Football legend,role model,cultural ambassador,and true Canadian? A critical reading of the mediated legacy of Norman Kwong,the ‘China Clipper’

Abstract

Norman Kwong was a Chinese Canadian football star with a ground-breaking career in the Canadian Football League in the 1950s before he reached unprecedented success post-retirement, most notably appointed as the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta in 2005. Acknowledging Kwong’s significant accomplishments, this paper offers a critical reading of Canadian mainstream media’s celebratory representation of Norman Kwong and his legacy, highlighting how his life stories, as constructed in the media, served to reaffirm the myth of Canadian multiculturalism. The paper concludes by pointing to an alternative interpretation of Kwong’s legacy, one that foregrounds the Chinese diasporic communities’ complicity and obligations in the settler colonial state.

Keywords

Chinese Canadian football minor settler model minority multiculturalism

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