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The Asianadian Resource Workshop was formed in Toronto in 1978 to publish and distribute a quarterly magazine called The Asianadian: An Asian Canadian Magazine. The magazine ran original work concerning the Asian experience in Canada. It solicited submissions in the form of critical essays, community news and articles, poetry, artwork, short stories, and reviews, thereby providing a platform for emerging Asian Canadian scholars and creatives.

Founders and members of The Asianadian were largely university students who had developed cultural consciousness of their Asian Canadian identity. In its own words published in its opening pages, The Asianadian’s aims were to find new dignity and pride in being Asian in Canada; to promote an understanding between Asian Canadians and other Canadians; to speak out against those conditions, individuals and institutions perpetuating racism in Canada; to stand up against the distortions of [our] history in Canada, stereotypes, economic exploitations, and the general tendency towards injustice and inequality practised on minority groups; to provide a forum for Asian Canadian writers, artists, musicians, etc.; and to promote unity by bridging the gap between Asians with roots in Canada and recent immigrants.

The concept for The Asianadian was conceived by co-founders Anthony Chan, Cheuk Kwan, and Paul Levine under the pseudonym Lau Bo. They served as some of the first members of the editorial collective under which the grassroots magazine was structured, moving on to other personal and community projects. Members came and went, moved into different roles and/or contributed work for publication.

The Asianadian was active through the late-1970s/early-1980s alongside other grassroots publishing efforts in North America. Inspired by various human and civil rights movements, its members sought to call out the unacknowledged histories of Asians in Canada and the persistent Orientalism of the late 19th century. In its time, the publication was considered the first and only anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic social justice magazine in Canada, tackling themes around sexuality, women, and youth. Magazine issues dedicated to Quebec and Vancouver reflect the organization’s national reach and perspectives.

The Asianadian Resource Workshop operated as a registered non-profit organization. Over its run, it produced a total of 24 issues of The Asianadian: An Asian Canadian Magazine before ceasing operations in 1985.

The Asianadian (magazine) had a short-lived prototype under the title 海外述林 The Crossroads. The publication was conceived as a monthly, Chinese-language Hong Kong news magazine catered to the large number of Chinese in Canada from Hong Kong. The magazine solicited Chinese-language articles, then decided to add English-language articles in the back aimed at reaching a growing population of Canadian-born Chinese. The bilingual publication ran a handful of issues in 1977 before being abandoned and re-conceived the following year as The Asianadian.

Note: The sole purpose of the Asianadian Resource Workshop was to publish The Asianadian: An Asian Canadian Magazine. Often used in shorthand, “The Asianadian” usually refers to the magazine, or to both the magazine and its publishing body as little to no distinction was made between the two.

The 11 O'Clock Jazz Orchestra, so named because of its rehearsal time, was one of the jazz ensembles at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. Past directors include Phil Nimmons (1993-2003), Terry Promane (2003-2006, 2012), and Jim Lewis (2004, 2008-2020).

The 10 O'Clock Jazz Orchestra, so named because of its rehearsal time, is one of the jazz ensembles at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. Past directors have included Paul Read, Ron Collier, Terry Promane, Gordon Foote, and Shirantha Beddage. Under Foote's direction (2013-2024), it was predominantly known as the University of Toronto Jazz Orchestra or UTJO.

Mina Wong lived in British Columbia and Alberta before relocating to Toronto and calling the city home. In Toronto, she has worked in public health and in the Chinese community.

Nancy Tong was born in Hong Kong in 1953 and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from York University. The Children’s feature of the Asianadian was inspired by her film, We’re Just Children (1978).

After graduating, she returned to Hong Kong and worked as a documentary producer for television. In 1981, she relocated to New York City and became an active member of its Asian American film community. Nancy has produced many documentaries across American television networks, such as PBS, and has been nominated for numerous awards, including an Academy Award and Peabody Award. Selected works by Nancy are on permanent display at the Museum of Chinese in America in New York.

Since 2000, Nancy has held teaching appointments in documentary film production at the City University of Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong, while also conducting masterclasses in Iran, Pakistan, and Indonesia. She is currently based in New York from which she serves as a consultant and advisor to a new generation of documentary filmmakers in Hong Kong.

William Tse came to Canada at an early age. He holds a Master’s degree in Engineering (Mechanical Engineering).

Wenxiong Gao has lived in Hamilton and has researched extensively on the disappearance of Hamilton’s Chinatown.

Voltaire R. de Leon has worked as a co-editor for Tinig (likely Tinig ng Plaridel (TNP), the official student publication of the University of the Philippines College of Media and Communication). He was an active member of the International Association of Filipino Patriots, an anti-imperialist, anti-Marcos organization active in the 1970s and 1980s in opposing the U.S.-Marcos dictatorship.

V. Padmanabhan hails from Toronto. He has worked as a freelance writer, often writing about the problems that Indian immigrants face in Canada, such as job discrimination.

