What's a fonds?
The word "fonds" is used to describe most archival collections in Canada and also in many European and Latin American countries. Fonds simply means the documents in any media or format created or received by a person or an organization in the course of their personal or professional activities. For example, the "Yoko Ono fonds" would refer to the records created and received by Yoko Ono.
Welcome to Rare Books and Special Collections!
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Contact:Krisztina Laszlo
Rare Books and Special Collections
Irving K. Barber Learning Centre
1961 East Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1
Introduction
Welcome!
UBC’s Rare Books & Special Collections (RBSC) has long been collecting materials that illustrate the history of Canada and its people. This guide compiles over 60 collections featuring the records of Asian Canadians and intends to shine a spotlight on the rich contributions of Asian Canadians to the historical record. The materials in these collections tell the stories of individuals, families, companies, organizations, and communities from a variety of time periods and experiences across the world. From personal journals to administrative records of early Asian Canadian businesses, from drafts of novels to photo albums and travel documents, the materials included in this guide are representative of a vital group of voices that are often overlooked in European focused historic discourse, yet warrant equal coverage.
To explore the guide, click through the categories included on the menu at the left of the page. The categories were chosen to reflect the geographic areas from which the creators originate and/or to which the materials relate. You can also explore this guide as a StoryMap, available here: https://arcg.is/1bCy0P1 Whether you’re searching for something specific or just browsing, we hope you enjoy learning about the Canadians represented in our collection.
Archival Collections and Colonialism
The library and archival materials at RBSC reflect the history of British Columbia, including its history of colonization, patriarchy, and racism. The stories and materials that are deemed worthy of collection/preservation are shaped by the missions and values of the collecting institution, which often mirror the missions and values of society at large at any given time. As a result, archives are subject to the same historical biases and omissions that have led to the marginalization of certain races, ethnicities, gender identities, religions, socio-economic statuses, and sexual orientations throughout time.
Due to these historical biases in building archives, the majority of materials included in this guide were created by upper- and middle-class men of primarily East Asian heritage. When choosing the categories for this guide and seeing the number of fonds within each one, it became apparent that disparities also exist in regard to which countries and regions of origin are most valued by the archives in the Canadian colonial context. With very few exceptions, almost every collection included here is related to Chinese and Japanese Canadians. Beyond the privileging of whiteness and the bias against Asian Canadians in the archives, preference is also given to Chinese and Japanese stories, resulting in a clear imbalance that does not reflect the reality of the Asian Canadian diaspora. Furthermore, Asian Canadian materials are often hidden within the fonds of non-Asian creators who have collected and maintained Asian Canadian records for a myriad of reasons, such as occupational crossover, personal relationships, activism work, and colonial mission and education trips abroad. Furthermore, records related to the Canadian and British Columbian political system contain evidence of anti-Asian policies and mechanisms for maintaining White supremacy.
Selecting, arranging, describing, and providing access to archival records is a substantial responsibility because it helps shape public memory based on what is chosen to be preserved and highlighted. By allowing its holdings to be shaped by the prejudicial views of colonial institutions–such as the University of British Columbia–archives essentially recreate the power imbalances built into Canadian society, highlighting a select few at the expense of others. Such imbalances lead to archival silences and erasures, i.e. gaps in the historical record that remake and whitewash the reality of Canada's past and present.
It is the hope of RBSC that this guide will be one step toward greater visibility for Asian Canadian stories in the archives as we actively work to broaden our collections. If you're interested in further information on these topics, continue to the bottom of this page for a list of resources.
Addressing Injustice in the Archives
Archives are repositories that help shape public memory by preserving and “legitimizing” a particular historical record. At RBSC, we recognize that this creates a number of power imbalances in the archives, and we attempt to approach our work of acquiring, organizing, and describing records in an actively feminist, anti-racist, and decolonial way in order to avoid perpetuating systemic injustices. Additionally, we are committed to confronting the harmful effects of patriarchal colonialism that continue to persist in archives to this day.
Ultimately, this guide is intended to be a work in progress that not only becomes more accurate over time, but more holistic and complete as well. We understand and accept that appropriate and respectful terminology will continue to change and evolve. To that end, we welcome and encourage any feedback, suggestions, or criticisms regarding any of the terminology or resources that we have presented here.
