UBC Press Blog

Chinese Canadian and Chinese American Political Mobilization

Shanti Fernando, 2006, Chapter 6, p. 127-130.

Author’s Comment:
Conversations about Equality and Hope

My book Race and the City is a story found in a framework created by history and scholarly studies and theories about racialization in Canada and the US. The story inside this framework is born of many conversations with leading members of the Chinese American and Chinese Canadian communities who wanted to share their community and personal stories. These were not stories of despair but stories of hope for a better, more equal future. They were generous in sharing with me the pride in gains and accomplishments as well as the frustration with barriers they continue to face. The goal of many of these groups was to “get into the conversation” of politics and make others aware of the common interests they have with all other groups. The commonality of interests is something that I hope that we can celebrate while still acknowledging histories and differences. I think that my book calls on all of us to be vigilant in remembering that common ground and protecting equality gains within that common ground. I always ask my students to do what I believe to be the most important thing in life which is to put themselves in someone else’s position. This is the only way to gain understanding. Political mobilization is not a narrow concept.  It can be protest, interest group or community group involvement or just the ability to contribute to a conversation in a way that affirms the equality of racialized minorities and asks for others to respect and support that equality. It is about self awareness. Awareness of how issues of race affect us all.

Excerpt, 2006, Chapter 6, p. 127-130.

I have attempted to define the place of racialized minorities in both a Canadian and an American context and have tried to articulate how racialization has denied them full access to political participation and substantive citizenship. I chose urban multicultural settings, where “governance units can best encourage and enable the active participation of citizens in raising issues, shaping the political agenda, making decisions, and implementing them,” because these sites had the greatest concentration of racialized minorities and theoretically had the most easily accessible political system. (more…)