Welsh, Shirley
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, Shirley Welsh comments on the circumstances surrounding her family’s migration to Canada; the restaurant businesses owned and operated by the family; her experiences in elementary school; and the family response when she married a man who was not of Chinese ethnicity.
Shirley’s grandfather came to Canada in 1912, and settled in Flin Flon, Manitoba. Her father arrived in Canada in 1954 from Hong Kong, when Shirley was 6 years old, and settled in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. When Shirley was 13, the family moved to Bengough, Saskatchewan.
Shirley’s grandfather was a partner in several different restaurants, including one frequented by former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. Her father also owned restaurants in both Swift Current and Bengough. Shirley fondly recalled picketing one of her father’s restaurants because her labour was unpaid.
Shirley recalls adapting to Canadian schools rather quickly even though she had some difficulty learning English when first arriving in Canada. Shirley also comments on the differences between schools in Hong Kong and Canada.
During the interview, Shirley reflects on the response of her family when she married a man who was not Chinese, and tells of how they were able to work out their differences.
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