More than 4,000 Chinese workers died building the country’s first transcontinental railroad, yet most of the Chinese community faced discrimination and outright racism. Laws were specially created to oppress and exclude them. Yet they persevered. Our panelists will take us through more than a century of the experiences of Chinese-Canadians: fighting back, organising and leading the way for many others. Join the Toronto Workers’ History Project in this special livestreamed presentation. PANELISTS Winnie NgActivist, scholar, Chair Emeritus, Ryerson-Unifor National Chair

Click for the video on Facebook On September 11, 1973 the Chilean military under General Pinochet brutally attacked the democratically elected Popular Unity Government, killing President Salvador Allende and established a military junta that suspended civilian rule and killed, imprisoned and tortured thousands of Chileans. It was from this baptism of fire that the Chilean Canadian community built and re-built itself. On September 11, 2020 the TWHP will be holding a webinar about the churches and unions that campaigned to have

Like so much else, the Toronto Workers’ History Project is on hiatus as the world confronts the COVID-19 crisis. As promoters of workers’ history and participants in workers’ movements, we are thinking a lot these days about the front-line workers tasked with fighting the pandemic head-on: nurses (like those pictured above), doctors, and other medical staff. We are also in solidarity with those essential workers whose jobs require them to continue being out in the world, at heightened risk of infection:

Tuesday, March 3, 7:00 p.m.Steelworkers Hall, 25 Cecil St. During World War II, over 20,000 Japanese Canadians were interned by the Canadian state and displaced from their homes and communities in British Columbia. Their businesses and homes, including a fleet of fishing boats, were seized and never returned or properly compensated for. A traumatic and damaging experience for those affected, this forced relocation was also the genesis of the Japanese Canadian community in Toronto, as many internees eventually settled in the city, where they

Tuesday, February 4, 7:00 p.m.120 Diner, 120 Church St., Toronto ** Note change from our usual location ** Though criminalized and pushed to the margins, sex workers have played critical roles in Toronto’s history, contributing to its economic development and fighting for the rights of queer folk and other marginalized communities. While attitudes toward sex and sex work have changed dramatically in recent decades, prostitution laws continue to marginalize and punish sex workers, and put them at high risk of violence. Generations of