Chinese-Canadians

The Cheekungtong (also known as Chinese Freemasons)
of Victoria, British Columbia, was founded in 1876
and functioned as an unofficial organization to
maintain order in the Chinese communities.

This digitized collection consists of records that
reflect the functions of the Chinese Freemasons of
Canada, especially in Victoria and Vancouver; their
activities supporting the Chinese communities in
Canada; the lives and concerns of their members in
British Columbia; and their ties with China, spanning

The Chinatown of Victoria, British Columbia, is a
major historical gateway to the Chinese in Canada. It
was once the major entry port for Asian immigration
to British North America, and later to Canada. From
the late 1850s to the 1860s, it was the primary
springboard for several thousand Chinese gold miners
heading to the Fraser River valley and the Cariboo;
and, in the 1880s it was the main entry point for the
estimated 15,000 Chinese builders of the Canadian
Pacific Railway. It is the oldest Chinatown in

The Chinese Express 快報 was a Chinese newspaper
publishing daily from 1971 to 1989. It served as a
source of general news, covering world events and
Canadian politics, as well as that of specific
interest to the Chinese community. Its entire run has
been digitized and will be released in the
Multicultural Canada website.

Although it developed later than the British Columbia
community, Chinese immigration to Ontario was already
a significant force in the 1950s. After changes to
immigration policy in 1967 opened the doors to

Published by the Chinese Publicity Bureau in
Vancouver, British Columbia, the Chinatown News
was an English-language biweekly magazine that
represented the interests of the English-speaking
Chinese-Canadians in Vancouver. Topic wise, the
newspaper had an international scope and was
inclusive of all people of the Chinese heritage.
The publicatoin was constant in its effort to
construct a distinct Chinese-Canadian identity and
was a principle instrument of reclaiming a culture
for Chinese-Canadians. It was tarted in 1953 as

The digitized collections of Multicultural Canada provide
free access to historical collections of Canada's minority
groups to promote research into the country's multi-ethnic
communities. Included in the project are an extensive
range
of collections, with the majority of them in a language
other than English, that include historic newspapers,
books,
manuscript documents, photographs, and audio files. A
significant number of the collections is related to Asian
Canadians, especially Chinese Canadians.

This online portal is created by the Multicultural
History Society of Ontario (MHSO) to bring
together over 1,000 historical photographs, 33
oral history interviews and numerous other
archival materials about Chinese Canadian women to
address their life experiences,
challenges and accomplishments. The years between
1923 and 1967 in Canada were marked by
discriminatory immigration policy. During this
period of time, severe restrictions on Chinese
immigration, coupled with prior patterns of
Chinese migration, led to disproportionately few