August 13, 2008

Canadians for Reconciliation lobbies for protection of Chinese graves

VANCOUVER

A Chinese-Canadian group is lobbying the British Columbia government to protect burial sites in much the same way that aboriginal burial grounds are preserved.

Bill Chu of Canadians for Reconciliation says Chinese gravesites in the Fraser Canyon and other areas have been destroyed by highway and railroad construction.

Many Chinese immigrants came to the area to help build the Canadian Pacific Railroad, Chu said.

“I don’t think it’s fair that they are simply forgotten. Canada wouldn’t have B.C if that railroad wasn’t built. We would end up part of the States,” Chu said.

But he says, while many Chinese died creating the east-west rail link, they were not buried in white cemeteries due to the systemic discrimination at the time.

That history needs to be preserved so it is not forgotten and repeated, he says.

And, he says, that’s not only to preserve the past but also to educate future generations.

“History should teach the next generation and the next generation that something should not be done again or not be repeated again and...that our next generation not be treated as perpetual immigrants.”

He says the lack of documentation of the more than 100 years of Chinese history in the province is what led to Chinese-Canadians being viewed as “perpetual immigrants.”

Chu says the group also wants funding for the planning and construction of a Chinese pioneers memorial museum. He wants something similar to the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre in the town of New Denver. That museum documents the internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War.

Canadian Press

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