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Listen to Living Hyphen on Spotify. Living Hyphen uncovers what it means to live in between cultures as a hyphenated Canadian - that is, individuals who call Canada home but with roots elsewhere. Our stories are beautiful, heartbreaking, uplifting, contradictory, and constantly unfolding.

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The definition of "Asian" may be inclusive and broad, and applies to people who come from or whose ancestors come from:

East Asia- China, Hong Kong S.A.R., Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan.

South Asia - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.

Central Asia - Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.

Southeast Asia - Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.

Western Asia - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cyprus, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates,Yemen.

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These are films that celebrate the many achievements and contributions of Canadians of Asian descent. From the NFB

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Enjoy this curated selection of films that celebrate the many achievements and contributions of Canadians of Asian descent who, throughout history, have done so much to make Canada the culturally diverse, compassionate and prosperous nation it is today.

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Please ensure JavaScript is enabled. Enjoy this curated selection of films that celebrate the many achievements and contributions of Canadians of Asian descent who, throughout history, have done so much to make Canada the culturally diverse, compassionate and prosperous nation it is today.

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Celebrate Canada's Asian Heritage - Asian Heritage Month

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Still, the history of Asian people arriving in Canada has seen highs and lows. China is one such example. The first Chinese arrived in Canada in 1788, when about 50 settlers, who were artisans by training, accompanied Captain John Meares. These settlers helped to build a trading post and encouraged trade in sea otter pelts between Nootka Sound (in what would become British Columbia) and Guangzhou, China. On Vancouver Island, and across BC, the Chinese population was estimated at 7,000 people by 1860. Their numbers grew with the addition of about 15,000 Chinese labourers brought in between 1880 and 1885 to complete the BC section of the coast-to-coast Canadian Pacific Railway.

This also marked the start of one of this country's darker chapters. More than 600 workers died as a result of adverse working conditions, as shown in the Heritage Minute "Nitro." After 1885, Chinese emigrants were required to pay a $50 head tax to enter Canada. In 1900, the "head tax" was doubled to $100, and raised again in 1903 to $500 ( see Chinese Head Tax in Canada). This was the result of complaints that were summed up by one senator, who concluded that the Chinese "are not of our race and cannot become part of ourselves." Chinese Canadians were not allowed to vote until 1947.

Arrivals from other Asian countries also faced discrimination. The first Japanese immigrants arrived in 1877. Thirty years later, Japanese immigration to Canada was restricted to 400 males per year, and, in 1928, limited to 150 people annually. During the Second World War, Japanese Canadians were interned and their property was placed under "protective custody" - only to be sold off later.

South Asians faced other hardships. In 1914, the government blocked the arrival of the Komagata Maru, a ship carrying would-be arrivals from India, and ordered them to be sent back. Upon their return, they clashed with British Indian police who tried to force them onto a specially commissioned train bound for Punjab. Twenty passengers died. Canada restricted immigration from South Asia to such an extent that, as late as 1961, the national census counted fewer than 7,000 people with origins in the region.

Today, many of these injustices have been corrected, and acknowledged, and the communities are thriving. In the 2011 census, South Asians, Chinese and Black Canadians accounted for 61 per cent of the country's visible minority population. They were followed by Filipinos, Latin Americans, Arabs, Southeast Asians, West Asians, Koreans and Japanese. A vivid reflection of the changing times is the four Sikh Canadians named to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's cabinet.

As we mark Asian Heritage Month, there is general agreement about the positive impacts these and other communities bring to Canada ( see Asian Heritage in Canada collection). At Historica Canada, we offer examples of this firsthand through the speakers who take part in our Passages Canada program and its accompanying video series. The Canadian population now reflects the presence of the strengths of people from around the world. As a result, Canadians feel increasingly confident about our place within it.

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Still, the history of Asian people arriving in Canada has seen highs and lows. China is one such example. The first Chinese arrived in Canada in 1788, when about 50 settlers, who were artisans by training, accompanied Captain John Meares.

