Mar, Ramona
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, Ramona Mar elucidates her early life in Vancouver, British Columbia, as well as her pursuit of a career in the media. She goes on to state her passion in positive community involvement along with personal discriminatory incidences and how she successfully surmounted them. Ramona expresses her objection to prejudice and racism using examples from her life, including her community involvement and her achievements.
Ramona was born in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. Her grandfather came to Vancouver, British Columbia in 1911, seeking financial opportunities. He did odd jobs and sent the money to China for 5 years before visiting China to be married. Though he first returned to Canada alone, by later presenting himself as a merchant, he was able to bring his wife without paying the head tax. Ramona’s mother was the fifth of the couple’s ten children.
Ramona was 9 years old when her father, Hong, a bush pilot, died in an air crash in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. Ramona’s mother was raising their three daughters, and had to get a job, so she moved the family to Ramona’s grandparents home in Vancouver, where they stayed for a year. Ramona’s mother then moved the family to Burnaby, British Columbia. At the time, Burnaby had almost no other Chinese residents.
After high school, Ramona attended the University of British Columbia and worked part-time. Ramona explains that she presumed she would become a teacher but soon changed her mind and started doing research work for CBC and films. After a student trip to Taiwan, Ramona started a journalism course, interviewing members of the Chinese Canadian community. She became involved in the 1980 protest against racism in the CTV program W-5.
Ramona describes an incident of discrimination, when she and her friends were over-charged for admission to a dance club based on race. She complained successfully to the Human Rights Commission, and was targeted for hate mail as a result. She concludes that she will continue to be a positively active citizen for her community.
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