White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouverexplores 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 Riotreveals 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 on360 Riot Walk, a 360-degree video walking tour by artist and author Henry Tsang,White Riotoffers 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 Riotposes 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.

By Henry Tsang

192pages
9.5 x 7.25 inches
ISBN 9781551529196
Softcover
Arsenal Pulp Press
2023