Know Your Place, 2010

Know Your Place, 2010-(ongoing)

Know Your Place is an on-going project on the history of immigration to Canada. While many immigrants found a “land of opportunity”, they were also exploited and discriminated against by prior groups of immigrants and the settler elites.

• 1600′s The Misson. First contact (Ontario).
• 1780′s-90′s The Settler. A British administrator is seen granting land, ‘negotiated’ from the Anishinaabe, to a loyalist from the American War of Independence who were among the first settlers in Upper Canada (Ontario).
• 1830′s-40′s. The Underground. The image shows the arrival of slaves from the U.S. through the Underground Railroad.
• 1850′s The Navvies. Riots on the Welland canal as Irish Orangemen (Protestants) fought the recently arrived Irish Catholics who worked as navies on the Welland Canal. (The colonial government used the Coloured Militia to break up the riots.)
• 1885 The Railroad Worker. Thousands of Chinese workers were brought in to complete the Canadian Pacific Railroad through the Canadian Rockies during which many died. Upon its completion, the Canadian government imposed a head tax on Chinese immigrants.
• 1914 The Komogata Maru. The Komogata Maru, carrying Sikh and other South Asian immigrants, was held in Vancouver harbour and eventually forced to return to India with everyone, except 22 already resident in Canada, on board.
• 1950′s The Garment Worker. A large wave of Italian immigrants filled the garment and construction trades to the alarm of many Anglo-Canadian Protestants.
• 2016 The Migrants. Migrant workers are seen getting their passports returned prior to departing from Canada, denying those workers not only their employment rights but also the right to permanently reside where they work.