All Our Father’s Relations film viewing

Join us for a viewing of the compelling film “All Our Father’s Relations”. http://allourfathersrelations.com/menu/ which recounts the over 100-year shared history of the Musqueam and Chinese-Canadian communities on the Fraser River. Producer Sarah Ling will join us to discuss the film. Elder Larry Grant, on whom the film is partly based, will open our conference on Thursday morning. Food treats will be served.

Doors open at 7pm.  Movie starts promptly at 7:30.  Q & A with Producer Sarah Ling to follow.

All Our Father’s Relations (祖根父脈) tells the story of the Grant siblings who journey from Vancouver to China in an attempt to rediscover their father’s roots and better understand his fractured relationship with their Musqueam mother. Raised primarily in the traditions of the Musqueam people, the Grant family and their story reveals the shared struggles of migrants and Aboriginal peoples today and in the past.

This film helps to record and revitalize the interconnected histories of Chinese Canadian and First Nations relations along the Fraser River in British Columbia. Dating as far back as the 19th century, relations between Chinese and First Nations in Canada were often respectful and mutually beneficial; both peoples supported one another in the face of marginalization and racism.

The Chinese market gardening history in the Musqueam community is an important historical example of reciprocal relationships between Chinese and First Nations, and the respect many early Chinese migrants showed as guests on First Nations’ territories. The film features siblings Helen Callbreath, Gordon Grant, Larry Grant, and Howard E. Grant, who are elders from the Musqueam Nation with Chinese ancestry. The siblings reflect on their experiences growing up on the Chinese farms at Musqueam and in Vancouver's Chinatown, and the impact of discriminatory government legislation on their lives. They also visit the ancestral village of their late father, in Guangdong, China, for the first time. The Grants’ father, Hong Tim Hing, left the village of Sei Moon in Guangdong, China in 1920 to Vancouver, BC—the unceded territory of the Musqueam hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓-speaking people. He worked on the Lin On Farm at Musqueam Indian Reserve 2, where he met his wife, Agnes Grant.

As a bilingual production in English and Chinese, this documentary film will play an integral role in fostering dialogue, inquiry, and reflection regarding the intersecting histories of First Nations, Chinese, and Canadian issues; both in communities across Canada and in China.