Dear Editor,
Re: “Racist flyer shocks Steveston residents,” News, Nov. 18.
We are a group of Chinese immigrants who have come to Canada from different parts of the world. Some of us came earlier and others more recently. We chose Canada to be our home and we love this country dearly.
We are no different from anyone else living in this community. We have to work very hard to make a living, sometimes more than one job. We have a mortgage to pay every month. We pay taxes to fund the services we receive. We want to bring up our children as responsible citizens, like everyone does.
We may not speak English fluently. In fact, some of us are struggling with English, as it is difficult to learn a new language at our age. But we try our best to communicate with our neighbours in English and laugh off the mistakes we make at times.
Like many in the community, we volunteer at our children’s schools. We participate in the Terry Fox Run and attend the Remembrance Day ceremony at city hall every year. We make donations to the food bank and other organizations. We cheer for Canadian athletes at international competitions and we are also very proud that some Canadians of Chinese descent have represented Canada well at the Olympics.
All in all, we love Canada as much as everyone else does in our community. That’s why we are saddened by the divisive pamphlets distributed in some parts of our community recently.
These pamphlets were meant to divide our community according to ethnic origins. We know that Richmond has been a multicultural community for many decades. First Nations, Europeans, Japanese and Chinese were all pioneers and forefathers in this city’s history. We are proud of the cultural richness of our heritage which has made Richmond a very special place.
Therefore, we are thankful that many of you have spoken against these divisive attempts aimed at ruining our community. We know that, as in the playground, when the bystanders remain silent when there is bullying going on, the bully will not stop.
We have to stand up as one community and say “no” to racism.
Edward Liu; Linda Zhang; Michael Wang; Michael Yuan; Stanley Pun; Grace Chan;
Richmond
