It is interesting to compare what the newspapers had to say about British and Chinese immigrants. The idea of British immigration had a nice "imperial" ring to it. They were the right "class" of people. But when it came to the Chinese it was a different story. Compared to "Mother Britain," The Evening Telegram called China "... the great slave country of the world" ruled by bands of brigands who have a "regular system of blackmail."¹⁶ It was this kind of class and racist thinking that made the British immigrants desirable, and the Chinese unwelcome in Newfoundland.

The "Celestials"

Prejudice and Stereotypes¹⁷

It is often said that people are afraid of things that are different or what they do not understand. Perhaps this is why the Chinese were treated so badly when they first arrived in Newfoundland. Compared to the United States and the Canadian provinces, Newfoundlanders were not used to seeing many immigrants—certainly not from places like China or Japan. The Chinese, of course, looked different and had a different culture and language. In the newspapers they were sometimes called "celestials." This does not make them sound like human beings. It makes them sound very foreign and strange.

There are other reasons why the Chinese were sometimes treated with prejudice. Robert Hong, who has studied the Chinese in Newfoundland, says there were four main reasons why the Chinese were not accepted:

1. the idea that White people and the Christian religions were better
2. fear of job loss
3. the idea that the Chinese were unwilling to act like White, Christian people
4. the idea that the Chinese were "sojourners"—people who did not want to stay in Newfoundland