Early 20th century immigrants faced discrimination
HISTORY: Segregation practised in Niagara
It’s a part of Niagara’s history that doesn’t get a lot of attention.
But between 1900 and 1950, immigrant and minority workers in Niagara, largely from eastern and southern Europe, were segregated from residents of British descent by discriminatory residential and employment practices.
Carmela Patrias, a professor of history at Brock University, spoke about this discrimination as part of RiverBrink Art Museum’s Sunday Afternoons series in Queenston.
She outlined the struggles these immigrants faced and how they fought collectively against ethnic and racial discrimination to eventually transform the region’s culture and character.
“Much of the discussion today tends to be about the treatment of visible minorities, people of colour,” said Patrias. “What is less known is the treatment of the people of European backgrounds. The Ukrainians, Polish and Hungarians were also seen as inferior races to Anglo Canadians.
“It had a lot to do with the level of economic development in those parts of the world. They came to Canada and were treated like peasants — they got the lowest jobs and they became identified with those types of jobs and the areas they lived.
“But some of these people had better skills than they were being allowed to practise.”
Patrias said Niagara’s cheap hydroelectricity and industrialization, as well as good transpor- tation links and close proximity to the United States, opened the door to mass immigration from eastern and southern Europe.
Men worked in factories and women were primarily employed in seasonal agricultural jobs.
Patrias said immigrants from countries such as Italy, Greece and Armenia were seen as “not suitable” to hold “responsible positions,” including foreman.
She said until 1954, it was legal in developments to have restrictive covenants. Properties would not be sold, leased or occupied by non Anglo Canadians.
By the middle decades of the 20th century, Niagara was one of the most ethnically diverse regions of Ontario, much more so than Toronto, which today is considered one of the most multicul- tural cities in the world.
Recognizing their shared discrimination, these immigrants joined labour unions and began participating in local politics.
“Some of the groups had radicals among them — communists and anarchists,” said Patrias. “The communists were influential in Niagara. These groups had experienced organizers.”
She said articles, full of slogans, appeared in left-wing publications that started to pop up addressing the problems these immigrants were facing.
“They pushed certain people to run in local elections and because there were so many immigrants, they would vote for them, even those who didn’t necessarily agree with all their politics would vote for them because they felt they would pay attention to their problems, unlike the local elites.”
Patrias said she gained an interest in Canadian immigration, labour and women’s history when she did her PhD about Hungarian immigrants coming to Canada between the two world wars.
She has written a number of articles on immigrant workers and the history of human rights in Canada. She has also written several books, such as Jobs and Justice: Fighting Discrimination in Wartime Canada, and Union Power: Solidarity and Struggle in Niagara, which she co-authored with Larry Savage, who is the director for Brock University’s centre for Labour Studies.