Head Tax Certificate

Head tax certificates, as they came to be known, include photographs that attempt to fix identity in place. The text that accompanies the photographic portrait categorizes the subject as a legal immigrant, showing that the head tax required by Canada's discriminatory Chinese Immigration Act was paid. Since only Chinese immigrants to Canada were required to pay a tax, the certificate also signals the tenuous nature of the subject’s status. This certificate forms part of the Chinese Experience in Canada Collection housed in Bruce Peel Special Collections. For more information about the Chinese Immigration Act, visit the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Certificates like this one bring to mind the "burden of representation" described by art historian John Tagg, as well as photography theorist Ariella Azoulay’s discussions of the role of photographs in both authorizing and denying citizenship. Azoulay calls attention to stateless people who have been excluded from official photographic records that fix their identities as citizens. In contrast, other forms of photography—including the works of activists, artists, and photojournalists (such as in the case of The Fight against Apartheid!)—can serve as powerful appeals for the restoration of citizenship.