PROTEST REFLECTS ASIAN STIGMA OF DRUG USERS
Marpole shows need for outreach, education, writes Melody Ma.
The lack of common cultural understanding, combined with the City of Vancouver’s poorly planned project announcement before outreach, are factors that can ignite innate cultural fears that manifest into irrational resistance. Melody Ma, on Marpole protests
The Marpole Temporary Modular Housing project has been an intensely debated issue with emotions flaring on all sides. What started as a well-intended announcement to alleviate homelessness quickly escalated to protests, a construction blockade, and an upcoming lawsuit.
In the midst of this civic drama, there is a missing story on cultural stigma of the homeless and drug users that has yet to be told.
The main point of contention is from parents who are worried the homeless moving in will bring drugs and crime, and harm their children. There is an undercurrent of cynicism toward protesters who appear to be mostly Chinese and Asian immigrants, as there is a high Asian population in Marpole. They are described as hateful poor-bashers and selfish homeowners.
Even Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson joined in on the shaming saying he is “concerned about the vicious comments, the stigma that’s being put on people that are homeless.”
I agree the Marpole project is much-needed housing. Further, I speak from experience attending school in the Downtown Eastside that fears are unfounded. However, I also believe there is a critical issue that has been unaddressed in the Marpole debate: The predisposed Asian cultural stigma of drug users.
The Marpole protesters’ primary fear is that some of the new residents will be drug users who will improperly dispose of drug paraphernalia. They are not alone in that fear, as some living in the Edmonton Chinatown are protesting nearby supervised injection sites because of similar concerns. Vancouver Chinatown’s community had the same fears about the supervised injection site Insite when it was proposed, but those views have since changed.
Another example is Coun. Kerry Jang ’s description of “100 Chinese people coming and yelling” at city hall at a 2013 protest over fears of potential drug users at a temporary housing project in Hastings-Sunrise, also a neighbourhood with many Asian immigrants.
It is easy to dismiss these episodes as individual examples that Asians are simply hateful toward drug users and the homeless. But looking back at the history and government mandates of China and other parts of Asia, the picture becomes more complex.
The Economist recently published an essay titled “The Opium Wars still shape China’s view of the West.” The mid-19th century Opium Wars were ignited in part because China wanted to stop Britain’s illegal opium imports. The wars ended with the ransacking of the Chinese Old Summer Palace by British and French troops, and the surrender of Hong Kong to Britain. During that time, opium was spread throughout Chinese diaspora communities to places such as Singapore and Vancouver’s Chinatown. By 1906, 13.5 million of 200 million people in China and 27 per cent of men, including soldiers and government officials, were addicted to opium. By 1949, estimates grew to 20 million addicts, or five per cent of the population. Though this period of history is now romanticized in the West in the form of “opium dens” in restaurants and exotic poppyseed cocktails, it was and still is a painful and humiliating period of Chinese history that elicits strong emotions among many Chinese people today.
Fast forward to now. China and other Asian countries have harsh drug laws. Drug traffickers in China, Indonesia, Singapore and Philippines face the death penalty. If caught, people addicted to drugs in China are registered and rigorously monitored.
At the family level, individuals addicted to drugs are considered an embarrassment. Because drug use is viewed to be related to criminal activity, drug users are regarded as morally deficient and selfish. In countries like China where the family support network is key to the social safety net, drug users are deemed to have broken the family unit since they can no longer support the family.
Stigma of drug users is also prevalent in other aspects of Asian society. Popular culture and media reinforce the stigma by showing explicit, drug-related violence. Until recently, even medicinal opioids in China were tightly controlled, because the state is still haunted by the “century of humiliation.”
Government institutions and media in China and similar Asian countries continue to reinforce the cultural stigma against drug users stemming from history and fear. It is coupled with strong negative feelings toward drug users that many Asians are raised with. The humiliation of the Opium Wars has been recast on the individual drug user, labelled a “humiliation” to their family. Similar stigmas exist for those who are mentally disabled, homeless, and have HIV or AIDS.
Back in Canada, from the 1980s on, schoolchildren were exposed to the preventive D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program. But for many immigrants, they bring with them learned cultural perspectives on drug use. Such strong cultural stigmas do not easily evaporate through immigration.
Once we trace the origins of the Asian stigma placed on drug users, a pattern emerges of why there may be immigrant community resistance for projects like the one in Marpole. The lack of common cultural understanding, combined with the City of Vancouver’s poorly planned project announcement before outreach, are factors that can ignite innate cultural fears that manifest into irrational resistance. The next question is: How do we mitigate similar animosity in the future?
First, the city needs to understand the Asian stigma placed on drug users is deeply rooted in history and is still enforced by many Asian states where the immigrants are from.
The city should apply appropriate cultural lenses when dealing with issues that may be sensitive to immigrant populations, especially for ones that evoke a baggage of cultural stigma. They should build genuine trust with the community-at-large through authentic listening and regular outreach about critical civic matters, such as homelessness, before any specific neighbourhood projects are contemplated.
This is not to recommend prolonging public consultation processes for individual projects, but to promote regular trust-building dialogue to minimize resistance.
Lastly, the city can demonstrate leadership with proactive continual education to help immigrants overcome predisposed stigmas. Some community members have already picked up the city’s slack through peer education. Approached the right way, immigrant communities do have the capacity to change perceptions, as shown by the Vancouver Chinatown community’s turnaround on their attitudes toward Insite.
Cultural diversity can be a strength for cities, but it also carries challenges. The Marpole incident is a reminder that the predisposed cultural stigma among Asian immigrants toward the homeless and drug users is a continual challenge created by Vancouver’s diversity and one unaddressed by the city. True, this cultural stigma cannot explain all reasons for the community resistance. Nevertheless, it is one underlying cause in which the city is in the best position to effect change — but only if they choose to start to sincerely understand.
For many immigrants, they bring with them learned cultural perspectives on drug use. Such strong cultural stigmas do not easily evaporate.
MELODY MA