This guide and the materials in our collections are growing and changing; if you have feedback or comments for us please get in touch with us via this form or by emailing Krisztina Laszlo, RBSC Archivist, at krisztina.laszlo@ubc.ca.
Further Information on Asian Canadian Archives & Archives and Injustice
To watch:
- Archivists and the Call of Justice | Randall JimersonAs part of the UBC's School of Library, Archival and Information Studies Colloquium series, Randall Jimerson presents on the history of recordkeeping and archives, and reveals that they have often been used to consolidate and enforce political power, often to control or oppress people. Far from being neutral repositories for facts and evidence, archives have always been sites of political, economic, social, and intellectual power. As archivists recognize that neutrality is an illusion they can take positive steps to ensure that the archival record carries the stories of previously marginalized societal groups and supports liberation, accountability, and social justice.
- Archives Have the Power to Boost Marginalized Voices | Dominique Luster | TEDxPittsburghA brief video of a TEDx discussion by Dominique Luster on marginalized voices in the archives from her perspective as an archivist — a job that has the ability to save or erase an individual's history or even the history of an entire people. She works to build a historical view that includes marginalized voices and conscious language.
To read:
- "Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory" | Joan M. Schwartz & Terry Cook | Archival Science 2/2 (2002), 1-19Archives as institutions and records as documents are generally seen by academic and other users, and by society generally, as passive resources to be exploited for various historical and cultural purposes. Historians since the mid-nineteenth century, in pursuing the new scientific history, needed an archive that was a neutral repositories of facts. Until very recently, archivists obliged by extolling their own professional myth of impartiality, neutrality, and objectivity. Yet archives are established by the powerful to protect or enhance their position in society. Through archives, the past is controlled. Certain stories are privileged and others marginalized. And archivists are an integral part of this story-telling. In the design of record-keeping systems, in the appraisal and selection of a tiny fragment of all possible records to enter the archive, in approaches to subsequent and ever-changing description and preservation of the archive, and in its patterns of communication and use, archivists continually reshape, reinterpret, and reinvent the archive. This represents enormous power over memory and identity, over the fundamental ways in which society seeks evidence of what its core values are and have been, where it has come from, and where it is going. Archives, then, are not passive storehouses of old stuff, but active sites where social power is negotiated, contested, confirmed. The power of archives, records, and archivists should no longer remain naturalized or denied, but opened to vital debate and transparent accountability.
- "Archives and Memory" | Randall Jimerson | OCLC Systems & Services: International Digital Library Perspectives 19/3 (2003), 89-95Archives are repositories of memory, providing reliable evidence for examining the past. The four types of memory – personal, collective, historical, and archival – interact in complex and sometimes baffling ways to enable one to understand the past and to draw lessons from it. Archival memory is a social construct reflecting power relationships in society. Archivists and manuscripts curators play the important role of mediator in selecting records for preservation and providing research access to such collections. By recognizing and overcoming the bias toward records of powerful groups in society, archivists can provide a more balanced perspective on the past, and enable future generations to examine and evaluate the activities and contributions of all voices in one’s culture. Archives thus serve an important role in identifying and preserving the documentation that forms one’s historical memory.
- "Confronting Our Failure of Care Around the Legacies of Marginalized People in the Archives" | Bergis Jules | Medium (November 2016)A text of Jules' keynote discussing how the politics of what we’ve traditionally preserved means the archive is filled with silences, absences, and distortions, mostly affecting the legacies of the less privileged, including black women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, poor people, and victims of police violence, to name a few. In the name of neutrality, we’re erasing people, communities and their humanity from the historical record.
- "From Settler Colonialism to the Age of Migration: Archives and the Renewal of Democracy in Canada" | Laura Madokoro | Archivaria 78 (November 2014), 153-60In 2012, the National Household Survey revealed that Canada’s indigenous population had grown by 20 percent between 2006 and 2011. The survey also revealed that 6.8 million people in Canada were foreign-born, amounting to 20.6 percent of the population, the highest amongst the G8 countries. There was a significant increase in the number of migrants from Asia, as well as from Africa. These statistics are significant because the so-called “foreign-born” are, unless they decide to leave, a large portion of Canada’s future citizens. And, to be frank, these new migrants, as well as indigenous peoples in Canada, are almost completely divorced from the work of archives in the country at present.
