20th Century Migration History

20^th Century Migration History

(Canadian Immigration)

Canada, through its multiculturalism diversity, is considered one of the most diverse countries in the world. However, before the start of the 20^th-century immigration into Canada, it was a “white man’s country” (Loewen et al.). The different successive waves of migration and the transformation into Canadian policies helped shape the multicultural diversity in Canada.

Canadian immigration is characterized by different policies and races at different periods encouraged by the financial requirements and the wake of human rights, which made the government react differently with different systems towards regulating immigration. During world war two from the spin of the 20^th century, it is arguably stated that many lives would have survived from the brutal and animosity of Hitler. During this period, Canada had effected policies that prohibited the entry of non-white immigrants into Canada even to the extent of allowing the languishment of 400 East Indians aboard the Komagata Maru ship in 1914 and eventually chasing them away (Edmonston). At this period, there was a widespread anti-German Hysteria in Canada, producing hatred for foreigners associated with allied countries.  Due to the economic necessities of the time, Canadian policies allowed the first immigrants of the white race origin mostly from the southern and eastern European countries to find a place to stay establishing families.

The need for cheap labor sought to benefit the primarily aimed Canadian open land and to capitalize on the opportunities created by the closure of the public ground in the United States made the government allow immigrants from Asia such as chines to facilitate the railway construction and establishment of the mining industry. Ukrainians, Russian Germans, Scandinavians, and Doukhobor’s were encouraged to build farms (Loewen et al.). However, various policies became introduced to restrict immigration based on origin, race, and religion, with most of the affected coming from the Asian and African communities.

Consequently, due to the fear of the immigrants increasing in population, the Canadians prohibited and introduced restrictions. For instance, most of the limits discouraged the influence of the Asian as a result of the already in-country constructing railway lines fearing that their permanent stay would introduce what they termed a `yellow peril` generation (Troper). Most of the immigrants from the non-white races were barred from entering Canada due to various restrictions under the medical act, which deemed every black person as unfit to enter Canada on medical grounds. However, there was a need for the government to relook into their selective immigration policies on only white people in the European nations. They removed the racial and ethnic barriers to European immigrants as a result of the economic boom experienced by the end of WW II in 1945, eventually allowing people from the rest of European nations (Troper). Contrary to their before preference on the Britons and western Europe population though maintaining their racial philosophy.

Similar to the war period where there were various changes in immigration policies to suit their need for agricultural and economic qualities and education levels, the post-war period also saw a rise in change that define the multicultural and multiracial diversity in Canada (Loewen et al.). During this period, most of the already established immigrants enjoyed the well-established economy and developments encouraged by Canada’s growth into an Urban and industrial center. Many immigrants became enlightened with better education, improving their standards of living. The earlier migrants of Canada became weary of the discrimination in all sectors of the Canadian economy. As the increased continuation pressure from the immigrants and the Canadians inhabitants, the government had to change its policies to accommodate the human rights reforms calls. These calls for human rights reforms derive from the immigrants feeling of betrayal from the government, which they helped establish but practiced discrimination according to race and ethnicity of a person, thus disadvantaging the many immigrants of no white race in many aspects such as education and employment. Therefore, as a result, the government introduced policies that eliminated Canadian immigration barriers based on the racial, ethnic, or religion of a person. In 1967 the entrenchment of the Immigration Act seized to define Canada as a land belonging to the white race. The entrenchment saw the first migrating population into Canada from a non – European ancestry in Canadian history coming from south Asia, South America, Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean (Edmonston). Also, the new Immigration Act of 1978 was a result of the response of the government in accommodating the plight of refugees from countries under dictatorship setting aside its routine immigration procedures to admit the refugee’s fleeing from the westward due to crashing political reforms of the Soviet Union in 1968 (Troper). These changes helped in accommodating non-American immigration.

Nevertheless, though Canada has undergone various transformations into policies into accommodating different immigrants from the world to being recognized as the most multicultural and multiracial country, still some restrictions exist. There are different measures undertaken with much seriousness on determining who is worth migrating into Canada and who is not. However, it takes quite some time to a range of five to three years for the allowed immigrant under the changed reforms to acquire all the civil rights as those enjoyed by the Canadian born citizens.