Working Class Politics, Racism and Sexism; the Making of a Politically Divided Working Class in Vancouver, 1900-1939.

This dissertation addresses the articulation of class, ethnic, and gender relations among the working class in Vancouver during its formative period, between 1900 and the eve of the Second World War in 1939. The historical development of a labour market segregated by ethnicity and gender is traced, and the effect of labour market segregation, ethnic relations of white domination, and patriarchal relations of male domination on the political practices of the working class is assessed. It is shown that the economic and political marginality of Asian and women workers in British Columbia affected their involvement in the Vancouver labour movement. Although many Asian and women workers played an active role in labour struggles, both were in a much weaker position than white male workers. Moreover, the practices of the predominantly white male labour movement reinforced the marginal position of Asian workers through exclusion, and women workers through the perpetuation of relations of dependence. Political divisions within the labour movement reflected the salience of ethnicity and gender in defining workers' lives, while at the same time reproducing the subordination of Asians and women within the labour market and throughout civil society. Conditions facilitating solidarity within the working class began to develop during the severity of the economic depression of the 1930s, when socialist politics were strengthened, and when Asian worker's and women workers began to place their own issues on the political agenda of the Vancouver labour movement.