Kaushalya Tinni Bannerji was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, and is the daughter of Himani Bannerji. She moved to Canada with her family in 1969.

Bannerji studied law at the University of Ottawa and is a widely anthologized poet who has published two collections of poetry. Her work often delves into personal and collective experiences, blending introspective reflection with broader social commentary.

She currently resides in Toronto and has been involved in numerous local social justice initiatives.

Gay activist, educator and writer, Tim McCaskell has been politically active since the late 1960s. McCaskell has been involved in countless grassroots movements and has advocated for LGBTQ2+ rights, the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS, and anti-oppressive change within Toronto’s education system and beyond.

McCaskell has been a founding member or contributor to numerous groups including but not limited to, The Body Politic, the Right to Privacy Committee, the Simon Nkodi Anti-Apartheid Committee, the International Gay Association, AIDS Action Now!, and Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. Additionally, McCaskell has spent over twenty years with the Toronto District School Board’s Equal Opportunity Office. In 1996, he received the City of Toronto Award of Merit for human rights work.

McCaskell was born in 1951 in Beaverton, Ontario. His political involvement began in high school with the 1968 Federal Election. McCaskell established a small Action Trudeau group of youth and doorknocked for the local Liberal candidate. McCaskell quickly became disillusioned with the party after the election and penned a letter denouncing the Liberal Party which was sent to the party headquarters.

McCaskell was enrolled at Brock District High School during the height of the Vietnam War. While attending a Phil Oakes concert in Toronto he picked up an anti-war leaflet, returning to Beaverton he requested more leaflets, which he distributed to fellow students.

In 1969, McCaskell began his Undergraduate Studies at Carleton University immersing himself in left wing anti-war politics. He was involved with the Young Socialist Club, protested the Vietnam War, and called for lower tuition. After a year of enrollment, McCaskell dropped out and purchased a $200 plane ticket to Europe. His trip eventually ended in India. During his travels, he continually encountered anti-imperialist politics wherever he went.

McCaskell then returned to Toronto and for a short time, sold Guerilla newspapers on the street corner, until he started writing for the publication.

A friend’s father offered McCaskell a job at Quaker Oats in Columbia. Enroute McCaskell and his friend stopped in Miami coinciding with the Republican Convention to renominate President Richard Nixon. McCaskell was tear gassed during a protest against the renomination. McCaskell went on to work in Columbia for a year, then spent another year hitchhiking across South America, where he became committed to Marxism.

In 1974, McCaskell returned to Canada. He began working at the Centre for Spanish Speaking People as a bilingual legal secretary, preparing and translating documents for the legal staff.

That same year, McCaskell came out after attending a gay liberation rally in Riverdale Park. Shortly after coming out, he began volunteering with The Body Politic and was listed as a contributor in the 1974 September/October Issue 15. He was a collective member of The Body Politic for 12 years, working on international news for most of that time.

McCaskell joined the Marxist Institute in 1974, where he focused on the intersection between gay liberation and marxism. In 1975, McCaskell met his long term partner, Richard Fung at the Institute.

In 1976, Fung, John Manweering, David Gibson, McCaskell and his sister Lisa rented out a 5 bedroom house at 188 1/2 Seaton Street in Cabbagetown.

In 1979, McCaskell started working at the Riverdale Intercultural Council where he began doing anti-racist work in education. His role was created largely to respond to the racism towards the growing South Asian population in Riverdale. McCaskell organized education programmes in the community and at local schools, producing audiovisual resources on immigration and racism. In 1980 McCaskell left the Riverdale Intercultural Council to complete his Bachelor of Arts at the University of Toronto. However he quickly returned to anti-racist activism , when the Ku Klux Klan opened an office in Riverdale. McCaskell along with other activists established the Riverdale Action Committee Against Racism which canvassed a petition against the KKK and organized a protest starting in Riverdale Park. Shortly after the protest, the Toronto KKK relocated to Parkdale before disbanding.

McCaskell got a job with the Cross Cultural Communications Centre where he researched, scripted, and produced a half hour video tape on Toronto’s Latin American community.

In 1982, McCaskell received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto.

In the early 1980s, the Toronto District School Board hired its first advisor on race relations, Tony Souza. Souza worked to implement new policies challenging racism within the education system. One initiative was a race relations camp for high school students and in 1981 McCaskell was hired as a camp facilitator. In September 1983, he was offered a part time contract as a Student Programme Worker at the Toronto District School Board’s Equal Opportunity Office. McCaskell developed and delivered programs for students and teachers on equity issues related to racism, sexism, homophobia, disability, class, immigration and more. He organized student and teacher workshops on anti-racism, ESL and Latin American camps, worked with student groups, provided training for teachers, and developed resource materials. McCaskell also co-facilitated a weekly LGBTQ student support group. McCaskell left the Toronto District School Board in April 2001 and documented his and his coworker’s work in his first book Race to Equity, published in 2005.

Through his work in education reform, McCaskell was also involved with the Organization of Gays and Lesbians for Education and Education Against Homophobia.

