The Right to Our Past

Community Approaches to Access and Repair of Chinese Immigration Records in Canada’s National Archives

Authors

  • June Chow

Abstract

Chinese immigration records held by Library and Archives Canada document over six decades of exclusionary federal policy, including the head tax and the Chinese Immigration Act, 1923. Created as technologies of racial control, these records enacted material and affective harm at the moments of their creation and continue to shape Chinese Canadians’ encounters with archives today. This article examines the open-access Chinese Immigration (CI) record types, focusing in particular on the newly released CI 44 registration forms produced under section 18 of the 1923 Act. Drawing on archival theory, legal history, and community-led genealogical practice, this article argues that Chinese immigration records are hateful, harmful, and injurious records that require both archival repair and reparations. Tracing a pattern in which community labour has repeatedly preceded institutional action, the article calls for a reparation-oriented custodial practice grounded in accountability, equitable resourcing, and responsive stewardship.

Author Biography

June Chow

June Chow holds a Master of Archival Studies degree from UBC. She is a recognized leader in her research and practice of Chinese Canadian archives, which crosses and connects community and institutional contexts. She has been an archivist of the public history project The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act – a role that took her to Library and Archives Canada to open restricted Chinese immigration records and to UBC Library Rare Books and Special Collections to create a reparative archive. Currently, she works in Special Collections at the University of Toronto Libraries, providing vision and direction to the Richard Charles Lee Chinese Canadian Archives.

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Published

2026-06-18

How to Cite

Chow, June. 2026. “The Right to Our Past: Community Approaches to Access and Repair of Chinese Immigration Records in Canada’s National Archives ”. Archivaria 101 (June):6-41. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/14088.

Issue

Archivaria 101 (Spring 2026)

Section

Articles

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