Yellow Peril Racial Fear and Pandemics in Canada

Thursday, 10 December 2020 from 19:00 PST-20:30 PST

In this talk, Dr. Renisa Mawani (UBC Sociology) explores the connections between racism, health, and nation by revisiting D'Arcy Island through the contemporary Covid-19 pandemic. Located in Haro Strait and off the coast of Vancouver Island, D'Arcy Island was a leprosy colony where Chinese men in British Columbia were sent to be “quarantined." The colony was established in 1891 and operative until 1924. During this period, 49 men - mostly Chinese - were sent to the Island to await deportation or death, whichever came first. She uses D'Arcy Island to examine how racial anxieties regarding Chinese migration underpinned concerns around health and nation historically, and ask what this case might tell us about the contemporary pandemic and the deeply rooted structures of racial violence that underpin it. 

Following the talk, Dr. Laura Ishiguro (UBC History) and Ms. Naomi Louie (UBC History) will provide commentary and analysis on Dr. Mawani's lecture and relate it to the ongoing fears about the Covid contagion in Canada.

Don't miss out on this amazing opportunity!

The 2020 Paul and Eileen Lin Commemorative Lecture is co-sponsored by the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC (CCHSBC), Vancouver Public Library (VPL), SFU Institute for Transpacific Cultural Research (SFU ITCR), UBC Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies (UBC ACAM), and UBC Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Canadian Studies (INSTRCC).