From 1981 to 1983, McCaskell was involved with the Right to Privacy Committee. The RTPC led the legal fight against the police raids on several Toronto bathhouses. The RTPC organized demonstrations, raised thousands of dollars for legal aid and financial assistance for those arrested in the raids, and established the Gay Street Patrol to address the queerbashing that had increased following the raids. McCaskell served as the Chairperson for the RTPC Public Action Committee, which was formed to leverage and direct the outrage inspired by the raids. As the PAC chairperson, McCaskell helped organize many protests and played an integral role in coordinating the national fundraising campaign to purchase a full page advertisement in The Globe and Mail. During this time, the Seaton Street House became the central site for RTPC organizing, until McCaskell and his housemates were evicted by their landlord without notice. The RTPC operations relocated to Jearld Moldenhauer’s house down the block at 139 Seaton Street. This house was a hub for gay organizing and became the new unofficial headquarters for the RTPC.

In 1986, McCaskell was involved as a founding member of the Simon Nkodi Anti-Apartheid Committee. The Committee was responsible for organizing anti-apartheid solidarity work and the Simon Nkodi North American Tour. Prior to hearing about Simon Nkodi, McCaskell, Fung, and Lisa McCaskell were already involved with the Toronto Committee for Liberation of Southern Africa. They had supported the growing boycott movement and McCaskell had helped organize demonstrations.

That same year, McCaskell left The Body Politic collective. At the time, he was enrolled in the Master of Education Program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, was working full time with the Board of Education, and working towards his black belt.

Under the direction of gay activist Michael Lynch, AIDS Action Now! was established in 1988. McCaskell, along with other activists and healthcare workers, were founding members of the Toronto based group. AAN! fought for the improvement of treatment, care, and support for people living with HIV/AIDS. McCaskell served as an AAN! chairperson from 1988 to 1990, and sat on the steering committee for many years.

In 1996, McCaskell received the City of Toronto Award of Merit for his human rights work.

In 2009, McCaskell was asked by Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) to give an address on his experience with the Simon Nkodi Anti-Apartheid Committee. QuAIA sought to highlight and challenge to the pinkwashing of Israel and their use of LGBT rights to distract from their violation of Palestinian human rights. In McCaskell’s address, he stressed the importance of solidarity with groups fighting for human rights and social justice. The event was emceed by the 2009 Pride Grand Marshall El Farouk-Khaki. Although the event went well, there was blowback against QuAIA, Khaki, and McCaskell from groups such as the B’nai Brith and politicians. McCaskell and Fung continued their involvement with QuAIA.

In 2016, McCaskell’s Queer Progress: From Homophobia to Homonationalism was published.

The Women’s Press (also known as the Canadian Women’s Educational Press) was founded in 1971, by a subgroup of the Toronto Women’s Liberation Movement, one of the first feminist political organizations in Toronto. The initiative for a feminist press grew out of a dissatisfaction with the mainstream publishing community which had rejected Women Unite!, the first compilation of Canadian contemporary feminist writing. Their mandate was to provide an alternative means of making feminist ideas widely accessible and continue their involvement in the growing Canadian women’s movement. The Canadian Women’s Educational Press, more commonly known as the Women’s Press, was started officially on a grant from the Toronto Local Initiates Project (LIP) as a socialist feminist collective publishing feminist fiction, non-fiction and non-sexist children’s books.

In 1988 the Women’s Press began public discussion of an internal dispute regarding a proposed anti-racist policy. The discussions ended in a split within the Press with some original members departing to form the ‘Second Story Press’.

Women’s Press is Canada’s oldest English language feminist publisher. For over forty years, Women’s Press has played an integral role in the proliferation of high-quality Canadian writing in the fields of gender, sexuality, and women’s studies.

Teri Chan has worked within the Toronto Board of Education as a special education teacher at College Street Secondary School, at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry (now the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health), and as an art education consultant.

Ted Lo was born in Hong Kong and graduated from the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong. He later relocated to Canada and has been active as a community psychiatrist in Toronto. Lo was a staff psychiatrist at North York General Hospital.

Lo has held teaching appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto and is a visiting faculty member at the University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, helping the development of services in various parts of the country.

He was one of the three founding members of the Hong Fook Mental Health Association, which strives to provide culturally sensitive services in five Asian languages and address the stigma of mental illness in the Asian community. He founded a charitable organization, FACT (Friends of Alternative & Complementary Therapies), to promote education for the public and mainstream healthcare professionals. Under the China-Canada Medical Education project, Lo produced a TV series, Prescription for Health, which has been broadcast across many channels in China.

For his contributions to the psychiatry field in Canada, he was made a member of the Mental Health Commission of Canada and was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Award.

Taliba was a newsletter published by the Coalition Against the Marcos Dictatorship (CAMD), a North American-based anti-imperialist organization that was at the centre of the international movement opposing the dictatorship of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos from the 1970s.

