Faculty of ArtWoan-Jen Wang is a double major in History and Asian Languages and Cultures. She began working for INSTRCC in May 2006, beginning at the Asian Library cataloguing Chinese Canadian historical materials for the Historical Chinese Language Materials of British Columbia digital database. In September 2006 she began work on a website project focusing on Chinese Canadian views of the 1907 Anti-Asian Riots. Combing archival newspaper collections from all over the world, Woan-Jen discovered Chinese language newspaper articles from 1907 that detailed Chinese Canadian perspectives, translating them into English and designing an accessible website. These Chinese newspapers provide an alternative to narratives of the 1907 riots that have relied almost solely on English language newspapers.
Denise Wong graduated with a BA degree from the University of British Columbia in May of 2006. Her interests include Chinese and Japanese history, culture, and migration patterns. She started working for INSTRCC in May of 2006, helping with the original website design and the compilation of the Chinatown Memories project. In August of 2006, Denise joined the team digitizing the Head Tax Registers.
Jennifer Lau is a 2nd year LL.B. student in the UBC Faculty of Law. She graduated from UBC in 2003 with an Interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts in Chinese Migration and Race Relations, and completed graduate work at the University of Maryland-College Park. Jennifer was the first UBC student to work for INSTRCC, helping design its teaching programs. coordinating all of INSTRCC’s student activities, including major events and conferences. and serving as its first liaison to the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC. Jennifer also has been the student Teaching Assistant for two summer classes that focused on Chinese migration, the first in 2005 that took students to Los Angeles, and the second in 2007 going to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia.
Roderick Lee is a Film and TV major who is providing training to his fellow students in filmmaking and website design. Also an aspiring filmmaker himself, he is working on a film dramatizing the Asahi Tigers, a Japanese Canadian baseball team that won numerous city championships before its members were interned during and after World War II along with the rest of the Vancouver’s Japanese Canadian community.
Sarah Joy Jimenez graduated with a B.Sc in Chemistry and has worked for INSTRCC in making films and documenting the program’s wide array of student projects. Having made one of its early student films, exploring the complexities of her own family identity and how it intersects with the popularization of Philippine national dance, Sarah continues to contribute to INSTRCC after graduation, helping plan its growth and outreach programs to grade schools.
Jooyoung Choi graduated as a History Major and was hired by INSTRCC to organize its student film project on the Korean restaurant Jang Mo Jib. Jooyoung travelled to South Korea to do background research and to collect visual materials and music for its soundtrack, and was an invaluable researcher as well as translator. During the film production, she helped coordinate the shooting and is now researching another student film project focused on early Korean migration to Coquitlam.
Terumi Kataoka is a 3rd year international student completing a BA with a major in history and a minor in archaeology. She is creating a 200-title bibliography on Asian migration to Latin America with a concentration on Mexico, as well as working on a film and website research project comparing mixed Japanese-Mexican children and mixed Japanese Canadian children. Terumi also helps provide invaluable support for her fellow students’ film projects.
Amy Perreault, is a First Nations Studies major who has helped organize student film projects for INSTRCC, as well as having made and edited digital videos herself. Currently, she and her fellow INSTRCC student Karrmen Crey are working on a film project entitled “Why Indians Love Chinese Food” that explores the erasure of First Nations and Chinese Canadian history through a focus on Chinese restaurants as spaces of memory and social interaction between aboriginal peoples and Chinese migrants.
Hannah Wong, who is graduating this year, has been working on a path-breaking community history project that is creating a new kind of digital photo archive. Visiting the homes of elderly Chinese Canadians, Hannah scans the pictures in family photo albums while at the same time recording the stories told about each picture, creating a dynamic photo archive that brings the photos alive with the rich stories of a lifetime’s memories.
Noreen Ma’s work for INSTRCC has involved coordinating student activities and raising student awareness for the 2007 Anniversaries of Change program. She is a founding member of Asian Canadian Connections, a student club for promoting activities that raise student consciousness about issues important to Asian Canadians.
Mary Chan is a returned student to UBC who brings a wealth of life experience to INSTRCC’s classes. An Interdisciplinary Studies major in the Faculty of Arts, she has been involved in the “Eating Global Vancouver” restaurant film projects, as well as being a member of the team digitizing the Chinese Head Tax Registers. She grew up in Vancouver’s Chinatown community.
Ruth Mandujano is a 1st year PhD candidate in History, having come to UBC from Mexico. Ruth’s own research involves Chinese migrations to Mexico and within the Pacific region. Ruth’s work for INSTRCC includes creating networks with the UBC Graduate Student Migration Network (GMSN), and she helped organize the 3rd Annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Workshop on Migration Studies held on November 3, 2006 at St. John’s College at UBC.
