Course | In the beginning there was a hole

Involved in safeguarding the heritage of Chinatown, college literature professor Murielle Chan-Chu recounts her journey at a time when the interference of the Beijing regime in Canada is making headlines.

Of Chinese origin, I was born in the rue de l’Ankarana in Diégo-Suarez, Madagascar. Arrived in Quebec on board an Air France flight at the age of 3, on June 25, 1981, I do not remember anything of the first months of my immigration here. My parents will tell you that it was summer, that Uncle Alain had come to pick us up at Mirabel airport, with open arms, to settle us, my parents, my brother, my sister and me, in his two and a half from rue Saint-Mathieu, in downtown Montreal. They will tell you that we were crammed among our trunks sent a few months earlier by boat, but we were above all reassured to be welcomed.

Since my arrival, I have lived in the four corners of the city, or almost: downtown in the Shaughnessy village, in LaSalle, in Saint-Léonard, in the Villeray district near the Jean-Talon market, in Longueuil, on the Plateau Mont-Royal, in Saint-Henri, in Ville-Marie near Chinatown and, finally, in La Petite-Patrie. One could say that my roots in Quebec soil are above all Montreal.

Cursed immigrantsrants

I have been teaching literature at CEGEP for almost 15 years. As part of the Quebec literature course, it seems inevitable to me to explore the notion of identity, an issue addressed in all works, regardless of the era.

From the outset, I ask my groups of students to tell me on what affiliation is based, according to them, the Quebec identity and, by the same token, to define the difference between the designations “immigrant”, “emigrant” and “migrant”, reflecting on the scope of the prefix (or lack thereof).

Many look at me dumbfounded, not knowing what to answer. Because it’s all about vocabulary and I love semantics, we’re looking for their definitions. The noun “immigrant” is made up of the prefix “in/im” which means “in, inside, to enter, to arrive, to dive”. Consequently, it refers to the notion of “settling in a foreign country other than one’s own”, according to the Larousse. THE Robert nuance its definition with the adverb “recently”. We therefore understand that an immigrant person is one “who immigrates to a country or who has recently immigrated to it”..

In light of these meanings, I ask them who considers themselves to be a Québécois person because they were born here or because they were born elsewhere but live here. So, if an immigrant is someone who has recently been settling somewhere, settling in a welcoming land, when do we stop immigrating? When do we stop settling down, unpacking, creating a real home?

Why do we call “immigrants” people who we still do not consider to be Quebecers even if they were born here, they do not or no longer put down their luggage, they are not or no longer on the move, they finally arrived?

I then ask my students to give me a number of years, a period after which a person can claim the Quebec label. The answers vary. No consensus is reached. There is no real answer – the feeling of belonging to a culture and a territory remains relative. This is what enriches our discussions.

I emigrated from Madagascar, an island, to settle in another island. I unpacked, I studied in French, I watched Master key, I danced to MusiquePlus music videos. I stopped immigrating, I made a home. I am rooted in the Montreal subcultures of the feminist, queer, racialized and fundamentally leftist scenes. I frequent visual arts openings, museums, theatres, bars and concert halls. And despite all that, it sometimes happens, even today, that people are surprised that I speak French so well, that a Chinese like me teaches literature, that a Chinese like me handles the coronations well.

Some even laugh in amazement because these swear words don’t seem natural in my mouth – even if “you’re like us after all”, I’ve been told, “but we still can’t imagine sacred”.

At the confluenceare froms affiliations

My Chinese roots have resurfaced in recent years because deep down, they never really left me. Like many in the Chinese diaspora, I have frequented Chinatown since my childhood. For my parents, also born in Madagascar, going there was a way to rediscover familiarity, anchor points to their ancestral origins, products, newspapers, people who resemble them. It was also a pretext to send my brother, my sister and me to Chinese school on the weekends so that we could learn our mother tongue, Cantonese. It was necessary to master this language which corresponded better to my skin. I learned it by dint of lessons, by dint of watching videotapes of Hong Kong TV series. I learned to (re)become Chinese, but made in Montreal.

Being Asian since the pandemic and the political tensions with China is not easy since this visible identity often comes with a perception of threat, the so-called Yellow Peril. We are suddenly reduced to this single label, no matter how unique each Asian origin is.

All over the world, anti-Asian hatred and racism^⁠1 are now exacerbated to the point that many of us have suffered physical and verbal abuse, ostracization, vandalism, allegations, murders and boycotts. No Asian community is spared from these virulent attacks^⁠2.

Faced with the gaping hole dug by the recent construction of luxury condos in the heart of Chinatown, faced with the fear, ignorance and prejudices of others towards Asians, I am committed to safeguarding and preserving this historic district. My involvement is part of a sense of urgency: we must prevent the cultural erasure of Asian communities that are threatened with extinction by the gentrification and revitalization of the city center.^⁠3. My work with non-profit organizations, be it the Chinatown Roundtable or the Jia Foundation, aims above all to (re)focus, in a decolonial and inclusive way, our attention on humans, on the experiences and needs of neighborhood communities, then to mobilize efforts to advance equitable development in Montreal’s Chinatown, notably through the Chinatown Reimagined 2023 Forum, which will be held from September 28 to 30.

Community mobilization empowers Asian communities and pushes them to tell their own story by taking into account the narrative of their migration and their daily life. It also highlights the contribution of Asian communities to the Quebec landscape. Community mobilization also makes it possible to equip these same communities to better envisage the future of the neighborhood in order to improve the quality of life there. It is not only about “returning home” by developing a sense of belonging to this historic place that is Chinatown, but above all to its different communities that come together through common values ​​and missions.

The district is a place-person, a place-memory and a place-experience that surpasses the expected tourist and commercial offers. Above all, it allows me to go back in time by remembering my comings and goings at the Sun Ko Wah video club on Clark Street and reliving my years learning Chinese phonetics. It also allows me, today, to rethink the way in which this identity hole is filled by exchanging on other diasporic stories with other dislocated people like me and by fighting for the recognition of these multiple identities that shape us.