CAMD changed its name to Committee to Advance the Movement for Democracy and Independence (CAMDI) in February 1986, after the People Power Revolution toppled the corrupt and brutal Marcos regime.

T.Y. Ho has written for the Chinese Students Association at the University of British Columbia for publication in Journal.

Sylvia S. Jong is a second-generation Chinese Canadian born in Toronto in 1956. She completed an undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto. Sylvia has been a classical guitarist and a massage therapist interested in the integration of the healing arts, music, and movement.

Susan Carter has worked as a freelance publicist, producer and arts administrator, particularly related to the careers of Asians in theatre.

Stephen Matthew Gill was born in Sialkot, Pakistan, in 1932 and raised in India. He studied at Agra University in India, Oxford University, and the University of Ottawa.

Gill held teaching appointments in Ethiopia, then relocated to England, and finally settled in Canada. As an award-winning writer, his main works have been composed in English and published globally. He also wrote poetry in Urdu, Hindi, and Punjabi.

Gill is author of over twenty books, including novels, literary criticism, and poetry collections. He was founder of Vesta Publications and a member of the Writer’s Union of Canada.

In the mid-1970s, Gill ran twice for election as an alderman (municipal councillor) in Cornwall, Ontario, but was unsuccessful.

He died in 2022.

Siu-Keong Lee was the co-ordinator of Montreal’s Ad Hoc committee for the W5 movement.

Sherali Hussein was born in Tanzania where his grandparents emigrated from pre-partition India. He studied in Britain and at McMaster University, then working as a medical physicist afterwards, including in Vancouver at the Cancer Control Agency.

Sky Lee was born Sharon Kwun Ying Lee on September 15, 1952, in Port Alberni, British Columbia. Relocating to Vancouver in 1967 for school, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia and a Diploma in Nursing from Douglas College. In Vancouver, she was a founding member of the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop.

Lee’s first publishing credit was as illustrator of the children's book, Teach Me to Fly, Skyfighter! (1983) by Paul Yee. Her award-winning debut novel, Disappearing Moon Cafe (1990), was a nominee for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Governor General's Award, and winner of the City of Vancouver Book Award. Her works spanning short stories, poetry and feminist fiction/non-fiction often explore the themes of feminism, racism, and homophobia experienced by native, lesbian, and Asian Canadian women.

Lee identifies as a lesbian and resides on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.

Shan-Chang Chen is a third-generation Chinese Canadian. His family first came to Canada from China shortly after the fall of the Tai Ping Revolution. Chen has lived in China, England, the United States, and Canada, including in Toronto.

Sean Gunn was born in Vernon, BC, in August 1948. He is a descendant of Chinese railway workers and Chinese head taxpayers. Gunn studied at the University of British Columbia in the late 1960s and 1970s, during the heart of the Asian Canadian movement when Chinese and Japanese Canadians explored their shared Asian history and identity together. Over his lifetime, he has been active in Vancouver’s Chinatown as a political and cultural organizer.

Gunn is a former director of the Chinese Benevolent Association and a founding member of the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop. His poetry is published in the pioneering anthologies Inalienable Rice and Many Mouthed Birds. He is also known for his career in music, performing in the house bands of Vancouver’s Chinatown (at the Kublai Khan strip joint and Marco Polo night club) and with Asian Canadian alternative folk-rock bands (Number One Son and Raw Silk). Gunn composed the music for the feature-length films Moving the Mountain and Fishbones.

He resides in Vancouver.

Satish Dhar is from Delhi, India. He studied architecture and city planning in India and Canada. His articles on architecture have appeared in The Gazette, The Statesman, and Link Magazine. Dhar has served as a senior policy advisor with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, specializing in environmental issues.

Sally Ito was born in Taber, Alberta, in 1964. She studied poetry and creative writing at the University of British Columbia and while studying abroad for one year at Waseda University in Tokyo, she became aware of her Japanese Canadian identity.

As a writer, she has published poetry, short stories, and a memoir. She translated the work of Japanese children's poet Misuzu Kaneko by drawing on her time in Japan and experience of translating contemporary Japanese poetry.

She currently lives in Winnipeg, where she teaches creative writing at Canadian Mennonite University.

Subbarao Padmanabh was born in India on March 11, 1938, and immigrated to Canada in 1968. He ultimately settled in Saskatoon, building his practice as a physician and working in medicine. Padmanabh had a passion for literary arts, publishing three collections of poetry and serving on the editorial board of Grain Magazine.

He died in Saskatoon on May 4, 2009.

Roy Akira Miki was born October 10, 1942, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His family had been relocated to a sugar beet farm in Manitoba from Haney, B.C. earlier that year. Miki received a B.A. from the University of Manitoba in 1964 and continued on to do graduate work at the University of Toronto before completing an M.A. at Simon Fraser University (1969), and a PhD. at the University of British Columbia (1980). In 1967, Miki married his wife Slavia (nee Knysh) and the couple had two children, Waylen and Elisse. While earning his degrees, Miki held teaching and teaching assistant positions at various high schools and universities. In 1975, Miki was hired as a sessional lecturer at SFU; he continued as a lecturer and instructor at the university until he completed his doctoral degree in 1980 and was hired as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1992 and became a full professor in 1993.

