Labour Studies Index - Main feed

Background: World economies increasingly rely on non-standard employment arrangements, which has been linked to ill health. While work and employment conditions are recognized structural determinants of health and health equity, policies aiming to protect workers from negative implications predominantly focus on standard employment arrangements and the needs of workers in non-st...

Reading With My Grandmother is an analysis of a range of Chinese Canadian literature that deepens the scholarly engagement by using elements of the author’s family’s story—her grandmother’s letters and photographs.This engagement allows the author to simultaneously illustrate and participate in the varied ways Chinese Canadian literature has been imagined and produced in Canada ...

Paul Yee's first novel for adults: an historical account of a Chinese man on a journey to find the mother of his son.For more than thirty years, Paul Yee has written about his Chinese-Canadian heritage in award-winning books for young readers as well as adult non-fiction. Here, in his first work of fiction for adults, he takes us on a harrowing journey into a milestone event of ...

Set in Vancouver's Chinatown in the 1930s and 1940s, Choy continues the story of the Chen family household, this time narrated by First Son, Kiam-Kim. We first meet Kiam-Kim at the age of eight, staring at the yellowed photograph of his mother, who died in China when he was just a baby. Kiam-Kim, Poh-Poh (his larger-than-life grandmother) and Mr. Chen, his demure and honest fath...

In 1995, during the publicity tour for his much-acclaimed first novel, The Jade Peony, Wayson Choy received a mysterious phone call from a woman claiming to have just seen his mother on a streetcar. He politely informed the caller that she must be mistaken, since his mother had died long ago. “No, no, not that mother,” the voice insisted. “Your real mother.” Inspired by the star...