Passage to Freedom: Film Screening and Discussion
The arrival of the Hearts of Freedom exhibition to UBC Robson Square will be celebrated with a free screening of the exhibition’s accompanying film, Passage to Freedom. The film highlights the courage of the refugees and the compassion shown in that era by Canadian officials, churches, and ordinary citizens who stepped up to innovate a private sponsorship immigration program, under the 1976 Immigration Act, where private citizens could sponsor complete strangers as refugees to Canada.
Join us May 13, 2023, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM at UBC Robson Square
A panel discussion after the documentary will showcase UBC faculty and alumni who can speak on topics to do with global migration studies, including UBC’s interdisciplinary Asian Canadian & Asian Migration Studies. The panel will also include Kathy Ma, a former Chinese Vietnamese refugee to Canada, whose story (along with Stephanie Stobbe’s), is featured in the Hearts for Freedom interviews available online.
Event Schedule
1:00 PM – Program begins, welcome remarks
1:15 PM – Film screening
2:30PM – Panel discussion, audience Q&A
3:00 PM – Reception, light food and refreshments will be available
Panelists
Dr. Henry Yu is an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, in History, Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies, and the Centre for Global Migration. He is the Co-Lead for UBC’s new Centre for Asian Canadian Research Engagement (ACRE) and the Director of the UBC Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies (INSTRCC), mentoring UBC students to become community researchers and leaders.
Dr. Stephanie Phetsamay Stobbe is the Lead Curator of Hearts of Freedom oral history project and travelling exhibit. She is also the Chair and Associate Professor in Conflict Resolution Studies Menno Simons College of the Canadian Mennonite University, at the University of Winnipeg. President, Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS). She is a former Laotian refugee and proud UBC alumna.
Margaret Tebbutt is a former Foreign Service Visa Officer, and former Foreign Branch Liaison Officer with the BC Office of Employment and Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Services. She was posted overseas in Southeast Asia and on the frontlines of refugee selection and settlement in the late 1970s to early 1980s. She later worked in trade promotion for Canada, including working with the UBC Sauder Business School of Business.
Chris Friesen is the Chief Operating Office, Immigration Settlement Services of BC (ISSofBC), the main immigrant serving agency in BC. He and ISSofBC have had key leadership roles in all humanitarian refugee resettlement movements since 1972, including most recently, Afghan Special Initiative and Operation Ukrainian Safe Haven. He is the staff lead for the world-class ISSofBC Welcome Centre, a social purpose, shared space facility that opened in 2016 for refugee settlement and integration. He is a proud UBC alumnus who founded the WUSC UBC Student Refugee Sponsorship Program.