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Chinese Market Gardening in Australia and New Zealand

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Abstract

Chinese market gardeners maintained complex social networks with their kin in China, within their overseas Chinese communities and with the wider community. This chapter examines the responses of Chinese market gardeners to institutional racism and changing social attitudes and the relationships they forged across social boundaries. At the broader societal level, anti-Chinese attitudes were moderated through exchanges related to food and changing dietary patterns; a shared desire to develop the land and make it productive; and, the contribution which Chinese market gardeners made to the economy. At the local level, the diverse relationships that market gardeners formed in their daily interactions with the wider community fostered understanding between cultures and promoted business opportunities. Market gardens were thus important loci of cross-cultural exchange.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Brian Moloughney, Tony Ballantyne and David Hood, ‘After gold: reconstructing Chinese communities 1896–1913’, in Henry Johnson and Brian Moloughney (eds.), Asia in the Making of New Zealand, Auckland, 2006, pp. 65–69; and James Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 1, Dunedin, 1993, pp. 87–89.

  2. 2.

    This practice continued until the Sino-Japanese war disrupted shipping (Charles Sedgwick, ‘The politics of survival: a social history of the Chinese in New Zealand’, PhD Thesis, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, 1982, pp. 65, 325).

  3. 3.

    Born in Wanganui in 1907, Chong was educated in China; he returned to New Zealand in 1929 (Nigel Murphy, Success through Adversity: A History of the Dominion Federation of New Zealand Chinese Commercial Growers, Pukekohe, 2012, pp. 16, 21).

  4. 4.

    Henry Chan (ed.), Zengcheng New Zealanders, Katoomba, 2007, p. 43.

  5. 5.

    Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, p. 327.

  6. 6.

    Raymond Chui, ‘Transnationalism and migration: Chinese migrants in New Zealand’, Global Asia Journal, Paper 4, http//digitalcommons/pace.edu/Global_Asia_Journal_4, 2008, p. 6, accessed 27 May 2013.

  7. 7.

    Projects funded by overseas Chinese associations in Australia and New Zealand included modern schools and other infrastructure, defensive walls and watch towers to guard against bandits and safe houses in Guangzhou for family members (Chan (ed.), Zengcheng New Zealanders, pp. 20, 111; and Michael Williams, ‘Brief sojourn in your native land’, M. Letters Thesis, University of New England, Armidale, 1998, p. 53).

  8. 8.

    Generally each district had its own society. In 1907 people from the neighbouring Zengcheng and Dongguan counties established a combined organisation, the Loong Yee Tong (Williams, ‘Brief sojourn’, pp. 19–20).

  9. 9.

    These included: in Auckland, the Kwong Chew Club for people from Siyi county (1920); and in Wellington, the Poon Fa Association for people from Panyu county (1916); the Tung Jung Association for people from Zengcheng (Jung Seng) and Dongguan counties (1924); and the Seyip Association for people from Siyi county (1936) (Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, p. 588).

  10. 10.

    See, for example, in New Zealand, Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, pp. 297, 309, 656–658; and in Australia, Shirley Fitzgerald, Red Tape Gold Scissors: The Story of Sydney’s Chinese, Sydney, 1996, pp. 45, 109–110.

  11. 11.

    Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 3, p. 113; Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, pp. 656–658.

  12. 12.

    Fitzgerald, Big White Lie, p. 111; Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, pp. 172, 264; and William Tai Yuen, China’s Awareness of New Zealand, Auckland, 2005, pp. 80–81, 85.

  13. 13.

    Two attempts were made to establish national Chinese organisations in New Zealand, in 1909 and 1928, promoted by the Chinese consuls of the time, but both lapsed (Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 3, pp. 156–157).

  14. 14.

    Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, pp. 588–589.

  15. 15.

    Jane Lydon, Many Inventions: The Chinese in the Rocks 1890–1930, Clayton, Victoria, 1999, p. 66.

  16. 16.

    Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 3, p. 160.

  17. 17.

    Raymond Richards, Closing the Door to Destitution: The Shaping of the Social Security Acts of New Zealand and the United States, University Park, Pennsylvania State University, 2010, pp. 32, 71.

