Asian Heritage Month

Derald Wing Sue is the most cited authority on multicultural counseling and therapy. In this session, you'll learn about his near poverty origins in Oregon and how school experiences with discrimination led him to multicultural awareness and pride. You'll discover that oppression did not end with a Ph.D., but that he encounters many continuations of his discrimination as a child even today.

During WWII, Nancy Okura was involuntarily removed from her home on the West Coast and detained by the Government of Canada. Because of her ancestry, her rights as a Canadian citizen were denied. Chris Hope is Nancy's grandson. Chris is curious about the unusual photos in his family photo album from the WWII era. Following Nancy's 80th birthday, he offers to take her on a trip back to the locations of her internment if she agrees to discuss her experiences for the first time.

In 1993, Mieko, an actor, began researching a documentary about her grandfather, Edward Ouchi, a Japanese immigrant to Canada. Then she was cast to star in The War Between Us , a film on the World War II internment of 22,000 Japanese-Canadians--re-enacting a key episode in her own community's history. Part Japanese-Canadian history, part autobiography and family chronicle, Shepherd's Pie and Sushi looks at complex questions of personal and cultural identity with a light touch. Using archival material, dramatic re-enactment, powerful scenes from The War Between Us and moving interviews with members of the Ouchi family, the film relates the early history of Japanese-Canadians and looks at Mieko's and her family's struggles with their own identities.

Examines the search for beauty and self-acceptance through the experiences of a young Filipina and Korean woman living in Canada who both believe their appearance, specifically their eyes, affect the way they are perceived. Both feel unsettled in Western society and are contemplating cosmetic surgery on their eyes. Layering interviews with references to super models and other pop-culture icons of beauty, the filmmaker captures the pain that almost always lies behind the desire for plastic surgery.

Chinese Canadian stories is a path-breaking project gathering the work of universities and community groups from across Canada. The project gives Canadians, young and old, the tools to discover and make their own hsitory, using the latest advances in digital technology to access, recover, and record our neglected past.