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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 two-part interview, an anonymous woman discusses her family’s immigration to Canada, her childhood experiences of discrimination, the importance of Chinese heritage and culture, her career as a teacher and accountant, and the important contributions of Chinese women in Canadian society.
The interviewee was born in 1956, the eldest of 6 children. Her grandfather arrived in Canada and settled in Windsor, Ontario. Her father came to Canada in the early 1950s, and brought his wife to Canada several years later.
The interviewee reflects on instances of discrimination she experienced while in grade school, but goes on to say that her high school years were more positive. She also comments on a time where she felt neither Chinese nor Canadian.
Originally graduating from university with a teaching degree, she returned to school to obtain a Bachelor of Commerce and found a job at an accounting firm. She offers some reflections on the barriers that women still face in the workplace.
The interviewee notes that she and other Chinese Canadian women are in a position to be role models and mentors to younger generations. She goes on to discuss the importance of understanding and appreciating one’s own heritage.
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