Opening Doors
Vancouver's East End

Publisher:  Daphne Marlatt and Carole Itter. Sound Heritage, Victoria, Canada
Year Published:  1979
Pages:  186pp   Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX2059

Abstract: 
Vancouver's East End is the traditional immigrant and working class area of the city. It has a history of proud traditions of both the pioneer residents and today's residents. In a series of interviews with people who have lived and been involved in the area for decades, the immigrant history emerges with its tales of family and neighbourhood solidarity, hard times, good times and discrimination agaisnt them by mainstream society.

"We Chinese weren't naturalized until 1947, after the Second World War. Before then you were treated just like a political football, like an object, and it didn't matter how you were treated" is one reflection on the experience of non-whites in Vancouver. Residents of the area included Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Black, Jewish and Ukrainian people.

The area was to be redeveloped in the 1960s and 1970s. The book documents the grassroots fight of the residents for the rehabilitation of their area rather than destruction and rebuilding. The role of SPOTA, the Strathcona Property Owers and Tenants Association, and its success in galvanizing the area to resist the changes being imposed on their area is chronicled. Their success is hailed as an immigrant group of successfully taking on all levels of government - municipal, provicincial, and federal.