Asian Canadian Studies

The first of its kind, this book offers a panoramic view of past and present overseas Chinese communities worldwide. From their arrival as laborers in the British colonies to their emergence as a force in Indonesia, The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas reflects the diverse histories and traditions that produced this diaspora, as well as the rich and various transmutations it has produced in turn.

With around 40 million people worldwide, the ethnic Chinese and the Chinese in diaspora form the largest overseas community in the world. This is the first interdisciplinary Handbook to examine the Chinese diaspora. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the processes and effects of Chinese migration.

In Race and the City, Shanti Fernando presents an elegant analysis of the mechanisms of political mobilization under systemic racism that draws on case studies, interviews, and a detailed understanding of the racialized legal and sociocultural histories of both the U.S. and Canada. She argues that while increasing diversity may be a challenge for systemic inclusiveness, it is one that must be met if Canada is to uphold its vision of a truly democratic society.

The Chinese Canadian Collection grew out of a number of Research projects undertaken by three UBC professors, Edgar Wickberg (History), Graham Johnson (Anthropology) and William Willmott (Sociology) which culminated in the publication of the book From China to Canada: A History of the Chinese Community in Canada (1982).

This book examines the Japanese diaspora from the historical archaeology perspective--drawing from archaeological data, archival research and often oral history--and explores current trends in archaeological scholarship. The chapters include research on pre-War rural labor camps in the U.S., as well as research on western Canada (British Columbia), Peru and the Pacific Islands (Hawai'i and Tinian), incorporating work on understudied urban and cemetery sites.

As a member of two controversial committees that oversaw the forced sale of Japanese Canadians's property in Vancouver during WWII, Kishizo Kimura participated in the dispossession of his own community. This remarkable document chronicles a history of racism in BC, describes activities of the committees and seeks to defend his actions.

The collection consists of approximately fifty small collections or fonds donated by individuals and organizations. It encompasses a wide range of topics including relocation to internment camps during World War II, farming, lumbering, religious activities and personal reminiscences, as well as various organizational records.

Koreans are one of the fastest-growing visible minority groups in Canada today. However, very few studies of their experiences in Canada or their paths of integration are available to public and academic communities. Korean Immigrants in Canada provides the first scholarly collection of papers on Korean immigrants and their offspring from interdisciplinary, social scientific perspectives.

This thesis examines the social history of the Vancouver Korean community from 1965 to 1997, and questions how Vancouver Koreans have historically reestablished lost prestige within their own community.

Korean Canadian Heritage Archives (KCHA) was a collaborative project of the University of Toronto, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, and the University of British Columbia, Asian Library, that aimed to preserve the history of the Korean-Canadian community's activities and its literary and artistic works.

Continuous Journey fully documents the history of South Asian immigration to Canada. It is a moving document of South Asian history, from stigmatization and social isolation, to integration into a multicultural society. The comprehensive and balanced insider/outsider view that it presents is a novel account of South Asian ethnic identity, religion, values, politics, art and history.

The geographical diversity of the Indian diaspora has been shaped against the backdrop of the historical forces of colonialism, nationalism and neoliberal globalization. The Routledge Handbook of the Indian Diaspora introduces readers to the contexts and histories that constitute the Indian diaspora. It brings together scholars from different parts of the globe, representing various disciplines, and covers extensive spatial and temporal terrain.

In this work, Edith Samuel examines the educational experiences of South Asian students and faculty members from the perspective of 'integrative antiracism' - the study of how the dynamics of social difference are mediated in people's daily lives. Specifically, she analyses perceptions of and responses to racism in four critical areas: faculty-student relationships, peer group interactions, curriculum and the psychosocial dimension.

Janet McLellan uses ten years of ethnographic fieldwork to highlight the difficulties Cambodians have faced in Canada. Lack of appropriate resettlement services combined with high levels of illiteracy, post-traumatic stress, single-parent households and little urban experience have made it difficult for Cambodian immigrants to rebuild their lives. However their Canadian-born children are achieving greater levels of educational and professional mobility.

