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History Post-confederation (1867-)

Contesting White Supremacy

School Segregation, Anti-Racism, and the Making of Chinese Canadians

by (author) Timothy J. Stanley

Publisher
UBC Press
Initial publish date
Jan 2011
Category
Post-Confederation (1867-), British Columbia (BC), Historiography, General, Discrimination & Race Relations
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780774819329
    Publish Date
    Jul 2011
    List Price
    $34.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780774819312
    Publish Date
    Feb 2011
    List Price
    $36.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780774819336
    Publish Date
    Jan 2011
    List Price
    $34.95

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Description

In 1922-23, Chinese students in Victoria, British Columbia, went on strike to protest a school board’s attempt to impose segregation. Their resistance was unexpected at the time and runs against the grain of mainstream accounts of Asian exclusion, which tend to ignore the agency of the excluded.

 

Contesting White Supremacy offers an alternative reading of racism in British Columbia. Drawing on Chinese sources and perspectives and an innovative theory of racism and anti-racism to explain the strike, Timothy Stanley demonstrates that by the 1920s migrants from China and their BC-born children actively resisted policy makers’ efforts to organize white supremacy into the very texture of life. The education system served as an arena where white supremacy confronted Chinese nationalist schooling and where parents and students rejected the idea of being either Chinese or Canadian and instead invented a new category – Chinese Canadian – to define their identity.

About the author

Awards

  • Winner, Founder Award, Canadian History of Education Association
  • Winner, Clio Award for British Columbia, Canadian Historical Association

Contributor Notes

Timothy J. Stanley is a professor of anti-racism education and education foundations in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa.