About
Join us for the film screening of Big Fight in Little Chinatown and a discussion with Film Director Karen Cho.
Big Fight in Little Chinatown is a story of community resistance and resilience. Set against the backdrop of the COVID pandemic and an unprecedented rise in anti-Asian racism, the documentary takes us into the lives of residents, businesses and community organizers whose neighborhoods are facing active erasure.
Coast to Coast the film follows Chinatown communities resisting the pressures around them. From the construction of the world’s largest vertical jail in New York, Montreal’s fight against developers swallowing up the most historic block of their Chinatown, big box chains and gentrification forces displacing Toronto’s community, to a Vancouver Chinatown business holding steadfast, the film reveals how Chinatown is both a stand-in for other communities who’ve been wiped off the city map, and the blueprint for inclusive and resilient neighbourhoods of the future.
Chinese and English subtitles are included.
Speakers
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Karen Cho
Film Director
Karen Cho (曹嘉伦) is a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker known for her socio-political documentaries.
Karen’s first film In the Shadow of Gold Mountain (2004) explored the legacy of the Chinese Head Tax, Exclusion Act and redress movement.
Karen’s other films include the Gemini-Nominated Seeking Refuge (2009), a film on refugees in Canada and Status Quo? The Unfinished Business of Feminism in Canada (2012) that won Best Documentary at the Whistler Film Festival and launched in over 67 community screenings across the country.
Karen’s TV work has touched on subjects like Indigenous health and wellness, Japanese Canadian internment, Quebecois cuisine, Vancouver’s downtown East side, and artist-activists around the world. In 2018 Karen was nominated for a Best Directing Canadian Screen Award for her work on CBC’s Interrupt This Program.
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Chiyi Tam
Chiyi (she/her) is an urban planner and anti-displacement organizer practicing in Tkaronto's Kensington-Chinatown neighbourhood. She is currently a visiting expert with the School of Cities’ as an Early Career Canadian Urban Leader. Chiyi is the managing director of the recently established Toronto Chinatown Land Trust. Her goal is to reciprocate knowledge and wealth into community ownership.
She was the first staff and executive director of the Kensington Market Community Land Trust, where she acquired the organization’s first building acquisition, securing 12-units of deeply affordable residential units from further speculation. Chiyi serves on the advisory board of Montreal Chinatown’s JIA Foundation, the steering committee of the Canadian Network of Community Land Trusts and is a director of the Union Cooperative Initiative, a unionzed cooperative incubating unionized worker cooperatives.
She co-developed “Planning and Designing for Community Power,” a graduate urban design course at the University of Toronto. She frequently supports groups from all corners of turtle island exploring community ownership and wealth building as an anti-displacement strategy for racial & economic justice.
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