“A hundred years ago…the Japanese steamship Komagata Maru set sail for Canada with 376 Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu migrants travelling from Punjab, India. They were refused entry at Vancouver, even though all passengers were British subjects. The Komagata Maru sat moored in Vancouver’s harbour for two months while courts decided the passengers’ right to access – and while the city’s white citizens lined the pier taunting those onboard. Eventually, Canada’s racist exclusion laws were upheld and the ship was forced to return to India.”

– Talonbooks

Phinder Dulai creates a collision between poetry and history in his recent collection, dream/arteries, which has been recommended for British Colombia’s high school curriculum. “I think I might be the first South Asian of Punjabi descent who’s book has been included [in the curriculum], both this year and any time before.” Read Dulai’s full comment here.

Phinder Dulai will be reading tonight, Tuesday, October 11th, at 7pm in room LB 6.646,
1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W – Concordia University Library.