Saturday February 15 2025

Vancouver Public Library’s (VPL) relatively new (2022) Indigenous Considerations for Newcomers to Canada (ICNC) program is designed to educate newcomers about Canada’s Indigenous history and culture.

Taking the innovative program one step further and hoping to reach out to Vancouver’s broader Chinese community, VPL will be hosting the program in Cantonese for the first time on Nov. 26 at the Terry Salman Branch. The library plans to host a Mandarin version in 2025.

“The key point we want people to understand is that [Canada’s reconciliation process] is a commitment as a nation,” says Gladys Chen, VPL’s manager of special projects.

The desire to learn

The ICNC is an hour-and-a-half long lecture-based program that covers the various Indigenous communities present in Canada, Indigenous histories, and how participants can honour reconciliation. The program ends with a brief question-and-answer session for participants to clarify any concepts brought up during the program.

“We have a program called ESL (English as a Second Language) Conversation Practice and many participants in that program have expressed their desire to learn more about Indigenous-related topics,” Chen says. “We also received the same request from the Library Champion Program, which introduces newcomers to the library.”

Although ICNC only covers basic information, it serves as a good starting point for newcomers seeking to learn more about Indigenous culture and history. VPL encourages the public to check out its other programs such as the Indigenous Storyteller in Residence. There is also a second step to ICNC called Towards Reconciliation: Start Your Learning Journey, another lecture-based program where locals and immigrants can learn more about the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Expanding the program

“There are a lot of immigrants from China at West Point Grey,” Chen points out. “That’s why we [decided to] translate [the program] into Chinese.”

Gladys Chen. | Photo courtesy of Gladys Chen

As Chinese and English are vastly different languages, the VPL staff put in extra effort to ensure that the program’s translation reflected the facts as accurately as possible. Since Cantonese and Mandarin share a written language, the translation process involved writing the key points of the program in Chinese first before presenting it in different dialects.

“[Translating the program in Chinese] was very challenging,” Chen admits. “We did not want to do a translation on top of a translation, […] so we clarified concepts with our Indigenous planner, Rick Ouellet, and we figured out how to [translate it] in Chinese. If we just looked at the English version, we might have translated it differently.”

Common terminologies like “truth and reconciliation” and “land acknowledgements” are easily understood in English but can be expressed in many ways in Chinese. The VPL staff presented Ouellet with multiple translations to determine which phrase best represented each term and concept.

As the ICNC sees participants from various cultures in each session, all with different concepts of Indigenous culture, the staff receives different questions each time. These questions help the staff understand what newcomers wish to know about Indigenous culture and tweak the program accordingly to clarify any concepts.

“We are always revising the materials,” says Chen. “We always [try to] meet the needs of the community.”

A nation’s commitment

As the Cantonese offering of the ICNC is new, the turnout is uncertain. Regardless, VPL strives to raise awareness among as many people as possible about the histories and cultures of Indigenous communities, either through the ICNC or other Indigenous-related programs.

“As a person, as a settler, [reconciliation] is each one of our responsibilities as well,” says Chen. “If the participants were only to remember one thing, we hope this is what they remember.”

For more about ICNC and VPL’s other programs, see: https://vpl.bibliocommons.com/events/6707f075e37c5596179fc07b

Amplifying the community stories of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES), the Heart of the City Festival returns (Oct. 30–Nov. 10) with over 100 events reflecting the theme, Threads of Connection. For founders, Terry Hunter and Savannah Walling, this year’s festival – as they celebrate their last year leading Heart of the City – is a chance to reflect on its community engagement and honour the diversity of the DTES.

“When the modern city of Vancouver was first founded on this land, it was inhabited by the host First Nations,” says Walling. “But among the early immigrants in the new city of Vancouver were people of Chinese, Black, and Hispanic ancestry.”

Illuminating pathways

La Llorona. | Photo by David Cooper.

For twenty-one years, Hunter and Walling have worked with the DTES community to highlight the diversity of stories, the cultural traditions and the lived experiences. By providing both financial support and a platform for artists to showcase their works, the festival enables diverse communities to celebrate their culture. For the founders, engaging each cultural community of the DTES is key to ensuring the festival’s inclusivity.

“It’s important that the cultural groups in the neighbourhood themselves are stepping forward and saying, ‘This is what we would like to do at the festival,’” says Hunter, adding that attention is given to both founding and new communities of the DTES.

Walling further notes that after each festival, they reflect on whether they are losing touch with a particular community, and how to rebalance those connections. For them, it is important to ensure the diasporic communities, that have been part of the DTES, continue to connect with the area.

