E. Chinese Benevolent Association Building

Category: Sites from the 'Labour, Work and Working People' booklet

The CBA established a branch in Vancouver in 1899 to support destitute railway workers. Chinese workers organized in response to racial discrimination by the Canadian legal and political establishment, the labour movement, and the public. These groups promoted racial hatred, claiming that the Chinese were “inferior, threatening and foreign.” he use of Chinese workers to break strikes deepened the conflict. By pitting working people against one another, employers protected their profits against effective organization. A few white industrial union leaders and socialists understood the effectiveness of the strategy and argued unsuccessfully for the inclusion of Asian workers into the trade union movement. The Chinese, like other Asian workers, had to defend themselves against exploitative wages and racial violence. The Asiatic Exclusion League emerged during the 1907 economic depression and anti-Oriental riots erupted downtown, resulting in widespread destruction of Asian property. During the Depression, the CBA lobbied the government to provide relief to Chinese workers. The Oriental Missions, operated by the Church of England, was contracted to open a soup kitchen at 143 West Pender Street. The two daily meals of thin rice soup staved off mass starvation within the Chinese community but 175 unemployed Chinese workers still starved to death. The Chinese community also formed the Chinese Workers' Protective Association during the Depression to fight for jobs and economic security.