By Bill Siggins

For intelligent Canadians, racism is an abhorrent concept. It is incomprehensible to us today that our grandfathers would have accepted and practised it. With its recent apology to Chinese head tax-payers, it appears that Canada has finally driven the last nail into the coffin of institutionalized racism.

While welcoming white European settlers by the thousand, our grandfathers consciously excluded Chinese people. The question we ask when we think of the necessity for justice in modern society is why it has taken so long to right these past wrongs?

The Chinese Exclusion Act, one of Canada's most brutal and overtly racist laws, was passed barely 80 years ago. Now, five decades after its abolition, Canada has finally atoned for the ugly sins committed against Chinese immigrants. The apology to those who arrived prior to the law's passage those who were counted as so many sheep and forced to pay a head tax is not only long overdue, it is just in time, considering the age of the people who were so transgressed.

Reflecting on this history, the story of the Ma family is worthy of review in order to understand the human cost of Canada's past racist policies.

Mr Ma arrived in Canada as a very young teenager in 1912. Somehow, someone managed to pay his head tax. His surname was immediately anglicized to Mark and he began his career in laundries and restaurants. At a time when Europeans were being enticed with free acreage to settle in the so-called land of milk and honey, Mr Ma was out of sight and out of mind. He had no rights and no standing in Canada; he merely served a purpose to wash other people's dirty laundry.

Decades earlier, Canada's first prime minister faced a barrage of criticism because he allowed Chinese to enter to work on the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. While thousands of coolie laborers were killed, Prime Minister John A. MacDonald retorted to his critics in the House of Commons that, "just as a farmer borrows a plough and returns it, Canada will do the same with the Chinamen."

Mr Ma knew nothing of these political machinations. His world would have been all work and all men. As he continued to move eastward, he would have stopped in towns where there already was a single Chinese kitchen and single Chinese laundry. All along the route he would have only encountered other Chinese men toiling away in dark back rooms.

Mr Ma lived in an isolated, bachelor society, as there were no Chinese women and strict laws against the mixing of the races. Canada's policies restricting the entry of Asians bordered on fratricide. There were no women, so there were no wives, no mothers and no families. The vast majority of Chinese who did not return to China died in an unwelcoming land without descendants likely the worst Asian curse.

Mr Ma was an exception and extremely lucky. By the time he was in his early 30s, after 20 years in Canada, he sent for a bride. The problem for him now though wasn't financial. The head tax had been abolished because it wasn't working not because it was unfair or racist. It was replaced by an even more draconian measure, the notorious Chinese Exclusion Act, which simply forbade Chinese people from entering Canada, no matter how much money they had or how great their willingness to contribute.

In 1932, the soon-to-be Mrs Ma arrived by ship in Vancouver carrying the documents of one of the few Chinese women who had gained residency in Canada. This woman actually died in China, and Mrs Ma was trying to pose as her even though she was much younger. She spent a week in jail as the Canadian authorities investigated her case. It took a hefty bribe to get her out of jail and into her new life.

Settling on the bald Canadian prairie in the tiny farm town of Yorkton, Saskatchewan thousands of kilometers from the coast the Ma family flourished. They had five children and opened a thriving restaurant. All of them grew up in the 1950s and 60s being different but not exactly excluded. The five of them all married white spouses and their children are a glorious and beautiful mix of two races.

The Ma patriarch and matriarch have now both passed away, and one wonders how they would examine their lives. They suffered many indignities, had only each other to communicate with, and had lost most of their culture, their history, and even their name. None of the Mark children learned to speak Chinese and only one granddaughter has ever returned to the ancestral village.

Like many Canadians who honor the struggles of their settler forbearers, today's Chinese immigrants to Canada have a lot to be thankful for. The newly arrived educated Chinese are not barred by their race, but thousands of others still toil in Chinatowns and are locked in a language outside the mainstream.

After World War II, the fear of committing hypocrisy forced a sea change in the Canadian mentality. The war against the Nazis forced the West to undo its own racist policies.

Canadian soldiers' sacrifices allowed me to bring two Chinese a wife and daughter to Canada for the simple and all-important reason that I loved them. Fifteen years later, we're back in China feeling like citizens of the world.

They say atonement is good for the soul as it takes openness, transparency and humility. It's a requirement if justice is to succeed. Intelligent Canadians want more of it. And they hope that the world, including China, can learn from it.

The author is the producer of the Canadian television documentary "Mr and Mrs Mark go to Yorkton.?He currently works as an editor for the Xinhua News Agency.

(China Daily July 7, 2006)