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Listen to this episode from Asian Enough on Spotify. A conversation with Democratic U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris about the recent rise in anti-Asian hate, how government leaders should address racism in America, and growing up with Indian and Jamaican roots in Northern California.

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collection

For Canada, Asia does not exist "over there." It is, has been, and will continue to be, right here, contributing to and shaping our country. Canada's citizenry includes over 7.5 million people - almost 22 per cent of the population - who were born outside Canada. Recent immigrants to this country are more likely to have come from Asia and the Middle East than from Europe. Chinese ancestry, East Indian ancestry and Filipino ancestry are among the 20 most common ancestries reported by the Canadian population. (Census of Canada, 2016).

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collection For Canada, Asia does not exist "over there." It is, has been, and will continue to be, right here, contributing to and shaping our country. Canada's citizenry includes over 7.5 million people - almost 22 per cent of the population - who were born outside Canada.

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Asian Heritage Month Collection from CBC Gem

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Asian Heritage Month Collection from CBC Gem

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This is a collection of documentaries, films and shows.

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Why has there been a rise in anti-Asian hate crime in the US?

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Listen to this episode from Today in Focus on Spotify. A rise in anti-Asian hate crime during the pandemic is forcing the US to reckon with a racism that's been overlooked for decades. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus

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On his 28th mission, shot down over France. Went on to aid the French resistance.
Kam Len Douglas Sam, a Chinese-Canadian was born in Victoria, British Columbia on April 6, 1918. He attended Victoria High School and besides English, could included Chinese, French and Japanese. Below his son, Trevor Sam, in an article written for Canada's History magazine, describes his father's story.

The Many Wars of Doug Sam
A son reflects on his father, this country's most decorated Chinese Canadian

In early July 1944, my grandmother learned from the Canadian government that her son Kam Len Douglas Sam, my father, had been shot down over northern France on a bombing mission and presumed dead.

He was a third-generation Chinese Canadian, born in Victoria in 1918, and a pilot officer with the Royal Canadian Air Force. Church services eulogized him and Victoria newspapers paid editorial tribute to a hometown boy from Chinatown who made the supreme sacrifice. My great grandmother, though a devout Anglican, went to the Chinese temple in Victoria and lit incense. The joss sticks told her that her grandson was not dead.

The joss sticks were correct. Sam had parachuted safely. He landed only 180 metres from a Luftwaffe base but was able to contact the French underground.

His family would not learn he was alive for many months. The French underground and MI9, the section of British Military Intelligence charged with aiding resistance fighters in Nazi-controlled Europe, maintained the ruse that my father had died in his Halifax bomber.

He had been rejected from the RCAF in 1941 for not being Caucasian. He got in a year later when the government removed the racial clause in entry rules, and his Chinese ancestry proved to be an asset. He was to stay in France to coordinate the escapes of other Allied airmen. Resistance members provided him with clothing and forged papers to identify him as an Asian student trapped in France by the German occupation.

Through the summer and early fall of 1944 he aided the resistance in northern France, bluffing his way out of two Gestapo round-ups with the high-school French he had learned in Victoria. He witnessed the ambush of German supply convoys, the elimination of Gestapo agents and French collaborators and the systematic roundup and shipment to death camps of French Jews and Gypsies.

In September 1944, the commander of an American tank entering Rheims in advance of the U.S. Third Army was surprised to receive maps of street plans and deployment of German forces in the city from the Chinese Canadian in charge of the resistance force.

My father had flown in 28 terrifying raids over Fortress Europe in 1943 and 1944, including a mission over Nuremberg that saw 94 Allied bombers go down and one over Berlin that lost 73. A street barricade in Rheims, however, was to be his last fight of the Second World War. He later said that it was the first battle that totally frightened him, because it was the first he had fought on the ground. Using air-dropped weapons, he and his underground forces engaged German troops in a vicious fire-fight, successfully fending off three ferocious attacks until U.S. troops entered the city and forced the enemy to capitulate.

