Category: Organizations

The origins of Vancouver’s Chinatown are rooted in racist legislation like the Chinese Immigration Act (Apology for Historical Wrongs, n.d.). Enacted in 1923 and repealed 1947 (only 70 years ago), it discriminated against Chinese people by restricting their entry into Canada through policies such as a $50.00 head tax, which in 1923 was equivalent to $708.70 CAD today (Apology for Historical Wrongs, n.d.). Other discriminatory laws included an 1876 Provincial Act in British Columbia that denied Chinese males voting rights (Apology for Historical Wrongs, n.d.).

Judy Tzu-Chun Wu documents the effects of similar exclusionary immigration laws in 19^th century America in “Asian American History and Racialized Compulsory Deviance”, stating that they created gender imbalances manifesting in the lack of nuclear families, and the creation of bachelor societies (Wu, 2003). Wu uses the term “compulsory sexual deviance” to describe a groups’ failure to obtain heteronormative ideals as a result of state legislation (Wu, 2003). This compulsory sexual deviance, along with large anti-Chinese sentiment from non-Chinese groups, kept Chinese immigrants confined in their own communities, as they were localized sources of support and familiarity – these communities would become known as “Chinatowns”.

Laws like the Chinese Immigration Act also reinforced compulsory sexual deviance by heavily restricting the immigration of Chinese wives and children (Chinese Immigration Act, 1923, 2017), which in addition to anti-miscegenation laws, resulted in the systemic isolation of male Chinese-Canadian immigrants in Canada and the creation of bachelor societies (Wu, 2003). These bachelor societies can still be located in historical buildings in Downtown Vancouver, one being the May Wah Hotel on East Pender Street (Historic Study of the Society Buildings in Chinatown, 2005). The May Wah Hotel offered living space for renters, all of whom were Chinese, as well as social areas such as gambling halls, and temporary accommodations that could be used for engaging with sex workers (Historic Study of the Society Buildings in Chinatown, 2005). The forced all-male make up of early Chinatown resulting in bachelor societies like the one documented at the May Wah Hotel is an example of homosociality, a term coined by Eve Sedgewick to describe the social bonds between people of the same sex (Hammarén and Johansson, 2014).

The power dynamics of the laws that forced the creation of homosocial, and possibly heterosexual racialized bachelor societies can be analyzed using Cathy Cohen’s discussion of “straight queers” in “Punks, bulldaggers and welfare queens: the radical potential of queer politics?”, where she describes them as heterosexuals who find themselves on the outside of heteronormativity (2005), which many of these Chinese immigrants did as result from compulsory sexual deviance.

By understanding “queer” as “non-normative” and reflecting on the non-(hetero)normative lifestyles led by many of the residents of the May Wah Hotel – including the bachelor societies, the difficulty in obtaining heteronormative ideals like monogamy and nuclear families due to racist legislation, and engagement with sex workers (Historic Study of the Society Buildings in Chinatown, 2005)  – one is able to see how different components of identity, such as race, intersect to make it so not all heterosexual people benefit from heteronormativity (although it’s crucial to acknowledge that non-heterosexual people are unable to access the straight privilege heterosexual people have). It’s also important to note that it wasn’t these peoples’ ethnicities that caused them to have fewer rights than other Canadian citizens, but the Canadian government’s explicit targeting of their racialized bodies, notably after the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, which exploited many of those same bodies for labour. The effects of compulsory sexual deviance are still felt by later generations – this is demonstrated when Wu mentions Nayan Shah’s concept of “queer domesticity” which describes early 20^th century dynamics of Chinese families in San Francisco who perpetuated the same heteronormative familial depictions many were cut off from before, in order to better assimilate into western settler communities (Wu, 2003). This need to present an image that made it easier to fit in with dominant power structures further marginalized non-heteronormative Asian-American identities and lifestyles, including bachelor societies and prostitution (Wu, 2003). Examining “queer” as not only being exclusive to the LGBT community through such specific sites like the May Wah Hotel helps us locate other marginalized positions where Cohen says that radical potential is found, and hopefully allow us to utilize that potential with multiple intersections in mind (Cohen, 2005).

