大量的證據證實了早期溫哥華普遍存在種族歧視以及華裔居民因此所受的磨難。然而，這段歷史其實也滿載了人們站起來爭取平等待遇的故事，例如華裔退伍軍人爭取並重獲公民權，華裔足球隊挑戰種族界線在球場上公平競爭，還有 Vivian Jung 和她的同學在 Crystal Pool 抗議種族隔離，這些故事提醒了我們，華人在克服對己身的種族歧視的同時，也幫助了加拿大成為一個更好的社會。

加拿大及美國等新興移民國家在 19 世紀時用白人至上主義建立新政權，而唐人街就是這種政治環境下形成的直接產物。為反擊這種全球的合法種族主義，受歧視者進行了有組織且長期的抗爭去挑戰各種形式的歧視，這場抗爭最終在 20 世紀中葉造成同樣具全球性的歷史進程，瓦解了白人至上主義。溫哥華的唐人街因為社區完整以及其持續發展的活文化遺產，是一個講述如此不屈不撓且充滿希望的故事的最佳地點。

作者簡介：

余全毅
1967年出生于溫哥華的余全毅是第四代加國華裔。余全毅8歲時移居溫島，在當地以優異成績高中畢業考入UBC後，他選了歷史系，擬畢業後考入東岸著名法律學院當律師。但大學教授建議他先進研究院，修畢碩士再做律師也不遲。余全毅從此投入歷史研究，獲取獎學金到普林斯頓大學進修。他二十七歲獲得博士學位，在大學任教職工作的他，要為加國早期華人史翻案。余全毅曾獲加拿大聯邦政府的社區教育基金撥款九十萬加元，指導歴史系研究生展開一個大型研究計劃，肩負起為加國華人“正史”的重任。

Professor Henry Yu, 余全毅, was born in Vancouver, B.C., and grew up in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island. He received his BA in Honours History from UBC and an MA and PhD in History from Princeton University. After teaching at UCLA for a decade, Yu returned to UBC as an Associate Professor of History to help build programs focused on trans-Pacific Canada.
Yu himself is both a second and fourth generation Canadian. His parents were first generation immigrants from China, joining a grandfather who had spent almost his entire life in Canada. His great-grandfather was also an early Chinese pioneer in British Columbia, part of a larger networks of migrants who left Zhongshan county in Guangdong province in South China and settled around the Pacific in places such as Australia, New Zealand, Hawai’i, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, the United States, and Canada. Prof. Yu’s book, Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern America (Oxford University Press, 2001) won the Norris and Carol Hundley Prize as the Most Distinguished Book of 2001, and he is currently working on a book entitled How Tiger Woods Lost His Stripes: Finding Ourselves in History. Currently, he is the Director of the Initiative for Student Teaching and Research on Chinese Canadians (INSTRCC) and the Principal of St. John’s College at UBC, as well as a Board Member of the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia (CCHSBC).