Sisterhood and Solidarity: An Exploration of the Role of Women in the Development of Chinese-Indigenous Relations in Disappearing Moon Cafe and “Yin Chin”

History class tells us a narrative of first contact between Indigenous people and colonizers that is very narrow in scope. The discussion is often limited to accounts of European colonizers; the brutal assimilation tactics that destroyed the culture of the first peoples of this land are often excluded. Also forgotten are the other stories of first contact that existed synchronously – the stories that do not revolve around dominant society. Sky Lee’s Disappearing Moon Café provocatively spotlights the instances of connection between Chinese and Indigenous communities both historically and in modern day. Lee cautiously manoeuvres around issues of love, miscegenation, intergenerational trauma and cultural norms, particularly focusing on the relationships that exist between both Chinese and Indigenous characters and communities. Lee Maracle focalizes these Chinese-Indigenous relationships from an Indigenous perspective in her piece “Yin Chin.” Together, the texts highlight female strength and emphasize the importance of women in bridging together the two communities. Through the narratives they tell that surpass temporal boundaries and implicitly through their writing as two female authors, the texts suggest that women are society’s mechanism of resistance to social barriers.