Oldal 52 [52]
VICTORIA MCGOWAN
particularly ethnic Russians and Ukrainians." Most of these former peasants
listed their occupation as farming."! Ihe agricultural development of Alberta
was still underway at the time, and many former Russian citizens found
it easier to settle in Alberta and neighbouring Saskatchewan in a familiar
industry than in urbanized areas where higher paying skilled jobs were
found. Ihough many of them remained poor, sometimes coming with only
the clothes they were wearing and the few possessions they could carry, there
were more opportunities for advancement in the Alberta farming industry
than in Russia. With a distinct lack of government grain procurement, rural
Albertans had very little danger of true famine, though there were still lean
winters. Ihis meant that even unskilled and uneducated refugees could find
themselves relatively prosperous. A photo taken in 1928 of a Bessarabian
farmer with a horse tells the story in its label: in poorly handwritten German,
it reads “First family horse. Plowing season made much easier.”** Such
widespread opportunity meant that such refugees did not have to develop
many skills beyond the obvious few (sufficient English, selling grain to grain
elevators rather than government operatives, etc.), allowing them to settle in
rural Alberta and remain largely satisfied with their position in the country,
meaning they did not need to leave rural areas to pursue trades or education
and could remain in kinship communities. As early as the mid-1920s,
these groups had been identified as “more likely to stay on the land” than
immigrants from other nations, even those who came from similar economic
backgrounds and landed with similar skills.*
Political culture has often been inextricably linked to immigration, and
to refugee immigration in particular. Canadian newspapers associated with
members of the Conservative party in the early twentieth century ran articles
raising concerns about Eastern European “immigrant lawlessness.”** Many
of the perceived issues with Eastern European immigration, and to a greater
extent Southeast Asian immigration, were at this time also tied to the rising
feminist movement. Many female social reformers in the 1920s argued
that Canada was a “nation teetering on the threshold,” and could develop
into an enlightened and productive society by accepting only the “best”
(i.e. primarily British) immigrants, or could become a land of “misfits” if it
accepted quantity over quality (meaning primarily former Russian Empire
and Austro-Hungarian Empire refugees, in addition to Chinese and Japanese
immigrants). For the “moral” protection of the country, these women
50 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
Natanial Banko, enclosure in partial letter dated March 1930.
Rebecca Mancuso, For Purity or Prosperity: Competing Nationalist Visions and Canadian
Immigration Policy, 1919-1930, British Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1 (2010), 10.
54 Robinson, Rougher Than Any Other Nationality? 151.
Mancuso, For Purity or Prosperity, 2.