Pier Perspectives Blog

In 1913, Canadian immigration authorities attempted to exclude a group of passengers aboard Panama Maru, mainly Sikhs. Tested in a deportation hearing, their efforts failed on a technicality. The admission of the passengers ushered in a rapid rewriting of clauses intended to exclude Asian immigrants which were central to the better-known 1914 exclusion of Komagata Maru.

After the Second World War, Canada’s response to international refugee crises varied, driven by Cold War ideology, economic self-interest, humanitarian considerations, political necessity, and public opinion. The resettlement of Chilean, Indochinese, and Somali refugee movements was largely due to lobbying efforts by international organizations, domestic humanitarian groups and churches, pressure from the press, and political will on the part of the federal government.

Tell us about your customs and traditions:

In the Canadian Immigration Hall at our Museum, the exhibition is divided into four important themes: journey, arrival, belonging and impact. My favorite place to take visitors is the impact section. Here, we tell the amazing story of the contributions that immigrants have made to Canada – from architecture to science, from dance to hockey. In this section, I always get to thinking about the changes to Canadian culture when new people arrive to our country. What are some of the changes that aren’t as physically obvious as the Young and Bloor line in Toronto, or the Canadian Pacific Railway?

In 1970, the federal Cabinet adopted an “Oppressed Minority” policy that permitted the resettlement of individuals who did not meet the UN definition of a convention refugee, because they had not fled their homeland. The policy was used in the fall of 1972 when over 80,000 Ugandan Asians were expelled by President Idi Amin and given 90 days to leave the country. The federal government successfully resettled over 7,000 Ugandan Asians in 1972-1973.

The temporary exhibition, Perfect Landings, gave an introduction to the important contributions of immigrants to the sport of figure skating in Canada. In addition to showing some case studies of the foundations created by immigrants for the sport in Canada, the exhibition also showed how some of the major themes in Canadian immigration history have an impact at the scale of individual lives.

I just hung up the phone with Patricia Roberts-Pichette and find myself writing in the hopes that someone out there can help us with a question. Patricia wrote to me back in 2011 while researching her book on the Middlemore home children. During our correspondence I mentioned that a visitor had let me scan what they called “a Middlemore shilling”. When Patricia learned this, she wrote, “All members of one Middlemore party each received a new shilling from the Lord Mayor of Birmingham but I would not expect anyone would have kept it.”

To most young people today, the Holocaust is a distant nightmare, something that took place long ago in a place far away. They have heard about the atrocities and the statistics, but Canadian youth, in particular, have largely not been personally affected by this horrific example of humanity at its worst. Books, documentaries, and memorials do go a long way in fostering learning about the Holocaust, but a personal connection is the most effective way of making an emotional impact, instilling empathy, and hopefully ensuring the end of genocide. On the morning of November 9th, 2015, the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 and the Atlantic Jewish Council brought that personal connection to Nova Scotian students in the form of Holocaust survivor Sidney Zoltak.

I have never seen a group of 400 Junior High and High School students so quiet. No one talked or messed around, no one applied lip-gloss, no one texted or played games on their phones and tablets. They just sat there, rapt, staring at the 84-year-old man at the podium, listening. His voice was clear and even as he told them a story, his story, of survival against almost insurmountable odds. Partially, it was his kindly and charismatic presence commanding their attention, but mainly it was his story itself, which began when he was young like them. He spoke so eloquently about the things that happened to him and the things he did, both the extraordinary and mundane, that when he laughed they laughed, and when he wiped away a stray tear they did too.

I received an email on January 2^nd from a very excited Margot Tarajos. She asked if we would be open for her visit 363 days later. Margot was two and a half on New Year’s Eve in 1955 when her family arrived at Pier 21 and was ready to start planning a 60^th anniversary trip back.

She wrote,

“ We passed through Pier 21, Canada Immigration, according to my stamped documents, December 31, 1955. My mother says it was very late at night. There were some nuns there who greeted us with warm friendly smiles and gave my mother three rosaries -- one for each of us -- and welcomed us to Canada. The best ambassadors this country could ever have had. Mother still has those rosaries.

Between 1946 and 1968, the Netherlands was the fifth largest source country for immigrants to Canada. The Canadian and Dutch governments relied heavily on religious organizations and voluntary service agencies to help place immigrants across the country. Upon arriving at Pier 21, Dutch immigrants expressed a diverse range of emotions and opinions of their new surroundings and throughout Halifax. As a result, Dutch immigration to Canada is an important part of Pier 21’s postwar history.