The right to remember the past: Opening Chinese immigration records in Canada’s national archives

June Chow

The right to know through Canada’s Access to Information Act and the right to personal privacy under the Privacy Act hang in perpetual balance at our national archives. In 2021, an ATIP request submitted to Library and Archives Canada (LAC) sought to open a set of historical government records that remained Restricted within its Chinese Immigration records series, namely, C.I. 44 forms and index cards. The 100th anniversary of the passing of the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act (formally, the Chinese Immigration Act, 1923) was fast approaching; members of the Chinese Canadian community were all too aware of how many memories of this past had already been lost through the generations. This post offers a detailed, firsthand account of how a community worked with its national archives to open racist government records needed to understand and confront this history. It shows how a community’s agency, self-determination, and right to remember its past can move an institution to action.

The history of the Chinese Exclusion Act sought to be told through those it excluded from entry and participation in Canadian society under Vancouver-based curator, Catherine Clement. Her exhibition, The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act, was planned to open in 2023 for the 100-year anniversary of the passing of the legislation. By 2021, research was well underway including a search for original records.

While Chinese immigration records exist in abundance at LAC, they largely represent the racist actions and beliefs of the federal government. When head tax and other Chinese immigration (C.I.) certificates that had been issued to individuals in the original  surfaced en masse during the head tax redress campaign, researchers expected that they would convey the lived experience of state control on families and individuals. Contrary to this belief, surviving certificates held in the community revealed deep silences and omissions. Descendants inherited the records without the ability to interpret them, nor did they have recourse to the memories of their ancestors whose lives had been captured in these documents up to three or four generations ago. 

Among the certificates that surfaced, a pattern emerged. The significance of frequent references to “Section 18” and 1923/1924 dates of creation became clear when the descendant of Dere Mee Gim brought forward their C.I. 30 certificate, along with a copy of her C.I. 44 registration form. Is this anything?, the family wondered. It was. While Section 18 of the Chinese Immigration Act, 1923 outlined the mandatory registration of every Chinese person residing in Canada within twelve months, the C.I. 44 forms that recorded “every person of Chinese origin or descent in Canada” had never been seen.

At the time of this discovery, the C.I. 44s at LAC were Restricted by law. At the time, there was very little in the way of archival description that could help a researcher understand the records or what information they contained. The description read: 

Scope and content: The sub-series consists of documentation related to registrations made under Section 18 of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. Each registration was documented in a one-page Chinese Immigration C.I. 44 form. The sub-series consists of C.I. 44 certificates (microfilmed), the corresponding index card system (microfilmed), and a listing of individuals who registered as native-born under Section 18 of the Act.

Our research team for The Paper Trail moved to make these records public. I was a student in the Master of Archival Studies program at the UBC School of Information and used a class assignment in my FIPPA course to submit the ATIP request asking for release of the restricted C.I. 44 records. Together, Clement and I also wrote a letter addressed to Leslie Weir, the Librarian and Archivist of Canada, that outlined the community’s need to have access to the records. It urged LAC to act quickly to ensure the records could contribute to our exhibition research, and be made publicly accessible in time for the Chinese Exclusion Act commemoration on July 1, 2023. Retired Supreme Court Justice Randall Wong, the first Chinese Canadian federally appointed judge and a director of the new Chinese Canadian Museum where the exhibition was to be hosted, signed the letter, which carried endorsements both by members of the Chinese Canadian community and members of the archival profession. 

Weir’s response to our letter recognized the urgency of the request and assured us that we would hear from LAC’s ATIP and Litigation Response team, who would be able to help us understand and negotiate options for reviewing and opening the C.I. 44 records. In consultation with this team, we learned that a standard approach to opening the records under Canada’s Access to Information Act and Privacy Act would provide access to records of 58,000 Chinese persons in Canada; however, each record would be heavily redacted given the extensive amount of personal information they contained. These results would serve neither party well, with limited access for the community and a great deal of labour for LAC. LAC suggested that it would be more beneficial to formally abandon the ATIP request and instead pursue a process called block review. In block review, blocks or series of archived government records are systematically reviewed using sampling strategies to determine whether records can be proactively opened for public access. Representative records within the series are identified and examined for risk associated with the age of the record and the subject matter. 

This option sounded more promising. Clement and I provided LAC analysts with Dere Mee Gim’s C.I. 44 record, and cited government records that contain the similar extent of personal information as examples of records already opened: C.I. 9 records of travel within the Chinese immigration series; and records of Won Alexander Cumyow and his family in the 1921 census. Six records within the C.I. 44 record set were sampled under the block review. Risk was deemed highest related to those who were Canadian-born minor children at the time of registration, those who were institutionalized in asylums, and those who were deported as a result of the registration process.

Nevertheless, LAC deemed that the risks were outweighed by the potential benefits. Findings of the block review allowed the records to be opened in November 2021, just a few months after the original ATIP request was submitted. The 29 microfilm reels were digitized by LAC and our team provided with a research copy of the images. The images were also provided by LAC to its partners to help facilitate online digital access in time for community commemoration. Through LAC’s partnership agreements, the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) added the newly opened records to its Héritage Canadiana collection, and FamilySearch and Ancestry transcribed the record set and added it and its images to their respective sites as a new genealogy resource. Up to this point, our work with LAC was largely through its staff based in Ottawa and Gatineau. Its regional office in Vancouver, however, allowed for the opportunity of a student position within LAC to further steer the C.I. 44 records through the institution and its many teams and departments involved in ensuring records access. Funding from the UBC School of Information paid for me to spend 3 months at LAC leading up to July 1st. Among the tools I created to introduce the newly available C.I. 44 records were a blogpost, an updated record description with finding aid, and a research guide for use by CRKN. 

Since the July 1, 2023 commemoration, the work of community members and LAC has been ongoing to improve access to the C.I. 44s well beyond their opening, including to related Chinese immigration records. While much remains untapped in their research potential, the C.I. 44 records have been fulfilling the most pressing need for genealogy and the recovery of lost or silenced ancestors.

For now, this account seeks to demonstrate the lengths a community will go to access its own records needed to understand its own history—and how its national archives must respond. It shows how it is possible for communities and institutions to work together when equity is centred and a community’s right to remember its past is recognized and respected. It is hoped that lessons continue to be learned by both parties from this shared experience.

June Chow is an archivist, archival scholar and award-winning heritage worker practicing across Chinese Canadian communities and specializing in the histories and contemporary challenges of Chinatown neighbourhoods. This blogpost is adapted from a paper currently under peer review with Archivaria, The Journal of the Association of Canadian Archivists (ACA), and accepted for presentation at the 2025 ACA conference.  June has been archivist of The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act for the past five years. She currently works at University of Toronto Libraries in its Richard Charles Lee Chinese Canadian Archives.

Resources

June Chow, “New to Chinese Canadian genealogy: C.I. 44 records of registration,” https://thediscoverblog.com/2023/06/29/new-to-chinese-canadian-genealogy-c-i-44-records-of-registration/.

The Paper Trail collection (RBSC-ARC-1838), UBC Library Rare Books and Special Collections, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, https://rbscarchives.library.ubc.ca/paper-trail-collection