Historical images such as these appear alongside interviews with members of some of the first Chinese-Canadian families in Ottawa on the Lives of the Family website.
Forgotten stories from the history of Ottawa’s Chinese-Canadian community are being recovered and shared through a collaboration between a B.C. university and a Centretown cultural centre.
Chinese-Canadians were small in numbers in early 20th-century Ottawa, but formed a strong economic base after opening small cafés, restaurants, grocery stores and laundries.
These success stories are often overlooked in studies focused on segregation and racism, says Henry Yu, a history professor at the University of British Columbia and leader of a cross-Canada project aimed at preserving a wider range of Chinese-Canadian history.
The Ottawa Chinese Community Service Centre is working with Yu on a local component of Chinese-Canadian Stories: Uncommon Histories from a Common Past, an initiative launched by the Community Historical Recognition Program with backing from the federal government.
This project aims to tell the stories of Chinese-Canadians that are left out of the history books.
“This country was created in 1867. There were plenty of people around (Canada) at that time and their stories aren’t part of the mythical story of Canada,” Yu says.
Simon Fraser University and UBC have launched the $1.7-million history initiative in Ottawa and 29 other cities around the country.
Ottawa's Chinese community centre on Kent Street received $50,000, says Robert Yip, a member of the OCCSC advisory committee.
Yip says that the local co-ordinators of the project were up against the clock to find individuals who would share their stories.
“Time was of the essence. Many people are very elderly and unless we capture these stories today, they’ll be lost forever.”
The centre started the two-part initiative a few years ago, but it recently reached a key milestone.
In December, a public discussion was held at the Ottawa Public Library to hear the stories of some Chinese-Canadians.
Denise Chong, a Chinese-Canadian journalist and author, led the conversation and was the main person behind the interviews now seen on the centre’s website.
The website, titled Lives of the Family, is a compilation of interviews with members of some of the first Chinese-Canadian families in Ottawa.
The website also has historical facts about Canada at the time, and documents such as memoirs and photographs.
The second part of the initiative is an interactive kiosk located at the entrance of the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library.
This “labour of love,” according to Yu, was launched so that people can understand that negative stories and racism did exist, but that the Chinese people of Canada have a story that is so much more than that.
Yu says these establishments were the heart of social life for many years in Western Canada.
By teaching people about Chinese history, it “rounds out the story, makes it more poignant."
"This story shows how people survived and thrived despite the racism,” Yu says.
Yip echoes these sentiments.
“Canadian history to me is like the Hudson Bay blanket. It used to be predominantly white. Now it’s more multicultural, more fabrics, more coloured.”
One of the stories told through the project involved a couple named Woo and Sue Wong, who were among the earliest Chinese-Canadian residents in Ottawa, a small lumber town that was home — according to the 1901 census — to 170 Chinese residents, all males.
Woo wanted to come to Canada to join her husband, Sue (or Su), who was waiting for her in this country. But they also had a three-year-old daughter, Kam Oi, and it was 1920 — a time when a $500 head tax was in place for would-be Chinese immigrants.
The family didn’t have enough money to pay for two members to become Canadians, so it was decided that Kam Oi would have to be left behind in the care of Sue’s parents.
Once in Ottawa, the couple had two other daughters, Mary and Annie. In 1924, Woo and Sue opened a grocery store in their home at 201 Albert St.
The Yick Lung grocery store did not have set hours and often served as a gathering place for Chinese families.
After having five more children, Woo still longed for the daughter that was left behind.
In 1963, the family was reunited with Kam Oi. It was almost 40 years after the separation but only a few months before Sue died.