White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver explores the conditions leading up to and the impact of a demonstration and parade in Vancouver, Canada, organized by the Asiatic Exclusion League and the ensuing mob attack on the city’s Chinese Canadian and Japanese Canadian communities. Emblematic of a systemically racist era, White Riot reveals the social and political environment of the time, when racialized communities were targeted through legislated as well as physical acts of exclusion and violence.
Based on 360 Riot Walk, a 360-degree video walking tour by artist and author Henry Tsang, White Riot offers an intersectional approach to this pivotal moment in the history of racialized communities and a cultural and social context for understanding for the current wave of anti-Asian sentiment. It features photographs of the riots colourized by Tsang as well as those of contemporary Vancouver where the riots took place. Essays by Tsang and others speak to the colonial times that preceded and followed the 1907 riots, as well as issues that Chinese and Japanese communities (and other racialized communities) in North America are facing today. White Riot poses the question: in the current ethos of anti-racism and decolonization, what does it take to reconcile our collective histories within the legacy of white supremacy?
Includes essays by the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance, Paul Englesberg, Melody Ma, Angela May and Nicole Yakashiro, Jeffery R. Masuda, Aaron Franks, Audrey Kobayashi and Trevor Wideman, and Andy Yan, with a foreword by Patricia E. Roy.
Events
Please visit News for a list of upcoming book events.
Press
Emily Donaldson, “39 Fiction and Non-Fiction Books to Read This Spring,” Globe & Mail, April 29, 2023.
Interview with Lorraine Chisholm, RedEye Radio, CFRO Co-operative Radio, Vancouver, April 29, 2023.
BC Bestsellers List, Assoc. of Book Publishers of BC, April 24, 29.
Monika Gul, “Vancouver historian, author looks at anti-Asian riots of 1907,” CityNews, April 20, 2023.
https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/04/20/vancouver-historian-anti-asian-riots-1907/
Monika Gul, CityNews TV Vancouver, April 20, 2023.
https://vancouver.citynews.ca/video/2023/04/20/vancouvers-anti-asian-riots-of-1907/
Melody Ma’s excerpt in “Vancouver’s resilient Chinatown fights back against new danger: gentrification,” Toronto Star, April 10
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/04/10/vancouvers-resilient-chinatown-fights-back-against-new-danger-gentrification.html
Pat St. Germain, “Spring-fresh titles on offer,” Vancouver Sun, April 8, 2023
Angela May & Nicole Yakashiro’s “Why We Say Powell Street and Not “Japantown’” in Montecristo Magazine, April 5
https://montecristomagazine.com/community/white-riot
John Ackermann, “History repeating: A new book revisits Vancouver’s long history of anti-Asian racism,” CityNews, April 9
https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/04/09/new-book-revisits-vancouvers-long-history-of-anti-asian-racism/
Jon Azpiri, “After more than a century, Vancouver’s ‘bloody’ anti-Asian riot still resonates,” CBC News, April 9.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/white-riot-1907-anti-asian-violence-vancouver-1.6804950
John Ackermann, CityNews Bookshelf: Henry Tsang (White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver), April 8.
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFY0IeYc6sU
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRUf56GF8QU
Tom Sandborn, “Book Review: 1907 race riots still shame and stain Vancouver,” Vancouver Sun/Postmedia syndication, April 8, 2023
https://vancouversun.com/entertainment/books/review-1907-race-riots-that-still-shame-and-stain-vancouver
David Chau, “White Riot presents multi-faceted view of anti-Asian racism through the lens of an early 20th-century riot,” Quill & Quire, April 5
https://quillandquire.com/omni/white-riot-presents-multi-faceted-view-of-anti-asian-racism-through-the-lens-of-an-early-20th-century-riot/
CBC Syndication (Radio, 18 local stations across Canada), April 4.
Joseph Planta, thecommentary.ca podcast interview, March 31.
https://thecommentary.ca/ontheline/2107-henry-tsang/
Tom Sandborn, “Workers of colour issue challenge to labour movement: we should listen,” rabble.ca, March 27, 2023.
https://rabble.ca/columnists/workers-of-colour-issue-challenge-to-labour-movement-we-should-listen/
John Lucas, “Henry Tsang’s White Riot documents a shameful episode in Vancouver history,” Stir Magazine, March 14, 2023.
https://www.createastir.ca/articles/henry-tsang-white-riot
“A white riot in Vancouver: Tracing the steps of the 1907 anti-Asian mob,” The Conversation, March 2, 2023
https://theconversation.com/a-white-riot-in-vancouver-tracing-the-steps-of-the-1907-anti-asian-mob-197960
Perrin Grauer, “Henry Tsang’s New Book ‘White Riot’ Explores Roots and Repercussions of Anti-Asian Racism,” ECU News, March 7, 2023
https://www.ecuad.ca/news/2023/henry-tsangs-new-book-white-riot-explores-roots-and-repercussions-of-anti-asian-racism
