Huang, Kim
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, Kim Huang discusses her relationship with her family growing up, the death of her mother, and the challenges of balancing work, school, and a social life.
As an infant, Kim immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong with her mother to join her father in Ottawa, Ontario. A year later, the family moved to St. John’s, Newfoundland and entered the restaurant business. Kim describes being teased for being different as a child. She notes that she began dating in grade seven and has never had a non-white boyfriend, nor felt that this was an issue. Kim recounts a time when her father mentioned arranging her marriage but suggests that he may have been joking.
When she was in grade eight, Kim’s mother passed away after a long illness. Kim feels she coped well with the incident and suggests that others who have lost parents are much worse off. Kim expresses gratitude that she had the support of her parents growing up.
Kim speaks about her schooling at the University of New Brunswick, and her plans to move to Toronto because of feelings that her social life interferes with her schoolwork. She expresses the desire to focus on her studies to honour her mother. Kim relates her wish to inspire other Chinese Canadians, in addition to feelings of pressure to live up to stereotypes about students of Chinese backgrounds. When asked about the future, she says she wants a small family and a husband she can talk to.
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