  18. 18.

    Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 3, pp. 169–170, 177–178. See also Sedgwick, ‘Politics of Survival’, p. 286.

  19. 19.

    Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, p. 591.

  20. 20.

    Lily Lee and Ruth Lam, Sons of the Soil, Pukekohe, 2012, p. 59.

  21. 21.

    Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, pp. 285–286, 320.

  22. 22.

    It is easier to trace these networks and movements in New Zealand, where the Chinese population was much smaller than in Australia and distances not as great.

  23. 23.

    Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, p. 316.

  24. 24.

    Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, p. 158.

  25. 25.

    For example, in Perth and Sydney. See Anne Atkinson, ‘Chinese market gardening in the Perth metropolitan region, 1900–1920’, Western Geographer, Vol. 8, 1984, p. 48; and Shirley Fitzgerald, Red Tape Gold Scissors: The Story of Sydney’s Chinese, Sydney, 1996, p. 68.

  26. 26.

    Kee Yung, interviewed by Anne Thorpe, 17 December 2005, Otaki District Commercial Gardeners Society Oral History Project, Alexander Turnbull Library, OHA-5505, Tape 2.

  27. 27.

    Michael Williams, Chinese Settlement in NSW: A Thematic History, Sydney, 1999, pp. 7, 16, 23; Lydon, Many Inventions, pp. 80–84; and Fitzgerald, Red Tape Gold Scissors, pp. 67–68.

  28. 28.

    Kwong War Chong and Co was run by several partners from Zhongshan district in Guangdong and used by market gardeners from that district, while War Hing and Co. was the meeting place of market gardeners from the Yiu Ming Hung Fook Tong Society, which had its roots in the Gao Yao and Gao Ming districts (Williams, Chinese Settlement in NSW, p. 21; and Fitzgerald, Red Tape Gold Scissors, p. 163).

  29. 29.

    Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, p. 149.

  30. 30.

    For example in Australia, Tung Wah Times, 12 August 1899, p. 2 c-d; in New Zealand, Southland Times, 12 September 1904, p. 4.

  31. 31.

    Jupp (ed.), The Australian People: An Encyclopedia of the Nation, its People and their Origins, Cambridge, 2001, pp. 201, 863.

  32. 32.

    Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 3, p. 183. Australia’s response to Japanese expansionism was relatively low key, moderated by admiration for Japan’s economic achievements and its status as a major trading partner (Fitzgerald, Red Tape Gold Scissors, p. 127).

  33. 33.

    Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, p. 284.

  34. 34.

    George Sue interviewed by Joanna Boileau, Auckland, 7 April 2012, recording held by interviewer.

  35. 35.

    Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, p. 318.

  36. 36.

    Recent scholarship places the imposition of discriminatory immigration policies in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand in a transnational context, highlighting the political and intellectual exchanges of ideas between white settler nations (Charles Price, The Great White Walls are Built, Canberra, 1974, pp. 3–4, 23; Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Man’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality, Cambridge, 2008; Fitzgerald, Big White Lie p. viii).

  37. 37.

    Henry Reynolds, for example, places Australia’s evolving policies towards indigenous people between 1850 and 1950 in the context of international thinking on race and human evolution (Henry Reynolds, Nowhere People: How International Race Thinking Shaped Australia’s Identity, Camberwell, 2005, pp. 100–101).

  38. 38.

    Lake and Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line; Nigel Murphy, The Poll Tax in New Zealand, Wellington, 1996, pp. 13–15.

  39. 39.

    Edmond Marin La Meslee, The New Australia (1883), London and Melbourne, 1973, pp. 85–86, 204–206.

  40. 40.

    Dorothea Nichols interviewed by Pauline Curby, 29 July 1997, City of Ryde Library Services; and George Redding interviewed by Pauline Curby, 1998, City of Ryde Library Services.

  41. 41.

