‘Erased from history’: A century on from Canada’s anti-Greek riots
Historians and Greek community members say 1918 riots in Toronto reminiscent of anti-immigrant rhetoric, xenophobia now. Toronto, Canada – The mobs marched down Yonge Street
Historians and Greek community members say 1918 riots in Toronto reminiscent of anti-immigrant rhetoric, xenophobia now. Toronto, Canada – The mobs marched down Yonge Street in the heart of what is now Canada’s largest city in August 1918. Tens of thousands of people, angry over perceived social injustices, spent hours rampaging through the streets. Their target? The Greek-owned restaurants and shops that had come to symbolise their grievances. “That night, crowds of 20-25,000 people destroyed almost every Greek business in the city, crying out, ‘Tonight’s the night we hunt Greeks’,” says historian Thomas Gallant. “One restaurant was so badly damaged that a [local newspaper] reporter said it could not be more damaged if a bomb had gone off in it.” Now, more than a century after “the single largest anti-Greek riot anywhere in the world in history” shook Toronto, experts such as Gallant say the events of that summer should serve as a cautionary tale. Amid the ongoing, intensified rise in anti-immigrant views and policies around the world, including in Canada, they argue the riot demonstrates just how dangerous unchecked xenophobia can be. ‘Conditions ripe for an explosion’ Toronto was in the throes of a heatwave in early August 1918 as it prepared to host a national congress of the Great War Veterans Association, a group advocating for the needs of soldiers returning to Canada after World War I. The country paid a heavy price on the battlefields of Europe: Tens of thousands of Canadian soldiers were killed during the war, which ended in November 1918, while more than 172,000 arrived home injured. Those veterans returned to a lack of support from the Canadian government, which offered inadequate health care and no disability pensions. “They came back to a country that really wasn’t all that welcoming,” says Gallant. Most Greek immigrants in Canada did not serve in WWI, in part due to fears in government that some might harbour the pro-German views of Greece’s King Constantine I. While it was not official policy to refuse to accept naturalised Greeks into the army, says Gallant, it only happened “very rarely”. “I found the enlistment papers of only about 10 who were accepted, because you didn’t know who you were getting.” At the same time, in Toronto, many returning Canadian veterans lived near a military hospital that was in the same neighbourhood that the city’s small-yet-visible Greek community was establishing itself.
In 1918, Greek immigrants made up less than one percent of the population in Toronto, but they owned more than one-third of the city’s cheap eateries and diners. The perception among members of the city’s veteran community was that Greeks had grown rich while they, the ones who had sacrificed so much in the war, had been left destitute. And the visibility of the Greek community was key, says Gallant. “Every day, these veterans who ate at those diners … saw these Greeks – young men, very healthy, robust – who managed not to serve. And the Greeks came to epitomise what was called ‘the slacker’,” or the draft dodger, he explains. “The conditions were ripe then for an explosion.” White City Cafe That explosion was set off at a Greek-owned restaurant known as the White City Cafe, where a drunk Canadian military veteran had become belligerent and abusive towards staff. Police were called and Claude Cludernay – the veteran in question – was held overnight in jail. But by the next day, rumours had begun to spread among the veterans in Toronto that Cludernay had been beaten – or even killed – by Greek immigrants. Hundreds of people massed outside the restaurant and, despite the pleas of owner Paul Letros, who tried to calm the angry crowd, the cafe was attacked. “They yelled, ‘Tonight we get justice,’ and they started throwing bricks through the windows and ransacked the whole place,” said Sandra Gionas, chair of the history committee at the Hellenic Heritage Foundation. “The mob grew throughout the night and, eventually, other Greek restaurants were going to be targeted,” she told Al Jazeera outside the two-storey brick building at 433 Yonge Street which previously housed the cafe. Over the course of the weekend, more than a dozen Greek-owned businesses would be destroyed across Toronto, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in damages – the equivalent of millions of dollars today. No deaths or serious injuries were reported. “That is a map with the red dots of all the Greek businesses that were destroyed,” Gionas says, opening a pamphlet that her organisation gives out during a walking tour of important sites linked to the riots.
The BriefWire