John Boyko explores why Ukrainians were subjected to such racism and prejudice in his article, Ukrainian Canadians 1896-1915 Mistaken Identity, and how much they have had to overcome as a people.
The story starts before Ukrainians arrived in Canada. Ukraine’s borders had changed many times, and there were Ukrainians living in Poland, Austria, and Slovakia among others. The Ukrainian people’s identity and dignity were held together by their culture and language. Many Ukrainian people lived as serfs, working on their often-cruel lord’s lands. Once free, their plights continued. There were famines, mass starvation, then a Cholera epidemic. By 1880 around 1000 Galatian peasants died every week from hunger and disease. The Ukrainian culture was also being attacked by banning of language and closing of schools. Their leaders fought against this cultural onslaught by creating reading clubs and cultural groups.
Across the ocean, in a newly formed dominion of Canada, they were struggling to create a British country across the whole land as there were not enough immigrants. Clifford Sifton set up immigration centers across Western Canada, and sent representatives around Northern Europe to advertise the wonders of Canada. Boyko is clear that even here there was a strict policy of racial exclusion. The immigrants that were wanted, were white, Slavic peasant farmers. Sifton said that he wanted “stalwart peasants in the sheepskin coat (4)”. These were mostly Ukrainians.
This is where seemingly one’s problem is another’s opportunity. The Ukrainian people were looking for an end to poverty and domination and Canada was promising free land and a democratic government. The trip was difficult and expensive. At Winnipeg’s Immigration Hall, $10 bought a land claim in which they needed to erect a house and buildings for livestock, and to clear and plough thirty acres of land in three years. By 1900 there were 25,000 Ukrainian settlers. Boyko states, “It nonetheless remains certain that Ukrainians, along with the other Slavic immigrants, were the flesh and blood upon the young country’s bones (11)”. They banded together creating Ukrainian schools, newspapers, cultural events, and poetry readings.
Even as the Ukrainians arrived in the prairies, racism was there to greet them. Stereotypes were created and spread quickly. Ukrainian workers often had less rights and less pay, and were fired for little to no reason. It was in this climate that WWI broke out. People became radical in their patriotism. They saw Austrian and German people as enemies and grouped Ukrainians with them. Rumors spread and communications were taken out of context by media, inciting much racism. In 1914 they passed a law saying that German and Austrian people had to register at police offices. Boyko outlines close surveillance, surprise searches of homes, surrender of firearms, those with jobs had to report to the police monthly, and those without jobs were interned as prisoners of war. Thousands of Ukrainians were fired then put in internment camps. There were 24 detention camps which held 8,579 people, most of those Ukrainian. The prisoners were forced to do hard labour through the hot summers and brutal winters. If men refused to work, they were beaten and starved. 107 men died in internment camps from illness, escape attempts, beatings, and cruel treatment. Those at home suffered extreme racism and discrimination, and many lost their farms.
There were many people who tried to end internment for Ukrainian people. They sent delegations to Ottawa, and wives and mothers of internment camp prisoners met with Prime Minister Borden with no positive results. In 1916 they outlawed most things in Ukrainian language. Even after the war they were slow in releasing the interned people. Many lost their culture as it was dangerous to be Ukrainian. The life that they thought they had escaped was once again upon them in the land that was supposed to have been their new life full of freedom and prosperity.
Now when looking back it seems only right that the government recognize the wrong done to the Ukrainian people in a time when it was merely a case of mistaken identity and not anything that they had done. However, the government refused to acknowledge the discrimination towards the Ukrainian people. In this article Boyko has shone a light on unacknowledged extreme racism toward the Ukrainian people in Canadian history.