Chinese community outraged after racist images used in French learning programs

The Quebec Chinese community was left outraged following worksheets depicting racist stereotypes.

“When you’re looking at a picture, which is to say that Asian people or Chinese people are small eye size and that is how they dress. You know, it’s all connected to racism and discrimination. So you don’t do things like that,” explained Jimmy Chan, Chinese community leader and president of Chan Association of Chinatown.

The image below is an excerpt from a worksheet that was distributed to students in Quebec government-funded French-language programs. It’s being called out as a racist caricature with writing that says in french “he has little eyes”.

Many in the Chinese community are demanding change and an education program about different cultures for those teachers.

“I had a lot of teachers that don’t know about racial stereotypes and they don’t know that these are very can be very hurtful and very offensive and create stress also on racialized people,” said Winston Chan, member of the National Coalition of Canadians Against Anti-Asian Racism.

“It is something that I think is very important for the next generation teachers to come,” added Jimmy Chan. “So they all have to learn to be educated that way. Otherwise, this mistake, this mistake or that mistake that created this discrimination, racism, will occur again if we don’t fix the problem now, it will happen again.”

Two different worksheets seperately used in french classes one at the École Internationale de Français at l’Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières and the other at the centre Louis-Jolliet, an adult learning centre in Quebec City.

The exercise from École Internationale de Français shows two people speaking about ethnic cuisine. The conversation continues when one person asks “do you like Chinese cuisine?” and the other one replying “are you kidding? I do not eat cat.”

“What’s the reason? To me, there’s no reason behind it. You don’t create something like that,” said Jimmy Chan. “Oh, you’re are you like Chinese food or no, I don’t, because I know I don’t eat that. You know, so and it’s a story that is crazy and not true.”

In a statement to CityNews, the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières says, “the text does not reflect our values and we are sorry for the discomfort and pain it may have caused. It has been removed from the list of teaching tools used at the école international de français.

“Actions will be taken to help and support staff members for a better inclusive teaching approach.”

CityNews also reached out to Quebec’s Ministry of Education and the centre Louis-Jolliet – both of which have not responded at this time.

“The best thing is right now is for the ministry of education to start to offer training about racial stereotypes to their french teachers. They’re the ones that are in contact with those racialized students that are learning french,” explained Winston Chan.

Winston says welcoming and encouraging individuals to learn french should be a priority one that worksheets like these do not aid.

“It is not relevant to those kinds of racial stereotypes worksheets to teach french. There’s a lot of work out of better methods to teach french in that sense.”