Citations:

Apology For Historical Wrongs Against Chinese British Columbians.(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/british-columbians-our-governments/our-history/historic-places/documents/heritage/chinese-legacy/written-submissions/lee_howe.pdf

HISTORIC STUDY OF THE SOCIETY BUILDINGS IN CHINATOWN. (2005). Retrieved from http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/historic-study-of-the-society-buildings-in-chinatown.pdf

Chinese Immigration Act, 1923. (2017). Retrieved from www.pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/chinese-immigration-act-1923.

Hammarén, N. & Johansson, T. (2014).Homosociality. SAGE Open 4(1), doi:10.1177/2158244013518057.

Barman, J. (2013). BEYOND CHINATOWN: Chinese Men and Indigenous Women in Early British Columbia. BC Studies, 39–47. Retrieved from search-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1438645427?pq-origsite=summon&accountid=14656.

Cohen, C. J. (2005). Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens. Black Queer Studies, 21–51. doi:10.1215/9780822387220-003.

Wu, J. T.-Z. (2003). Asian American History and Racialized Compulsory Deviance. Journal of Women’s History 4(3), 58-62. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/203247139/fulltextPDF/DE1CBA79C5E94425PQ/1?accountid=14656

Ballegeer, S. (2010, June 14). May Wah Hotel, Chinatown, Vancouver [Digital image]. Retrieved November 7, 2017, from https://www.flickr.com/photos/uncle_buddha/4718223240

The Thursday Writing Collective began in 2008. When asked about its philosophy in an interview, its founder, Elee Kraljii Gardiner, a local writer, replied, “We firmly believe that everybody has a right to be heard, and we work together to make sure that we do that in an equitable, safe and exciting manner.” (Bender, 2015) It is a weekly free writing class that anyone can attend consistently or drop into. It takes place at the Carnegie Centre, in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, which it defines on its website as “an area challenged by poverty-related issues.” (Bender, 2015)

Anyone who’s spent time there, or anywhere that could potentially be define that way, likely understands the variegated way that “poverty-related issues” present themselves, the multitude of other issues they connect to, exacerbate, or in some cases, stand in for. Which is to say, understands that one type of obstacle cannot be, and should not be separated from others. In the case of the Downtown Eastside, “poverty-related issues” can be understood complexly to mean, among other things: addiction, systemic racism, cissexism, misogyny, transphobia, queerphobia, gentrification—all of which contributes to what can be a very material lack of resources of all kinds: medicinal, rehabilitative, economic, housing, to name a few. This is meant to demonstrate that anyone who is facing challenges like the ones I’ve listed, and many I have not, is welcome at the Thursday Writing Collective. This means that the communities this program is intended for are not necessarily QTBIPOC, but given what we know about the struggles faced, especially by QTBIPOC youth, and how frequently they are denied resources, it is not hard to imagine this community being an integral part of this program.

What’s more is that the program is run by local artists and activists, meaning these are individuals who are, in many ways, intimately acquainted with the particular and diverse difficulties facing this community. It is not a program designed for a community from its outside.

While there is no statement on the Collective’s website about their stance towards QTBIPOC individuals there are multiple instances of its organizers emphasizing that the space is meant for everybody or anyone, much like the one cited above. That said, almost all of us have had the experience of entering a space we think will be safe for us only to promptly find out it is not. In the absence of an explicit policy we can look at the collective’s organizers, events and endorsements for clues as to their level of inclusivity. They are frequently publishing excerpt of, blog posts by, or simply praise for, queer writers. One such case is the writer Erold Almelek, who’s poem, “strange, queer, extraordinary, peculiar” appears both in English and in Turkish on the Collective’s website (and in one of their chapbooks.) (admin, 2014) In an interview titled Talking Queer Vancouver Writers, Bisexuality, and Community with Vancouver Author Leigh Matthews, Matthews is asked to name “some of the most amazing queer Vancouver writers,” she names one of the Thursday Writing Collective’s central teachers. (Stepaniuk, 2017) Of course, these observations don’t automatically mean that any queer person, especially an Indigenous or racialized one, would definitely feel comfortable here. However, given what we know about the excitement and consideration expressed towards queer folks and differently marginalized peoples as well, I think it would be safe to assume that this would be the kind of environment in which discomfort can be addressed, and hopefully, resolved.

