Grassroots activism at Asianadian magazine

Laughing Back at Empire is a bold move, and an even bolder title, for a book about Asians long cast as “timid model minorities” who dare to laugh back at the settler colonial empire called Canada. In her debut work, Angie Wong brings to light a vital yet largely forgotten publication: Asianadian.

Wong describes Asianadian as an example of “hybridity,” a generative collision of cultural worlds that refused both assimilation and cultural isolation. Spanning six volumes and twenty-four issues from 1978 to 1985, and emerging in a new age of Canadian multiculturalism policy, Asianadian was a groundbreaking grassroots national magazine that sought to build pan-Asian solidarity, challenge stereotypes, critique multiculturalism, educate the public, and punch up against empire through humour, public discourse, and, most importantly, language.

Laughing Back at Empire serves as both an index and a guide to a rich archive of intellectual and artistic activism by Asian Canadians, long before the category of “Asian Canadian” had cohered as a political or cultural identity. For contemporary Asian diasporic organizers and cultural workers, many of the conversations Wong surfaces will feel like a familiar callback, whether on settler colonialism, Orientalism, or the need for cross-cultural solidarity, reminding us how much groundwork had already been laid. As an Asian diasporic organizer myself, I would argue that the dialogues captured in Asianadian, as Wong presents them, are often even sharper and more critical of society than many of those we see today. That makes it all the more worthwhile for current activists, artists, and scholars to revisit and reflect on this publication.

Wong’s book is divided into four parts. The first provides a thorough background on the histories of Chinese, Japanese, and South Asian people in Canada in the early 20th century, and the overt discrimination and exploitation they experienced. This section, which Wong fearlessly titled “Yellow History is Big”, offers the foundational context in which Asianadian, its contributors, and its politics emerged. Her deeply referenced scholarship offers a comprehensive account of Asian histories in settler colonial Canada. She carefully chooses the term “arrivants” to describe early Asian migrants, whose labour was exploited to build the foundation of settler colonial empire, in order to move beyond the settler/Indigenous binary that dominates contemporary discourse. Her precise, reasoned use of language and reframing sets the tone for the rest of the book.

The second section offers an overview of Asianadian as a collection, tracing its evolution as the political and social landscape changed around it. We meet the founding and major contributing figures of the magazine, including Cheuk Kwan and Momoye Sugiman, and familiar names like now-Toronto mayor Olivia Chow, authors Joy Kogawa and Sally Ito, and other Asian Canadian elders who found their radical roots in Asianadian and in the horizontal editorial collective that published it, the Asianadian Resource Workshop. Wong brings the characters behind the words to life with rich oral histories of hard-won battles, creative resilience, and how this formative experience connects to the present. You’ll feel like you’re at the kitchen table with the Asianadian crew, sharing time on one typewriter and pasting the magazine together late into the night.

Once the foundation has been laid for both the history Asianadian emerged from and its own evolving history, Wong dives more deeply into several distinct components of the publication in Chapter 3. Through her contextual analysis, she guides readers through examples of how the editorial team laughed back at empire with comedic columns like the “Dubious Award” and “On the Firing Line”, which helped catalyze the political awakenings of their contemporaries raising their critical consciousness in a fun and accessible way. The “Dubious Awards” satirically called out problematic advertisements that exoticized ethnic cultures under a white gaze, gaining coverage even in mainstream media. On the other hand, “On the Firing Line” humorously and smartly critiqued white multiculturalism, including how “yellow history” was “mined by white historians”. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be reading Wong’s incisive analysis with one hand, while keeping the Asianadian archive open in the other, witnessing the history she describes unfolding in real time.

The final part of the book leans into the concept of hybridity, coalition-building, and pan-Asian solidarity. Perhaps most importantly, it explores the often elusive praxis of how critique and theory on the pages of Asianadian translated into tangible movements in the real world. For example, Wong traces the evolution of the notable anti-W5 movement that fought against CTV’s discriminatory reporting of Chinese students in 1979, how it galvanized Chinese Canadians to the streets of Toronto, how it’s described in the words of those who were present in the pages of Asianadian, and how it eventually culminated in the formation of what’s now known as the Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC). These are grassroots counter histories of racialized people tied together in ways you won’t hear outside of Wong’s book. 

We also hear stories from the trenches of Asianadian about what worked and what didn’t in their ambitious attempt to form pan-Asian solidarity, and how perspectives transformed from volume to volume, through candid reflections from editorial members now looking back with decades of distance. In today’s progressive landscape of DEI statements and intercultural dialogues that echo the state multiculturalism of the Asianadian era, these grounded, honest reflections on solidarity building offer valuable reference points, especially the failures.

To the Asianadian editors, they’d be glad to know that Wong doesn’t shy away from naming and critiquing settler colonialism, white supremacy, and imperialism for what they are. Her decolonial, racialized, and gendered lens mirrors the very critique she’s analyzing, echoing the spirit of the Asianadian itself. She is practicing what the magazine once did. Laughing Back at Empire is a book that emerged from Wong’s doctoral work, and its academic rigour is evident. At times, it leans into that tone more than necessary, but it doesn’t diminish her central thesis. What stays with you is the clarity of her argument: we’ve been here before, the work was actively being done, and we still have much to learn from it.

Wong ends the book by asking what’s next for Asianadian. Will there be a resurrection? Should there be? She contemplates what a seventh volume would look like and wonders out loud whether her own book, Laughing Back at Empire, which reflects on the publication’s legacy, could be it. I would agree. As a guide into the world and making of Asianadian, her book more than does justice to the collection as it brings it back to life. It is a timely revival of a radical pan-Asian spirit that remains urgent today. Wong’s book, read alongside the volumes of Asianadian itself (now available online), is a must-read for any Asian diasporic person ready to laugh back at the empire.