Joy Kogawa’s novel Obasan, about a Japanese Canadian woman’s childhood experiences in a Canadian internment camp during WW II was an eye-opener. While I had previously heard about the round-up of all Japanese from the west coast and their exile to remote British Columbia towns and prairie farms, the novel brought home not only the …
During this last week of National Asian Heritage Month, I wanted to introduce readers to Dr. Victoria Chung. Toy Mea Chung was born in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1897, the same year that Queen Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee. Perhaps this is why her parents chose the English name of Victoria for her. From an …
What does Asian Heritage Month mean? It is a time to learn and reflect on the history of people of Asian descent, and their economic, cultural, and artistic contributions to our country. Over the past 200 years, people of East Asian descent (e.g., China, Japan, Korea), South Asian descent (e.g., India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka), …
Chinatown Through a Wide Lens: The Hidden Photographs of Yuchow Chow (2019, Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia), by the award winning curator, Catherine B. Clement, and translated by Winnie L. Cheung, was one of my favourite books to review for the Ormsby Review (now The British Columbia Review). Who doesn’t love photography books!? …