    Michael Symons, One Continuous Picnic: A Gastronomic History of Australia, Melbourne, 2007, p. 14.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., p. 67; Phillip Muskett, The Art of Living in Australia (1893), Adelaide, 2005, n.p. See also David Burton, 200 Years of New Zealand Food and Cookery, Wellington, 1982, p. 25; Tony Simpson, A Distant Feast, Auckland, 2008, pp. 135, 149; and David Veart, First Catch Your Weka: A Story of New Zealand Cooking, Auckland, 2008, pp. 4, 29.

  43. 43.

    Brisbane Courier, 21 October 1878, p. 2.

  44. 44.

    See, for example, Brisbane Courier, 7 January 1887, p. 5.

  45. 45.

    Grey River Argus, 19 November 1874, p. 3.

  46. 46.

    Wanganui Herald, 4 November 1886, p. 2. The Barcoo River in western Queensland gave its name to ‘barcoo rot’, a form of scurvy characterised by chronic skin sores, caused by lack of fresh vegetables in the diet (Australian National Dictionary Centre, http://andc.anu.edu.au/australian-words/meanings-origins? accessed 14 November 2012).

  47. 47.

    Muskett, Art of Living in Australia, n.p.

  48. 48.

    Southland Times, 14 May 1899, p. 4.

  49. 49.

    Kathryn Gleason, ‘To bound and to cultivate: an introduction to the archaeology of gardens and fields’, in Naomi Miller and Kathryn Gleason (eds.), The Archaeology of Garden and Field, Philadelphia, 1994, pp. 2, 4.

  50. 50.

    See, for example, Barbara Bender, Landscape: Politics and Perspectives, Providence, 1993, pp. 2–3, 9.

  51. 51.

    Cathie May, Topsawyers: the Chinese in Cairns 1870 to 1920, Townsville, 1984, p. 48; Barry McGowan, Dust and Dreams: Mining Communities in South-East New South Wales, Kensington, 2010, pp. 123–124.

  52. 52.

    Yuan Fang Shen, Dragon Seed in the Antipodes; Chinese-Australian Autobiographies, Carlton North, 2001, p. 50.

  53. 53.

    Warwick Roger, ‘True builders of the Waimarino’, Weekly News, 12 July 1971, p. 10.

  54. 54.

    Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, p. 295.

  55. 55.

    As Kylie Mirmohamadi observes, in the process of harnessing the land for ‘productive’ use, successive waves of settlers swept away native flora and fauna, dispossessed the indigenous inhabitants of their country and imposed new colonial spaces. Aboriginal people were placed in the realm of nature rather than culture (Kylie Mirmohamadi, ‘Wog plants go home: race, ethnicity and horticulture in Australia’, Studies in Australian Garden History, Vol. 1, 2003, p. 93).

  56. 56.

    William J. Sowden, The Northern Territory as it Is: A Narrative of the South Australian Parliamentary Party’s Trip and Full Description of the Northern Territory, its Settlements and Industries, (1882), Darwin, 1984, p. 179.

  57. 57.

    Lowe Kong Meng, Cheok Hong Cheong and Louis Ah Mouy (eds.), The Chinese Question in Australia, 1878–1879, Melbourne, 1879, pp. 7–8.

  58. 58.

    Tung Wah News, 30 August 1899, p. 2 f.

  59. 59.

    J. M. Tuck, ‘The Devils Half Acre 1900–1910’, BA Honours Thesis, University of Otago, Dunedin, 1983, p. 1.

  60. 60.

    Fitzgerald, Red Tape Gold Scissors, pp. 67–68; Atkinson, ‘Chinese market gardening’, p. 48; and Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, pp. 315–316.

  61. 61.

    Alan Mayne, The Imagined Slum: Newspaper Representation in Three Cities 1870–1914, London, 1993, p. 3. See also Graeme Davison, ‘Introduction’, in Graeme Davison, David Dunstan and Chris McConville (eds.), The Outcasts of Melbourne: Essays in Social History, Sydney, 1985, p. 3; and Lydon, Many Inventions, p. 10.

  62. 62.

    Janis Wilton, Golden Threads: The Chinese in Regional New South Wales 1850–1950, Sydney, 2004, p. 29.

  63. 63.

