Timothy J. Stanley

　　Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

　　Abstract

　　Anti-Chinese racism in Canada is a social structure of racialized exclusion that over time came to be built into the settler colonialism that continues to shape the country. Colonizers of European, and especially of British and French origins, have consequently created the cultural landscapes that constitute the country (i.e., its material constructions and dominant cultural overlays). When read against these landscapes, people of Chinese origins and members of other racialized groups continue to be positioned as aliens who do not belong in the country in way in which people racialized as white are not. Focusing on British Columbia (BC), Canada’s westernmost province, and the historical activity of people of Chinese origins, this paper traces the history of anti-Chinese racism and its links to Anglo- Canadian settler colonialism. Canada has long been linked to China, and the Chinese entered BC at the same time as Europeans before the country existed. Despite this, Chinese people have repeatedly been positioned as threats to Anglo-Canadian dominance, and especially to control over the land and its resources. Chinese Canadian resistance to racist exclusions, along with that of other groups, has led to the elimination of legislated exclusions. However, historic exclusions continue to shape cultural landscapes and popular understandings of who belongs and who does not. Remaking these landscapes requires an antiracist project of pursuing common projects that cross over racialized differences to remake the territory in ways that affirm the presence of all the peoples of Canada.

　　Keywords: Chinese Canadians, cultural exclusion, white supremacy, racism