All Our Father's Relations: An Evening of Storytelling

"All Our Father's Relations": Stories of Shared Chinese and First Nations Heritage:
Come join us for an evening of storytelling about the intertwining heritage of First Nations and Chinese communities in BC, inspired by the exciting new documentary film All Our Father's Relations from Producer Sarah Wai Yee Ling and Director Al Yoshizawa of Right Relations.

Meet and speak with key storytellers from the film Larry Grant and Howard E. Grant, the filmmakers Sarah Ling and Al Yoshizawa, Hayne Wai from the Chinese Canadian Historical Society, see select clips, and hear from other notable local figures with stories of First Nations and Chinese joint history.

Presented by the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden as part of the Heart of the City Festival, and in partnership with the Vancouver Asian Film Festival, Hapa-palooza Festival, and Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia.

About the film:

"All Our Father’s Relations (????) tells the story of the Grant siblings who journey from Vancouver to China in an attempt to rediscover their father’s roots and better understand his fractured relationship with their Musqueam mother. Raised primarily in the traditions of the Musqueam people, the Grant family and their story reveals the shared struggles of migrants and Aboriginal peoples today and in the past.

This film helps to record and revitalize the interconnected histories of Chinese Canadian and First Nations relations along the Fraser River in British Columbia. Dating as far back as the 19th century, relations between Chinese and First Nations in Canada were often respectful and mutually beneficial; both peoples supported one another in the face of marginalization and racism.

The Chinese market gardening history in the Musqueam community is an important historical example of reciprocal relationships between Chinese and First Nations, and the respect many early Chinese migrants showed as guests on First Nations’ territories. The film features siblings Helen Callbreath, Gordon Grant, Larry Grant, and Howard E. Grant, who are elders from the Musqueam Nation with Chinese ancestry. The siblings reflect on their experiences growing up on the Chinese farms at Musqueam and in Vancouver's Chinatown, and the impact of discriminatory government legislation on their lives. They also visit the ancestral village of their late father, in Guangdong, China, for the first time. The Grants’ father, Hong Tim Hing, left the village of Sei Moon in Guangdong, China in 1920 to Vancouver, BC - the unceded territory of the Musqueam h?n?q??min??m?-speaking people. He worked on the Lin On Farm at Musqueam Indian Reserve 2, where he met his wife, Agnes Grant. "
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