In Wayson Choy's book about life during the 1930's in Vancouver's Chinatown, he brings up a little-known fact about July 1st. I think it's best told quoted exactly as written:
". . . Thousands [of Chinese] came in the decades before 1923, when on July 1st the Dominion of Canada passed the Chinese Exclusion Act and shut down all ordinary bachelor-man traffic between Canada and China, shut off any women from arriving, and divided families. Poverty-stricken bachelor-men were left alone in Gold Mountain, with only a few dollars left to send back to China every month, and never enough dollars to buy passage home. Dozens went mad; many killed themselves. The Chinatown Chinese call July 1st, the day celebrating the birth of Canada, the Day of Shame."
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