Vancouver — Gastown & Chinatown
Chinatown Millennium Gate
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Transcript
The Millennium Gate is recent, but it marks one of Canada's oldest and most important Chinatowns.
Chinese migrants arrived in British Columbia during the gold-rush era and in much larger numbers for railway and other labour. Discriminatory laws and social segregation concentrated Chinese residents and businesses in this district.
Canada imposed a Chinese head tax beginning in 1885 and then virtually prohibited Chinese immigration with the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. The exclusion law remained until 1947.
Chinatown nevertheless developed businesses, associations, schools, newspapers and social networks.
A gate can make Chinatown look like a themed enclave. The history is the opposite: this community exists because Chinese Canadians built institutions under conditions designed to restrict them.