In ‘Gays Who Cannot Properly be Gay’ Queer Muslims in the Neoliberal European City, Fatima El-Tayeb spends some time discussing the activist group Strange Fruit. They describe the group as having had an intersectional practice “in which identities and discourses were eclectically appropriated, rearranged and transformed without a single model of ethnic, gender, or sexual definitions becoming normative.” (El-Tayeb, 90) They go on to write of the groups successes and the strategies that they think brought them about, one of which being that they combined, “local, peer group focused activism […] with a global perspectives” which El-Tayeb posits resist “divide and conquer politics that […] pit ‘gay’ against ‘migrant.’” (El-Tayeb, 90)

In the case El-Tayeb explores it becomes clear that while it is always important to have spaces and initiatives that are explicitly meant for certain communities, some progress can be made, and can be made well, through collaborations between marginalized communities. I submit that this is what The Thursday Writing Collective provides an opportunity for. In that same interview with its founder, she describes the process of writing as “a type of freedom many of us don’t experience in our daily lives.” (Bender, 2015)

While writing about Ballroom culture in his article Engendering space: Ballroom culture and the spatial practice of possibility in Detroit, Marlon M. Bailey suggests that Ballroom culture can do a lot, but it cannot erase all our differences and the difficulties that spring from them. He writes, “Instead, I argue that members ‘make do’ with what they have in an effort to forge lives that are more livable” (Bailey, 503)

This is what the act of writing together and learning from one another as the potential to do.
 

Bibliography:

• Bender, D. (2015, October 21^st) Finding Joy in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside with Thursday’s Writing Collective. Retrieved from: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/thecollective/the-collective-thursdays-writing-collective-1.3106481
• El-Tayeb, F. (2012). ‘Gays who cannot properly be gay’: Queer muslims in the neoliberal european city. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 19(1), 79-95. doi:10.1177/1350506811426388
• Bailey, M. M. (2014). Engendering space: Ballroom culture and the spatial practice of possibility in detroit. Gender, Place & Culture, 21(4), 489-507. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2013.786688
• Palaniuk, C. (2017, April 12^th) Talking Queer Vancouver Writers, Bisexuality, and Community with Vancouver Author Leigh Matthews. Retrieved from: http://www.insidevancouver.ca/2017/04/12/talking-queer-vancouver-writers-bisexuality-and-community-with-vancouver-author-leigh-matthews/

The Capilano Review is a literary magazine that’s been running since 1972. They print three issues a year, and more recently have made their issues available as PDFs online at a reduced price. They even publish online chapbooks and occasionally hosts artists-in-residence and organize generative, warm readings and seminars for the public. There is no shortage of praise for this publication. Local environmentalist and poet, Stephen Collis, is quoted on their website as having said, “Every issue provokes and in some small way moves Canadian culture forward.” (“The Capilano Review: About Us,” n.d.) The magazine’s reach, however, is not merely local. It is internationally recognized and publishes artists from various parts of the world. Though their Canadian focus is certainly worth recognizing, I think they are by no means a national project, but rather imbricated in a literary community that is mired in Canadian nationalism and willfully ignorant of the violence it inflicts. A closer examination of the issues themselves, especially the more contemporary ones, demonstrates a critical departure from the status quo.

They frequently have guest editors for specialized issues. The Winter 2017 issue was guest-edited by local poet and activist listen chen. In their Editor’s Note they write, “My approach to this issue was to seek out work that responds to various conflagrations, with attention to plurality, because the difference between reifying lines and interrupting them can be pretty subtle.” (chen, 2017)  Later in the note, they go on to discuss a particular contribution to the issue by Dion Kaszas and Afuwa, stitching back the land, writing that it: “reminds us that possibility is material and embodied.” (chen, 2017) Even from these small excerpts it is clear that this issue was approached and curated with nothing short of deep care and thought for systemically underrepresented communities. What follows is an issue teeming with insights—writing, drawings, photographs—all of it actively resisting the erasure of marginalized voices.

