June Chow
This submit is a sequel to The proper to recollect the previous: Opening Chinese language immigration data in Canada’s nationwide archives printed on March 27, 2025. It’s tailored from a presentation made on June 11, 2025 on the Affiliation of Canadian Archivists convention held at Carleton College (Ottawa, Ontario) to an viewers that included Librarian and Archivist of Canada, Leslie Weir.
In an earlier blogpost, I shared a firsthand account of how my neighborhood labored with its nationwide archives to open racist authorities data wanted to grasp and confront the 1923 Chinese language Exclusion Act. Over and above the regulation’s ban on Chinese language immigration was its obligatory registration of each Chinese language particular person residing in Canada inside twelve months of the Act coming into drive. ‘C.I. 44’ types doc this tried-and-true tactic of a state’s criminalization of law-abiding residents by way of round-up methods, a modern-day model of which is enjoying out below the directive of President Trump by way of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). A century after the Chinese language Exclusion Act launched its requirement for mass registration, the data created on this hostile context are getting used to pursue collective therapeutic, grounded within the private, painful work of recovering ancestors who lived by way of the disgrace and remorse of exclusion in silence. Any sum of the Chinese language head tax pales compared to the worth paid by these like my great-grandfather who endured a lifetime of separation from his spouse and kids.
My earlier blogpost confirmed how my neighborhood’s proper to recollect this previous might transfer our nationwide archives to open the Restricted historic authorities data documenting the reality of this racism. Public entry to the restricted C.I. 44 data was initiated by an ATIP request submitted in 2021 that was strengthened by broad neighborhood endorsement. Inside a number of months, the data have been opened by Library and Archives Canada (LAC) utilizing block evaluation, a course of to facilitate proactive opening of extra archived federal authorities data below the auspices of Canada’s Entry to Info Act and Privateness Act. Block evaluation is amongst a listing of company methods and initiatives of the establishment aimed to enhance providers to Canadians; its success is reported within the many tens of millions of pages of Canadian authorities data which were opened.
That which is misplaced can’t be recovered. Recognizing this, the neighborhood mobilized to unearth the slivers of surviving reminiscence wanted to piece collectively this previous. However unbeknownst to members of the Chinese language Canadian neighborhood and to the Canadian public, the very data documenting this historical past lay in danger at our nationwide archives. In an ironic twist, the initiative to Open the Restricted C.I. 44 data would save them from being inadvertently destroyed. This submit reminds communities to stay watchful over their data and people entrusted to steward them. It demonstrates how holding a nationwide archives accountable as custodian is an ongoing activity; that is my account of attempting to take action.
As commemorations of the Chinese language Exclusion Act rolled out as scheduled on July 1st, 2023, and thru the next yr, I discovered myself coming upon 5 years of working with this historical past and its traumas, documented in paper path after paper path. Naively, I had additionally taken up my neighborhood’s decades-long battle with a nationwide archives that appeared at all times to carry our data simply out of attain. In my try to shut a private {and professional} chapter, I submitted what I meant could be a ultimate ATIP request to LAC. I had my very own account of how issues occurred, however needed to confirm it in opposition to the establishment’s account: How did the C.I. 44 data develop into Open the place they’d been beforehand Restricted by regulation? My ATIP request – assigned file quantity A-2024-04572 – returned a 1,600-page launch bundle; its interdepartmental emails checked out in opposition to my recollection of occasions – till I reached web page 000456. There, I got here face-to-face with an e mail chain with the topic line: Microfilm set for destruction.
The thread recounts that when block evaluation was determined upon because the plan of action, a reel from the set of microfilm was ordered from the vault to undertake the sampling train. The order was cancelled by the collections supervisor of microfilm on the Digital Operations and Preservation Department; all 29 reels had been eliminated for destruction and have been slated for disposition. The questions and considerations voiced by the assorted archivists concerned would come up empty. The e-mail of the lead archivist of the Authorities Archives Department accountable for the Immigration portfolio reads:
Simply to verify that this materials has not been recognized for elimination/destruction by an archivist. I’ve seen no indication that they have been advisable for destruction in MIKAN both, so I don’t know when, why or by whom they have been recognized as such… (emphasis within the unique retained)
A flurry of emails later, the reels have been retrieved and no additional questions have been requested. However pressing questions stay about when, why or by whom the data have been eliminated for destruction, notably as solutions would look like well-documented by the establishment. Based on the federal authorities’s Directive on Removals from LAC Holdings (6.1), “[a]ll suggestions and selections for elimination of documentary heritage are absolutely documented within the LAC company recordkeeping system,” with final accountability held by the Librarian and Archivist whose approval of all elimination selections relies on subject material specialists’ evaluation and proposals. The one clarification provided by the collections supervisor of microfilm chalked it up merely to “Mistaken id I assume.” The reels have been batched with and mistaken for divisional copies meant to be disposed. They’d been sitting round for “a number of years” (plusieurs années) ready to be destroyed.
