Award-winning author Alison Marshall will give public presentations about her new book, Cultivating Connections: the Making of Chinese Prairie Canada, in Nanaimo Feb. 18 and Cumberland Feb. 19.
February 10, 2015 - 3:30pm
Award-winning author Alison Marshall will visit Vancouver Island Feb. 18 and 19 to discuss her new book Cultivating Connections: The Making of Chinese Prairie Canada, which highlights the contribution of early Chinese Canadian pioneers.
According to Marshall’s research, in the late 1870s, thousands of Chinese men left coastal British Columbia and the western United States and headed east. For these men, the Prairies were a land of opportunity where they could open shops, and potentially earn enough money to marry.
The result of almost a decade’s research and more than three hundred interviews, Cultivating Connections tells the stories of some of prairie Canada’s Chinese settlers – across the generations, between the genders, and through cultural difference. These stories reveal the critical importance of networks of belonging within these communities in coping with experiences of racism and establishing a successful life on the Prairies.
Dr. Marshall’s book showcases a number of individuals including Reverend Ma Seung and Charlie Foo. Ma Seung conducted his missionary work in Cumberland, BC from 1907 to 1917. Both Ma Seung and Foo have ties to Vancouver Island with family in Nanaimo and Duncan.
The other half of the book tells women’s stories, including those of Eng Shee Yee, the wife of Yee Clun, and Quongying Wong who created an altar in her closet with magical swords and coins. The role and importance of women are not typically emphasized in discussions of early Chinese Canadian history.
Chinese society, as Marshall’s accounts show, was experienced differently in 1920s Canada depending on whether one lived on the Prairies or on the coast, and whether one was male or female. Experiences were also determined by merchant, nationalist, Confucian, Christian, Buddhist, or Daoist affiliation and practice.
“In Cultivating Connections, we have a new window into the lives of Chinese Canadians on the Prairies,” says Paul Crowe, Director of the David Lam Centre at Simon Fraser University. “Marshall has created a remarkably intimate and moving portrayal of the lives of these settlers and, through that intimacy, draws out the nuances of relationships that helped them negotiate often hostile circumstances. Written in a very approachable style and full of personal stories, her book will interest a broad readership.”
Dr. Marshall’s visit to Vancouver Island is sponsored by the Vancouver Island University (VIU) Faculty of Social Sciences and Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
She will speak about her book at VIU's Nanaimo campus, 900 Fifth Street, on Feb. 18 from 6:30 to 8 pm in Building 200, Room 203. This talk will focus on women’s forgotten history.
Community talks take place in Nanaimo on Wednesday Feb. 18, 3:30 pm at the Nanaimo Museum and on Thursday, Feb. 19, 3 pm at the Cumberland Library. The focus of these talks will be on Reverend Ma Seung. Long-time Nanaimo residents may remember Dr. Jacque Mar; he was Ma Seung’s son.
Admission to all events is by donation and everyone is welcome.
Dr. Marshall is a professor in the Department of Religion at Brandon University, and adjunct professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Winnipeg. She is also author of the award-winning The Way of the Bachelor: Early Chinese Settlement in Manitoba, published with the University of BC Press.
For more information about Dr. Marshall and her work, please visit https://www.brandonu.ca/religion/faculty/marshall/
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Photo caption: Award-winning author Alison Marshall will give public presentations about her new book, Cultivating Connections: the Making of Chinese Prairie Canada, in Nanaimo Feb. 18 and Cumberland Feb. 19.
Media Contact
Janina Stajic, Manager, Vancouver Island University
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Tags: In the Community
