Dear Editor,
Re: “More than Chinese to be remembered,” Letters, Aug. 2
I was dismayed to read a recent letter to the editor that claimed that “there was only a Chinese bunkhouse” at Britannia Shipyards National Historic Site.
Had the letter writer taken time to explore the site, they might have come across the First Peoples Bunkhouse, the Japanese Duplex, or the Murakami House, which was owned by a Japanese-Canadian family, prior to their forcible relocation by the federal government in 1942.
However, this is not to say that the letter writer is wrong in their disappointment with Hong Guo’s message to Chinese voters.
As the Richmond News has so ably reported, her campaign team believes that there is “racial discrimination” against Chinese people in this city.
Where is the evidence of this? True, there have been racist incidents in the past several years (graffiti, flyers, etc.), but where is the evidence of systematic discrimination?
Likewise, I often read stories on social media about non-Chinese people facing discrimination at businesses owned by people of Chinese background. Again, where is the evidence?
We unfortunately live in a time in which evidence and facts seem to matter less than opinions, hearsay, and innuendo.
The letter writer perhaps passed by the Britannia site quickly and therefore missed out on the other parts of the museum — an honest mistake. There may, indeed, be systematic discrimination against Chinese people in Richmond — but I haven’t seen the proof.
And until some brave person takes a complaint to the BC Human Rights Tribunal after being refused service at a food court, it’s just an urban myth. With a municipal election coming up, it’s imperative that we all place fact and evidence first.
Lee Blanding
RICHMOND