The Philippines became Canada's largest source of short- and long-term migrants in 2010, surpassing China and India, both of which are more than ten times larger. This landmark book, the first wide-ranging edited collection on Filipinos in Canada, explores gender, migration and labour, youth spaces and subjectivities, representation etc.

This handbook offers a comprehensive analysis of the processes of Vietnamese migration and highlights the variety of Vietnamese diasporic journeys, trajectories and communities as well as the richness and depth of Vietnamese diasporic literary and cultural production. The contributions across the fields of history, anthropology, sociology, literary studies, film studies and cultural studies point to the diversity of approaches.

For years, I have been fascinated by the history of my undergraduate major. How did I become a major of East Asian Studies during my undergraduate days? How did such geographically-oriented field of studies begin in some Canadian universities? This book does not reinforce an explicit one-size-fits-all theory. But all programs do have one thing in common. Each was founded to accommodate the dynamics of Canadian 20th century foreign policy.

Founded in 1997 by producer Anita Lee and journalist Andrew Sun, the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival is a unique showcase of contemporary Asian cinema and work from the Asian diaspora. The festival fosters the exchange of cultural and artistic ideals between East and West, provides a public forum for homegrown Asian media artists and their work, and fuels the growing appreciation for Asian cinema in Canada.

We Were Dreamers is the superhero origin story of Simu Liu, Marvel Cinematic Universe's first leading Asian superhero, who grew up torn between China and Canada, until he found the courage to dream like his parents before him. Witty, honest, inspiring and relatable, We Were Dreamers weaves together the narratives of two generations in a Chinese immigrant family who are inextricably tied to one another, albeit torn apart by deep cultural misunderstanding.

Asian American Literature: An Encyclopedia for Students is an invaluable resource for students curious to know more about Asian North American writers, texts and the issues that motivate their writing. This volume collects, in one place, a breadth of information about Asian American literary and cultural history, as well as the authors and texts that best define it.

This book advances a new concept of the "Asian diaspora" that creates links between Asian American, Asian Canadian and Asian Australian identities. The work of Asian poets in each of these three countries offers a rich terrain for understanding how Asian identities emerge at the intersection of national and transnational flows, with the poets' thematic and formal choices reflecting the varied pressures of social and cultural histories.

The 1980s and 1990s are a historically crucial period in the development of Asian Canadian literature. Slanting I, Imagining We: Asian Canadian Literary Production in the 1980s and 1990s contextualizes and reanimates the urgency of that period, illustrates its historical specificities and shows how the concerns of that moment--from cultural appropriation to race essentialism to shifting models of the state--continue to resonate for contemporary discussions.

This book examines the fiction of Asian Canadian women writers, and considers to what extent, and in what manner, these writers - Evelyn Lau, Larissa Lai, Joy Kogawa, Shauna Singh Baldwin, Anita Rau Badami and others - feel at ease or at odds in the cultural climate of Canada.

A wide-ranging anthology of Asian Canadian literature to celebrate 20 years of Ricepaper. 2015 marks the 20th anniversary of Ricepaper magazine, a pioneering periodical devoted to Asian-Canadian writing. Over the years, Ricepaper's focus has shifted from predominantly arts and culture reporting to the publication of original literature; as such, it has both witnessed and cultivated the maturation of an Asian-Canadian literary tradition.

This volume explores some of the latest developments in the literary and cultural practices of Canadians of Asian heritage. While earlier work by ethnic, multicultural or minority writers in Canada was often concerned with immigration, the moment of arrival, issues of assimilation and conflicts between generations, literary and cultural production in the new millennium no longer focuses solely on the conflict between the Old World and the New.

