| May is Asian Heritage Month – that means it’s time for the ImaginASIAN Festival. The Asian Heritage Foundation has once again pulled out all the stops to create a month filled with cultural activities that highlight the accomplishments and contributions of Asian Canadians within Calgary.
This year’s festival kicks off with Masala Journey, a gala evening of food, music and dance, topped off with a screening of Continuous Journey, the award-winning documentary by Ali Kazimi that tackles the Komagata Maru incident. In May, 1914, a ship carrying 376 would-be immigrants came from British India to Vancouver Harbour, where it wasn’t allowed to dock. After a two-month standoff, 22 people were allowed to come to shore, while the rest were turned back by the primed guns of a Canadian Navy warship and 300 battle-ready marines.
"Canada had a fairly clear but hidden policy where it imagined itself as a white, Christian Canada," explains Kazimi. "Canada and India were part of the British Empire, and Imperial authorities had warned Canada that if it took direct discriminatory legislation against people from India, there would be consequences. Therefore, in 1908, Canada created what is commonly referred to as the Continuous Journey Regulation – basically, to come to Canada, you have to come directly from your country of nationality without stopping in a third country."
Early into the project, Kazimi encountered a substantial barrier: very little visual material surrounding the incident exists. Using digital technology, he was able to shape the approximately 2000 existing photographs into a compelling visual compilation. Then, during one of many visits to the National Archives, he had an experience that solidified his resolve to finish the film. "Having studied the primary documents surrounding this event, I knew exactly what had happened on the last day of the stand-off," he says. "The Highlanders had been called in. They’d fixed bayonets and marched the streets of Vancouver with full bandoliers. I was watching a compilation of miscellaneous materials from that time and when I saw that scene, I knew what I was looking at – a few precious moments of the only known footage of the ship. It was an incredible moment."
Masala Journey takes place May 4 at the Boyce Theatre (Calgary Stampede grounds). Tickets are $20 ($15 for students/seniors). For more information, call 264-2778.
Of course, that’s only the first in a cavalcade of the events that make up the 2007 ImaginASIAN Festival, including a Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra concert, a comedy night and the always-popular bus tours. "So many people don’t know that we have a Japanese Cultural Centre, a Korean mall, a Buddhist temple, mosques, an unofficial Indian town in Falconridge," says organizer Teresa Woo-Paw. "The bus tour shows Calgarians the different aspects of Asian influence of Calgary."
Woo-Paw was heavily involved in the creation of Convergence and Disturbance, a photo exhibition where writers, including local poet Weyman Chan, collaborated with photographer Kristen Wegner to tell the stories of nine Asian communities in Calgary through individual tales of triumph. "One objective of the photo exhibition is to break stereotypes," says Woo-Paw. "In Calgary, there’s a group of hockey-playing Chinese old-timers, an Asian gay curling league and over a dozen Catholic priests from the Philippines."
For a complete lineup of ImaginASIAN Festival events, visit www.asianheritagecalgary.ca.
This week, I host another fun-filled flywheel reading. Featuring Leif Baradoy, Lisa Rose Berreth-Feragen, Kirk Miles, Sabo and Rhett Soveran, it’s a cross-section of Calgary’s literary scene. Join us for poetry, prizes and post-reading beer. The place to be is McNally Robinson on May 3, 7:30 p.m.
Also that night, a few blocks away, Vivan Demuth and Catherine Simmons Niven will read from, respectively, Eyes of the Forest and A Fine Daughter, two novels that range from love in the Rockies to feminism in small-town Alberta. They’re at the Castell Central Library on May 3, 7:30 p.m.
Susan Scott’s new book, All Our Sisters: Homeless Women Across Canada, is a collection of stories detailing abuse, addiction and violence among women in our country. She’ll be joined by Wayne Stewart of the Calgary Homeless Foundation and John Rook of the Salvation Army on May 4 for an evening of social awareness, kicking off at 7:30 p.m. at the Castell Central Library.
Does your teen need a jolt of history? Lois Donovan presents her latest young adult novel, Winds of L’Acadie, a time-travelling tale of young romance and Canadian heritage. She’s at McNally Robinson on May 5, 1:30 p.m.
In 1999, Dr. Douglas Snider was brutally murdered by a colleague. Now, his sister, Hazel Magnussen, looks back at his life and death in A Doctor’s Calling: A Matter of Conscience, doubling as a biography and a criticism of the Canadian justice system. She’ll be at McNally Robinson on May 8, 7:00 p.m.
For another walk through Canadian history, check out Marie Jakober’s The Halifax Connection, a tale of romance and counter-intelligence as Canada is drawn further and further into the American Civil War. She reads at McNally Robinson on May 9, 7:00 p.m.
The writing community isn’t pulling any punches this week when it comes to politics and Canadian identity. Holding the Bully’s Coat: Canada and the U.S. Empire is an unforgiving analysis of recent international events and a challenge to Canada to become the country its citizens deserve. Author Linda McQuaig will read on May 10, 7:30 p.m., in the Orpheus Theatre at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT). |
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