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Take five: Race, racism, and anti-racist activism
Nick Ubels
Community Engagement Librarian
UBC Learning Exchange
Take five is a series that highlights items in the Downtown Eastside Research Access Portal (DTES RAP) collection, and sometimes beyond, about a particular topic. We hope this introduction provides a good starting point for your research. If you need any help finding items, contact community engagement librarian Nick Ubels at nick.ubels@ubc.ca
Conversations about how to uproot systemic racism in our own communities have been coming into greater focus since summer 2020, sparked by incidents in Canada and abroad. In this post, you can find a selection of articles and videos in the DTES RAP about race, racism, and anti-racist activism in the Downtown Eastside.
Together, these items show how the DTES has been a place of racialized displacement and resistance, a pattern that began with the arrival of settlers on unceded Indigenous territories, and continued through the banishment of Japanese Canadians from Pauerugai (Powell Street) during the Second World War, the demolition of Hogan’s Alley, and the ongoing gentrification threatening Chinatown.
If you find a research item you’d like to suggest for the collection, please email mrai.info@ubc.ca.
Chinatown at night, 1960. By Grant Mann. Public domain.
1. Where Are We in the World?—Chinatown 唐人街 In the Making of Vancouver (2015)
Watch this short documentary film about the hidden history of Chinatown as a site of resilience against racism. It features interviews with Elders, historians, and community members. Learn about the 1907 anti-Asian race riot, the 1960s freeway protests, and personal experiences of the Chinese-Canadian community in Vancouver. “As you think about [Chinatown’s] history,” says UBC history professor Henry Yu, “you’re being reminded that it sits on a long history of struggle against racism.”
2. Black Strathcona: Hogan’s Alley (2013)
This video is a short introduction to Hogan’s Alley. For sixty years, Strathcona was home to Vancouver’s first and only Black community. In spite of fierce community resistance, Hogan’s Alley was demolished in the 1960s to make way for the Georgia Viaduct. Learn about the history and culture of the neighbourhood, including notable residents like Barbara Howard and Jimi Hendrix in this series of videos. You can find out more about the neighbourhood at BlackStrathcona.com
3. ‘They treated me like crap and I know it was because I was Native’ (2017)
This paper explores the healthcare experiences of Indigenous peoples who use illicit substances living in the Downtown Eastside. A community research team led this study. They examined how different stigma contribute to healthcare inequities. The study demonstrates that these inequities are made worse by systemic racism and discrimination. Healthcare providers’ dismissal of the medical concerns of Indigenous participants in the study resulted in delayed care. The authors include several recommendations: educate healthcare providers on how structural racism may influence their clinical practice, create protocols for pain management when patients use illicit substances, and value Indigenous cultures in healthcare settings.
4. Fight the power: Redressing displacement and building a just city for Black lives in Vancouver (2019)
Read about how Vancouver’s Black community has fought for reparations for the destruction of Hogan’s Alley. In this Master’s thesis, Stephanie Allen documents advocacy by the Black community and the City’s response. She reflects on her own experiences to inform her research. Her work explores proposals such as affordable housing and a community land trust in the former location of Hogan’s Alley and how these were addressed.
5. After dispossession: An urban rights praxis of remaining in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (2019)
In this paper, the authors interview DTES residents from Indigenous, Japanese, Chinese, African, and White working-class communities about their experiences of dispossession. The authors find common ground between Japanese Canadians removed from their homes and property during the Second World War and communities in the DTES today. They identify a shared fight for the right to remain across diverse material, cultural, existential, and political struggles.
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Any questions or feedback about this post? Do you have an idea for the news section? Please reach out to community engagement librarian Nick Ubels at nick.ubels@ubc.ca.
