The climate of hostility
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Ward explores in his piece how white people in "British Columbia" treated racialised immigrants from East India in the province. Ward writes how this hostility even manifested itself in how white settlers viewed East Indian's immigrants ability to adjust to the climate. Ward quotes W. D. Scott a federal super intendant of immigration who writes "the transfer of any people from a tropical climate to a northern one, which for months in winter is damp and cold, must of necessity result in much physical suffering and damage to health, not only on account of non-acclimatisation, but also on account of ignorance in the matter of housing, food and clothing." This quote highlights how there was a set belief in the settler communities of BC that believed that East Indians would not only be able to "assimilate" because of "cultural differences" regarding "food and clothing" but also due to the climate and that this environmental difference made it impossible. This logic was also used "in the interests of the Indians themselves." as it was a believed that the transition from a tropical climate to that of BC would be too dramatic and lead to health problems. This pseudoscience was used to justify these racist ideologies and falls into a wider pattern of "western science" that was used to sustain racist practices.