Manual For Draft Age Immigrants To Canada

In print for the first time since 1971, Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada has once again become relevant in a time of major political upheaval in the United States of America. First published in 1968 by House of Anansi Press, the Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada was a handbook for Americans who refused to serve as draftees in the Vietnam War and were considering immigrating to Canada. Conceived as a practical guide with information on the process, the Manual also features information on aspects of Canadian society, touching on topics like history, politics, culture, geography and climate, jobs, housing, and universities. The Manual went through several editions from 1968–71. Today, as Americans are taking up the discussion of immigration to Canada once again, it is an invaluable record of a moment in our recent history.

In 1967, then-unknown writers David Godfrey and Dennis Lee founded a small press they grandly named “The House of Anansi,” after an African trickster spider-god. Their goal was to publish groundbreaking new Canadian work in three core genres: literary fiction, poetry, and topical nonfiction. Forty years later, Anansi is not only going strong but enjoying a fascinating creative renaissance, bolstered by both its important backlist and its renewed commitment to seeking out the best new writers and ideas to publish alongside its established ones. Assembled by award-winning writer Lynn Coady, The Anansi Reader features excerpts from ten of the best books from each decade of the existence of the press, for a total of 40 entries. Samples from Lynn Crosbie's Queen Rat, Northrop Frye's The Educated Imagination, and Kevin Connelly's Drift are among the treasures included. In a thoughtful coda, Coady shows readers the future with selections from seven exciting works-in-progress coming from Anansi in the next two years.

The United States is accustomed to accepting waves of migrants who are fleeing oppressive conditions and political persecution in their home countries. But in the 1960s and 1970s, the flow of migration reversed as over fifty thousand Americans fled across the border to Canada to resist military service during the Vietnam War or to escape their homeland’s hawkish society. Unguarded Border tells their stories and, in the process, describes a migrant experience that does not fit the usual paradigms. Rather than treating these American refugees as unwelcome foreigners, Canada embraced them, refusing to extradite draft resisters or military deserters and not even requiring passports for the border crossing. And instead of forming close-knit migrant communities, most of these émigrés sought to integrate themselves within Canadian society. Historian Donald W. Maxwell explores how these Americans in exile forged cosmopolitan identities, coming to regard themselves as global citizens, a status complicated by the Canadian government’s attempts to claim them and the U.S. government’s eventual efforts to reclaim them. Unguarded Border offers a new perspective on a movement that permanently changed perceptions of compulsory military service, migration, and national identity.

Canada enjoys a reputation as a peaceable kingdom and a refuge from militarism.Yet Canadians during the Vietnam War era met American war resisters not with open arms but with political obstacles and public resistance, and the border remained closed to what were then called “draft dodgers” and “deserters.” Between 1965 and 1973, a small but active cadre of Canadian antiwar groups and peace activists launched campaigns to open the border. Jessica Squires tells their story, often in their own words. Interviews and government documents reveal that although these groups ultimately met with success – in the process shaping Canadian identity and Canada’s relationship with the United States – they had to overcome state surveillance and resistance from police, politicians, and bureaucrats. Building Sanctuary not only brings to light overlooked links between the anti-draft movement and Canadian immigration policy – it challenges cherished notions about Canadian identity and Canada in the 1960s.

This book offers a comprehensive and engaging introduction to major writers, genres and topics in Canadian literature. Contributors pay attention to the social, political and economic developments that have informed literary events. Broad surveys of fiction, drama, and poetry are complemented by chapters on Aboriginal writing, francophone writing, autobiography, literary criticism, writing by women, and the emergence of urban writing in a country traditionally defined by its regions. Also discussed are genres that have a special place in Canadian literature, such as nature-writing, exploration- and travel-writing, and short fiction.

Forty-five years after the fall of Saigon, John Boyko brings to light the little-known story of Canada's involvement in the American War in Vietnam. Through the lens of six remarkable people, some well-known, others obscure, bestselling historian John Boyko recounts Canada's often-overlooked involvement in that conflict as peacemaker, combatant, and provider of weapons and sanctuary. When Brigadier General Sherwood Lett arrived in Vietnam over a decade before American troops, he and the Canadians under his command risked their lives trying to enforce an unstable peace while questioning whether they were merely handmaidens to a new war. As American battleships steamed across the Pacific, Canadian diplomat Blair Seaborn was meeting secretly in Hanoi with North Vietnam’s prime minister; if American leaders accepted his roadmap to peace, those ships could be turned around before war began. Claire Culhane worked in a Canadian hospital in Vietnam and then returned home to implore Canadians to stop supporting what she deemed an immoral war. Joe Erickson was among 30,000 young Americans who changed Canada by evading the draft and heading north; Doug Carey was one of the 20,000 Canadians who enlisted with the American forces to serve in Vietnam. Rebecca Trinh fled Saigon with her husband and young daughters, joining the waves of desperate Indochinese refugees, thousands of whom were to forge new lives in Canada. Through these wide-ranging and fascinating accounts, Boyko exposes what he calls the Devil’s wiliest trick: convincing leaders that war is desirable, persuading the public that it is acceptable, and telling combatants that the deeds they carry out and the horrors they experience are normal, or at least necessary. In uncovering Canada’s side of the story, Boyko reveals the many secret and forgotten ways that Canada not only fought the war but was forever shaped by its lessons and lies.