    Rod Lancaster, ‘European-Chinese interaction: a pre-Federation rural Australian setting’, Rural Society, Vol. 10, No. 2, 2000, pp. 229–241.

  64. 64.

    Star, Canterbury, 26 March 1888, p. 2.

  65. 65.

    Anne Atkinson, 1984, ‘The socio-economic aspects of the Chinese community in Perth, 1900–1920’, Journal of the Royal Western Australian Historical Society, Vol. 9, No. 2, p. 97; Randwick Municipal Council, Randwick: A Social History, Kensington, 1985, p. 157; and Mohommod Taher, ‘Asians in New Zealand A Geographical Review and Interpretation’, PhD Thesis, University of Auckland, Auckland, 1965, p. 156.

  66. 66.

    Julia Bradshaw, Golden Prospects: Chinese on the West Coast of New Zealand, Greymouth, 2009, pp. 52, 70–71.

  67. 67.

    Bradshaw, Golden Prospects, pp. 58, 71; McGowan, ‘Adaptation and organization’, p. 236; Lancaster, ‘European-Chinese interaction’, p. 240; May, Topsawyers, pp. 143–168; and Reynolds, North of Capricorn, pp. 69–70.

  68. 68.

    Keir Reeves and Benjamin Mountford, ‘Sojourning and settling: locating Australian history’, Australian Historical Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1, 2011, p. 124.

  69. 69.

    Otago Witness, 1 March 1884, p. 11.

  70. 70.

    Donald History and Natural History Group, Georgie Ah Ling, Donald’s Friend, Donald, 2008, p. 25.

  71. 71.

    James Hayes, ‘Good morning Mrs. Thompson: a Chinese-English word-book from nineteenth century Sydney’, in Paul Macgregor (ed.), Histories of the Chinese in Australasia and the South Pacific, Melbourne, 1995, p. 113.

  72. 72.

    Andrew Yew Dick Yung interviewed by Anne Thorpe, 31 October 2004, Otaki District Commercial Gardeners Society Oral History Project, Alexander Turnbull Library, OHInt-0819/09. transcript p. 24.

  73. 73.

    Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 1, p. 323.

  74. 74.

    Cynthia Foley, ‘Chinese in the Community’, Western Connections, No. 38, December 1994, p. 5; Colleen Morris, ‘Chinese market gardens in Sydney’, Australian Garden History, Vol. 12, No. 5, March/April 2001, p. 7; Owen Bennett interviewed by Lesley Goldberg, 3 November 1998, City of Ryde Library Services; Dorothy Packer interviewed by Pauline Curby, 12 September 1997, City of Ryde Library Services; Gifford and Eileen Eardley, ‘The Chinese market gardeners of St George district’, St George Historical Society Bulletin, December 1970, pp. 75, 78; Joanna Boileau, Families of Fortune, Murwillumbah, 2009, p. 26; Bill Gammage, Narrandera Shire, Narrandera, 1986, p. 144.

  75. 75.

    Rannard, Forgotten Gardens, p. 43.

  76. 76.

    Owen Bennett interviewed by Lesley Goldberg, 3 November 1998, City of Ryde Library Services.

  77. 77.

    Northern Territory Times, 10 May 1895, p. 2.

  78. 78.

    Weston Bate, A History of Brighton, Melbourne, 1963, p. 357.

  79. 79.

    Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, p.152; and Manying Ip, Being Māori-Chinese: Mixed Identities, Auckland, 2008, pp. viii, 238.

  80. 80.

    They included the market gardeners Harry in 1894 and Ti Li in 1916 (Grey River Argus, 3 January 1894 p. 2; and 22 December 1916, p. 2).

  81. 81.

    Bradshaw, Golden Prospects, pp. 70–71.

  82. 82.

    Tung Wah Times, 25 December 1909, p. 7b.

  83. 83.

    Gammage, Narrandera Shire, p. 144; and Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate, 3 June 1908, p. 4 and 13 January 1909, p. 3.

  84. 84.

    Tung Wah Times, 19 March 1921, p. 7b.

  85. 85.

    Alexander Don, Outlook, 4 October 1910, p. 13.

