A Common Thread

A thread is made from many strands, each strand strengthens the other, with time it will fray and eventually break, but if you continue to add to that thread, it will last for an eternity.

Juan Devis's seriesDepartures explores the waves of Chinese immigration to Los Angeles, my grandfather was part of the first wave immigrating to my home country Canada. His story is similar to the stories of Chinese immigrants to North America, the loneliness, the racism, the search for identity in a country that didn't understand them and the gratitude for the chance to make a better life for themselves and their families.

My paternal grandfather Chong Showman passed away at the age of 85, he and I were close, I was his first born grandchild. We would spend lunches and afternoons walking in his neighborhood near Chinatown. After his funeral I went to his apartment and went through his possessions. I took a stack of typewritten and handwritten papers, his Bible, his English Chinese Dictionary and a hubcap from a Cadillac. He had written out his lifestory on pieces of scrap paper, finally typing it up formally. He never gave it to anyone, I only found it after he passed away. The hubcap hung in his apartment on the wall, he was walking one day and it fell off, he tried to chase the car down, but they never noticed him. He took it home and now I have it in my garden.

I want to share with you the first steps he took in Canada, the location could be Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, the story is the same. I have modified some of his sentence structure to express his thoughts, however the heartfelt words are his.

Chong Showman's Story

"I am an immigrant from China. I have paid the Canadian Immigration Department five hundred dollars head tax upon entering Canada in the year 1917 August 20th. At sixteen years of age on my birthday I landed at Vancouver B.C"

The Coolie

"Chinese new immigrant not have one cent in his pocket, rather he already had his eleven hundred dollars in debt; for pay of head tax, the fare, etc. etc. Six day working hours for which I am responsible for getting the weekly work done. Everyone who works has a total of ninety hours each week. The worker has a total sleeping hour of forty hours. The life of a Chinese immigrant laborer is called a coolie".

"Do they have entertainment or leisure time? They practically have none, if they have, the Chinatown is a vicinity of good and bad or evil merchants mixture, sinful and corrupt as you will ever know. Some go to gamble; consequently they loose their wages, an income of only a few dollars; their families suffer for their sins."

The Invisible Thread

The Canadian government passed the Chinese Immigration Act in 1923, it was a heavy head tax to discourage Chinese immigration*. This barred Chinese from entering Canada, and from bringing over family. It was repealed in 1947, but open immigration of the Chinese did not open completely until 1967. Canada separated families by an ocean of racism, and already fragile bonds broke, only the strongest held and waited for two decades to be reunited.

My Grandfather's Isolation

"At that long period of time many Chinese Canadian lived as a mother abandon her child, and add persecution. Such condition of life, many were dismayed and depressed; that included myself. A cause that directly involved family misfortune, severed family unions, afflicted personal finances; it harmed Canada, no one benefited, all lost a great deal."

The Fragile Thread

I thank my Grandfather for being the foundation that I stand on, for being the one who lived a life harder than I could ever imagine, for being the man who braved an ocean threatened by German UBoats, for giving my father an university education, for saving those special lunches with me to show me how he boiled his carrots, and for being with me everyday to watch over me, and I hope I have made him proud. His story is my story.

Image: Chong Showman (1926) 1901 - 1986

* The United States had the Chinese Exclusion Act that restricted Chinese immigration from 1875 to 1948, and was not fully repealed until 1965. This Act was the only one to single out one specific nationality.