The Tree Trunk Can Be My Pillow: The Biography of an Outstanding Japanese Canadian by Tadashi Jack Kagetsu Victoria: University of Victoria, 2017. $33.95 / 9781550586114 Reviewed by Bob Griffin First published Oct. 4, 2018 * The government of Canada declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, a day after the Japanese attacks on…
Read more #392 From boss logger to zero
From Wah Lee to Chew Keen: The Story of a Pioneer Chinese Family in North Cariboo by Liping Wong Yip Victoria: FriesenPress Publishers, 2017 $17.49 / 9781460294307 Reviewed by Tzu-I Chung * In 1917, Wah Lee and his third wife, Mon Ho, boarded the Empress of Russia in Hong Kong, bound for British Columbia. They…
Read more #390 From Xinhuixian to Quesnel
First published Sept. 3, 2018. Trans-Pacific Mobilities: The Chinese and Canada by Lloyd L. Wong (editor) Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017 $34.95 / 9780774833806 Reviewed by Jennifer Lau * Jennifer Lau considers Lloyd Wong’s Trans-Pacific Mobilities: The Chinese and Canada, a collection of scholarly essays tracing the migration of people, ideas, and goods across the Pacific. Lau…
Read more #364 Chinese migration and mobility
An Uncommon Road: How Canadian Sikhs Struggled out of the Fringes and into the Mainstream by Gian Singh Sandhu Vancouver: Echo Storytelling, 2018. Available though Heritage Group Distribution $29.95 / 9781987900163 Reviewed by Gurpreet Singh First published August 29, 2018 * Gian Singh Sandhu came to Canada in 1970 and settled in Williams Lake, where…
Read more #359 From Punjab to Williams Lake
First published June 6, 2018. The Unceasing Storm: Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution by Katherine Luo, foreword by Madeleine Thien Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2018. $22.95 / 9781771621861 Reviewed by Vivienne Poy * Many personal accounts have been written about tumultuous modern China, but there is a difference in Katherine Luo’s book. We…
Read more #318 A witness to persecution in China
The Minor Intimacies of Race: Asian Publics in North America by Christine Kim Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2016 $30.00 (U.S.) / 9780252081620 Reviewed by Helen Hok-Sze Leung First published oct. 29, 2017 Christine Kim examines the limitations of Canada’s official policy of multiculturalism by considering Maclean’s Magazine’s 2010 story about “too many”…
Read more #190 Multiculturalism beyond rhetoric
REVIEW: Wherever I Find Myself: Stories by Canadian Immigrant Women By Miriam Matejova (editor) Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017. $24.95 / 978-1-987915-34-1 Reviewed by Gillian Der First published October 21, 2017 * The third anthology in a series on Canadian women published by Caitlin Press, Wherever I Find Myself, edited by Miriam Matejova, is a…
Read more #185 Diversity of immigrant women
The White Angel by John MacLachlan Gray Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017 $29.95 / 9781771621465 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy First published Sept. 8, 2017 * The challenges of writing historical fiction are manifold. Writers must capture both the exterior (surface and sociological details of a time they know only through research) and the interior…
Read more #167 Janet Smith & Wong Foon Sing
Jim Wong-Chu (1949-2017) An obituary by Alan Twigg First published Aug. 15, 2017 * Chinese Canadians weren’t granted the federal vote in Canada until 1947 and they first voted provincially in 1949–the year Jim Wong-Chu was born in Hong Kong on January 28th. Jim Wong-Chu was brought to Canada, aged four, in 1953 where he…
Read more #154 Jim Wong-Chu (1949-2017)
First published June 17, 2017 REVIEW: Gently to Nagasaki: A Spiritual Pilgrimage, an Exploration Both Communal and Intensely Personal By Joy Kogawa Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2016. $24.95 978-1-987915-15-0 Reviewed by Patricia E. Roy The librarian who provided the Cataloguing in Publication information gave Joy Kogawa’s Gently to Nagasaki a call number in the 800s…
Read more #140 Joy Kogawa’s reflections
James Legge and the Chinese Classics A Brilliant Scot in the Turmoil of Colonial Hong Kong by Marilyn Laura Bowman Victoria: FriesenPress Publishers, 2016 $37.99 / 9781460288832 Reviewed by Norman Girardot First published June 2, 2017 Born in the Peace River country, Marilyn Bowman studied at the University of Alberta and McGill and taught Clinical…
Read more #134 Resuscitation of James Legge
Great Fortune Dream: The Struggles and Triumphs of Chinese Settlers in Canada, 1858-1966 by David Chuenyan Lai and Ding Guo Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2016 $26.95 / 9781987915037 Reviewed by Tzu-I Chung First published March 27, 2107 * In Great Fortune Dream, David Chuenyan Lai and Ding Guo tell of the struggles and triumphs of…
Read more #109 From exclusion to equality
ESSAY: Canadian First: The Life of Won Alexander Cumyow (1861-1955) by Janet Mary Nicol First published Dec. 28, 2016 * Canada’s west coast accommodated “two solitudes”—people of the dominant English-speaking community and those of Asian heritage. One man who tried to bridge these separate, often hostile worlds was Vancouver pioneer, Won Alexander Cumyow. He was…
Read more #68 Won Alexander Cumyow
Journey After Midnight: India, Canada and the Road Beyond by Ujjal Dosanjh Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2016 $34.95 / 9781927958568 Reviewed by Hugh Johnston First published November 21, 2016 * Journey After Midnight is Ujjal Dosanjh’s memoir of his journey from a village in the Punjab to London in 1964, and to Vancouver in 1968….
Read more #47 Ujjal’s odyssey