Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Chinese 'ethnic economies' alive and well in Metro Vancouver


Chinese 'ethnic economies' 
alive and well in Metro Vancouver
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A Scandinavian restaurant wants to hire a Scandinavian server. Vietnamese immigrants specialize in nail salons from New York City to Burnaby. South Asians tend to predominate in Metro Vancouver’s trucking and taxi industries.
Welcome to the realm of “ethnic economies,” an umbrella term for an expanding phenomenon in North America and Europe in which informal economies, from small to vast, are built and sustained by certain immigrant and ethnic groups.
Ethnic economies don’t receive much attention in the West. And the few scholars who are interested usually portray them as morally neutral. While some business leaders rave that ethnic economies are wonderfully positive, since they’re based on the affinity that can exist between people of the same ethnicity and language, others raise questions about workplace exclusion.
In highly diverse Metro Vancouver, it is ethnic Chinese economies that are beginning to draw attention. News stories are emerging about a Chinese housing market, Chinese signs on retail outlets, Chinese-specific hiring practices, Chinese malls (there are more than 100 in Canada), a Chinese rental market and Chinese ride-for-hire programs, many of which are exclusive to ethnic Chinese.
A new play, which delves into ethnic economies, is also being performed this month in Vancouver at The Cultch. It’s titled ‘No Foreigners.” Created by playwright David Yee, who is of mixed Chinese and white ancestry, the play was inspired by his experience in a Chinese mall in Richmond with a luxury-bag store salesperson who would not sell him anything, saying: “No foreigners.” By which she meant: “No Caucasians.”
Ethnic economies, which can be worth billions of dollars, are by no means limited to Chinese populations. In their book, Ethnic Economies, scholars Ivan Light and Steven Gold explore vibrant Cuban commercial hubs in Miami, sophisticated South Asian financial networks in East Africa and how well-off Indian immigrants have built a major stake in North America’s hotel sector.
Ethnic economies revolve around the kind of trust, which scholars call “social capital,” that can exist between people of the same ethno-cultural and linguistic backgrounds. They are often lubricated by cash transactions and unpaid family members. Some make up part of the 40 per cent of the North American labour force market that Light and Gold maintain “takes place outside the mainstream economy.”

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A few ethical and legal issues have been raised about ethnic economies in North America.
For instance, it’s normally against the law for larger companies, such as those with more than 15 employees, to hire someone based on their ethnic heritage. So in big Canadian cities like Toronto and Vancouver, where people of colour make up more than half the population, ethnic economies pose a special challenge for all companies, not only those run by Caucasians.
The moral issues associated with ethnic economies are complex, however. Some business ethicists say people have a right to exclude certain people from their organizations — maintaining, for instance, there is little wrong with a women’s-only organization.

The owner of this Richmond outlet eventually apologized for his help-wanted sign seeking a “Chinese sales person.”

It is also not necessarily immoral, say some ethicists, when businesses and governments have certain language requirements of employees. In addition, most people around the world, according to polls, say it is not racist for anyone to try to protect one’s language or culture.
Albert Lo, head of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, says the subject of ethnic economies can be “divisive.” But he maintains it’s crucial to keep an eye out for when an employer who insists on a language requirement for an employee might actually be using it as a cover for ethnic discrimination.
So it is difficult to know how to judge some of the ethnic-economy trends that have been emerging in Metro Vancouver.
B.C. media outlets, for instance, continue to report on how Mandarin-only real estate marketing in Richmond and Vancouver freezes out non-Mandarin speakers (including those who only understand Cantonese). Some resent being excluded from the segment of Metro Vancouver’s hyper-active real estate market that is being fuelled by buyers from East Asia.
Several unlicensed Chinese-only ride-for-hire services have started in Richmond and in other parts of Metro Vancouver. One ethnic Chinese journalist, who was raised in Canada, reported he went on assignment in Richmond to hire a ride-for-hire car and was told by the driver he does not pick up “Westerners.”
Asian-only rental ads are also appearing in Metro Vancouver. In Burnaby, a Chinese landlord posted an “Asian only” rental ad, because he didn’t want white tenants. He was worried they would be party animals. Such exclusionary ads are common on Craigslist, even as human rights officials say it’s illegal to discriminate against a potential renter based on their ethnicity.
Richmond furniture store last year posted a help wanted sign for a “Chinese sales person.” After the sign drew media attention, the owner apologized. But many business owners in Metro Vancouver, particularly those who run Chinese restaurants, are openly lobbying for the federal government to let them bring in temporary foreign workers and immigrants who are able to communicate in Chinese.
This is not to mention an underground Chinese food market, operating out of the trunks of vehicles, that has recently opened across Metro Vancouver, particularly in Richmond. It promotes its services through the food-sharing website Weee! and WeChat, a popular Chinese-language messaging app.
Even though ethnic economies are rarely discussed in the Western media, it’s clear they’re on the rise in welcoming North America and Europe — and will continue to grow. Since they raise so many ethical, legal and cultural issues, including about integration and exclusivity, principles near to the heart of most Canadians, it seems they might be worth more public attention.

