ABSTRACT
Vancouver's Civic Policy on Multicultural Relations recognizes ethnic and cultural diversity as strength and a source of enrichment and aims to guarantee freedom from prejudice at all levels of social interaction. Ethnic neighbourhoods and communities are encouraged to celebrate their customs, their heritage, and their cultural and religious festivals. Members of ethnic minorities were the object of all kinds of discriminatory attitudes and behaviours, sometimes even violence, as in the Vancouver race riots, when a white mob tore through Chinatown and Japan town, terrorizing their inhabitants and destroying their property. Vancouver's Civic Policy on Multicultural Relations was approved in 1988 in a similar spirit to that of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act. The City of Vancouver's official narrative regarding ethnic diversity is one of proud multiculturalism and harmonious multiethnic coexistence, as evidenced in its legislation and official literature. Literature recovers events that have been ignored and voices that have been silenced by official narratives, becoming an effective antidote to historical amnesia.