- "Seeing Yourself in History: Community Archives and the Fight Against Symbolic Annihilation" | Michelle Caswell | The Public Historian 36/4 (November 2014), 26-37Building on the author’s experiences as the co-founder and a board member of the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), this article posits that independent, community-based archives are crucial tools for fighting the symbolic annihilation of historically marginalized groups.
- “Being Assumed Not to Be: A Critique of Whiteness as an Archival Imperative" | Mario H. Ramirez | The American Archivist 78/2 (2015), 339-56This article poses a critique of normative assumptions of race prevalent in the archival profession and analyzes the concomitant resistance to the integration of social justice and the political. In the recent past, an increasing emphasis has been placed on rethinking the role of archives and archivists, and the ways in which each reinforces unequal power structures and the manufacturing of distorted histories. Using perspectives derived from archival theory, philosophy, and political science, this article teases out some of the reasons for this resistance to the "political" and critical within archives, and the problematic implications of efforts to continuously assert the neutrality, if not objectivity, of archival space. It reflects on the ramifications of this latter phenomenon for the archival profession and how it helps reinforce social and political inequalities that curb nascent organizational efforts at diversity and inclusivity.
- “Of Things Said and Unsaid: Power, Archival Silences, and Power in Silence” | Rodney G.S. Carter | Archivaria 61 (September 2006), 215-33This article examines the dynamics of silence in archives. It argues that silences are, in part, the manifestation of the actions of the powerful in denying the marginal access to archives and that this has a significant impact on the ability of the marginal groups to form social memory and history. Archivists and researchers can read archives “against the grain” and begin to highlight these silences and give voice to the silenced. This, however, may be a difficult and contentious activity and one that should not be entered into lightly. The article then examines how silence can be a method used by the marginalized to deny the archives their records as a way to exercise their power over the powerful.
To listen:
- Organizing Ideas Podcast | Allison Jones & Karen NgA podcast hosted by two UBC iSchool grads, Allison Jones and former RBSC student librarian Karen Ng, where they take a closer look at the relationships between organizing information and community organizing. They talk to information professionals, activists, and other insightful folks who have thoughts about what we mean when we say, “knowledge is power.” Because libraries and archives are never neutral.
More resources:
- Asia-Canada Studies Information Resources | Simon Fraser UniversityA resource guide compiled by SFU Library.
- Asian American Studies | UCLAA research guide created by UCLA Library.
- Asian American Studies | University of Southern CaliforniaA research guide created by USC Library.
- Asian Canadian History | Vancouver Public LibraryVPL's guide to finding resources about Chinese-Canadian, Japanese-Canadian, and Indo-Canadian history.
- Asian Studies | University of TorontoA list of research guides compiled by U of T Library.
- Audrey & Harry Hawthorn Library & Archives' Asian Cultural Resource GuideA subject guide to Asian cultural library and archival resources at the Audrey & Harry Hawthorn Library & Archives and Asian cultural collections at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA).
- ExplorASIAN | Vancouver Asian Heritage Month SocietyFounded in 1996, Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society (VAHMS) is a non-profit society dedicated to recognizing Asian Canadian participation as an integral part of Canadian society. VAHMS organizes explorASIAN Festival, an annual festival every May that celebrates National Asian Heritage Month. The Festival’s mission is to promote understanding and appreciation of Asian-Canadian arts, heritage, and culture.
- Nikkei National Museum & Cultural CentreNikkei Centre is a multi-use facility in Burnaby, BC. Officially opened in 2000, the Centre houses a Japanese Canadian cultural centre, the Nikkei National Museum, a community centre serving the neighbourhood, and a Japanese Canadian garden. Its mandate is to promote a better understanding and appreciation by all Canadians of Japanese Canadian culture and heritage; and an awareness by all Canadians of the contribution of Japanese Canadians to Canadian society, through public programs, exhibits, services, publications, public use of the facilities, and special events.
- South Asian American Digital ArchiveSAADA is a not-for-profit organization based in Philadelphia, PA that works to create a more inclusive society by giving voice to South Asian Americans through documenting, preserving, and sharing stories that represent their unique and diverse experiences.