  86. 86.

    Evening Post, Wellington, 23 February 1925, p. 2.

  87. 87.

    For example, attacks in Auckland were reported in 1881, 1892, 1894, 1898 and 1905 (Hawke’s Bay Herald, 6 June 1881, p. 2; Colonist, 29 March 1892, p. 4; New Zealand Herald, ‘100 years ago today’, 10 June 1994, p. 9 and 18 June 1998, p. 14; and Bay of Plenty Times, 6 November 1905, p. 2).

  88. 88.

    New Zealand Presbyterian, 1 Nov 1889, p. 85. See also Cromwell Argus, 4 August 1885, quoted in Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 3, p. 26, fn. 17a.

  89. 89.

    Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 3, p. 79.

  90. 90.

    Sydney Morning Herald, 7 January 1879, p. 5.

  91. 91.

    Barry McGowan, ‘Ringbarkers and market gardeners: a comparison of the rural Chinese of New South Wales and California’, Chinese America: History and Perspectives, Annual, 2006, p. 39.

  92. 92.

    New Zealand Herald, ‘100 years ago today’, 18 June 1998, p. 14; Grey River Argus, 12 February 1909, p. 3.

  93. 93.

    Fielding Star, 14 April 1909, p. 2.

  94. 94.

    As discussed in Chapter 4, fear of economic competition and European hostility towards Chinese people was greatest at times of economic hardship, for example during the depressions of the 1890s and the 1930s.

  95. 95.

    Bee Dawson, A History of Gardening in New Zealand, Auckland, 2010, p. 202.

  96. 96.

    Sydney Morning Herald, 13 August 1886, p. 4; Argus, Melbourne, 5 April 1900 p. 3, and Border Watch, Mt Gambier, 3 August 1907, p. 3.

  97. 97.

    Brisbane Courier, 6 January 1891, p. 3.

  98. 98.

    Murphy, Success through Adversity, pp. 13–14.

  99. 99.

    In 1939 the Council changed its name to the Dominion Council of Commercial Gardeners (ibid., pp. 16–17).

  100. 100.

    In the 1930s and 1940s Produce Markets was the main auction company in Auckland, selling 80 percent of the vegetables produced by Chinese growers (ibid., p. 15).

  101. 101.

    New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Council and House of Representatives, Wellington, 1944, Vol. 266, pp. 633, 635.

  102. 102.

    Bert Cooksley, president of the Dominion Council from 1938 to 1952, worked hard to foster harmonious relationships with Chinese growers and bring them under the umbrella of the Council. They were invited to form district associations and attend Council conferences (Murphy, Success through Adversity, pp. 27, 29).

  103. 103.

    Anne Thorpe, ‘Otaki’s market gardens’, Otaki Historical Society Historical Journal, Vol. 30, 2008, p. 24; and Murphy, Success through Adversity, pp. 20–21.

  104. 104.

    Andrea Gaynor, Harvest of the Suburbs: An Environmental History of Growing Food in Australian Cities, Perth, 2006, pp. 194–195.

  105. 105.

    Evening Post, Wellington, 4 November 1874, p. 2.

  106. 106.

    Brisbane Courier, 16 January 1889, p. 3, 30 September 1889, p. 7; Mercury, Hobart, 15 September 1910, p. 3; West Australian, Perth, 28 February 1906, p. 9; Star, Ballarat, 9 July 1891 p. 3; Argus, Melbourne, 14 February 1911, p. 9, 8 October 1907, p. 6; and Bendigo Advertiser, 14 October 1903, p. 2.

  107. 107.

    Star, Ballarat, 9 July 1891, p. 3.

  108. 108.

    Bate, History of Brighton, p. 360.

  109. 109.

    The proposed regulations included storing vegetables in properly ventilated stores and not in dwelling houses; washing vegetables only in clean water; keeping carts used for transporting vegetables clean; and not placing manure heaps where they could drain into any well or creek. They were enacted and were still in force in 1904 (Brisbane Courier, 30 September 1889, p. 7; and 4 November 1904, p. 4).

  110. 110.

