Louie, Ann C.
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.
Ann Louie was born in the mid 1930s in China. She spent her early childhood moving between Hong Kong and China. Due to the economic instability and food shortages during World War Two, she and her family moved to rural China where they could grow their own food. There, she attended school and did not return to Hong Kong until 1951.
She met her husband through a relative. When her husband left for Canada in 1953, she was unable to reunite with him until 1959. During her first few years in Canada, Ann had two children and stayed home to look after them while her husband worked for a light maker.
After sponsoring her in-laws’ immigration to Canada, Ann and her husband opened a shop of their own that sold lights. They worked six days a week painting and selling lights while her husband’s parents looked after their children.
They settled in London, Ontario where the Chinese population was very small. Ann took English classes at night but her busy schedule kept her from retaining much. She doesn’t recall specific instances of discrimination, but felt alienated from larger Canadian society. Her children were also occasionally teased in school. Although her first years in Canada were difficult, Ann says she is happier and enjoys fewer responsibilities because her children are grown.
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