How Vancouver’s Chinatown, rich in history but plagued by poverty, fights for survival
Vancouver’s Chinatown faces a number of challenges, but its passionate community aims to revitalise and preserve its 140-year-old legacy
Chinatowns are often portrayed as gritty underworlds riddled with prostitution, gambling and drug trafficking. Some of this is rooted in truth, but that unfair depiction is largely the result of rampant xenophobia and cultural ignorance, especially in the West.
In Chinatown Vancouver: An Illustrated History, author and self-taught artist Donna Seto has immortalised a neighbourhood from a bygone era in paint.
“People really love [the book] because it paints Chinatown in a colourful, happy way. And I think a lot of people who love Chinatown want to see it that way,” says Seto, a Chinese-Canadian political scientist at the University of British Columbia.
She vividly remembers Chinatown in the 1990s, when it was the only place where the local Chinese community could buy Chinese ingredients, as well as fresh seafood and meat.