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Title: Interview with Sharon Lee, Part 2 of 4
Date: March 21, 1985
Donor: Lee, Sharon
Subject: Discrimination, Education, Work, China, Identity, Politics and Activism, Leisure
Province: British Columbia
Set: 2 of 4
Language: ENG
Call Number: CHI-11130-LEE, CHI-11131-LEE / CHI-VANCOUVER-17

Lee, Sharon

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, Sharon Lee looks back on what it was like going to high school in Vancouver, British Columbia, and reflects on incidents of racial hostility that she and other Chinese experienced while there. Sharon goes on to comment on racism in the workplace, and its particular effects on Chinese Canadians.

Sharon also discusses growing up in Vancouver, and how incidents of racism her father experienced affected him and the family. Sharon goes on to offer some reflections on the nature of racism in society, and the ways it can be successfully challenged.

Also addressed in the interview is a trip Sharon took to China, and her attempts to educate Canadians about Chinese culture upon her return to Canada; her upbringing within an economically disadvantaged family; identifying herself as a person who questions the norms and values of mainstream society; and her progressive political perspective.