The Writing on the Wall: Chinese and Japanese Immigration to B.C., 1920 (review)

“Writing” is a novel that explores how the greed, corruption, and decadence of British Columbia’s elite, combined with Chinese and Japanese cunning and maliciousness during the early twentieth century, could have led to the domination of the province by Oriental immigrants. Originally published in 1921, it was later republished in 1974 with an introduction by Patricia E. Roy.

The author, Hilda G. Howard, writing under the pseudonym of Hilda Glynn-Ward, was living in Vancouver during the 1920s and was familiar with events in British Columbia that were mirrored in her novel. The novel is divided into twenty-three short chapters organized under three themes: the past (1910), the present (1920), and the future (non-designated). The story revolves mainly around the lives of three members of British Columbia’s elite—politician, a businessman, and a lawyer—describes the efforts of two Chinese immigrants and one Japanese immigrant to manipulate these men in order to establish the dominance of Orientals in British Columbia. For the sake of maximizing their personal gain, these men support Orientals’ undercutting wages, illegal immigration, opium smuggling, destruction of natural resources, and disease-breeding lack of sanitation, which leads to the Orientals’ domination of the economy. As the story moves into the future, the Chinese attempt to eradicate the White population using doctored foodstuffs, and the Japanese even invade what has become the independent nation of Columbia. The story ends on a happy note as one of the main protagonists awakens from his nightmare of a dying population and a Japanese invasion, to realize that he should not sign into force a bill giving Oriental landowners the right to vote.

Patricia Roy, then a historian at the University of Victoria, highlights the racist sensationalism of the novel (vi). In balance, Roy’s introduction also acknowledges that the novel is an expression of contemporary popular ideas of the time (vi); was based in large part on true events (e.g., xv–vi); and was sincere in its warning that power-hungry politicians, greedy capitalists, and complacent citizens were selling British Columbia to the Orientals (xiv). Furthermore, Roy points out that Glynn-Ward was an observant writer (xx), expressed sympathy for Aboriginal peoples (xxv), and did not indulge herself when her predications were partially vindicated by Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour (xxvi).

Roy’s academic strength is apparent. (She subsequently authored a trilogy of authoritative histories on Canadian prejudicial treatment of Chinese and Japanese immigrants.) Into her introduction, she weaves unknown information, such as the fact that most of the Chinese admitted as students after labour immigrants were banned in 1923, were employed in laundries (xviii). This display of expertise makes her closing evaluation of Glynn-Ward’s predications and relevance all that more forceful. The Orientals did not come to dominate British Columbia, and the Canadian mindset has evolved to accept Chinese and Japanese Canadians as equals (xxvii). “Writing” was mistaken in various ways.

The Writing on the Wall is acceptable for undergraduate study and research, especially in combination with Roy’s introduction. High school students could use the book; however, they would have to be cautioned about historical inaccuracies that underpin its racism. A more relevant question would be about the relative benefit of studying the novel at all. While Roy acknowledges “its historical significance as an expression of the popular racist ideas circulating in British Columbia at the time” (vi), she closes by pointing out that it is obsolete, the implication being that Canadians have come to understand the deleteriousness of racism.

The editors of “Writing” justify the reprinting of the novel as an “illustration of the fear and prejudice with which immigrants were regarded in the early twentieth century” (I). They do not explain why they have not turned their efforts, and consequently our attention, to the more significant and related issues...