Erased, Displaced, Misplaced: Reclaiming [Chinese Canadian] National Identity through Co-op Radio

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, it was a pleasure to review this article which, given a few minor edits and moves for reorganization, will contribute to the critical literature on Canadian multiculturalism and diasporic belonging. Please see the review report attached. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 1's comments were extremely helpful and productive during the revision process. I am indebted to them for their meticulous attention to reading the earlier draft. All comments were considered and integrated as best I could within my turnaround time. I am particularly grateful for their suggestions of including and expanding on the work of Byrd and Day. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This draft is well written and the author should be commended on its writing fluidity and style. That said, I find this manuscript to be great need of scholarly depth and probably a narrowing of focus. I hope the following comments are helpful to the author.

What is the actual focus of this paper? Eliminate the attempt to tie Pender Guy in with the ACWW as this is but a blip at the end of the paper with very little depth. It appears that the author is attempting to argue that Pender Guy is a response to anti-Asian sentiments that rose out of the establishment of the Canadian identity narrative of the time. 

What analysis of Pender Guy content remains mostly limited to the opening episode/broadcast. Should the author limit the focus of the article to this? Perhaps. We learn very little about the actual programming, such as the 'reports, interviews, skits, songs' that the author claims to have united a community (lines 162-164, for example). The author will need to determine whether or not to focus on an analysis actual content of Pender Guy, or an analysis of the opening broadcast.

The actual analysis of the transcripts from the opening broadcast do beg depth and a more nuanced argument. This would benefit from a better conceptual / theoretical framework set up at the beginning. While the author states that the social history of Chinese Canadian community has been well documented, it requires some attention in order to validate the Pender Guy transcription analysis. For example, Paragraph 2 should be developed, not avoided. There is a big space/time jump between the very brief discussion of 'early arrivants' and the airing of Pender Guy. Bridge this with a discussion of social movements/activism so that Pender Guy doesn't seem to just pop out of a vacuum (or does it?). Expand upon "youth activism and grassroots movements" in the 3rd paragraph.  

There are phrases/statements that the author makes with very broad strokes, such as the broadcast "establishing an identity" (line 67). I would caution the use of such phrasing. Rather, the broadcast created a space for issues of ethnocultural identity to be discussed within a national narrative that historically marginalized the Chinese Canadians. This might be the actual focus of the paper. What is that national narrative? How has it marginalized Chinese Canadians? How did the community BEGIN to address it? To demonstrate this, the author would need to expand upon the notion of hybridity in the Chinese Canadian identity - how are Canadian born youth not accepted as fully Canadian? A discussion of these issues, grounded in scholarship, will help frame the unpacking of the first broadcast transcription.

The issue of language in Pender Guy is an interesting one, and one that could take the author down an adjacent rabbit hole. It is interesting that linguistic hegemony is noted in the opening transcription - "the language of the country" but that French is not mentioned. Canada became officially bilingual in 1969 but how does that play into the Canadian identity narrative of 1976? This leads to the following point - who is the audience of Pender Guy? By broadcasting in English, it would appear that it is the younger generation. However, what begs clarity is how Pender Guy may in fact be contributing to the linguistic assimilation by broadcasting in English and a signal of the broadcast's underlying adherence to the national narrative of Canada as an English (French) speaking nation. What kind of cultural identity did Pender Guy then promote? Not sure the angle which the author should take here. Might be wise to acknowledge that the choice of language merits further study and not the focus of this paper. If the author does choose to firmly address language choice, then it will need to be framed within a discussion of the place of language in cultural/heritage identity and in the Canadian identity narrative. 

Overall, the author should bring in more scholarship to the paper. Finally, what is the impact of this research? What does it add to the cannon? 

Author Response

Reviewer 2's comments were extremely helpful and productive during the revision process. I am indebted to them for their meticulous attention to reading the earlier draft. Reviewer 2's comments were considered and integrated as best I could within my turnaround time. I am particularly grateful for their suggestions of expanding on issues of language vis-a-vis the multicutural act. 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This version is a great improvement over the first and I am pleased to see the author take the approach to contextualize at the beginning of the manuscript. The theoretical additions on page 2 were a smart move to succinctly summarize and frame. 

My reservation at publishing the manuscript in its current form now lies with an issue that the author did not address in the revised form. I am fully aware of the time constraints that the journal places on authors and that some things come down to triage. However, I feel that there is need for a minor revision regarding the actual analysis of the content of Pender Guy in order to strengthen the author's intention. Lines 124-125, for example, should be developed - show the readers how interviews, reports, songs, and skits used the past to teach a collective history. Otherwise, readers are to take the author's claims at face value. Find examples from Pender Guy that actively demonstrate what the author writes in lines 137-140: "This paper argues for the ways in which Pender 137 Guy utilized a coalitional space to foster initiatives and activities that actively resisted censorship from mainstream media, and attempted to rewrite hegemonic, settler colonial historical narratives from within a settler state."

Finally, the section dedicated to the ACWW still appears a loose thread. I strongly suggest developing it here in the present article, or cutting it completely and using this publication as a starting point for a future article dedicated to the ACWW and other current forms of Asian Canadian artistic output. 

Author Response

Taking the reviewers suggestion to develop the final paragraph in this paper or as a future article, I have omitted the previous concluding paragraph that introduced the ACWW and its overlapping initiatives with Pender Guy and provided a shorter concluding paragraph. Likewise, I took the reviewers suggestion and focused on developing my arguments and examples of coalitional spaces and community building. The previous lines 124-27 and 137-140 have been expanded to include the reviewers feedback about providing further in-depth context. I once again thank the reviewer for their time and attention to detail and helping me develop this article to a publishable caliber.