2.1_Racialized Bodies:South Asian Labour and the Activities of the BC Organization to Fight Racism
Channel: Pacific Northwest Labor History Association
Date: 2021-08-04

Session 2.1            Racialized Bodies: South Asian Labour and the Activities Pacific Northwest Labor History Association 
2021 Labor History Conference 
Session 2.1 Racialized Bodies South Asian Labour and the Activities of the BC Organization to Fight Racism
Presenters: 
Anushay Malik
Bailey Garden

“A typical English sahib in the boat arrogantly speaks out with an air of authority: “It is surprising how these ‘natives’ work when they see money.”
I immediately inquired if he worked for nothing. “No offence, old chap,” he replied. “I didn’t mean it in any bad sense.”
From Darshan Singh Sangha, “Return to India”, Pacific Tribune, February 13th 1948 
As the excerpt above shows, awareness of racialized language, of the language used to produce what critical race theorists call “microaggressions” was understood by people of colour many decades before the theory was formally penned down. However, not everyone accepted that racism was the reason that they were being treated differently. As a result, South Asian workers in British Columbia had to mobilize within their community and with allies in order to build awareness of the sometimes violent realities that formed their everyday life. In some cases, they received strong support from unions and the labour movement and in others, they did not. Tracing out stories that illustrate precisely this, this talk will trace out a few incidents that took place between the 1970s and 1980s in British Columbia focusing specifically on the work of the BC Organization to Fight Racism. Showing the story of community mobilization in calling out certain practices as racist and pushing ahead in the face of considerable resistance, is central to the understanding of how change was brought about when people of colour became agents of their own histories and fought for that change. In telling this story then, this talk will end by arguing that this group of people, at this time, was a small, but fundamentally important part of building a more progressive agenda into the story of British Columbia.

Anushay Malik is a labour historian who has a PhD in South Asian history from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. She is currently based at Simon Fraser University where she is teaching in History and Labour Studies and is also working as a contract researcher for the BC Labour Heritage Centre on a project on South Asian labour in BC.

Bailey Garden is a Project Manager at the BC Labour Heritage Centre, where they oversee the development of the BCLHC Oral History Project, including developing a how-to guide and workshops on conducting oral history interviews for interested groups such as union locals. Bailey also oversees oral history interviews to be conducted with individuals significant to labour history in B.C., and promotes the project and its components to unions, labour groups, and the public .