Days later, my father was in London. He sent a telegram to my grandmother telling her he was alive and well. She cried happily. My great-grandmother was unsurprised; the joss sticks had told her he was safe.

The war in the air and the war on the ground of World War Two were not my father's last. While the Korean War occupied the minds of most Canadians in the early 1950s, he was seconded to the Royal Air Force to serve as a counter-insurgency specialist in the Malay States. The British were fighting a jungle war with Chinese, Malaysian and Indian communists.

My father interrogated more than 300 prisoners, making good use of his fluent Cantonese and Mandarin. He served under Sir Maurice Oldfield, the late British master spy said to have been the model for novelist John le Carre's fictional character George Smiley.

In 1967, after 25 years of continuous service, including stints in London and Washington, my father retired from the RCAF with the rank of squadron leader, the most decorated Chinese Canadian ever. Included among his honours was the Croix de Guerre, silver star, awarded by the French government.

Retirement from active military duty did not end his public service. Joining the Department of Employment and Immigration in 1967 as an intelligence analyst, he rose to become the department's chief of immigration intelligence for the British Columbia-Yukon region at a time when Asian youth gangs were a growing presence. Once, my father and some local detectives were in a Vancouver restaurant, observing the noisy antics of some Chinese gang members. He went over and had a quiet little chat with them. The gang members looked around at the detectives, mouths agape, then stood up and immediately left.

When my father rejoined his party, he was asked, "How did you manage to get them to do that?" Sam laughingly said, "I just told them who I was and that if they did not quiet down, I was going to hold an immigration meeting right then and there, and they would all be gone first thing in the morning."

Kam Len Douglas Sam, the eldest of nine children born to Mr. and Mrs. Sam Wing Wo, who immigrated to Victoria from Yin Ping in the vicinity of Canton, China, retired from his final war in 1983. He died in Vancouver on July 3, 1989 at age 71.

When he was a teenager at Victoria High School, someone inscribed in his yearbook, "Doug has aspirations to become the Chinese Lindbergh." I think that from the time he was old enough to see the blue sky, he wanted to grasp it; he wanted to fly. And so he did.

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Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society

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On his 28th mission, shot down over France. Went on to aid the French resistance. Kam Len Douglas Sam, a Chinese-Canadian was born in Victoria, British Columbia on April 6, 1918. He attended Victoria High School and besides English, could included Chinese, French and Japanese.

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Zhang Daqian: 8 works - Google Arts & Culture

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A slideshow of artworks auto-selected from multiple collections

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Asian Pacific American Cultures - Google Arts & Culture

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Explore stories and artworks across Asian Pacific American Cultures

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Support #MuseumWithoutWalls

Thousands of people are enjoying unique, exclusive arts and cultural experiences through #MuseumWithoutWalls. Many have asked how they can support us during this unprecedented time. Please consider making a donation towards our programs, or join as a Friend or Patron. Thank you for your generosity and support.

Click below to watch a preview of the inspiring art, experiences, and ideas that await you at the #MuseumWithoutWalls.

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The Aga Khan Museum provides visitors with a window into the artistic, intellectual, and scientific contributions of Muslim civilizations to world heritage. The Museum's Permanent Collection of over 1,000 objects includes rare masterpieces that reflect a broad range of artistic styles and materials.

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Traditional Asian Music: Oriental Tibetan & Japanese Shamisen, Shakuhachi & Chinese Songs

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Arirang Special _ Korean Music Fest _ Taepyeongmu

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Savitri and Satyavan: The legend of the princess who outwitted Death - Iseult Gillespie

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Story of Nowruz / Norooz (Persian New Year)

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Easy Henna Design for Beginner | Hand Henna

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Toronto Tabla Ensemble -Tabla Talks with Ritesh Das

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The aim of the ' Stories of Care ' project is to capture and amplify the stories of Filipinx/a/o care workers, and the impact of the pandemic on them. So far, the project has revealed stories of employment, unemployment, family, grief, healing, community and resilience.

