Positionality Statement

Dr. Michael Ma, Kwantlen Polytechnic University 

When I immigrated to Canada, I became a hyphenated Chinese-Canadian. As a young child, I had little agency or control over how I came to be an immigrant-settler subject living on treaty land in Quebec. Since I was born in Hong Kong, I just swapped one post-colonial identity for another. As someone growing up in Quebec, I was an immigrant Chinese-Canadian Muslim anglophone living in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood in a francophone province. That experience gave me some unique insights. As an adult, I am trying to make sense of and reconcile my presence on the unceded territories of British Columbia. This chapter is written—in part—as a reflection on the way I have experienced and thought about race, racism, and racialisation in Canada.