“Chinatown Forever Changing†: Jim Wong-Chu’s Pender East

This thesis explores the historical context of late Asian Canadian artist and activist Jim Wong-Chu’s photographic and poetic album Pender East, which is held in the Jim Wong-Chu fonds, University of British Columbia Library Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC). I discuss the album in the context of Asian Canadian Cultural Activism of the 1970s, the same time period when the photographs within the album were taken, applying the movement’s relationship to community, history and cultural representation to my analysis. Viewing the photographs and poems through this lens reveals how the album visually represents Chinese Canadian identity through the photographs, poems and its structure. Additionally, as much of this information is not accessible from within the RBSC database, I outline how the relationship between the album and the knowledge surrounding it can be maintained through its catalogue record.