West Coast Chinese Boy

Sing Lim grew up in British Columbia in Canada before the Second World War. His father arrived in Vancouver in 1884 when he was 18 years old and he first worked as a laborer. After that his father became a cobbler and the family moved to other places in Vancouver and this is Sing's story. Despite the great need for their labor and their generally peaceful nature, the Asian inhabitants of the west coast of North America were discriminated against on a daily basis. While the violence was rarely extensive or systematic, being the target of a bully or other form of thug was a daily fear among all the Chinese. When the Chinese students attended the public schools they found it necessary to walk to school in groups, the older, stronger boys leading the way and ready to fend off attacks from the whites. Lim also describes many of the Chinese customs, such as the ceremony of shaving the baby's head. There were many Chinese merchants to serve the local Chinese, such as the Chinese herbalist that prepared the traditional Chinese medicines. This book is an excellent one to teach young people the prejudice that Asian people faced in earlier times as well as some Chinese culture and social philosophy. Nearly every large group of immigrants into the United States, from the Irish to the Chinese was the targets of discrimination in some form. It is good that these events are revisited, as the best way to defeat discrimination is to recognize it, both in the past and in the present.