East Asian Canadians

East Asian Canadians are Canadians who were either born in or can trace their ancestry to East Asia. East Asian Canadians are also a subgroup of Asian Canadians. According to Statistics Canada, East Asian Canadians are considered visible minorities and can be further divided by on the basis of both ethnicity and nationality, such as Chinese Canadian, Hong Kong Canadian, Japanese Canadian, Korean Canadian, Mongolian Canadian, Taiwanese Canadian, or Tibetan Canadian, as seen on demi-decadal census data.

According to the 2021 Canadian census, 2,288,775 Canadians had trace their ancestry to East Asia, constituting 6.3 percent of the total population and 31.2 percent of the total Asian Canadian population. Additionally as of 2021, East Asians comprise the third largest pan-ethnic group in Canada after Europeans (69.8 percent) and South Asians (7.1 percent).

Terminology

For Canadian government census purposes and contemporary Canadian parlance, East Asian Canadians are typically identified and referred under the term "Asian"; popular usage of this term in Canada generally excludes both South and West Asians, both groups with ancestral origins in the Middle East and in the Indian subcontinent respectively, and instead solely referring to individuals who trace their ancestry to the East Asian mainland.

History

18th century

The first record of East Asians in what is known as Canada today can be dated back to 1788 when renegade British Captain John Meares hired a group of Chinese carpenters from Macau and employed them to build a ship at Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. After the outpost was seized by Spanish forces, the eventual whereabouts of the carpenters was largely unknown.

19th century

In the mid-late 19th century, early settlers from East Asia, namely China and Japan, emigrated to Canada, predominantly settling in the province of British Columbia.

During the mid-19th century, many Chinese arrived to take part in the British Columbia gold rushes.