White Fears
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In British Columbia, many Punjabi workers were excluded from the work force by white workers and business owners under the claim that they were cheap labourers coming to replace the white workers for cheaper prices, thus impoverishing the white families of the working class. This claim was also made on the basis of these Sikh men coming as single men, without wives, coming for primarily the purpose of working. There was a claim that Indian labour would lead to the impoverishing of the white working class and thus lead to the decline of British Columbian society and that white workers were essential for a prosperous society. The racist sentiment against these Indian workers took on a mix of many different stereotypes and histories of western racist tropes against Asians, as well as created a new, uniquely anti-Hindoo sentiment in the west coast. On the one hand, anti-Hindoo racism was related to the earlier anti-Chinese and Japanese racism in Canada. In a way, the Indians entering British Columbia in the early 1900s were depicted in the same light as the other Asian immigrants who had previously arrived before them and dealt with the white anger against Chinese immigrants destroying the white Canada they wanted. The incoming Indians were seen as continuing and reinforcing the foreign invasion against the white struggle for racial homogeneity in British Columbia. In another way, anti-Hindoo racism at this time was also connected to orientalist stereotypes about the orient being a place of overpopulation, disease and uncleanliness.
Canadian immigration policies heavily catered to the white voices in their cries for racial homogeneity. In 1906, W.D Scott, a federal super intendant sympathized with the white claims that declared Indians unfit for Canadian climate, and that those coming from a tropical climate were physically at risk of illness and physical harm if they thought to immigrate to Canada. This, although an unofficial statement, shaped the common opinion of Indian immigration to Canada and sought to discourage any more Indians from coming in. Immigration policies at one point overtly barred Indians from coming into Canada in 1908, the Continuous Passage Rule. This was a result of continuous anti-Indian protests on the part of white Canadians, as well as a continuous public expression of anti-Indian sentiments on the part of government officials in Canada declaring Indians unfit for Canadian climate, society and health standards.
In the early 20th century Punjabis entered California in a very segregated society. The lines between coloured and white people were very dividing, but at the same time, what it meant to be coloured was also blurry. In America at this time, black people were still the most demonized and oppressed group, and Punjabis entering this climate were also discriminated against. For the Punjabis during this time, a sense of survival instincts against the dangers of anti-brown racism was essential, and because of this, they found tools of survival in marriages with Mexican women. It provided things like upward mobility, being able to have children with the right to own properties in their name, and additionally, it was an alternative to marrying American women, with whom they were not allowed to get married.