Australia. After 1909 not a single migrant made to sit the test passed” (White). National Museum Australia also acknowledged that there was an immediate demographic impact as a result of this act where Asians born outside of Australia were “only 1.25% of the Australian population in 1901” and that percentage “had shrunk to around 0.21% by the late 1940s” (White).

As World War One broke out, many Chinese Australian men faced institutionalized racism which related to the White Australian Policy as they only wanted people of European descent to enlist. Historian Emily Cheah Ah-Qune said that throughout the World Wars, Chinese men “were barred from enlisting by medical officers because they were not substantially European enough” (Ford). This policy was later relaxed as more soldiers were needed for the war.

After World War Two, the White Australian Policy started deteriorating. Arthur Calwell, Head of the Department of Immigration, determined that “Australia should have annual population growth of two per cent, of which only half could come from natural increase” (Australia’s). He still wanted the majority to be Anglo Celtic so he accomplished the population growth by accepting refugees who had survived the Nazi concentration camps during the World Wars. In 1956, Chinese were allowed to apply for citizenship and in 1958, the dictation test was abolished indicating the end of the White Australia Policy. In 1972, the first labor government since 1948 was elected and Al Grassby, Minister for Immigration, changed official policy and later “announced that every relic of past ethnic or racial discrimination had been abolished” (Australia’s). This was swiftly followed by the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act which as chronicled in the Federal Register of Legislation, makes racial discrimination against the law and prohibits racist behavior (Racial). This signified that the anti-Chinese legislations and many of the discriminatory hardships had come to an end. With the abolishment of the White Australian Policy, this made immgration much easier and it made it possible for Australia to allow “42,000 permanent visas“ to be granted to Chinese students after the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 in consonance with an article by The Guardian (Chan).

One might think that the era of Chinese discrimination and racism had come to an end, the end of White Australia, but they are quite wrong. Although the globalization of indifference that Pope Fracis refers to has not grown to imperialize in Australia throughout history, we can still see fragments of it throughout contemporary Australia. History has shown us that each case and wave of immigration brought with it anti-Chinese sentiment and discrimination. Even in current day society, Chinese Australians face many discriminatory problems, one of the biggest being institutionalized discrimination. Australia claims to be multicultural yet many Chinese deal with the term coined as the bamboo ceiling which DCA’s chief executive Lisa Annese defined as Asians being “highly represented in entry-level to mid-level but under-represented at top leadership” (Dennett). The Diversity Council Australia has found that “Around 9% of the Australian labour force is Asian born, but only 4.9% make it to senior executive level” (Dennett). People are still viewing and making stereotypical assumptions through a White Australia lens. We have made much progress in immigartion and discrimination legistlation yet how is it that we have made such significant progress in gender representation in the labor force yet racial representation is so skewed? As a country built on migration, we must take action. We need to bring this issue to the attention of our legislators. We need to advocate for policies and legislations against institutionalized racism. Even simply raising awareness of institutionalized racism is a small step forward for the Chinese and a giant step forward towards a more multicultural Australia.