Various public resources, publications, and articles on the topics of Asian Canadian and US History

Infographic designed by the ACCT Foundation highlighting the history of Chinese Canadians. Key events such as the Gold Rush, Civil Rights, Chinese Immigration Act, Chinese Head Tax, Chinese Exclusion Act, citizenship, and apologies were summarized.

Author: ACCT Foundation

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Infographic designed by the ACCT Foundation on the history and reasons for immigration of Chinese people into Canada. Data from the past is also compared to more contemporary data up until 2016.

Author: ACCT Foundation

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Infographic designed by the ACCT Foundation discussing the impact of historical racism and discrimination of Chinese Canadians and visible minorities. It extends to broadly define race, the Human Rights Code, Racism and Racial Discrimination. Contemporary data on the issue is also discussed.

Author: ACCT Foundation

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Infographic by the ACCT defining what the term “Yellow Peril” refers to as well as a timeline documenting events which exemplify the notion of Yellow Peril throughout history and in present day. The graphic concludes with the fact that “Yellow Peril” has persisted in Canada.

Author: ACCT Foundation

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Opinion piece by Adrian Lee on how the ethnicity of Chinese-Canadians can get tied to a nationality that isn’t theirs, and warns against anti-Asian discrimination hardening into a cultural fact. The piece goes on to describe the history surrounding Chinese Canadians and how someone who is ethnically Chinese overrides the fact that they are Canadian.

Author:
Adrian Lee – The Globe and Mail

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Article discussing anti-Asian racism amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The article highlights how anti-Asian racism is not new and has been happening for years. It discusses the murder of Vincent Chin as a Chinese victim of a anti-Japanese racist attack in 1982 and how that sparked a national civil rights campaign. Similarities are drawn with the ongoing pandemic.

Author:
Helen Zia – The Washington Post

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Article discussing how Anti-Asian and Anti-Chinese racism has been prevalent for years. It discusses the author’s experience growing up as a first-generation son to an immigrant who came to America during the exclusion era. The author explains that regardless of how well-educated, smart, and hardworking “new” Chinese and Asian Americans are, they are still subject to racism, especially during the pandemic.

Author:
William Gee Wong – EastWind

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Opinion piece discussing the stigmatization of Chinese and Chinese-looking Canadians following the COVID-19 pandemic. The piece discusses how racism towards Asian Canadians is not new and highlights the mass hysteria about the “Yellow Peril” in the early 20th century. Connections are made regarding how the “Yellow Peril” has returned in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Author:

Fo Niemi – Montreal Gazette

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Opinion piece discussing how Chinese-Canadians continue to be treated as foreigners. The article highlights historical events which have treated Chinese-Canadians as outsiders and how the pandemic brought deep-seated anti-Chinese racism in Canada to the forefront.

Author:
Avvy Go, Gary Yee – The Globe and Mail

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Opinion piece criticizing those who engage in anti-Asian attacks and how it does nothing to stop the COVID-19 pandemic. The piece also goes on to highlight how Asian Canadian communities have responded and what they have to offer amidst the pandemic.

Author:
Craig Takeuchi – The Georgia Straight

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Article discussing recent attacks on Asian-Americans even 1 year after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The response from the Asian-American community was outlined as well as the concept of “yellow peril”. The article also discusses what people can do to support the Asian community.

Author:
Rosalie Cabison, Tim Chan – Rolling Stone

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Article discussing the anti-Asian hate occuring in Canada and how this racism has always existed. The article details recent data collected regarding incidents that have occurred in Canada, the history of anti-Asian racism, its effects on the community, and how governments and the Asian-Canadian community has responded to these acts.

Author:
Isabelle Docto – Chatelaine

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Article discussing the rise in anti-Asian racism, but more importantly how this sentiment has existed long before the pandemic. The article goes on to discuss the history of Chinese settlement in America and the history of the yellow peril fear/anti-Asian discrimination.

Author:
Maura Hohman – Today

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A personal piece in which Simu Liu explains his concern for his parents’ safety because of the hate crimes being committed against Asian people that has spiked over the past year. He speaks out on the numerous microaggressions against Asians in the past years, as well as the bystanders and witnesses who do not speak up or even believe racism against Asian people exists.

Author:
Simu Liu – Variety

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Opinion piece in which the author recounts a racist incident that occurred on a streetcar she was riding. The author discusses how as a child, she wanted to suppress her Chinese identity and culture. The author mentions the shooting in Atlanta and how it is not an isolated incident; that Canada has a deep history of anti-Asian racism.

Author:
Anna Zhang – The Star

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Article discussing multiculturalism in Canada. The author discusses her experience with anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic and the overall spike in which Asian women are being disproportionately targeted. The author discusses the history that highlights how Canada is not immune to anti-Asian racism, despite the celebrated history of multiculturalism.