Comments 


Vera Tara
Everybody was comfortable when the 'orientals' were relegated to running coin laundries, chinese restaurants, and keeping themselves to cutesy but smelly Chinatown.
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Dave DeWit
they graduated to spyiing on technology companies, real estate speculation, and money laundering at casinos ,tax avoidance schemes, and loyalty to the mother land, increased military build up in the south china sea which threartens surrounding countries and violates international law.
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Richard Bennet · 
Dave DeWit Human Smuggling Fentanyl, protection rackets,loan sharking, buying our ports and waterfronts, buying our banks, pushing and shoving, screaming we have Mandarin as Canada's thrid language...scuse me I'll take a breath here.
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Gale Leitch · 
They made Chinatown smelly with piles of garbage in the alleys.
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Xin Jin · 
As a ethnic Chinese, I also dislike the fact that some business are exclusive to some people. But using this as a hatred mean to Chinese or other ethnic group is immoral. Some commentors keep bringing the issues of money laudering or other crimes. I think you know most of Chinese people are hardworking and polite. I am totally against the exclusive business model. But does anybody think what would they do, if they do not speak perfectly English and do not know how to do business like Caucasions? Keep do your house lady or do your laundry? You disgusting racists just label our Chinese as racists, so you can put finger on us.
The Chinese exclusive business is somewhat breaking the White exclusive model. Before there is such thing, the high valued industry are way beyond our reach. Now when Chinese can buy multimillion dollar properties, can afford a luxury life, make you not so superior, you are not happy with that. It is just disgusting!
Everyone deserve a better life when he or she work hard to get it. We scorn and prohibit the illegal and immoral way to be wealthy, but we should not exclude someone be better off because of one's ethnicity.
Shame on you so-called glorious and noble non-racist Canadians.
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Richard Bennet · 
The Chinese are the most racist people on earth which has been well documented, they dont even trust or like each other; all other nationalities on earth are called Gweilo by the Chinese, a derogatory slang term for barbarians.
Sorry master Jin you are the racist not Canadians. Pull the other one it has bells on.
The flood of Chinese labour into Canada [Gold Mountain] initially to work the railway was a ruse enabling them to jump camp and plunder for gold and Jade all along the Fraser Valley, along the "Gold Trail" and send their loot in coffins back to the "Motherland", they lied to us, no wonder we held them in suspicion and applied a head tax. To validate this fact all one has to do is to investigate by asking Canadian families living along the Gold Trail.
Does this fact get told in schools, no, because it shows that we have been lied to all along, and indeed what an embarrasment to all the politicians and educators who have raise them up as being [so called] hard workers [what nonsense]...they were ALL hard workers, from so many other nations, not just Chinese.
Their secretive nature and manners were disguisting to Canadian folks so naturally they were criticised by local media and thus ridiculed at the time.
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Don Sukkau · 
Why do we tolerant such blatant Chinese racism? Imagnine what would happen if a home owner stated that only caucasians were saught as renters?
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Gale Leitch · 
I totally agree!
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Jack Steele · 
Non-white immigrant hater Douglas Todd. What a miserable immigrant hating loser. As if Canadians of Jewish, Italian, Portuguese, etc. descent have not been doing the same as the newer Canadians!
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Lyle Craver · 
No that's NOT true. None of these groups have created their own language ghettoes and all hire candidates of all backgrounds which you obviously seem to have forgotten is what the law requires.

Sorry your claim that all groups behave the same is complete balderdash and I'd use a stronger word starting with b if I thought it wouldn't offend people.
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Gale Leitch · 
Lyle Craver Yes, they have. I think you misunderstand the dictionary term "ghetto." A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live. Richmond is a ghetto. If you prefer, I will say that certain ethnic groups have polarized themselves in language communities and hire people of their own ethnicity. Examples are Chinatown and Richmond. I once went for a job interview. When I opened the door, I looked inside at a sea of Chinese faces. They looked at me with smiles on their faces and said, "We're sorry!" They meant they were sorry that I had come all that way only to discover that they were hiring Chinese people only. Another example... a girlfriend applied for and didn't get a job as a data entry person at a Chinese company in Vancouver. She complained to the government and, as a result, they had to hire her. After 2 months of working with Chinese ladies who did not or would not speak a word of English and were rude to her, she had a nervous breakdown and had to go on leave. Another example, many years ago, Chinese employees of a BC Driver Licensing Bureau office were found guilty of accepting cash payments from Chinese who did not pass their driving exams. Fraud. The list goes on and on and on.
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Geoff Tisdall · 
Multiculturalism is the slow death of nations. Soros smiles with pleasure at Vancouver.
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