Reimagining death

Heart of the City is also a way for Latin Americans in Vancouver to come together and share their culture with other communities.

“One of the reasons why we specifically put the date of the festival in the last week of October, and the first week of November each year is so we could embrace the Day of the Dead,” Hunter says. “It’s an important event that takes place in our community, and so our role is to help support and raise awareness of this amazing work that’s going on.”

Terry Hunter and Savannah Walling. | Terry Hunter and Savannah Walling.

Traditionally observed Nov. 1 and 2 in Mexico, the Day of the Dead is a celebratory holiday to remember those who have passed. La Llorona, directed by physical comedian Gerardo Avila, is one of the Latin American events featured at this year’s festival. Taking the stage on Nov. 1 at Carnegie Community Centre Theatre, La Llorona celebrates the Day of the Dead by telling the story of Mexican icon La Malinche, who translated for Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, through shadow puppets and traditional dance.

“For [Mexicans], Day of the Dead is a very magical time of the year,” Avila explains, noting how those from Guatemala and Salvador also observe the holiday. “So this year, I’m working with [Vancouver musical and choreograph troupe] Calle Verde, and we will tell [the story of La Malinche] with shadow puppetry, like the old style of telling stories.”

While some may view death as a sombre event, Day of the Dead honours it by celebrating the living. This is done by creating colourful decorations, painting beautiful flowers on Catrina dolls, and leaving food at altars.

“We are explaining that there is a culture that [doesn’t see death as something scary],” says Avila. “And [the festival] is our chance to show that, and influence [others] to see death in a [different] perspective.”

Find out more about Heart of the City here: www.heartofthecityfestival.com

Canada has made significant strides in advancing gender equality over the years, and one of the key milestones we commemorate is Persons Day, celebrated on Oct. 18. It recognizes the 1929 decision from Canada’s highest court of appeal to include women in the legal definition of “persons,” laying the foundation for women’s greater political participation. However, this decision notably excluded women of colour, including Indigenous women and women of Asian descent.

According to Sunera Thobani, professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, the result has been an uneven narrative about the advancement of women’s rights in Canada. She argues that there needs to be a greater focus on the rights of women of colour and more support for their progress.

An uneven narrative about the rights of women

Sunera Thobani. | Photo by Fatima Jaffer.

“Middle-class white women secured their own personhood and their rights in this transformation that took place in 1929,” Thobani says. “But what’s important is that the white women who fought for this right didn’t even think of [women of colour] as real women.”

Her perspective highlights how women of colour, including those from Indigenous and Asian descent, did not obtain the right to vote until much later. According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, even when the right was legally granted, other factors, such as regional isolation, made it difficult for them to exercise this right. The professor emphasizes that despite the existence of feminism in Canada, these women were not included in the legal understanding of women as persons.

“Since then, [they] have been fighting against this racialisation that is embedded in the structure of citizenship [as well as] the feminist movements in this country,” she adds. “Certainly, there have been many changes, but these inequalities amongst women continue to be reproduced.”

The root of the issue

One of the biggest issues faced by Canadian women of colour, Thobani argues, is that they are often alienated and seen as outsiders despite holding Canadian citizenship. She explains that Canada continues to define itself through its British and French colonial heritage, which determines who is considered a “real” Canadian – those of British, French or European descent. This marginalization of non-white groups lays the groundwork for ongoing discrimination and injustices against women of colour.

“Many are second- or third-generation [Canadians],” she points out. “Yet, in state discourses, political terms, and social terms, they get constructed as immigrant communities.”

Even though Canada embraces multiculturalism and celebrates its diverse heritage, Thobani argues that the concept often masks ongoing racial inequalities. Racial hierarchies and discrimination continue under the guise of cultural diversity, reinforcing systemic challenges.

She contends that the struggles women of colour face are deeply intertwined with broader systems of racial and gendered discrimination that persist today. Even within gender equality movements, they are often marginalized, as these movements typically privilege whiteness, which further exacerbates the exclusion and marginalization of women of colour.

When asked about her hopes for her students, Thobani wishes that they understand racialisation as a historical process. She encourages students to recognise how racial hierarchies are constructed and to see how these same patterns continue to be perpetuated today.

“I hope my students will learn from the [historical struggles] of women of colour and Indigenous women,” she says. “And [I hope] they try to think about how they might advance ‘this resistance’ in their own lives, careers, and academic and professional work.”

For more information on Persons Day, see https://www.canada.ca/en/women-gender-equality/commemorations-celebrations/womens-history-month/persons-day.html