Bridging the Gap: A Generation’s Return to Heritage
By Christina Lee
What happened to Vancouver’s Chinatown? Seen more and more as simply a place for the elderly to sit around reading newspapers or play mah jong, youth participation in Chinatown has been on the decline. From athletic associations to just plain presence in the neighbourhood, recent visitors note a sharp decrease in the number of Chinese-Canadians in the area. With the influx of condo developers aiming to gentrify the area, Chinatown is in danger of becoming a museum. How can we empower Chinese-Canadian youth to return Chinatown to its former self: a nexus of activity and a place of belonging?
This video was created for HIST 483: “Asian Migrations to the Americas” at the University of British Columbia.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/kiBFSd00GOc[/youtube]
4 Reasons Why You should Care about Vancouver’s Chinatown
By Austin Liu, Dominique Bautista, Nicole So, Rafael Fuentes, Tony Wan
This film is created by the students of Professor Henry Yu’s History 483 class.
Credits
Directed by: Austin Liu, Dominique Bautista, Nicole So, Rafael Fuentes, Tony Wan
Written by: Nicole So, Austin Liu and Dominique Bautista
Animations by: Rafael Fuentes
Narrated by: Dominique Bautista
Edited by: Tony Wan
Music: “Checking things off” – Lullatone http://youtu.be/kKUQFqzt4xk
Special thanks to Prof. Yu, our TA Kilim Park and Melissa Fong.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/yMVRQo3KSOk[/youtube]
Dear ACAM Community,
I am writing to announce that Joanna Yang will be leaving her role as Program Manager of ACAM on July 1 in order to take up a position as Finance and Academic Manager at St. John’s College, UBC. While she will be greatly missed, this is an exciting opportunity and we wish her all the best in this new role.
Since becoming Program Manager, Joanna has contributed tremendously to ACAM. Among many initiatives, she arranged and organized the move to our new offices last year, led the planning process for our Day of Learning on Japanese Canadian internment last fall, and worked tirelessly to build the capacity of our student leadership team. Joanna’s dedication is well known to many of our community partners and supporters as well as our students. Like many of my colleagues, I have benefited tremendously from her wisdom, experience, and energy. I am pleased that in her new role, she will continue to have opportunities to work with ACAM on various projects.
I would also like to announce that starting July 1, Szu Shen will be the new Program Manager of ACAM. Szu has been part of the ACAM team since our inception and she has been responsible for managing our digital media initiatives and curriculum planning, among other files. Outside of ACAM, Szu is a PhD candidate at UBC conducting research on the transpacific circuits of uranium mining from Asian diaspora and Indigenous perspectives. I look forward to working with Szu as we celebrate ACAM’s fifth anniversary this coming academic year.
We will be organizing a celebration in honor of Joanna later this summer and we hope many of you will be able to attend. Please stay tuned for more details!
Sincerely,
Chris Lee
Director, Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program, UBC
We are thrilled to have five ACAM 390 students working to implement undergraduate research findings at the Burnaby Village Museum & Carousel this summer, after they return from Hong Kong and Kaiping, China.
“The Burnaby Village Museum (BVM) is pleased to announce a joint partnership with the UBC Asian Canadian &
Asian Migration Studies program (ACAM), the UBC Centre for Community Engaged Learning, UBC Go Global, the UBC Faculty of Land and Food Systems (LFS), and St. John’s College, University of British Columbia(SJC).”
For more information about the partnership, please visit:
http://www.burnabyvillagemuseum.ca/EN/meta/whats-new/2018-archive/innovative-partnership.html
The Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program is pleased to offer ACAM 250: The Idea of ‘Asian Canadian’ in Popular Culture*, in September 2018. This course will be taught by Dr. JP Catungal.
This course will examine popular culture as a site in and through which Asian Canadian identities and collectivities are produced. The depiction of Asian Canadians in diverse realms of popular culture, including pop culture created by Asian Canadians themselves, will be used as an entry point into our examination of Asian Canadians’ socio-economic conditions, histories and political communities. Particular emphasis will be placed on the role of popular culture in producing Asian Canadians as racialized, gendered, classed and sexualized subjects, as well as the complicated agency in negotiating, contesting, consuming, reproducing, repurposing and otherwise participating in popular culture. We will also consider the transnationalisms of Asian Canadian popular cultures and their relationships to multiple nation-building projects, diasporic and migratory circuits, and global socio-economic and political formations.