Anyone who follows more established literary magazines knows that this is already a much more varied selection than what you can usually expect. Moreover, the contributors to this issue were largely people who are situated at the nexus of multiple forms of oppression and prejudice—queer and trans people of color and Indigenous folks. People who’s, if we were to follow Guyartri Gopinath’s thinking in Impossible Desires, very existence undermines the dominant narrative by which they are rendered impossible subjects. If, as Gopinath suggests, “heterosexuality is a structuring mechanism of both state and diasporic nationalism,” (Gopinath, 25) we might also add cissexism and white supremacy to our (ever expanding) list of “structural mechanisms.” If the bodies that contradict these structural ways of seeing and knowing threaten their power, then their testimonies, perspectives, artwork, insights and care extend that rupture even further.

No small summary could adequately describe the breadth of the work contained in this issue. However, even a small analysis reveals its potential to disrupt. My favorite piece, by Ya-Wen Ho, occurs only partially in English. The rest is told in Mandarin. Intermittently, interpretations of those passages are offered. While bilingual work is not entirely uncommon, it is often dismissed by those people who can only understand one, or none, of its components. People still have trouble letting what they don’t know speak to them.

Later in the issue three poems appear by Gwen Benaway. In the first, entitled Chaser, which reads: “you like girls/like me, it’s ok/to want a body /unfinished, in (trans)it” (Benaway, 2017) This is a poem that manages to be very explicit about its intent and feeling without ever sounding familiar. This is a poem articulating an intimate experience—revealing the structural mechanisms at work that frequently infiltrate even our closest relationships.

In another section there is a striking monochromatic comic by Lee Lai entitled dreams about surgery. It contains no words—yet we are immersed in this dream, in which a figure is attacked by a dog who tears at their chest, and left to interpret its significance without the help of explicit language. It has been argued that art, and poetry in particular, is an inefficient way of addressing injustice because of its tendency towards ambiguity. In order to address a problem one must be able to conceive of said problem in the first place. While I do, ultimately, agree with that, I also believe there is a way in which poetry is able to address concerns we were not even fully cognizant of, and then some, exactly because of its unpredictable, underdetermined form. I have given only three examples out of the whole issue in order to show that, not only is each piece and artist saying something with their different approaches, but the pieces are all saying something together, about what kinds of people are existing and creating.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the issue was not received well by everyone. The launch of issue 3.31 was the most underattended event of theirs I have personally been to. It was also, in my opinion, a striking and intimate evening. There was a Facebook event for the reading on which a long time reader commented “Worst issue ever just saying.” Unfortunately, I can’t cite it because it has since been deleted, but I saw it, and so did many others. What becomes clear in light of exchanges like that one is that a trans, queer, two-spirit, POC, and/or Indigenous focus is viewed by certain people as a sign of a decline in the quality and relevance of this publication. Luckily, this could not be further from the truth. If anything, The Capilano Review’s engagement with and elevation of ideas and artists like these is a big reason to continue to support it.

If we believe Collis’ claim that I shared in the beginning of this entry, that TCR “provokes and moves Canadian culture forward,” (and I think there is good reason to believe that it does) then the turn it took in issue 3.31, and to a lesser degree in other issues, is a necessary one for the disruption of the various systems of oppression that are functioning with force and precision within Canada every day.
 

Bibliography:

– “The Capilano Review: About Us” (n.d.) Retrieved from: https://www.thecapilanoreview.ca/about/

– chen, (2017) Editor’s Note. (Issue 3.31, pg. 7) Vancouver, British Columbia. Print.

– Gopinath, G., & e-Duke Books Scholarly Collection Backlist. (2005). Impossible desires: Queer diasporas and south asian public cultures. Durham: Duke University Press.

– Benaway, G. (2017) Chaser. (Issue 3.31, pg. 44) Vancouver, British Columbia. Print.

What is the Rainbow Refugee Society?

Rainbow Refugee Society (RRS) is Vancouver based, not-for-profit community group that works to support persons seeking refugee protection in Canada because of persecution based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression of HIV states. In 2011, Rainbow Refugee entered into a partnership Federal government called the Rainbow Refugee Assistance Project (RRAP). Through this national project, Rainbow Refugee has the responsibility of bringing together volunteers, mentors and community organizations across Canada to sponsor LGBT+ asylum seekers. The groups are called Circles of Hope and directly aid refugees to gain entrance into Canada, “[to] settle in a much more accepting and safer country” (Rainbow Refugee, 2017).