    Tung Wah News, 19 July 1899, p. 2.

  111. 111.

    Tung Wah Times, 10 September 1921, p. 7 a; 3 December 1921, p. 7 b; 8 October 1921, p. 7 a; 6 May 1922, p. 7 a; 12 June 1926, p. 7 b-d; and 26 June 1926, p. 7 a-d.

  112. 112.

    Auckland Star, 25 March 1887, p. 2; Star, Canterbury, 18 May 1895, p. 7, 4 October 1878, p. 3; Southland Times, Otago, 28 April 1886, p. 2; and Poverty Bay Herald, Gisborne, 19 August 1913, p. 4.

  113. 113.

    Auckland Star, 25 March 1887, p. 2.

  114. 114.

    Kevin Rains, ‘Behind the wattle fence: the Chinese market gardeners of early Cooktown’, in Kevin Wong Hoy and Kevin Rains (eds.), Rediscovered Past: China in Northern Australia, North Melbourne, 2009, p. 25.

  115. 115.

    Mirror, Perth, 14 September 1929, p. 5; and 21 September 1929, p. 5.

  116. 116.

    Barrier Miner, Broken Hill, 17 February 1899, p. 2.

  117. 117.

    Nelson Evening Mail, 2 April 1904, p. 3; New Zealand Herald, 6 September 1906, p. 6, 11 May 1908, p. 6; Auckland Star, 14 February 1905, p. 2; and Evening Post, Wellington, 1 July 1921, p. 11.

  118. 118.

    Bruce Herald, Otago, 28 October 1887, p. 3; Evening Post, Wellington, 18 January 1909, p. 3. See also Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, p. 149, and Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 3, p. 84.

  119. 119.

    Bush Advocate, Hawke’s Bay, 5 November 1907, p. 5.

  120. 120.

    Tung Wah Times, 12 October 1907, p. 7 a.

  121. 121.

    Northern Miner, Charters Towers, 19 January 1931, p. 2; and Sydney Morning Herald, 20 January 1931, p. 5.

  122. 122.

    They were charged with failing to register as aliens and were required to pay the poll tax and an additional penalty of £5, plus 9 shillings costs (Poverty Bay Herald, Gisborne, 26 June 1919, p. 5).

  123. 123.

    West Australian, 14 October 1927, p. 19; and Sydney Morning Herald, 13 October 1927, p. 11.

  124. 124.

    Williams, Chinese Settlement in NSW, p. 32.

  125. 125.

    Lydon, Many Inventions, pp.151–152; and Fitzgerald, Red Tape Gold Scissors, p. 31.

  126. 126.

    Evening Post, Wellington, 19 January 1905, p. 6.

  127. 127.

    Tung Wah Times, 29 March 1930, p. 8 e.

  128. 128.

    Rosalind Worrall-Smith, ‘The employment of Maori women by Asiatic market gardeners: an aspect of New Zealand race relations’, University of Auckland Historical Society Annual, 1970, p. 9.

  129. 129.

    New Zealand House of Representatives, Report of the Committee on Employment of Maoris on Market Gardens, Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives of New Zealand, 1929, Vol. II, G 11, p. 2.

  130. 130.

    Māori were employed on gardens in Masterton, Greytown, Levin, Wanganui, Hawke’s Bay, Hamilton and Auckland (Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, pp. 142, 144, 164, 208, 264, 305, 397).

  131. 131.

    Ibid., p. 213.

  132. 132.

    Ibid., p. 153.

  133. 133.

    Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand, Auckland, 2003, pp. 472–473.

  134. 134.

    Ip, Being Māori-Chinese, pp. 3–4; Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 3, p. 158; and Worrall-Smith, ‘Employment of Maori women’, pp. 1, 5.

  135. 135.

    Memo from Department of Labour and Employment to District Superintendent, Auckland, 4 August 1953, Archives New Zealand, ACIE 8798, EAW2619/2, Box 2, 30/1/2, Part 1; and Letter from Minister of Labour to Revd W. Divers, Pukekohe, 23 April 1959, Archives New Zealand, ACIE 8798, EAW2619/2, Box 2, 30/1/2, Part 1.