Alongside retrieval of the reels from destruction, an additional sigh of aid got here with the placement of a print grasp. In keeping with archival microfilming requirements, the manufacturing of a minimum of three copies is required: one manufacturing grasp (from which all copies are printed), one storage copy, and one use copy. Every copy has its perform; none are extraneous. LOCKSS (Tons Of Copies Preserve Stuff Secure) is an info administration precept notably pertinent to microfilm; it is because unique data are sometimes destroyed as soon as filmed, leaving solely copies. The then-new know-how was well-liked within the post-war period for being exponentially extra compact and sturdy than paper; enormously diminished photographic photographs of paperwork and printed supplies are held on high-resolution movie, mostly, in rolls (on reels) or sheets (as microfiche). The preservation format has been critiqued since for its inherent harm to cultural heritage given the ensuing large lack of info and destruction of unique data.
Chinese language immigration data are not any stranger to being microfilmed by our nationwide archives and topic to such harm. In 1963, over 120,000 unique ‘C.I. 9’ journey registration types have been destroyed as soon as filmed. Of great worth in every kind is {a photograph} of a Chinese language particular person on the time of their outward journey, most usually, a person on a return go to to China to meet his duties as a son, husband and/or father. Overwhelmingly, these rare journeys have been the one method a Chinese language man in Canada might take part within the making of household; restrictions within the Chinese language Immigration Act prevented his members of the family from becoming a member of him within the nation. LAC’s description of the data admit that the microfilm photographs are of poor high quality; arguably, lack of info is felt most acutely within the uncommon portraits of the early Chinese language in Canada who from all walks of life and in opposition to all odds strived to have interaction within the intimacies of household. The depth misplaced of their images would transfer York College Professor Lily Cho to revive this dignity and humanity by painstakingly reconstituting digital reproductions of the microfilm data to “re-take” their images. Of comparable kind, perform and time interval to the C.I. 9 data are the ‘C.I. 44’ registration types of 58,000 Chinese language folks residing in Canada on the time the Exclusion Act handed; likewise, the unique paper data have been destroyed as soon as filmed. Ordered by serial quantity, one other indicator of the destruction and carelessness that characterizes microfilm is the lack of virtually 1,500 types from the tip of reel T-16174 to the beginning of the subsequent (T-16175), with every kind representing a Chinese language particular person.
What has already been misplaced and what was virtually destroyed are each measurable and immeasurable. The eye I draw is to the chance below which data of a neighborhood are held at our nationwide archives, notably when these data stay restricted, inaccessible, and hidden from that neighborhood. One coverage of block evaluation seeks to open archived authorities data; one other coverage directive is eradicating them for destruction, seemingly with out due course of. The place requests for entry to info seem to have been exhausted, it’s time to search an inquiry as a substitute: When, why and by whom have been my neighborhood’s data eliminated for destruction?
June Chow is an archivist, archival scholar and award-winning heritage employee working towards throughout Chinese language Canadian communities and specializing within the histories and modern challenges of Chinatown neighbourhoods. She has been archivist of The Paper Path to the 1923 Chinese language Exclusion Act for the previous 5 years. She at the moment works at College of Toronto Libraries, Particular Collections in its Richard Charles Lee Chinese language Canadian Archives.
Sources
June Chow, “The proper to recollect the previous: Opening Chinese language immigration data in Canada’s nationwide archives,” https://activehistory.ca/weblog/2025/03/27/the-right-to-remember-the-past-opening-chinese-immigration-records-in-canadas-national-archives/
June Chow, “New to Chinese language Canadian family tree: C.I.44 data of registration,” https://thediscoverblog.com/2023/06/29/new-to-chinese-canadian-genealogy-c-i-44-records-of-registration/
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