Reflecting current trends in ethnomusicology, Contemporary Musical Expressions in Canada examines cultural continuity, disjuncture, intersection and interplay in music and dance across the country. From North Indian kathak dance and Chinese lion dance, to early Toronto hip hop, this collection offers detailed portraits of contemporary music practices and how they engage with diverse cultural expressions and identities.

British Columbia is Canada's most ethnically diverse province. Although the presence of Asian religions is felt and discussed in many regions, we know little about the religions that accompanied immigrants from Asia or how they are practised today. The book brings together 14 religious studies scholars who offer intimate portraits of Hindus and Sikhs; Buddhists from Southeast Asia; and Tibetan, Japanese and Chinese religions from East and Central Asia.

Al Rashid Mosque, Canada's first and one of the earliest in North America, was erected in Edmonton in the depth of the Depression of the 1930s. Today, the mosque continues to be a concrete expression of social good, a symbol of a proud Muslim Canadian identity. This book provides a welcome introduction to the ethics and values of homegrown Muslims, traces the mosque's role in education, and celebrates the numerous contributions of Muslim Canadians.

Toronto sustains a remarkable variety of distinct Buddhist communities. Over sixty Buddhist temples and associations represent a diversity of ethnic, national and linguistic identities. Here, for the first time, is a rigorous, richly detailed, comparative examination of several groups within five Asian Buddhist communities: Japanese-Canadian, Tibetan, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Chinese.

Asian Canadians--whether immigrant, international students, naturalized, native-born or other--are hampered in their exploration and articulation of self by the dearth of critical writing both for them and by them. This collection provides much-needed theorizing of Asian-Canadian lived experiences, focusing on multiculturalism, diversity, race, culture etc.

In the late 20th century, Western multicultural societies wrestled with questions of cultural difference, identity, and otherness. In Canada, activists from racialized communities took leading roles in the struggle over Canadian identity. Informed by a postcolonial and postmodern cultural critique, Voices Rising traces the trajectory of progressive cultural discourse generated by Asian Canadian cultural activists over the course of several generations.

This book offers essays that contextualize the development of Asian Canadian theatre, celebrate its founders, analyze some of its most significant achievements, theorize its work, and articulate its major contribution to Canadian theatre in the twenty-first century.

Love, Loss, and Longing: South Asian Canadian Plays is a collection of six plays from acclaimed and award-winning South Asian Canadian playwrights that explore themes of family, love, trauma, race and more. Featuring introductions by directors and playwrights, each play is contextualized to explain its relevance in the community. The authors included are Rahul Varma, Anosh Irani, Ravi and Asha Jain, Pamela Mala Sinha, Anusree Roy and Anita Majumdar.

A two-volume collection featuring plays written by Rick Shiomi, Winston Christopher Kam, Marty Chan, Betty Quan, M.J. Kang, Mitch Miyagawa, Jean Yoon, Hiro Kanagawa, Nina Lee Aquino, Nadine Villasin, Marjorie Chan, Leon Aureus and David Yee.

Showcasing the dynamism of contemporary Korean diasporic theater, this anthology features seven plays by second-generation Korean diasporic writers from the United States, Canada and Chile. By bringing the plays together in this collection, Esther Kim Lee highlights the themes and styles that have enlivened Korean diasporic theater in the Americas since the 1990s.

Mr. Kim is a first-generation Korean immigrant and the proud owner of Kim's Convenience, a variety store located in the heart of downtown Toronto's Regent Park neighbourhood. As the neighbourhood quickly gentrifies, Mr. Kim is offered a generous sum of money to sell -- enough to allow him and his wife to finally retire. But Kim's Convenience is more than just his livelihood -- it is his legacy.

This collection of 11 plays, from the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and South Africa--many published here for the first time--delves into the vibrant, cosmopolitan theatre of the South Asian diaspora. These original and provocative works explore the experience of diaspora by drawing on cultural references as diverse as classical Indian texts, adaptations of Shakespeare and Homer, current events, and world music, film and dance.