Asian Heritage Month 2022

May marks Asian Heritage Month in Canada. Join us at one of the many events this month celebrating Asian heritage, culture and experience, and connect with the Asian community at SFU. Check back throughout the month for updates, as well as new stories from SFU community members.

Stories

• Roundtable on Asia/Diaspora Research
  Watch GSWS's four-part Roundtable Conversation on Asia/Diaspora Research featuring GSWS faculty members Nadine Attewell, May Farrale, Helen Leung, and Vaibhav Saria.

Student reflections

Nadine Attewell’s GSWS 321 (Queer Relations) students explore how intimacy, kinship, and community look and feel like for Asian Canadians and Americans today, drawing inspiration from films, graphic novels, memoirs, and other creative texts by queer and feminist Asian diasporic thinkers.

• Reflecting on "stuckness," family expectations, and love
  Creative work by Catelyn Sue
• Exploring (un)conditional love in relation to food, space, and queerness
  Creative work by Erwin Inocalla
• Capturing and sharing a family recipe for tongjyun
  Creative work by K. Ng

Events

• explorAsian Festival | April 30 - May 31
  Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society, sponsored by SFU David Lam Centre
  
  explorASIAN is a Metro-Vancouver festival showcasing pan-Asian Canadian arts and culture during Asian Heritage Month in May. Join the opening ceremony on Saturday, April 30 at SFU Harbour Centre featuring a catered reception, speeches by esteemed guests, and performances to showcase the growing communities of Pan-Asian heritage and their rich, vibrant history in Canada.
• CCDI Webinar: Keeping the conversation going: Anti-Asian racism in Canada | May 10
  Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion
  
  Anti-Asian racism can seem obscure to many people, or an after-thought in the scheme of other forms of racial discrimination. During Asian Heritage Month, join us for this interactive panel where Asian leaders gather to share insights on the progress of Canada's readiness to denounce and address anti-Asian racism.
• Let’s Roll | May 10
  SFU Health Sciences and BC CDC
  
  Join us for this live Zoom cooking demonstration and learn how to make Fresh Salad Rolls with Wai Yuen! To prepare for this event, consult the recipe. Bring your questions and your appetite!
• Children of the Mist: Film Screening | May 10 & 11 (in-person), May 5-15 (online)
  DOXA Documentary Film Festival, sponsored by SFU David Lam Centre
• Myanmar Diaries: Film Screening | May 13 (in-person), May 5-15 (online)
  DOXA Documentary Film Festival, sponsored by SFU David Lam Centre
• Global Asia Talks: Food Justice in Focus | May 14
  explorAsian Festival, SFU Global Asia Program and SFU David Lam Centre
  
  Join us for a conversation with local activists, artists, and academics who are taking up rich legacies of struggle to imagine more nourishing futures for all. What’s possible, and what will be required to get there?
• Female Bodies in China: Literati Fantasies, Iron Girls & Olympic Hoopla | May 17
  SFU Institute for Transpacific Cultural Research and SFU Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies
  
  Professor Eva Man 文潔華 (Hong Kong Baptist University) leads a scintillating discussion of female beauty in Chinese culture, from courtesan culture to the Olympics.
• Asian Arts Discussion Panel | May 25
  SFU Health Sciences and BC CDC
  
  Join us for a discussion with artists Fiona Lam, Nancy Lee and Ying Wang, whose work engages with themes of Asian and other identities, cultures, and intersectionalities.
• Railroads, riots and reefer: A brief history of how drug prohibition shaped the early Asian immigrant experience | May 27
  SFU Health Sciences
  
  A brief historical presentation by Cherlyn Cortez, RN and colleague
• Anti-Asian Racism in B.C. and the Community Organizers who Stand Against It | May 30
  SFU David Lam Centre, SFU Labour Studies Program and the Asian Canadian Labor Alliance (ACLA, BC Chapter) 
  
  Join us as we reflect on the global rise in Anti-Asian racism, by speaking to some of the activists who have been organizing and building solidarities against it. Moving beyond the theoretical and academic, we will hear from these individuals about what an anti-racist stance has meant to them and what they believe it should look like in the future.
• 2022 Varshney Visiting Scholar Public Lecture with Dr. Prabhakaran Dorairaj – The Right Diet and Lifestyle for a Healthy Heart | May 30
  SFU Health Sciences
  
  Heart diseases, diabetes and their risk factors are the leading cause of death and disability worldwide, with a comparatively high propensity to develop heart diseases and diabetes in regions such as South Asia. These diseases are potentially preventable or can be postponed–this talk will clarify the right diet and lifestyle for a healthy heart.

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