Miki has enjoyed success as a writer, poet, and editor. He was editor of the journals Line (1983-1989) and West Coast Line: Contemporary Writing and Criticism (1990-1999). Some of his major works include Tracing the Paths. Reading & Writing The Martyrology (editor, 1988), A Record of Writing: An Annotated and illustrated Bibliography of George Bowering (1990), for which he won the 1991 Gabrielle Roy Prize for Canadian Criticism, and Saving Face: Selected Poems 1978-1988 (1991). The many awards, grants, and honours Miki has received for his literary achievements include The Association of Asian American Studies 1997 Poetry Award for his work as editor of the book Pacific Windows: The Collected Poetry of Roy K. Kiyooka, and, most recently, the 2002 Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Miki received the Governor General's award in recognition of Surrender, a work concerning the internment of Japanese Canadians in the 1940s.

Miki has also been recognized for his efforts on behalf of the Japanese Canadian Redress movement and human rights in general. He was a researcher, writer, activist, and negotiator for the movement, serving as Chair of the Vancouver Japanese Canadian Redress Committee, the National Redress Coordinator, and a negotiator for the National Association of Japanese Canadians in the 1980s. This earned him, among other honours, a President’s Award from Simon Fraser University, 1989, and the Renata Shearer Human Rights Award, from the United Nations Association & BC Human Rights Coalition. Miki has participated in many conferences and events dealing with multiculturalism and ethnicity, and has written and edited several books about Japanese Canadian history. These include Justice in Our Time: The Japanese Canadian Redress Settlement (co-author, 1991), and This Is My Own: Letters to Wes and Other Writings on Japanese Canadians by Muriel Kitagawa (editor, 1985).

Roy Miki passed away on October 5, 2024.

Roy Ryoichi Ito was born in British Columbia in 1922. He was relocated to southern Alberta with his family in 1942, when the federal government moved Japanese Canadians from the British Columbia coast to locations inland. Shortly afterward he returned to British Columbia, to the Kaslo detention camp, to work on the Japanese Canadian newspaper The New Canadian. In September 1943, Ito moved to Hamilton to begin his post-secondary education. During his second year at McMaster University, he was recruited by Captain Don Mollison of the Indian Army on behalf of the Allied war effort. Ito completed the language course at S-20, the Canadian Army Japanese Language School, before going overseas to serve with the Canadian Intelligence Corps in India and Southeast Asia. He worked as a translator during war crimes trials in Japan.

After the war, Ito completed his university degree and went to teacher's college. His career as a teacher spanned more than 30 years with the Hamilton Board of Education, 25 of them as an elementary school principal. Ito retired in June 1984, but continued his involvement with the Canadian Teachers Federation Project Overseas, in which he instructed teachers. He served as a team leader for the project on trips to Africa and Grenada, to help teachers upgrade their skills.

Married and the father of four children, Ito lived in Hamilton, Ontario. His book, We went to war : the story of the Japanese Canadians who served during the First and Second World Wars, was his fifth published book, the other four being social science books prepared for use in schools. He was also the author of Stories of my people : a Japanese Canadian journal, published in 1994. He died in Hamilton, Ontario on July 7, 1999.

Ronji Borooah holds a Master of Planning and Urban Design from the University of Toronto and a Master of Architecture from the University of Illinois.

An award-winning architect, Ronji became a member of the Ontario Association of Architects in 1986 and the Ontario Professional Planners Institute in 1988. In 2007, he was appointed as city architect and head of urban design for the City of Markham. He is also a member of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC).

Throughout his career, Ronji has contributed to the profession as a jury member for programs such as the Ottawa Urban Design Awards and has held teaching appointments at the University of Toronto.

Roland M. Kawano is a priest and former pastor of St. Andrew’s Japanese Congregation. He served as an editor of A History of the Japanese Congregations in the United Church of Canada 1892–1959, published in 1998. The book presents an English translation of an earlier commissioned history that had been only available in Japanese. It traces the founding of the Japanese Church in British Columbia in the late 1800s and chronicles the life of its congregations through the pre-war years, the wartime internment camp period, and the postwar era.

Roger Sachio Obata was born in Prince George, British Columbia on April 20, 1915 in a family of Japanese immigrants. In 1916-17, the family moved to Prince Rupert, British Columbia where Roger received his early education. He graduated from high school in 1933 and later that year enrolled at the University of British Columbia. He studied electrical engineering and graduated in 1937 with a degree of Bachelor of Applied Science. As a student he was involved in Japanese Canadian community affairs. In 1936 he was selected as a member of a delegation to Ottawa seeking the franchise but was unable to go due to final exams at university. In 1936, he was elected President of the Japanese-Canadian Students' Club.

