“Want to be a superior man?”: The Production Chinese Canadian Masculinities in Paul Yee’s Writing

Abstract

This paper examines the re-imagining of Chinese Canadian masculinity in Paul Yee's novel, A Superior Man (2015). Unlike Yee's previous writing, this novel does not describe Chinese Canadian men as Western Frontier heroes. Rather, it illustrates how Chinese immigration intersects with the oppression of Indigenous peoples, and how notions of masculinity are produced within settler colonialism. The novel thus provides an important entry point into discussions about how to make Indigenous presence and colonization foundational to anti-racist efforts. Yet, since it represents Indigenous peoples as largely peripheral, the novel also points to how much anti-colonial work remains to be done.