Oldal 52 [52]
OCR
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.