In 1938 he moved to Toronto and from 1939 until 1945 worked for several firms including Industrial Fine Castings Ltd. In 1945 he served in the Canadian Army Intelligence Corps and was posted to Washington D.C. where he was on loan to US Military Intelligence.

In 1946, he married Mary Ogawa in Washington D.C. After he was discharged from the Canadian Army, he returned to his former position at Industrial Fine Castings Ltd.

In 1947, Roger Obata was elected as the founding President of the first national Japanese Canadian organization in Canada called the National Japanese Canadian Citizens' Association. The main purpose of this association was to seek redress from the Canadian federal government for the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. In 1980, the name of the organization was changed to the National Association of Japanese Canadians.

In 1956 Roger Obata started his own business in Montreal and opened a second plant in Brampton, Ontario. He sold his business in 1970 and semi-retired. He continued to provide consulting services.

In 1977 Roger Obata was the Chairman of the Japanese Canadian centennial celebrations. This event renewed the redress campaign which came to a conclusion on September 22,1988 when the Conservative government under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney granted redress after negotiations with the National Association of Japanese Canadians. For his fifty years of involvement in the Japanese Canadian community and his dedication to the redress campaign, Roger Obata was awarded the Order of Canada in 1990.

Roger Obata died on May 28, 2002 in Toronto.

Himani Bannerji was born in Bangladesh in 1942.

Her area of study was in English, completing a Bachelor’s degree from Viswa-Bharati University and a Master’s degree from Jadavpur University before relocating to Canada in 1969 to pursue a PhD at the University of Toronto.

Bannerji is best known for her non-fiction writing that explores Marxism, feminism, racism, and colonial India and has held teaching appointments as an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at York University.

Bannerji’s writings are featured in numerous publications, such as Rungh Magazine, a Canadian multidisciplinary space for creative explorations, committed to conversations by and about people of colour.

Rienzi Crusz was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on October 17, 1925. His early education was in English, and he was exposed to much of the canon of Western literature, including Shakespeare, Milton, and Dylan Thomas, which would later influence his writing.

Crusz received a Bachelor's degree in history at the University of Colombo in 1948 and then studied library sciences at the University of London as a Colombo Plan scholar. After returning from England, he worked at the Central Bank of Ceylon as chief reference librarian until immigrating to Canada in 1965. Shortly after his arrival, he completed a Bachelor's degree in library science at the University of Toronto and a Master's degree in history at the University of Waterloo. Crusz remained at the University of Waterloo and became the senior reference and collections development librarian, retiring in 1993.

He began penning poetry after settling in Toronto. While he has many works, Crusz is best known for his poetry that illuminates his experience of immigration, migrancy, and the alienation of exile. In addition to poetry, Crusz has written several guides for library users, including a bibliography of Ralph Nader.

He continued to live in Waterloo, Ontario until his death in 2017.

Rick Allan Shiomi was born in Toronto on May 25, 1947, and is a sansei playwright, stage director, artistic director, and taiko artist. He completed a Bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Toronto and later received a teaching diploma from Simon Fraser University.

He is often considered a leader of the early Asian Canadian theatre movement in the 1980s. Shiomi worked with the Powell Street Festival and Redress movement while living in Vancouver in the 1970s and credits this period as influence for his earlier works as a playwright. His most notable play is the award-winning Yellow Fever, which has been produced across North America and in Japan. It first premiered in San Francisco in 1982 by the Asian American Theater Company and was the first Asian Canadian play (Canasian Artists Group, 1983) professionally produced in Canada.

Shiomi relocated to Minnesota in the 1990s and co-founded Mu Performing Arts, the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists (CAATA), and the taiko group Mu Daiko. While writing over twenty plays over his career, Shiomi shifted from playwriting to directing and staged over forty productions for theatre companies across North America. Shiomi has received numerous awards for his work, including the McKnight Foundation Distinguished Artist Award (2015), and is now co-artistic director of Full Circle Theater Company, which has a multicultural, multiracial mandate.

He is currently based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Richard Fung is an artist and writer born in Trinidad and based in Toronto. He holds a diploma from the Ontario College of Art, a degree in Cinema Studies, and an MEd in Sociology and Cultural Studies, both from the University of Toronto. He is a Professor in the Faculty of Art at OCAD University, teaching courses in Integrated Media and Art and Social Change. His work comprises challenging videos on subjects ranging from the role of the Asian male in gay pornography to colonialism, immigration, racism, homophobia, AIDS, justice in Israel/Palestine, and his own family history. His single-channel and installation works, which include My Mother’s Place (1990), Sea in the Blood (2000), Jehad in Motion (2007), Dal Puri Diaspora (2012), and Re:Orientations (2016), have been widely screened and collected internationally, and have been broadcast in Canada, the United States, and Trinidad and Tobago. Richard’s essays have been published in many journals and anthologies, and he is the co-author with Monika Kin Gagnon of 13: Conversations on Art and Cultural Race Politics (2002), later updated and translated into French. He was a Rockefeller Fellow at New York University and has received the Bell Canada Award for Outstanding Achievement in Video Art and the Toronto Arts Award for Media Art. In 2015, he received the Kessler Award from CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Studies at the City University of New York for “a substantive body of work that has had a significant influence on the field of LGBTQ Studies.”

