Celebrating Chinese/Lunar New Year: A Reflection on Tradition, Community, and Activism

By Chris Lau

Chinese/Lunar New Year is coming up on February 10th. It will be the year of the Dragon, the fifth of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac. We wish all those who celebrate this occasion a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year (gong hay fat choy / san nin faai lok (in Cantonese) or gōng xǐ fā cái / xīn nián kuài lè (in Mandarin). Chinese New Year marks the new year according to the lunisolar Chinese calendar and is also celebrated by many Asian countries (for this reason, it’s also known as Lunar New Year) and by the Asian diaspora across the world. I remember growing up as a kid in Hong Kong and then in Montreal this festival as a time when families gathered and welcomed good luck, longevity and wealth to each other and into their own households.

Melanie Olmstead

During this cultural celebration, we are taking this opportunity to highlight significant non-profit organizations and inspiring grassroots initiatives actively engaged with Chinese communities in the Greater Montreal area. Additionally, we'll delve into a brief historical context.

The Chinese Family Service of Greater Montreal (CFSGis a pillar of the non-profit sector in the city. Incorporated in 1976, CFSGM provides a wide range of culturally-adapted services for new immigrants, families and seniors around language, integration, employment and legal support. They also foster greater intercultural exchange and promote collaboration and service equity for their communities. They are considered to be a primary stakeholder with our various governments and public institutions when it comes to leadership in Chinese communities.

The Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive-Sud was born out of the Chinese Family Service, finally incorporated in 1990, and provides similar services on the South Shore.

Jia Foundation) and Chinatown Roundtable are two organizations that were both born out of similar circumstances; They were established in 2022 as a result of grassroots activism that mobilized around the threat of parts of Chinatown being lost to developers.

A little bit of history to better understand the significance of Chinatowns: These neighbourhoods across North America slowly emerged in the 19th century due to violence and systemic discrimination towards Chinese immigrants. In Canada,  one notable example is the implementation of a Chinese head tax in 1885 requiring Chinese immigrants to pay exorbitant fees to enter the country (this tax was implemented immediately following the end of the construction of the transcontinental railways which relied heavily on Chinese immigrant men) and which also denied them the right to vote, to hold public office, own land and work certain jobs. Another example is the Chinese Exclusion Act from 1923-1947 which completely prevented Chinese people from immigrating to Canada for over 2 decades! Chinatowns provided a safe haven from the discrimination faced by Chinese populations.

Back to 2021. 

The tenacity of individual activists in reaction to the risk of Chinatown disappearing because of development eventually led to the City of Montreal creating an action plan for the development of Chinatown, based on community consultations. Both Jia Foundation and Chinatown Roundtable are direct grassroots responses to strategies identified in this plan.

The Jia Foundation fosters the cultural heritage of Montreal’s Chinatown through storytelling and place-making, building community capacity and expertise. Among their projects is the creation of an exciting new community space and hub named Chinatown House aiming to strengthen ties within Chinatown. At the moment, you can visit a photographic exhibition by Morris Lam titled ‘Clan Associations’ which documents the existence of associations created in the early 1900s to support community members with the same surname with housing, employment and language support.

Chinatown Roundtable is a multisector council bringing key Chinatown stakeholders together to exchange ideas and issues affecting the diversity of Chinese community members. It also aims to ensure liaisons between different government levels and the community, to share information between different community sectors and to contribute to establishing a consensus on the problems facing Chinatown.

This past summer, the Quebec government officially recognized Chinatown as a heritage site. It’s now the only Chinatown with such a status in Eastern Canada. This will ensure the registration of heritage elements in the Cultural Heritage Register and their dissemination in the Directory of Cultural Heritage of Quebec. In addition, this registration creates a lever for cultural and tourism development. A few weeks ago, the City of Montreal also recognized Chinatown as a historic site, the first designation of this type in the city. These government actions, instigated by tireless non-profits and community activists, will help preserve the cultural heritage and history of Chinese communities in Montreal.

(Thank you to Jessica Chen (Jia Foundation), May Chiu (Chinatown Roundtable) and Eric Leong for their time and support for this blog!)

Chris Lau

Principal Consultant