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Beyond COVID-19 Racism: Interrupting anti-Asian discrimination in Canada

Date
May 27, 2021
Time
11:30 AM EDT - 1:00 PM EDT
Contact
Graham Hudson; graham.hudson@torontomu.ca

Although the COVID-19 pandemic brought an increase in violence towards Asians in Canada and has resulted in greater public awareness, anti-Asian racism has a much longer historical trajectory.

This Asian Heritage Month, the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Ryerson University and our distinguished panelists joined for “Beyond COVID-19 Racism”, a critical discussion on anti-Asian racism and law in Canada. The panelists covered links between historical and current forms of anti-Asian racism, community struggles with and against law, and the intersections of race, colonialism, labour, health, gender, xenophobia and immigration.

Panelists:

Tanya (Toni) De Mello is a human rights lawyer and the Assistant Dean of Student Programming, Development and Equity at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Ryerson University. She is considered an expert on equity and inclusion in Canada.

Avvy Yao-Yao Go is a lawyer known for her work advocating on behalf of immigrant and racialized communities in Canada, including involvement in the Redress Campaign for the Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act. In 2014, she was appointed to the Order of Ontario.

Shalini Konanur is a lawyer and the Executive Director at the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario (SALCO). Her work focuses on the promotion of access to justice for racialized communities in Canada and on addressing poverty for SALCO’s low-income constituency.

Vincent Wong is a lawyer whose areas of focus include global migration, migrant rights, racial justice, poverty alleviation, and sex worker rights. He is also a first year PhD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School, where he is interested in critical race theory, movement lawyering, migrant justice, transnational social movements, and anti-carceral politics.

Moderator:

Justice Maryka Omatsu is the first East Asian woman to be appointed a judge in Canada. Prior to this appointment, she practiced criminal and administrative law for 16 years in Toronto. She was on the National Association of Japanese Canadians’ (NAJC) strategy and negotiation team that won Redress in 1988 for her community.

 

This event was proudly presented in partnership with Ryerson University's Asia Pacific Law Students' Association (APLSA-Ryerson) (external link)