Ram K. Rajh was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, and was brought to Canada at the age of 12. Rajh earned a Bachelor's degree in philosophy and English from Dalhousie University in Halifax. After graduation, Rajh continued to live and work in Halifax.

Ranjith Dayananda Chandrasena is a psychiatrist with extensive experience in clinical care, education, and research. He served as director of the Adult Education Program at the Royal Ottawa Hospital and later became scientific director of the Chatham-Kent Clinical Trials Research Centre. In 1984, he was appointed to the Consent and Capacity Board (CCB).

He has held teaching appointments at the University of Ottawa, Western University, and McMaster University. Chandrasena also contributed to scientific publications and served as editor of the University of Ottawa’s Journal of Psychiatry.

He received a provincial award for developing telepsychiatry services across Ontario.

R. Chan has lived in Victoria, British Columbia.

Pushpal Basu completed a Bachelor's degree in computer science from York University and a Master's degree in geographic information systems from the State University of New York. He is a chartered Information Systems Professional (I.S.P.) of Canada and a member of the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) since 1985. Basu has extensive experience in the IT industry and has worked for private sector organizations and government departments across Canada.

Prabha Khosla was born in Pororo, Uganda. She holds a master's degree in urban planning from York University.

Prabha has decades of experience working with cities. Her work focuses on the overall framework of women’s rights, social justice, and urban sustainability, along with collaborating with organizations such as local government associations and UN-Habitat. She has worked with the Toronto Committee for the Liberation of South Africa and acted as an organizer and interpreter for working-class women of Indian origin.

Prabha has worked in numerous countries and has published extensively in the form of reports, books, and articles, contributing to discussions on gender equality and urban governance.

She is currently based in Vancouver.

Peter Chang was born in Hong Kong. He graduated from the University of Hong Kong and worked for two years at the only psychiatric hospital in Hong Kong at the time. When he was 26 years old, he relocated to Canada and pursued psychiatry training at the University of Toronto. Upon finishing his training, Chang went to work in Thunder Bay as part of an underserviced area program under the Ontario Ministry of Health.

Chang began to notice the gaps in services for the Asian population, and in 1983, he was one of the three founding members of the Hong Fook Mental Health Association and Foundation, which strives to provide culturally sensitive services in five Asian languages and address the stigma of mental illness in the Asian community.

After decades in the psychiatry field, he decided to go back to school at the age of 45 and graduated with a degree in law from the University of Toronto. He was appointed to the Order of Ontario in 2018 for his work improving East Asian communities’ access to mental health services.

He resides in his retirement in Thornhill.

Operating out of Vancouver’s Chinatown, the Pender Guy radio collective grew out of a wave of Chinese-Canadian youth activism in the early 1970s. Pender Guy began airing on Vancouver Co-operative Radio (Co-op Radio) in 1976, exploring issues related to Chinese-Canadian identity, history, politics, and art through interviews, reportage, humour, drama, and music. The program was produced entirely by volunteers and offered a way for young Chinese-Canadians to gain community media skills and counter mainstream media representation of Chinatown and Chinese-Canadians. Pender Guy ran until 1981.

Fred Wei-han Houn (later Fred Ho) was born in Palo Alto, California, in 1957. During his childhood, he was discriminated against at school because of his Chinese background. In his adolescence, he broke away from assimilation and explored issues of racial power and discrimination.

He completed an undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1979 and invested his time in political and social activism, founding the East Coast Asian Student Union and the Asian American Resource Workshop in the late 1970s.

In 1981, he moved to New York to focus on his music career. He led the Asian American Arts Ensemble and formed the Afro-Asian Music Ensemble in New York. Fred was an active member of the Asian American community and often lectured at various institutions on Asian American affairs.

Fred died on April 12, 2014, in New York.

Paulus Lau was the editor of the Canasian Newsletter. Lau has worked as the senior French translator for Sears Canada and has also created his own translation company. His interest in the arts extended across every creative field.

Paul Yee, a Canadian writer and historian, was born in Spalding, Saskatchewan, in 1956. His father, Gordon Yee (1905-1957), emigrated from China to Canada in 1922. In 1951, four years after the Government of Canada repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act, Yee’s mother, Gum May Yee (1914-1958), immigrated to Canada to join Gordon Yee in Naicam, Saskatchewan, where he ran a café.

Following the deaths of Paul Yee’s parents, Yee’s mother’s brother Foon Wong (1894-1969) and Wong’s wife Lillian Ho Wong (1895-1985) adopted Yee and his elder brother Vernon and brought them up in Vancouver, British Columbia.