Responsibilities of the Circle of Hope in British Columbia:

Before a refugee arrives in Vancouver, the Circle is responsible for: raising funds, completing application forms, creating a settlement plan to support the newcomer for 12 months, communication with the sponsored person and providing encouragement and emotional support. After the refugee arrives in Vancouver, the Circle assist in their transition into life in Canada through the provision of emotional and settlement assistance. They teach asylum seekers about the rights and responsibilities of permanent residents in Canada, and help them to learn English and find employment (Rainbow Refugee, 2017).

Implications of Refuge in a Settler State:

In another post, one of my colleagues discusses in greater length the external consequence of colonialism in constructing the global borders and boundaries of states and citizens, that are implicated in creating the frameworks and conflict that cause queer and non-queer refugees to flee in the first place. It is based on a process that includes some persons and excludes others. The differential inequalities of such a system ensure state power over its citizens, and sustains the global north’s power over the global south.

These inequalities are replicated in the definition and grounds that refugees make their claim are informed by nationalistic thinking. For queer persons to be considered a “legitimate” refugee in Canada (Fobear, 2014) their claims to queerness must fit within the parameters set forth by the state; but even then, the degree of belonging available to refugees is dependent on two things:

• Their proximity to the attributes of the ‘proper’ Canadian citizen—cisgender, heterosexual, white, and male.
• Their ability to perform the responsibilities of a citizen—or, their ability to assimilate.

Queer asylum seekers of Canada must convincingly and repetitively narratives that assert their proximity to normative notions of gender and sexuality (Shakshari 2014, 103). Subsequently, they must prove the ‘immutability of their character,’ and of their experiences, through essentialist notions required by the state to verify their queer identity. In turn, this forces queer refugees and asylum seekers into singular, timeless and universally homogenous identities that fail to account for varying intersections within experience (Shakshari 2014, 100). Consequently, the narratives of refugees are altered and reduced to the rational and linear definitions sanctioned by the state and reified by diasporic queer organizations that coach queer refugees in ‘homonormativity’(Shakshari, 100)—perhaps, evidenced here through the responsibilities of the Circle of Hope.

What does it mean to be a Refugee on Unceded Land?

It is important to realize that seeking refuge in a “more accepting and safer country” is imbued within a broader framework of violence. Escaping one kind of violence, results in violence of another kind. The desire for inclusion and belonging on the part of refugee person, is part of a project of settler colonialism. Safety and a new home is created on the lands of Indigenous people who continue to be denied nationhood and access to their own lands. However, this is not to say that indigenous communities would disallow refugees from finding refuge on their land, but rather that recognition as refugee is informed by the mechanism of the state—evident in the responsibilities of the Circle of Hope. The relationship between racialized queer subjects and settler colonialism is a complex one. Through political recognition, racialized queer subjects can access colonial power in Canada but remain socially and politically unrecognized as settlers (due to the impossibility of ever being a ‘proper’ citizen)(Jafri, 2013). The result of the settler-desires, belonging to or accessing the benefits of settler societies, does the work of sustaining colonial power (Jafri, 2013) Conclusively, the terms of asylum are decided by the settler state, rather than indigenous communities. As such, the state’s ability to manage the life of certain populations is dependent on “the discipline, control, and ultimately, death and diminishment of the other who stands outside and threatens the interests of the population whose life is worth saving and which may or may not have territorial boundedness” (Shakshari 103). This is to say, that migration to different spaces also posits new considerations to prevent the reiteration of similar violences through the complicity.

Works Cited:

Fobear, K. (2014). Queer settlers: Questioning settler colonialism in LGBT asylum processes in canada. Refuge, 30(1), 47

Jafri, Beenash and Patrick Wolfe. (2013). Desire, settler colonialism and the racialized cowboy. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 37(2): 73-86.

Rainbow Refugee. (n.d.). Retrieved November 9, 2017, from https://www.rainbowrefugee.com/

Shakhsari, Sima. (2014). Killing me softly with your rights: queer death and the politics of rightful killing. In Jin Haritaworn et. al. (eds.), Queer necropolitics, pp. 93-110.

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