There used to be a time in Vancouver when the police seemed to be all
British descendants with lots of Scots, and they looked at the Chinese
with suspicion.  In 1924, A Scottish nanny named Janet Smith was
killed, a Chinese houseboy was accused, and the Scotland Yard was
called in.

In the mid 1980's the Vancouver Police department addressed trying to
recruit visible minorities, and how to deal with the multiculturalism
in their own department.  My cousin Hayne Wai, worked on
multicultural issues, and created a slide show called “Stakeout in
Anglotown.”  It took a lot of the stereotypes about Chinese and
Asians and flipped them onto the dominant white Canadian mainstream
population.  

For instance, the Police and Fire Departments used to have height
restrictions for recruitment.  If you were too short, you couldn't
get hired, and of course, Asians and women were significantly shorter
than White Males.  The slideshow grew into a video, and was always
a hit at conferences.  Hayne was the Chinese-Canadian cop, and his
friend Dave Sangha was the Indo-Canadian cop, and they patrolled the
tough part of the city that kept its secrets to itself –
Anglo-town.  They recieved an APB for a white male caucasian, and
go on the search for him checking out local “Anglo” establishments
(Government Liquor Store) and religious centres (St. Andrews-Wesley
Church) where “their people talk to ghosts and spirits.”

It was very tongue-in-cheek, and it was one of my inspirations in
learning how to flip cultural stereotypes as I have developed “Gung
Haggis Fat Choy.”

Times have really changed in Vancouver now.  The Vancouver Sun has
recently written a series of articles about him, and I think that Jim
Chu has been a real leader on the Police Force.  Chu has helped to
pave a high tech roadway for the Police Department and has been
successful on his own merits.  There seems to be a lot of support
for him.

We wish him luck and success as Vancouver becomes a truly multicultural 21st Century City.