The Workingmen's Protective Association, Victoria, B.C., 1878: Racism, Intersectionality and Status Politics

Examines the racist Workingmen's Protective Association of Victoria, British Columbia, which in 1879 petitioned the federal government to sanction Chinese labour. Explores the international, national and local contexts that gave impetus to the WPA, the interconnected elements of race, status, gender, and class that comprised it, and the WPA's animus toward capitalist employers who hired imported Chinese workers. Concludes that although the WPA was short-lived, the resentment that fuelled it continued to grow in Western Canada, resulting in such notorious measures as the Chinese head tax of 1885 and the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923.