<strong>Vancouver from the 1907 Anti-Asian Riots to Hongcouver</strong>: A Century of Change Through Students' Eyes at Schema : more than ethnic

This weekend visit the UBC student exhibition VANCOUVER FROM THE 1907 ANTI-ASIAN RIOTS TO HONGCOUVER: A CENTURY OF CHANGE THROUGH STUDENTS' EYES on Sunday, June 10, 2007, 2:00-4:00 pm at the Vancouver Museum.

This event debuts a number of UBC student projects inspired by the series of important anniversaries in 2007 for Vancouver and Canada as a society connected to the Asia Pacific world. 2007 is the 100th Anniversary of the anti-Asian riots of 1907 that targeted Chinese, Japanese, and South Asian residents of Vancouver, but it also marks the 60th, 40th and 10th anniversary of other watershed moments of change that transformed our society.

The student projects include:
* "The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots from the Perspective of the Victims", by Woan-Jen Wang
* "Why Do Indians Love Chinese Food?"; by Karrmen Crey and Amy Perreault
* "Beyond Chinatown: Re-Making Vancouver", by Denise Wong
* "New Voices Project"; experiences of new migrants, by Johnson Chan, Viola Chan, Nancy Fong, Eugene Lin, Robert Parungao, Heather Joan Tam, Araya Vivorakij and Zizian Zhong

Read Georgia Straight on the 1907 Anti-Chinatown Riot written by UBC student Woan-Jen Wang from Chinese newspaper sources. www.straight.com.
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The student projects include:
* "The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots from the Perspective of the Victims", by Woan-Jen Wang
Wang's detective work in finding Chinese and Japanese language newspaper reports on the anti-Asian riots of 1907 allow us to hear again the voices of those who were targeted. Silenced by the dominance of English-language newspaper accounts that skewed reporting on the riots towards the perspectives of the anti-Asian rioters, the forgotten points of view of the Chinese and Japanese are recovered by Ms. Wang, translated into English, and organized into an accessible online database at <www.instrcc.ubc.ca/1907_riot/>

* "1947 and the Chinese Canadian Fight for Citizenship", by Stephanie Mui and Cameron Wong
Two students discover that the privileges and rights they enjoy as Canadian citizens came out of the sacrifice of a generation of Chinese Canadian veterans who courageously fought for the right to vote, earning full citizenship rights for Chinese in the Canada Citizenship Act of 1947 and beginning the dismantling of legal racist discrimination that had been built in the aftermath of the 1907 riots.

* "Why Do Indians Love Chinese Food?"; by Karrmen Crey and Amy Perreault
A pair of Aboriginal students who graduated from the First Nations Studies Program at UBC look at the long history of relations between Aboriginal peoples and the Chinese who lived in Vancouver and around British Columbia, asking why only fragmented memories of these interactions remain. Showing a clip from their film project, Crey and Perreault explore how food memories provide a rich source to rediscover these forgotten spaces of engagement, bringing to life in particular the community life of Chinese restaurants.

* "The New Vancouver: The 1967 Immigration Act and the 1997 Hong Kong Handover"; by a series of students.
A series of student projects focus on the new waves of Chinese migrants who have remade Vancouver, in particular the large migrations that followed the reform of immigration to a non-racist, points-based system in 1967, and those migrants from Hong Kong who came before the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from Great Britain to the People's Republic of China.

* "Beyond Chinatown: Re-Making Vancouver", by Denise Wong

Building on the work of previous student projects--such as the web-based project of Kaori Lau that explores the neighborhood around Victoria Drive and 41st Avenue, found at: http://www.cic.sfu.ca/nacrp/CCHS/Projects/VictoriaDrive/KaoriProject/Kaori_index.html. Ms. Wong shows how Chinese Canadians have re-made every part of Vancouver. Extending well beyond Chinatown, the symbolic and historical heart of Chinese Canadian communities, Wong shows the rich diversity of new waves of migrants and the extensive effects they have had on every part of the city.

* "New Voices Project"; experiences of new migrants, by Johnson Chan, Viola Chan, Nancy Fong, Eugene Lin, Robert Parungao, Heather Joan Tam, Araya Vivorakij and Zizian Zhong

The New Voices Project is a group of students whose collective goal is to explore the wide range of new migrants who self-identify as "Chinese," even as the sheer diversity of migrants belie any definition of what it means to be "Chinese." The students will both discuss the literary volume that they are creating, as well as presenting their installation at the Vancouver Museum entitled "8 Chinese Canadians," described below.

* "8 Chinese Canadians" Installation by artists Eugene Lin, Heather Joan Tam and Araya Vivorakij
This installation is a component of New Voices Project, a student-initiated, non-profit community project primarily aimed to publish an anthology of literary and artistic works by self-identified Chinese Canadians of the recent diaspora in Lower Mainland British Columbia. The participants of this installation are members of the New Voices Project. We are a group of university students eager to find new ways to represent ourselves in Canadian culture and society. "8 Chinese Canadians" is our collective self-portrait, represented through our personal belongings instead of pictorial images. The displayed items here are: things filled with personal meaning; things that reflect our intellectual interests; things that constitute our daily lives; and things that give us simple pleasure.

For info, contact either Genny Krikorian at the Vancouver Museum gkrikorian@vanmuseum.bc.ca

Prof. Henry Yu henryyu@interchange.ubc.ca