People who know me, know I love red pandas and who would not want to embrace one? There are shots of the people behind the scenes of “Turning Red” studying real red pandas (at the San Diego Zoo), but the documentary “Embrace the Panda: Making Turning Red” is about accepting and celebrating one’s culture, in a way that might not have been possible in the time of our grandparents or great grandparents.

We learn that the makers loved that the colors were the same as the Canadian flag. All of the key leadership were women and working with an all-female production team was an amazing experience. Danielle Feinberg said the film is about “growing up and figuring out who you are and embracing that.”

“Turning Red” is set in 2002, that’s two decades ago. The Lee family speaks Cantonese. That means they are likely from an older wave of immigration, but not the oldest as Canada also had a Chinese Exclusion Act. The US passed its exclusion act in 1882. Canada restricted and regulated Chinese immigration by passing the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885. Later, Canada passed the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, which is now known as the Chinese Exclusion Act. While other nationalities and ethnicities were regulated, only the Chinese were completely prohibited. Restrictions had prevented women from immigrating previously so the Chinese in Canada and the US were predominately bachelor societies. The Chinese immigrants in both Canada and the US, helped build the railroads (Canadian Pacific Railroad was completed in 1885). In addition, during World War I, the Chinese were recruited to help Canada’s ally, Great Britain, during World War I and were shipped to Canada, put into trains and taken across Canada before boarding boats for the UK (Chinese Labour Corps).

The Chinese Immigration Act was only repealed in 1947 and the racist immigration policies against the Chinese immigrants were removed in 1967. (In the US the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ended the National Origins Formula.)

During World War II (1941), Toronto had the third-largest Chinatown in Canada with only 2,326 people.

While the first Buddhists were likely Chinese  and Japanese laborers, it was the Japanese immigrants that first established Buddhist organizations in the late 1800s.

Alberta would be the province where the first Buddhist temple was established in Canada, but the internment of Japanese Canadians who were removed from British Columbia also destroyed institutional Buddhism in Canada. For Ottawa, the establishment of Buddhist community centers is relatively new. The Zen Centre of Ottawa is the base for the White Wind Zen Community which was founded in 1985. The Toronto Zen Buddhist Centre was founded in 1972. The Mahamevnawa, an organization of Buddhist monasteries of Sri Lankan origin, is also relatively new as the sect was founded in 1999 in Sri Lanka. Fo Guang Shan Temple of Toronto ( 多倫多佛光山; duō lún duō fó guāng shān) of Chinese Buddhism, was founded in 1991 and completed in 1997.

For Taoism, the Wong Dai Sin Temple in Toronto opened in 2015 and the D’Arcy Street Temple which is in Toronto’s traditional Chinatown, is probably much older, but I could not find a date online. The traditional Chinatown was partially demolished to build a new city hall. Toronto Tai Chi Association was founded by Moy Lin-shin (梅連羨 méi lián xiàn) who arrived in Toronto in 1970 according to Wikipedia.

This is the background of adversity that the grandparents and parents of protagonist in “Turning Red,” Meilin, would have faced. And that’s part of the background of a story like “Turning Red,” particularly when one remembers people in the US used to say, “Better Dead, Than Red.” In that context, “red” was associated with communism. In the US, the war on communism also mean the Chinese Americans were scrutinized. According to PBS, this was particularly true during the Korean War (1950-1953).

After the People’s Republic of China entered the Korean War, Chinese Americans’ unique history of exclusion and political marginalization left the community unusually vulnerable to the kind of public hysteria that Joseph McCarthy and his allies fostered. Politically weak and sometimes in legal jeopardy, Chinese Americans after 1950 often felt great pressure to prove their loyalty to both the United States and Taiwan, regardless of their private sentiments. Yet by the middle of the decade, a growing number began to work not only to defend their communities from attack but to seek the kind of power that would enable Chinese Americans to gain equal rights and treatment in the United States.

When I think about how my mother reacted to things and how she tried to raise me, it made sense in light of her history and the history of anti-Asian discrimination. I was taught to be polite. I was taught not to speak up. I wasn’t given Japanese lessons, even though I wanted them. I was not taught how to prepare Japanese foods. My mother could never speak about her internment experience.

Within my community, I was encouraged not to look Filipina. I only recently learned why the distinction was important to some people.

• Filipino bodies, lynching, and the language of empire

• Filipino Farmworkers

• ‘Lynching’: Trump’s inadvertent Fil- Am history lesson

• Riots in 1930 revealed Watsonville racism: California apologizes to Filipino Americans

• Vile US History Of Lynching Of People Of Color