Reparation as narrative resistance: Displacing orientalism and recoding harm for Chinese women of the Exclusion era

This paper examines the issue of harm within the specific historical context of Canadian immigration legislation that was directed towards Chinese migrants from 1885 to 1947. During this period, the Canadian government restricted Chinese immigration in the form of a Head Tax imposed on all Chinese entering Canada (1885-1923) and subsequently through the outright exclusion of Chinese immigration (1923-1947). The prohibitive Head Tax barred the majority of Chinese women from immigrating to Canada during this period, resulting in a "bachelor society" of Chinese men in Canada and correspondingly, wives and single mothers in China. The subsequent period of exclusion resulted in the forced separation of Chinese women from their partners in Canada, a period characterized by extreme hardship given the ongoing civil war and accompanying famine in China.; Those who paid the Head Tax ultimately challenged the exclusionary immigration legislation in a class action in which women were noticeably absent, an absence that was not accidental. Because law has been constructed to accommodate the needs of atomistic, autonomous individuals, separation is not seen as harm, a fact that is made all the more acceptable in the case of Chinese women by the fact that separation was imposed upon Orientalized Others. The tropes that were constructed to dehumanize, and correspondingly 'de-legalize' Chinese women justified and rendered invisible any harms perpetrated. This paper considers the particular injuries suffered by Chinese women of the Exclusion era, and canvasses feminist legal theory and the reparations literature to explore the possibilities in legal redress. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...