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Asian Canada is Burning invites us to trouble the mobilization of “anti-Asian hate” in the aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic.
Bringing together activists, organizers, academic, and artists, this book explores the historical and contemporary conditions that make theorizing “Asian Canadian” feasible. Grounded in a transnational queer and feminist lens, this book also aims to envision possible futures and solidarities. Ultimately, this collection is concerned with moments and places of tensions, confrontations, relations, and solidarity. We offer stories of insurgent encounters as people who identify as “Asian” navigate and implicate settler colonial nation-state to make new dreams, histories and intimacies.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
1 Introduction
Ian Liujia Tian, Coly Chau and Rose Ann Torres Part 1 Situating Asia(ns) beyond Settler Canadian Nationalism 2 Tearing Down Walls: Rethinking White Domesticity in the Context of Cultural Domicide
Shelly Ikebuchi 3 Unpacking the Festival of Diwali in Canada: Where Have Rama, Sita, and Lakshman Gone?
Rajni Mala Khelawan 4 Seeking Pappy’s Approval
Krystal Jagoo 5 Vulnerable Resisters: Decolonizing Voices of Asian Migrants in a Settler Colonial and Religious Context
Hyejung Jessie Yum 6 Unboxing Our Narrative of Space and Place: An Unsettling Dance of (Un)Belonging
Jose Miguel Esteban Part 2 Gender, Sexuality and Other Intimacies 7 The Bee
Elisha Lim 8 Labour, Intimacy and Diaspora: Queer Asian Studies in Canada
Ian Liujia Tian 9 The Past in the Present: An Encounter between Gay Asians of Toronto and New Ho Queen
Sam Yoon 10 Love Intersections: Queer Sensibilities and Relationality in Art and Cultural Production
David Ng and Jenn Sungshine 11 Emergent Asian-Canadian Feminisms: Insights from Young Filipina/x Feminist Scholar-Organizers
Monica Batac, Julia Baladad, Psalmae Tesalona, Chloe Rodriguez and France Clare Stohner Part 3 Building Solidarities 12 The Butterfly Effect: Asian Massage Parlour and Sex Workers and Historical Chinese Laundries Fighting By-Laws and Organizing Towards Justice
Coly Chau and Elene Lam 13 Asian Canadian Workers Organizing: The Making of the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance
Anna Liu 14 Love Letters to Asian Canadian Studies: On Ethical Solidarities and Decolonial Futures
Janey Lew 15 Dumpster Fires, Burning Affects
Malissa Phung 16 Internationalist Solidarity: Palestinian Liberation, bds , and the Struggle against Normalization
Boycott, Divest and Sanction Toronto 17 Conclusion: Asian Futurism as Living Labour
Ian Liujia Tian Index
About the author
Rose Ann Torres is the Director and Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Algoma University. Dr. Torres pioneered the creation of a Master of Social Work at Algoma University. She is the principal investigator of the SSHRC Insight Development Grants research project entitled “Examining Access to Mental Health Care Service: The Impact of COVID-19 on Filipino Health Care Workers in Northern Ontario” and co-principal investigator of the SSHRC Institutional Grants project titled “Effects of COVID-19 on Teaching and Learning: Stories of Indigenous and Black and Asian Faculty Members and Students at Algoma University”. She has published numerous co-edited books, peer reviewed articles and book chapters.
Coly Chau has a Master of Education in Social Justice Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Her research interests include race, gender, sexuality, migration, anti-colonial thought and spirituality. They are interested in the unearthing and reclamation of knowledges for the purposes of imagining and working toward decolonial and liberatory futures. They are often working, organizing and learning in their communities.
