Portraits of The Community - Chinese Canadians
Yip Sang: the Unofficial Mayor of Chinatown
HEAD AND SHOULDERS STUDIO PORTRAIT OF YIP SANG. CVA 689-129
Yip Sang, a Chinese Canadian businessman, social reformer, and political activist. Yip was born in 1845 in China, and came to Canada in 1881. He died in 1927 in Vancouver. Yip was born in an impoverished family in Toishan county. To make matters worse, Yip Sang lost both his parents to disease, and his sister to local bandits. After these family tragedies, in 1864, the 19-years-old Yip sold all his possessions for the passage to California. Motivated by the gold rush, he followed a large number of Chinese immigrants who had come to the West Coast. In California, Yip worked as a cook, dishwasher, cigar maker, and gold miner.
Yip came to Canada in 1881 to work on the Cariboo region. While it was the most populous area in BC during the Cariboo Gold Rush, many settlers had disserted these gold rush towns throughout this region. The unsuccessful Yip moved to what would become Vancouver and sold coal door to door until he was employed by Kwong On Wo, the largest Chinese labour contracting company in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He began as the company’s bookkeeper, and soon was promoted to timekeeper and paymaster. By the completion of CPR in 1885, Yip Sang had served as the superintendent of Kwong On Wo.
In 1888, Yip established the Wing Sang Company in Vancouver. Founded in 1886, the young city on the south edge of Burrard Inlet had been the largest port on Canada’s Pacific Coast and the terminus of CPR. Because of the geographical advantage of Vancouver, Wing Sang established an extensive import and export business. Its businesses also included banking transactions between China and Canada, steamships agency, and labour contracting. In 1904, Yip Sang owned 26 lots in Vancouver. In 1913, he expanded its holding to include four subdivisions of land in New Westminster and one in Burnaby.
As an important leader of Vancouver’s Chinese community, Yip Sang was later remembered as “the Unofficial Mayor in Vancouver’s Chinatown.” He was a founding member and long-term vice-president at the Chinese Benevolent Association. This organizations defended the community from racism, established social institutions such as the Chinese hospital, and served as a de facto governing body in the community. Yip played a particularly important role in the formation of the Chinese Empire Reform Association, the largest Chinese international organization in the early 20th century. Yip Sang became president of the Canadian chapter of this association, which sought the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in China. Although this association focused more on a transpacific political project, Yip Sang’s business contacts were principally responsible for the spread of the association in the overseas Chinese communities of the Pacific rim and the Americas. Because its call for parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, the Chinese Empire Reform Association became the most known Chinese organization in the dominant society.
In 1914, a Chinese domestic servant in Vancouver, Jack Kong, confessed that he had murdered his White landlady. The situation was far more complicated than a murder case. Following Kong’s confession, all Chinese domestic servants and Chinese students in Vancouver were dismissed. Although blaming a group for one individual’s act was a standard act of racism, the calls for anti-Chinese riots, like the one in 1907, re-emerged in Vancouver’s dominant society. Yip Sang used his connections in the dominant society, likely powerful people, to prevent potential outbreaks of racial violence.
By the turn of the 20th century, Yip brought his entire family over from China. While most early Chinese immigrants were bachelors, Yip lived with four wives, twenty-three children in the residence above his store at 51 Dupont (East Pender) Street. Later he had a six-storey dwelling built at the rear for his growing family. In the biograph of Yip Sang composed in 1973, Yip’s grandson Rick W. Yip claimed that the story of his grandfather was “folklore” to the third generation of the Yips, and listening to family members repeat the story of Yip Sang was like watching “Green Hornet.”
Won Alexander Cumyow: the First Canada-born Chinese
ALEXANDER CUMYOW AS A YOUNG MAN WITH A HANDLEBAR MOUSTACHE, DRESSED IN A WESTERN SUIT. C. 1881–1891
Won Alexander Cumyow, a Chinese Canadian businessman, court interpreter, and political activist. Won was born in 1861 Port Douglas, BC, the first Chinese born in Canada, and died in 1955 in Vancouver.
Won’s parents immigrated to Canada during the BC Gold Rush, the couple opened an outfitting stores for gold miners. Won’s Chinese name is Cumyow (金有) “possess gold,” a reflection of the Gold Rush period in which he was born. In 1870s, the Wons moved to New Westminster, where Won completed his education and training in law. Won was able to speak multiple languages: Hakka, Cantonese, English, and Chinook. In 1888, with his language skills, Won became a Chinese and Chinook court interpreter for the Vancouver Police Department, a position he held until his retirement in 1936.
Canada’s legal system barred the Chinese from entering the law profession and serving on juries. Yet, the Chinese were not deprived of the right to apply legal means to protect their interests. And from police harassment to racist immigration legislation, the Chinese had to protect their interests through legal battles. This resulted in a reliance on Chinese legal brokers, often called “Chinese lawyers.” who had both language skills and legal expertise. They partnered with White lawyers to offer various legal services to this ethnic community. One of the most prominent “Chinese lawyers” was Won Alexander Cumyow. By the early 1900s, Won owned a law firm in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Won’s business offered services for legal disputes, business licenses, appeal letters, immigration, land contracts, business contracts and other legal documentations. However, because of his ethnic identity, Won could never become a real lawyer. In addition to legal business, Won was a merchant and labour contractor. By 1908, Won had also established a large insurance business.
Won was best known for his role as secretary of the Chinese Empire Reform Association. On January 12, 1901, Won, on behalf of Chinese Empire Reform Association of Canada, wrote a memorial to Queen Victoria regarding the citizenship status of association members. Vancouver’s municipal government intercepted this memorial on the basis that only British subjects were entitled to the right to reach the British monarch. Yet, the provincial government intervened and forwarded it to the governor-general of Canada. Victoria’s intervention showed the significance of Won and this organization, which was able to cause conflict between different levels of government in BC.
On January 24, the governor-general’s secretary replied to Won that this letter had been forwarded to King Edward VII (Queen Victoria just passed away). On February 27, the secretary sent another letter to Won confirming that the King had received this letter. This letter and the responses of the provincial government and governor-general had enormous symbolic meaning. Won showed that he was not just another “Chinaman,” but influential figures who could reach Buckingham Palace.
Won was a leading figure in opposing racial segregation and the disenfranchisement of Chinese in Canada. In 1947, however, he had the satisfaction of living long enough to see the repealing of the Chinese Exclusion Act. He first voted in a federal election in 1949.