History is never neutral. Framing is everything. Take Vancouver's anti-Asian riots of 1907.

On September 7 of that year, the Asiatic Exclusion League led a parade to City Hall at Main and Hastings streets, calling for an end to Asian immigration to British Columbia. More than 8,000 people, including local politicians, labour leaders, and members of fraternal organizations, rallied with banners reading Stand for a White Canada.

Only 2,000 could fit in City Hall, so crowds drifted to Chinatown, a block away. A rock thrown through a store window touched off a rampage of smashed signs and glass, and looting that continued into neighbouring Japantown, where the crowd faced some resistance before police showed up to quell the violence.

In the following days, Chinese and Japanese armed themselves with guns, preparing for another siege. They held a general strike, refusing to go to their jobs in homes, restaurants, and mills.

William Lyon Mackenzie King, then federal deputy minister of labour, held hearings on the riot. Almost a year later, damages were awarded: $26,000 to the Chinese, $9,000 to the Japanese.

Henry Yu, an associate professor of history at UBC, sees 2007 not just as the 100th anniversary of the 1907 riots but marking three other key years in the history of Asian immigration to Pacific Canada: 1947, 1967, and 1997.

For Yu, focusing on a simple “victim” narrative would obscure the richer story that has led to the transformation of Vancouver into what he calls the Switzerland of the Asia Pacific.

Instead of being the end result of a long history of anti-Asian racism in North America, Yu sees the 1907 riots as the beginning of Canada severing its ties with Asia. “The Chinese weren't brought to Canada just because they were 'cheaper' but because they were cheaper to bring here [than from Eastern Canada],” he says. “The whole irony is the railroad they helped build [finished in 1885] made it easier to bring the people to displace them.”

New European immigrants claimed the Asians were taking their jobs in farming, fishing, and mining when the opposite was true: Europeans were arriving from Eastern Canada and taking jobs from Asians.

In 1947, Asian Canadians' service in the Second World War led to the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act and full citizenship (including the right to vote) not just for the Chinese but also for Japanese Canadians, Indo-Canadians, and First Nations.

Yu considers 1967 an underrecognized landmark. “We think of multiculturalism. We think of Pierre Trudeau. It's not just because of Quebec and the Quiet Revolution and the things that led the multiculturalism in terms of federal politics but also the new [1967] Immigration Act, which led to huge new waves from China.”

The act created a more equitable points system that made it easier for educated professionals to enter Canada, facilitated family reunification, and eliminated discrimination on the basis of nationality and race by dismissing national origin as a condition of entry or exclusion.

“My grandfather, to bring my parents and my grandfather over in 1965, had to pay off...” Yu begins with a laugh, then clarifies his statement. “Well, let's say you made a contribution to the Liberal-party MP in your riding and wrote a nice letter. Next thing you know, you get clearance.”

The Hong Kong handover in 1997, although not a Canadian event, prompted changes to Canadian law designed to attract Asian entrepreneurs and investors.

Says Yu: “You could think of it as a new head tax: the $250,000 investment program [which is now $450,000]. In the '80s, if you invested a quarter of a million dollars, you got Canadian citizenship.”

This, according to Yu, along with then-premier Bill Vander Zalm's Expo-land sale to Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, “marks the triumphant rise again of a Canada that now embraces its role not as the end of the tracks [but] as the centre of a world that is now tied to Hong Kong and Asia.”

Now Yu sees Vancouver as “a safe place to park your money” in relatively stable real estate and “a safe place to stick your kids” in our relatively inexpensive education system.

As a board member of the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia, Yu encourages a wide variety of interpretations and events around these anniversaries in 2007. For example, CCHSBC president Hayne Wai and board member Gordon Mark have already made progress on the civic level. Along with University of Victoria history professor John Price, they've begun discussions about possible activities with Vision Vancouver Coun. George Chow.

As president of the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver and adviser to the Vancouver Chinatown Merchants Association, Chow is no stranger to the issues. “It was purely due to the white workers worried about Chinese immigrants taking away their jobs,” Chow says. “That kind of thinking will always linger in people's minds.”

Apart from public discussions or photo exhibits, Chow suggests, “Maybe we should have a dinner, like we always do. Like the reconciliation dinner we did with Bill Chu [founder of Canadians for Reconciliation] and the First Nations.”

Chow says he has not broached the issue with the mayor or other councillors. “I always look to events generated by the community rather than done by the government.”

Although B.C.'s Ministry of Tourism, Sport, and the Arts is already calling on groups to help mark the 150th anniversary of the province's establishment in 2008, the province seems to have no concrete plans to mark the 2007 anniversary, appearing to take a similar “wait for the community” approach. A representative of the office of Auditor General Wally Oppal, who is also the minister responsible for multiculturalism, did not return a call from the Georgia Straight.

Henry Yu has already begun an advocacy process with a presentation to B.C.'s Multiculturalism Advisory Council, which may make recommendations to Oppal. The idea of commemorative events already has the support of one of the council's 15 members, Jan Walls, Yu's fellow CCHSBC board member and former director of the David Lam Centre for International Communication at SFU.

Jim Wong-Chu, an amateur historian, recalls learning about “the night the white boys played” (as the Chinese called it) in the early '60s from people in the community.

He has written an essay about the riots for the upcoming issue of Ricepaper, a national Asian Canadian magazine, and posted it on the magazine's Web site, www.ricepaperonline.com/.

As in his earlier work on the Asian North American History Timeline Project, Wong-Chu places the 1907 riots in a broader continental context. He cites incidents from as far back as 1635, when Asian barbers were banned from working in Mexico City, to the “Anti-Hindu Riots” of 1907, when Indo-Americans were beaten in Bellingham just five days before the violence in Vancouver.

Although he writes that “Today, Canada has the best minority and human rights legislation in the world” (except with regards to First Nations), Wong-Chu says the city of Vancouver, the province of British Columbia, and trade unions have never accepted responsibility for the riot, and they should. (The Asiatic Exclusion League was formed by labour unions in San Francisco and had thousands of members in Vancouver and Seattle.)

But Wong-Chu says it needs to go even further than public acknowledgment. He would like the focus to be on public discussion and education. “I would love to see the province change some of the curriculum to reflect some of this. When you can open a book in 12 years of education and you never heard of this...what the hell?”

Artists have also been working on plans and proposals to mark the anniversaries. Writers Fred Mah and Roy Miki have reportedly been working on something performance- or poetry-related.

Filmmaker (and CCHSBC board member) Karin Lee has had discussions with former Centre A gallery curator Alice Ming Wai Jim about holding events in Chinatown itself. “For me, that would be the most interesting thing: to be in the Downtown Eastside and the sites where the riots took place...whether they're projections at night, or soundscapes, or installations of some kind.”

Rick Lam, president of the Vancouver Chinatown Revitalization Committee, says the 100th anniversary of the riot isn't really on the community's radar. Although he thinks it's important for people to remember events from the past so they don't happen again, he says his preference would be for a more low-key approach, such as an archival exhibition at the Chinese Cultural Centre's Museum & Archives building.

What he doesn't support, however, is a reenactment of the riots (rumours of which were circulating in the community last year). “Every group is free to do what they want,” he says, “but for public events, I believe it's important to have a dialogue with the community. If a group wants to pursue something, we could call a meeting with all the committee members, including the Chinese Benevolent Association, the Chinese Cultural Centre, the Vancouver Chinatown Merchants Association, the veterans' association...”

All of this underlines the fact that while we have about a year left until the 100th anniversary of the Chinatown riots, how we'll mark the event is far from settled. Whatever we decide, and whatever we do (or don't do), it will be history in the making.