Wong, Claire
Claire Yim Tong Wong was born in Macau in 1942, and lived in Guangdong province (China) and Hong Kong before coming to Canada at age 11. Her father, Allen Jew Wong, moved to Canada from China as a teenager. In his twenties, he traveled back to China to get married. For many years, Allen traveled back and forth between Canada, where he worked, and China, where his family lived. When the communists took power in China in 1949, Allen urged his family to move to Hong Kong, which they did. In 1953, Claire emigrated from Hong Kong with her mother, Lee Ho, and siblings to reunite with her father and settle in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. There, Claire attended school and helped her family in their restaurant in the evenings. At the time, Yarmouth was home to very few other Chinese immigrants, which made Claire feel more like a curiosity than a target for discrimination. As a teenager, she moved to Montreal and lived with her sister while completing her last year of high school. After high school, she worked for Bell Telephone before getting married and starting a family. A devout Protestant, Claire has attended the Montreal Chinese Presbyterian Church and St. Genevieve’s United Church in Montreal.
This portrait depicts Claire Wong’s mother, Lee Ho. Claire describes her mother as selfless and a typical woman of her time. Lee Ho was married in China at seventeen to Allen Jew Wong, who made his living in Canada. For many years, the couple was separated, although Allen traveled back and forth from Canada to visit his family in China every few years. Claire’s mother never learned much English, so she relied heavily on her family for help outside of the home. At home, however, Lee Ho was, as Claire notes, her own person.
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