Yip, Victoria
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, 73 year-old Victoria Yip reminisces about her family history, beginning with her birth in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1911. Victoria positively comments on her upbringing, specifically with regard to the encouragement and importance her parents placed upon education. Education was encouraged for both girls and boys in the family, and was seen as an important underpinning of future success and independence for all of them.
During the interview, Victoria talks about the strong interest that existed within the greater Victoria Chinese community to what was happening in China, yet went on to say that in the community in which they were raised she did not play very much with white children because of discrimination toward Chinese people.
After she married, Victoria moved to Texada Island, British Columbia, where Victoria and her husband raised their three children. During the 26 years they lived there, Victoria notes she had not experienced any discrimination from others living in the community.
While commenting on parenting issues, Victoria voiced her support for a woman's right to have an abortion. When asked about the Women's Liberation movement, Victoria referred to herself as a liberated woman, and went on to voice her support for women's liberation overall.
2 of 2 