Author:
Tina J. Park – Policy Options

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A biography on the late Corky Lee, whose life’s work was photographing Asian Pacific Americans. His work was paramount in documenting what it meant to be Asian-American throughout history.

Author:
Hua Hsu – The New Yorker

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Article on the founder of Pacific Arts Movement, Lee Ann Kim, speaking out against xenophobia towards Asian Americans and Trump’s use of “Chinese Virus”. Made parallels to the “Yellow Peril Era” and the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882.

Author:
Carl Samson – NextShark

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Article on the rise of virus-related racism and xenophobia towards Asian minorities. It discusses how this Sinophobia reveals the complex relationship the world has with China. This exists not only where Asians are minorities (where sinophobia is due to unfamiliarity) but also in Asia itself (due to too much familiarity, mainland dominance/immigration, etc.). Mentions the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Author:
Tessa Wong – BBC

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Book introducing the CRRF as well as a collection of articles spanning topics of immigration and nationalism, hate crime and inequality, and reconciliation.

Author:
Canadian Race Relations Foundation
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Article discussing the white man (Peter Norman) in a historic photo during the 1968 Summer Olympics where two black medalists bowed and raised their fists in the air while the US Anthem played. Peter believed in their fight for human rights and face repercussions for his association in his home country of Australia. This article discusses his untold story.

Author:
Riccardo Gazzaniga – Films for Action

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Article discussing an exerpt of the 2004 report on the impact of SARS on Chinese and Southeast Asian Communities, coordinated by the Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) and Solutions Research. Originally a public health crisis, the report outlined that a social crisis co-existed where members of the Chinese and Southeast Asian communities were subject to racism.

Author:
Carrianne Leung

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An article from Education Canada Vol. 48 discussing racism in Canada’s past. Specifically, the article discusses related concepts of racism and how they manifest into a hidden curriculum in educational settings to maintain a discriminatory learning environment.

Author:
Ratna Ghosh

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Official document by the Government of Canada on the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Author:
Government of Canada

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Official document by the Government of Canada on the Canadian Multiculturalism Act.

Author:
Government of Canada

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Official Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Author:
Government of Canada

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Article describing Reno’s Chinatown in Nevada and how it was burned down twice in the past. A 2021 Facebook post from the city was accused of “whitewashing” history, as it brushed off the events as the Chinese community being pressured to relocate.

Author:
Randall – AsAmNews

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A brochure by the ACCT Foundation that describes what racism and microaggressions are, the history of racism in Canada, its impact on mental health, and how to start the conversation with children.

Author:
ACCT Foundation, ACT2EndRacism

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Video describing racism against Asian Americans. The video discusses biases, history of anti-Asian racism, civil rights and the model minority myth, and how people and organizations can help.

Author:
1990 Institute

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An opinion piece in which the author, a Chinese Canadian, stands with Indigenous communities to speak up about Canada’s history of violent oppression. It details the spike in racism and hate crime against Black, Muslim, and Asians, as well as the history of anti-Asian racism. The author calls for everyone to be in solidarity with fellow racialized Canadians.

Author:
Diamond Yao – The Star

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Article on an interview with political scientist and historian Allan Bartley, who researched the Ku Klux Klan and found the organization’s long history in Canada. The article discusses the history of the supremacist organization in Canada.

Author:
Althea Manasan – CBC Radio

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An article discussing a formal apology from the federal government of Canada meant to address the racist treatment of members of Canada’s only Black military unit that served in the First World War.

Author:
Aya Al-Hakim – Global News

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Facebook post that shows Lewis Chow, a Canadian undercover agent during the Second World War.

Author:
Historica Canada

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Article discussing how a group of artists are using fiction to describe the history of the Chinese community in Calgary. Specifically, it discusses the history of Calgary’s Chinatown.

Author:
Sarah Moore – CBC News

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Piece on an the struggles of being an AAPI who is also part of the LGBTQ+ community. The author discusses how dating platforms have failed the AAPI community and other marginalized communities. History surround the Hoa People of Vietnam was provided to provide an example of rejection within one’s own community. The author describes what it means to be a gay Asian American, the intersectionality of oppression and calls for unity and inclusion.

Author:
Jason Ve – Mens Health

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The “Chinese Canadian Stories: Uncommon Histories from a Common Past” web portal is a collaborative, multi-disciplinary project led by the University of British Columbia Library and Simon Fraser University Library. Funded by Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Community Historical Recognition Program (CHRP), the project will serve as a valuable mechanism of communication and collaboration between UBC, SFU, community partners and students. This project will reshape the way all of us understand Canada, and reclaim the forgotten histories of peoples who have long been ignored in Canadian history.

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This is an electronic copy of the Register of Chinese Immigrants to Canada preserved at Library and Archives Canada (LAC) in Ottawa. It was created between 2005 and 2008 as part of a research project on immigration from China to Canada directed by Professors Peter Ward and Henry Yu of the Department of History at the University of British Columbia.

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