“Model minority”, dubious humor, disguised compliments, anti-Asian racism often wears many invisible masks.
The Vietnamese Community Resource Centre (CVietRC) will present four trilingual video vignettes on the theme of anti-Asian racism in Canada. Each vignette focuses on a specific group: the frail elderly, women, the LGBTQIA2+ community and teenagers.
- Seniors of Vietnamese origin living in residential or hospital settings experience discrimination. Their stories, shared within the community, between family and friends, attest to the scale, intensity and consequences of discriminatory acts. However, these victims prefer to put up with the aggression. Fearing reprisals or abuse, they remain silent
- Women of Vietnamese origin are victims of both racism and sexism. These women are often portrayed in a pejorative way. The silent wife. The passive girlfriend. The sexy classmate. They are caricatures. Over time, they become stereotypes. The myth persists and is passed down from mother to daughter.
- The form of discrimination and anti-Asian racism that affects members of the LGBTQIA2+ community of Vietnamese origin is all the more reprehensible because it carries with it several prejudices. What’s more, the victims prefer to keep quiet so as not to feel doubly marginalized.
- Having earned the label of “model minority”, the majority of the Vietnamese community adopts a silent stance. This is borne out by the low number of recorded cases of hostility. Unfortunately, the racism suffered by teenagers of Vietnamese origin can affect their social development in insidious ways. It raises questions about identity and the sense of belonging. These young victims of racist attacks often develop feelings of distress, rejection, devaluation, marginalization, hatred and violence against themselves and others, as well as depression and low self-esteem. Ultimately, it leads to isolation. These experiences lead some young people to drop out of school and society in general.
This project is the result of a collaboration between Sophie Hamisultane, professor at the Université de Montréal’s School of Social Work, and the Vietnamese Community Resources Center.
“We thank the Canadian Race Relations Foundation for its support through funding from the Government of Canada.”