This project is built on individual stories, relationships and trust. The work is centred on acts of self-care as parts of community care and the ever-growing tension between advocating and being grateful for what they have.

Before the pandemic, research showed that "34.4% of internationally-trained nurses are from the Philippines, with a study from 2008 showing that although Filipinos constitute 1.2% of the Canadian workforce, they constitute 5.6% of Canada's total health care aide labour force. While there has yet to be a study updating these figures, it is reasonable to assume, given how the Philippines has become Canada's third largest 'source' country for immigrants (after India and China), that the proportion of Filipino workers in Canada and thus, the proportion of these workers who are part of the healthcare industry, has grown bigger." (Web source: https://www.broadbentinstitute.ca/filipino_healthcare_workers_during_covid19_and_the_importance_of_race_based_analysis)

As the project lead, Jennifer Chan reflects "this project, as well as many others in the past year, has made me begin to explore and learn more about trauma-informed design practices. Up until a few years ago, I believed it was enough to integrate community development and people-centred design practices and tools together to do this work. I no longer think that is true. Especially in communities that are already over surveyed and over-researched in colonial ways, I think it is extremely important to be critical of the approaches that are recognized and celebrated as innovative. This project was built on relationships and trust, the stories that were shared on paper were not the same as the ones shared verbally or confidentially. As a designer, researcher and project lead, it is my job to keep their stories safe until the individuals are ready to share them. Sharing a story under duress is a tool of colonization and can be retraumatizing."

Through an opportunity with the 2021 DesignTO festival, we were able to extend the reach and impact of this work through the collaborative work of 3 Filipinx artists and the stories of 5 Filipina care workers.

'Stories of Care' is a collaborative project presented by the Department of Imaginary Affairs. The project would not be possible without the vulnerability, joy, generosity of time and care for the community that has been shared by Leny Rose, Ollie Dela Cruz, Gretchen Mangahas, Elda Almario, Elvin Velasco, Carmina Miana, Mary Joy Pascua and Lilibeth Galapon. 'Stories of Care' is made in tribute to the Filipinx caregivers and migrant workers we have lost in 2020.

Additionally, through The Stories of Us, the 5 initial stories collected through the 'Stories of Care' have been translated, designed and will be added to our library later this year.

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Stories of Care | Department of Imaginary Affairs

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The aim of the ' Stories of Care ' project is to capture and amplify the stories of Filipinx/a/o care workers, and the impact of the pandemic on them. So far, the project has revealed stories of employment, unemployment, family, grief, healing, community and resilience. This project is built on individual stories, relationships and trust.

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Born in Amritsar, India and is a prominent and respected filmmaker. She is best known for her movie "Water" (2005) which was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film. In 2012, she received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award.

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Born in Nepean, Ontario. She is of Korean descent. She has received 2 Golden Globe Awards, 4 Screen Actors Guild Awards, and 12 Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2019, she became the first Asian woman to host the Golden Globe Awards.

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Vivienne came to Montreal in 1959 and is the first Canadian of Asian descent appointed to the Senate of Canada.

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Jagmeet is a Canadian lawyer and politician, born in Scarborough, Ontario. In the federal election in 2019, he became the first member of a racialized community to lead a major Canadian federal political party on a permanent basis.

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He is a Canadian academic, science broadcaster and environmental activist born in Vancouver, BC. He is a third generation Canadian of Japanese descent and has received numerous honours and awards.

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Born in Edmonton, Alberta and s a Canadian of Korean descent. She is an internationally renowned violinist. She holds a position of first associate concertmaster with the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2005

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She is a Canadian of Indian descent who immigrated to Canada at 4 years of age. Sh is a best-selling Canadian poet, illustrator, and author.

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Born in Ottawa, Ontario. He is a Canadian figure skater of Chinese descent and an Olympic gold and silver medalist.

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Adrienne is a Canadian of Chinese descent and the 26th Governor General of Canada.

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720 VR in the National Palace Museum - Guided VR Tours