Course information
Term 1, September 2018
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 12:30pm-2pm
This course is open to students from all faculties.
Dr. John Paul (JP) Catungal is a faculty member in the Social Justice Institute and Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies at UBC. His research concerns “for us, by us” community organizing, migration and transnationalism, queer of colour politics and Filipinx Canadian studies. He holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Toronto.
For more information or to register, please visit UBC Student Service Centre.
*Please note that ACAM 250 does not go towards the minor because it’s not a 300/400 level class.
What can popular culture – in the forms of memoirs, films, music, theatre, performance art, video games, and drag performances – tell us about the place of Asian Canadians in local, national, continental and transnational contexts? How and why has the cultural representation of “Asian Canadian” changed over time? What are the material implications of such changes?
ACAM_V 250 – Asian Canadians in Popular Culture examines popular culture as a site in and through which Asian Canadian identities and collectivities are produced. The depiction of Asian Canadians in diverse realms of popular culture, including pop culture created by Asian Canadians themselves, will be used as an entry point into our examination of Asian Canadians’ socio-economic conditions, histories and political communities. Particular emphasis will be placed on the role of popular culture in producing Asian Canadians as racialized, gendered, classed and sexualized subjects, as well as the complicated agency in negotiating, contesting, consuming, reproducing, repurposing and otherwise participating in popular culture. We will also consider the transnationalisms of Asian Canadian popular cultures and their relationships to multiple nation-building projects, diasporic and migratory circuits, and global socio-economic and political formations.
In 2024W, ACAM_V 250 will be taught by a new instructor, Allen Baylosis! Allen Baylosis (he/him) is currently pursuing a PhD in Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on contemporary aesthetic performances, popular art and culture, theorizing through the lens of performance studies, transnational queer mess materialism, and the Filipinx diaspora. He holds an MA in Performance Studies (New York University) and a BA in Speech Communication (University of the Philippines Diliman).
*Please note that ACAM 250 does not go towards the minor because it’s not a 300/400 level class.
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The faculty, staff and students of the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program are deeply saddened by the passing of Mary Shinko Kato (née Nagata) on May 1, 2018. Ms. Kato was one of the 76 Japanese Canadian students forcibly removed in 1942. Along with her sister Ruth, Ms. Kato was featured in the film “
A Degree of Justice,” which was produced for
2012 convocation at UBC for the Japanese Canadian students of 1942.
Ms. Kato and her sister’s interview describes some of their experiences following the events of 1942. We are grateful for her generosity in sharing her stories so that the injustices of the past would never be forgotten.
Ms. Kato’s biography can be found in the Degree of Justice Yearbook:
ACAM would like to extend our sincere condolences to Ms. Kato’s family and friends. She is deeply missed.
Angela is a second-generation Chinese Canadian graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Geography (Environment & Sustainability) and a minor in Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies. Angela’s enthusiasm for digital media, community storytelling and place-based learning has led her to produce projects such as the Chinatown Sound Map, a web based platform that showcases different experiences in and with Chinatown through the perspective of sound. During her time as an undergraduate student, Angela also co-authored the Vancouver Chinatown Food Security report, which examines the loss of cultural food assets in Chinatown between 2009-2016. After graduation, Angela will be supporting the delivery of ACAM 390: The History of Chinese Migration, while continuing to pursue her interests in filmmaking and community development.
Faculty of Art
The faculty, staff and students of the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program are deeply saddened by the passing of Dr. Anthony (Tony) B. Chan on June 3, 2018. Dr. Chan was a pioneering figure in Asian Canadian Studies, a widely-respected academic leader and filmmaker, and community activist. A third-generation Chinese Canadian born in Victoria, he attended the University of Victoria and York University, where he received his PhD in History. After a career as a broadcast journalist in Canada and Hong Kong, he returned to academia and taught for many years at the University of Washington, where he directed the Canadian Studies Centre, and more recently at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, where he was Professor and Associate Dean of Communication in the Faculty of Education.
