Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875-1980 Volume 110

by Kay J. Anderson

Book Overview

Anderson charts the construction of Chinatown in the minds and streets of the white community of Vancouver over a hundred year period. She shows that Chinatown -- from the negative stereotyping of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to its current status as an "ethnic neighbourhood" -- has been stamped by changing European ideologies of race and the hegemonic policies those ideas have shaped. The very existence of the district is the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0773513299
• ISBN13: 9780773513297
• Release Date: June 1995
• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Facinating (if one-sided) ethnic history...

An intelligent, enjoyable work on the development of the Chinatown district in Vancouver, focusing on how the dominant European class worked to shape and control the Chinese community through political, legal, social, and cultural means. Anderson's writing is thoroughly readable, academically rigorous but free from the dry, heavy dialogue that plagues so many other scholarly works. My only criticism is her decision to exclude the Chinese immigrants' perspective on the development of their district, instead opting to focus only on how the Europeans perceived the Asian 'intruders'. Providing the opposing view would have given the work better balance and a greater level of depth. Nevertheless, an excellent book for those interested in Canadian history or ethnic/urban politics.