A documentary film featuring four siblings from Musqueam First Nation with Chinese ancestry was recently shown in Vancouver, Canada.
"All Our Father’s Relations" stars four brothers and sisters, Helen Callbreath, Gordon Grant, Larry Grant, and Howard E. Grant who traveled to China to visit their ancestral home for the first time and meet their father’s relatives.
“It was personally fascinating to see how they had to navigate their upbringing and their identities,” Yoshizawa said in an interview released by CBC News.
Grant’s father was an Indigenous person and one of the over 80,000 payers of the Head Tax.
He and his family experienced prejudice through the Indian Act and more which often kept the family separated.
According to Larry Grant, a Musqueam elder, those past experiences with racist laws made them hesitant to visit China.
At an early age, the siblings never really wanted to go due to an impression of what might happen to them as portrayed in Cedar and Bamboo, a story about early Chinese immigrants who was deserted in China and was treated as a family slave.
But soon after realizing they were also getting older, found out that their father’s family’s ancestral home could soon be bulldozed, fear subsided.
When the siblings finally got to visit China, they were surprised at how familiar and modern their father’s village was.
Since the 19th century, relations between Chinese and First Nations in Canada had often been mutually beneficial and respectful; both people supported each other despite marginalization and racism.
Directed by Alejandro Yoshizawa, the film aims to foster inquiry, dialogue, and reflection regarding the interconnected histories of First Nations, Chinese, and Canadian issues, both in communities across China and Canada.
For more information and project updates, visit All Our Father’s Relations website.