Smoke and Fire: The Chinese in Montreal

Now distributed by Brill for The Chinese University Press

This book is, in fact, a study of human survival. It describes the Chinese immigrants in Montreal, Canada, as they encounter racial discrimination. It begins with the arrival of the first batch of Cantonese, in the 1850s, in Victoria, British Columbia, and ends, in the late 1970s and 1980s, in Montreal. Like Vancouver and Toronto, Montreal saw the influx of two contrasting groups of Chinese: refugees of Chinese descent from Indo-China, and economic migrants from Hong-Kong. The book uses oral history and in-depth interview material, in documenting the costs of racism on the one hand, and the strategies for adaptation on the other. The author argues that the kind of racism the Chinese in Montreal have been subjected to is a systematic one. This book is now distributed by Brill for The Chinese University Press.