Wong, Germaine
Germaine Ying Gee Wong was born in 1950, in the Toisan region of Guangdong province, China. Around 1900, her father, Wong Hong Tai, came to Canada as a seventeen-year-old. In 1949, he returned to China to look for a wife. He married Mark Suey Ngan, who gave birth to Germaine the next year. For four years, the family was separated while Wong Hong Tai returned to Canada to raise enough money to bring his wife and daughter over from China. Once reunited, the family made a living by running a laundry business in Verdun, Quebec. Germaine recalls the challenge of managing multiple religions, languages, and cultures during her childhood. She credits two figures in her early life, her parish priest and a former principal, for helping her navigate between her home life and her wider experience. Although she was often at odds with her mother during her youth, as an adult she began to appreciate her mother’s strength in the face of racial discrimination. After university, Germaine took a cataloguing job with the National Film Board. Over thirty years, she built her career there, becoming a producer, and staying until her retirement in 2007.
This photo shows Germaine Wong’s mother, Mark Suey Ngan, ironing at the family laundry business in Verdun, Quebec. When Germaine and her mother first arrived in Canada, the family lived in a Chinatown rooming house in Montreal, Quebec. Within about a year, the family moved to Verdun and opened a laundry business. The family ran the business out of the front part of the house and lived in the back. Since the building only had cold water, Germaine recalls her mother boiling water for all the household washing as well as for the business. The ironing took place in the front part of the house, near the service counter where clients dropped off their clothes. In the back, there was a drying room with a potbellied stove, a bedroom and a kitchen.
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