Composer:
Peter Abando

Librettist:
Carolyn Nakagawa

Composer website:
https://www.cynakagawa.com/

Composer contact:

Performance forces:
9 actor/singers —

Length:
2:00

Languages:

Notes:
The New Canadians is an ensemble-driven stage musical based on the true story of the grassroots Japanese Canadian newspaper, The New Canadian, founded in Vancouver in 1938. The newspaper’s young, idealistic staff advocate for Canadian values of citizenship, equality, and democracy in the face of widespread anti-Asian racism, even when their own government ignores their citizenship and interns them as people of “Japanese racial origin”. A parallel plotline takes place in the 21st century, where Japanese Canadians two generations later grapple with the complex legacy of their model-minority predecessors and its effects on their Canadian and Japanese Canadian identities.