Author Description

Vancouver has one of the largest populations of Chinese in North America. In The Chinese in Vancouver, Wing Chung Ng captures the fascinating story of the city’s Chinese residents in their search for identity between 1945 and 1980. Ng also discusses the experiences of ethnic Chinese in various Southeast Asian countries and the United States, forcing a rethinking of "Chineseness" in the diaspora. Ng juxtaposes the cultural positions of different generations of Chinese immigrants and their Canadian-born descendants and unveils the ongoing struggle over the definition of being Chinese. Though not denying the reality of racism, Ng’s account gives the Chinese people their own voice and shows that the Chinese in Vancouver had much to say and often disagreed among themselves about the meaning of being Chinese.