Chan, Mary
Over 130 interviews with Chinese Canadian women were conducted for the book Jin Guo: Voices of Chinese Canadian Women. Produced in 1992 by the Women’s Book Committee of the Chinese Canadian National Council, Jin Guo was intended to fill the gap in historical accounts of Chinese Canadian women’s history. Researchers traveled across Canada to interview Chinese Canadian women of various ages and backgrounds. The book’s authors, Amy Go, Winnie Ng, Dora Nipp, Julia Tao, Terry Woo and May Yee, organized the book around themes and patterns that emerged across multiple interviews – feelings of isolation and culture shock upon arrival in Canada, memories of parent-child relationships, the importance of education, the working lives of women, discrimination, cultural identity, marriage and dating, family life, perspectives on aging and retirement, and examples community activism. The interviews conducted for this project are stored at the Multicultural History Society of Ontario’s archives. This collections database includes a large cross-section of interviews conducted for Jin Guo – in English, Cantonese and Mandarin.
In this interview, Mary (Lee) Chan, born in 1915, discusses her family’s history in Canada dating back from the late 1800s.
Her grandfather migrated from China to Canada hoping to find his fortune from the gold mines. He had little success but found employment working on the railway. After the railway’s completion, he decided to bring Mary’s father to Canada. He was unaware of the Head Tax until the government threatened to take away his possessions if he did not pay.
Her parents met in Canada and opened a shop after they got married. Growing up in Canada was tough. She and her siblings were the only non-white children in school and were severely beaten by bullies on a regular basis. Unable to continue their education in Canada, they went back to China.
Mary studied hard as a student and eventually became a teacher in China. At 21, she married for love after defying her parents’ wishes for an arranged marriage. She and her husband were separated shortly after the birth of their first child, at first by a job offer to her husband, and then by the complications of World War Two.
Upon his returned, they decided to move to Canada. Mary arrived first in 1947. Her husband came later with their daughter as an alleged employee at the store Mary’s father owned. The both claimed to be widowed on their immigration papers and “remarried” once they arrived.
After a series of odd jobs, Mary found employment working with immigrants who had trouble finding a job. With her savings, she bought property and rented it out to businesses. She was able to own a home within five years of coming to Canada.
Despite the obstacles Mary had to endure, she overcame the adversities with great success and at the time of the interview lived a happy, comfortable life. Mary Lee Chan is the mother of interviewee Shirley Chan.
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