As a child and young adult, Yee attended Lord Strathcona Elementary School and Britannia Secondary School, from which he graduated in 1974. Yee also attend Mon Keang Chinese School, where he studied Cantonese. In 1974, Yee matriculated at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history (1978) followed by a Master of Arts degree in Canadian history (1983). While at UBC, Yee took courses in Mandarin and Japanese. In the early 1980s, Yee completed coursework in archival administration from the University of Alberta. In 1983, he completed the archives course offered by the Public Archives of Canada (now Library and Archives Canada).

Yee’s work as a cultural and social activist began when one of his teachers at Britannia Secondary School encouraged him to join the organizing committee for a conference on identity and awareness for Chinese Canadian youth. Yee worked on two more such conferences while an undergraduate at UBC.

In 1976, inspired by a suggestion made at one of these conferences, Yee and several other young Chinese Canadians established the Pender Guy Radio Collective, which produced a weekly program on Vancouver Co-operative Radio until 1981.

From 1974 to 1988, Yee was active with several other Vancouver-based cultural organizations, including the Chinese Cultural Centre of Vancouver, Katari Taiko, and the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop. As a member of the latter group, Yee co-edited and published essays, poetry, and short stories in the Inalienable Rice anthology (1979) and the Vancouver edition of Asianadian magazine (1980).

Yee worked for the City of Vancouver Archives beginning in 1979, first as a summer student and later as a full-time archivist, writing poetry and prose in his spare time.

In 1981, publisher James Lorimer & Company asked Yee to write a book of stories about children living in Vancouver Chinatown. These stories were published as the book Teach Me to Fly, Skyfighter and Other Stories. In 1986, Lorimer published Yee’s second book, a historical novel for children titled The Curses of Third Uncle. Yee has gone on to publish many more works of fiction for children, including short story collections such as Tales from Gold Mountain (1989) and What Happened This Summer (2006); novels such as Breakaway (1994); and picture books such as Ghost Train (1996). ) Ghost Train won the Governor General’s Award for English-language children’s literature (text) in 1996 and was produced as a play by Toronto-based Young People’s Theatre in 2001. In addition, two of Yee’s stories have been into animated films by the National Film Board of Canada.

From 1985 to 1987, Yee served as chair of the committee that mounted a major exhibit at the Chinese Cultural Centre in celebration of Vancouver’s centennial. Titled Saltwater City, the exhibit was the first to assemble and display artifacts, photographs, oral histories, and written records of immigrant and native-born Chinese Canadians living in Vancouver in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Yee’s book based on the exhibit, Saltwater City: an Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver, was published in 1988, winning the Vancouver Book Award in 1989. Yee's updated version of the book was published in 2006. He has written two more history books, Struggle and Hope (1996), about the Chinese living across Canada, and Chinatown (2005), about Chinese communities in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax.

Yee moved to Toronto in 1988 to work as the multicultural coordinator for the Archives of Ontario. In 1992, he joined Ontario’s Ministry of Citizenship as a policy analyst, and in 1997 he left public service to write full-time. He continues to live and work in Toronto.

Paul Levine holds a master’s degree and has been interested in the politics of Chinatown.

Om Juneja was born in Midh Ranjha, Pakistan, in 1941. His family was forced to leave their home when they received news that an attack on their village was imminent. The family was separated when his father and stepbrother took flight to Delhi to prepare living arrangements for them while the rest of the family had to journey by road. The family stopped in various refugee camps where conditions were poor and many of the refugees, including his brother, were murdered on the way. Eventually, the family was reunited in Delhi.

He taught in the Department of English at Maharaja Scindhia (Sayajirao) University of Baroda, India, and has done postdoctoral research at Concordia University. His poems in Hindi and English have been published in Indian periodicals.

Nancy Ing grew up in Windsor, Ontario. When her father bought their family home, they were the first Chinese family to live on their street. Their neighbours drew up a petition for them to leave; the family responded by investing in Canada Day fireworks and Christmas lights to demonstrate their Canadian-ness.

Nancy attended York University, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and specializing in film, cinema, and video studies. Afterwards, she became involved in CBC’s Chinese Canadian Project which produced the documentary “The Golden Mountain: The Chinese in Canada” in 1981 on which she is credited as interviewer.

Through the 1980s, Nancy worked at the CBC as a reporter and producer at a time when Canada’s multicultural communities were finding and defining their voices. She traveled to France in 1988 to learn French in the hopes of obtaining a foreign post with the Canadian broadcaster but ended up relocating there permanently upon meeting her future French husband.

Nancy moved to Paris and worked at various news jobs. Covering the death of Princess Diana in a Paris tunnel landed her a position as a television news producer with the American network, NBC News, which she held for over 35 years and through which she produced Emmy award nominated and Emmy award winning stories. She has also maintained a freelance practice producing television news field productions in France.

In 2016, Nancy founded and has served as editor-in-chief of the English-language online lifestyle magazine, INSPIRELLE: A woman’s guide to life in Paris and beyond, which helps Paris-bound women navigate the French culture.

Nancy lives in the Paris countryside with husband, Alexis, and their son, Jordan.