  136. 136.

    The Departments of Housing and Māori Affairs could not keep pace with the demand for housing at a time when there were limited resources and housing shortages in many other areas (Letter from Secretary, Minister of Labour to Minister of Maori Affairs. 27 July 1959, Archives New Zealand, ACIE 8798, EAW2619/2, Box 2, 30/1/2, Part 1; and Evening Post, Wellington, 24 April 1959.)

  137. 137.

    Raymond Evans, Kay Saunders and Kathryn Cronin, Race Relations in Colonial Queensland: A History of Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination, St Lucia, 1993, pp. 258–259; Diana Geise, Astronauts, Lost Souls and Dragons: Voices of Today’s Chinese-Australians in Conversation with Diana Giese, St Lucia, 1997, p. 38; Shen, Dragon Seed in the Antipodes, p. 51, and Yuanfang Shen and Penny Edwards, ‘United by the sweep of a tarnished brush’, Panorama, Canberra Times, 18 November 2000, pp. 4–5.

  138. 138.

    Evans, Saunders and Cronin, Race Relations in Colonial Queensland, p. 257; Grey River Argus, 25 October 1875, p. 2.

  139. 139.

    Reynolds, North of Capricorn, p. 76. See also Li, quoted in Giese, Astronauts, Lost Souls and Dragons, p. 39.

  140. 140.

    Andrew Gillett, ‘Opium and Race Relations in Queensland’, State Library of Queensland, 2010 http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/163028/SLQ_Black_Opium_Andrew_Gillett.pdf, accessed 22 December 2012.

  141. 141.

    Townsville Daily Bulletin, 24 August 1927, p. 13, from Cairns Chronicle.

  142. 142.

    Ah Yook and Carole Gass interviewed by Joe Eisenberg, August 1999, Golden Threads Papers.

  143. 143.

    Christopher Anderson and Norman Mitchell, ‘Kubara: a Kuku-Yalanji view of the Chinese in North Queensland’, Aboriginal History, Vol. 5, Part I, 1981, p. 29.

  144. 144.

    Migration Heritage Centre, Powerhouse Museum, ‘Happy Valley, Chinese market gardens and migrant camps’, online exhibition, http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/atthebeach/happy-valley/, accessed 28 July 2013.

  145. 145.

    These families migrated south from pastoral stations in the northern gulf region between 1910 and 1920. Unlike those on the coast, Chinese communities in western Queensland remained small and scattered. By 1940 few market gardeners remained in major towns (Sandi Robb, ‘Beyond the coast: Chinese settler patterns of the western gulf region, north Queensland’, in Kevin Wong Hoy and Kevin Rains (eds.), Rediscovered Past: China in Northern Australia, North Melbourne, 2009, pp. 16–18).

  146. 146.

    Jennifer Martiniello, ‘As strands of plaited music: my Chinese-Aboriginal-Anglo heritage’, in Penny Edwards and Yuanfang Shen (eds.), Lost in the Whitewash: Aboriginal-Asian Encounters in Australia, 1901–2001, Canberra, 2003, p. 28.

  147. 147.

    Ibid., p. 27.

  148. 148.

    The work of Sophie Couchman has informed my analysis here; she examines photographs of Chinese Australians in multifaceted ways, illuminating the relationships between colonisers and colonised (Sophie Couchman, ‘Then in the distance Quong Tart did we see’, Journal of Australian Colonial History, Vol. 8, 2006, p. 161; and ‘Chinese-Australian family photographs: Tock Family and friends revealed through the camera’s lens’, Descent, Vol. 35, No. 2, 2005, pp. 66–68).

  149. 149.

    Martiniello, ‘As strands of plaited music’, pp. 28, 30.

  150. 150.

    Bagnall, ‘Across the threshold’, pp. 12, 24–25, 29.

  151. 151.

    Frost, ‘Migrants and technological transfer’, p. 128.

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Boileau, J. (2017). The Social Environment. In: Chinese Market Gardening in Australia and New Zealand. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51871-8_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51871-8_7

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