The New Voices Project is a student-initiated, non-profit community project that is aimed to publish an anthology of literary and artistic works by self-identified Chinese-Canadians. The purpose of this project is to give voice to new Chinese-Canadians currently living in the Lower Mainland. The idea for this project grew out of a discussion between several Chinese-Canadian university students from UBC on the politics behind the representation of Asians in mainstream North American culture. We came to realize that the so-called “Chinese-Canadian community” is actually a very limited representation, since when we evoke this term, what is generally understood (by both conventional society as well as Chinese consciousness in Canada) is Canada-born Chinese – a community whose roots can be traced back to the development of historic Chinatowns. Chinese-Canadian history, then, refers to what we refer to as the “railway narrative”, originating from previous generations of Chinese who came to Canada up to 150 years ago to escape poverty and political plights, and continuing on Chinese who descended from these pioneers.

Certainly we do not mean to disregard or disrespect this important part of Canadian history – these narratives are deservedly recognized by the existing corpus of literature and historical commemorations. On the other hand, we also feel that these narratives no longer adequately encompass the multifarious Chinese-Canadians identities situated within Canada. The immigration boom that began in the 1970s (marked by the year 1967, when the Canadian immigration policy changed) found individuals coming to Canada and settling in many large cities and small towns across the country. This diaspora is comprised of individuals coming from a range of social, economic, cultural, and at times, language backgrounds different from the previous Chinese immigrant groups, forming another diverse group with many potential stories. Yet, if we survey even the newest contemporary literary works, such important narratives do not seem to occupy a prominent place amongst Chinese-Canadian literature. We understand that this is probably because many writers of these narratives may not yet be trained to publish their works and are still in the process of development. This project hopes to serve as a springboard to help, prepare and launch this generation of writers.