PCHC-MoM, AlumniUBC, UBC Transcending Boundaries, and UBC First Nations House of Learning are pleased to present Passage to Freedom, a one-hour long, 2023 Canadian documentary film by Sheila Petzold, telling the stories of former Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese refugees who escaped the Vietnam War and its spillover effects in the 1970s-80s, to settle in Canada through the compassionate and innovative efforts of Canadian leaders and private citizens. After the film, an intercultural panel of speakers will discuss how forced migration events have affected many communities in North America and resulted in lingering, intergenerational trauma. Afterwards, as time permits, PCHC-MoM volunteers will give a quick guided tour of the companion Hearts of Freedom exhibit in the lobby.
Panelists
Elder Larry Grant is an Adjunct Professor in UBC’s First Nations and Endangered Languages Program, and with the UBC Musqueam Language and Culture Program within the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies, where he teaches the first-year hən’q’əmin’əm’ language course. He also serves the Musqueam people as the Language and Culture Consultant. Elder Grant has also served as Elder-in-Residence at the UBC First Nations House of Learning.
Elder Grant was born and raised in Musqueam traditional territory by his hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking Musqueam mother and Chinese immigrant father.
During his childhood, the Canadian government forced him and his siblings to move away from their Musqueam home to live with their father and paternal relatives in Vancouver’s Chinatown. When Larry enrolled in the First Nations Languages Program at UBC, after four decades as a longshore man, it awoke his embedded memories of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language and of its importance for self-identity, kinship, culture, spirituality, territory, and history prior to European colonisation.
Dr. Margaret P Moss, PhD, J.D., is an enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation (Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota), and has equal lineage as Canadian Sioux/ Saskatchewan. At UBC, she is the Director of First Nations House of Learning and full Professor in the School of Nursing. Dr. Moss is the first and only American Indian to hold both Nursing and Juris doctorates, and published the first nursing textbook on American Indian Health (Springer 2015). She served as a co-lead for UBC’s Indigenous Strategic Plan, one of only a few in North American universities, which was adopted in 2020 and launched to a global audience. She also co-authored the 2021 Annual Report, “In Plain Sight”, about anti-Indigenous racism within the BC health system. She made it onto Forbes Magazine’s inaugural list in 2021, of “50 Women Over 50 Creating Social Change At Scale.” In 2022, Dr. Moss was elected as a member of the prestigious US National Academy of Medicine, one of the highest honours in the fields of health and medicine, as it recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service in those fields.
Putsata Reang is an author and journalist whose writings have appeared in a variety of national and international publications, including the New York Times, Politico, the Guardian, Ms, The Seattle Times and the San Jose Mercury News. Putsata was born in Cambodia, and raised in rural Oregon, surrounded by berry farms where she and her family hustled to earn their middle class existence. Her memoir explores the glades of displacement felt by children of refugees, and the overlay of emotional exile that comes with being gay.
Putsata has lived and worked in more than a dozen countries, including Cambodia, Afghanistan and Thailand. She is an alum of Hedgebrook, Mineral School and Kimmel Harding Nelson residencies. She is a 2019 Jack Straw fellow. In 2005, she received an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship that took her back to Cambodia to report on landless farmers. She currently teaches memoir writing at the University of Washington School of Professional & Continuing Education.
Vivian Wakabayashi Rygnestad is third-generation (sansei) Japanese Canadian. Her family was among ~22,000 Japanese Canadians forcibly relocated from their BC homes and incarcerated by the Canadian government during WWII. She serves as a consultant on “Landscapes of Injustice”, a SSHRC research project undertaken by a consortium of Canadian organizations and universities, including the Nikkei Museum and Cultural Centre, SFU, University of Victoria, and the 1906 Japanese Hall. She is a retired school principal living in Richmond, B.C., and is committed to learning, understanding, honoring, preserving, and teaching others about Japanese Canadian history. Along with her extended family in B.C. and Toronto, she has been active within the Japanese Canadian community for many years. She has worked with two book committees on Japanese Canadian 6 history: “Honouring our People” (stories of our elders), and “Pidgin English” (preserving our oral history). She has served as President of the B.C. Retired Principals’ & Vice-Principals’ Association, and has worked as a presenter and facilitator in professional development for educators. She hopes that “Landscapes of Injustice” and a follow-up international project, “Past Wrongs, Future Choices”, will lead to open dialogue and deep learning, to prevent injustices in the future. In 2015, Vivian was honoured as one of UBC’s Outstanding Alumni from the Faculty of Education.
Moderator:
Gwendolyn (“Wendy”) Yip served as President of the Board of Directors for PCHC-MoM Society from January 2020 through October 2022, and remains active as President Emerita. She was University Ambassador for the University of British Columbia (2016-22). In that role, she promoted an intercultural learning environment, and good “town and gown” relationships between UBC and outside groups, particularly local schools. At UBC, Wendy supported such efforts as the Asian Canadian & Asian Migration Studies program, UBC Opera, Museum of Anthropology, Belkin Art Gallery, Green and St John’s Colleges, UBC’s faith communities, Transcending Boundaries and BC Brain Wellness. Wendy has served as an active Honorary President for the UBC Faculty Women’s Club (2016-23), on the Advisory Board of the Chinatown Storytelling Centre, and the Board of the Knowledge Network Corporation (2022). Wendy previously served as the First Lady of the University of Cincinnati, and served on the Board of the Seven Hills Neighborhood House.