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Voices of Chinese Canadian Women (VCCW) is an oral history book in the making. Out of our hidden history comes these collected stories based on interviews with over 130 Chinese Canadian women...
VCCW is a project which was begun in 1985 by the Women's Issues Committee of the Chinese Canadian National Council, to give voice to our silenced history..." (May Yee, 1990, p. 13).
I waited anxiously for the publication of Jin Guo after first reading an excerpt of one of the interviews in Fireweed in 1990. True to the pre - publication excerpt, the book demonstrates the incredible strength and endurance of Chinese Canadian women despite racism and sexism. It is a valuable tool in its preservation of the oral history of Chinese Canadian women who helped pave the way for newer Chinese Canadians. This history is documented through interviewees' reminiscences about their childhood, their parents and their communities. The first chapter consists of nine stories of some of the interviewees. Their stories are testimonies of women who have borne economic, racist and sexist oppression and survived.
The rest of the book is organized around themes. One of these is entitled "Chinatown Vignettes" and reveals the family and community support networks which Chinese Canadians depended upon for maintenance of their traditions in the early Chinese communities. The first impressions of Canada as told by the interviewees or their mothers are recorded in another chapter. These women often encountered difficulty in finding employment due to sexual harassment and racial discrimination. Assimilatory pressures only exacerbated these difficulties. The double burden of work and homemaking also tested the women's endurance. For example, one woman referred to an experience of being sexually harassed by a potential employer. The employer later did not hire her because, according to him, "a Chinese is bad publicity for business."
A number of issues around racial and cultural identity are raised in the book. Inter - generational conflicts in Chinese Canadian families are addressed in the chapter, "Our Mothers and Fathers," as well as in another chapter on interracial dating. Moreover, as explained in the chapter, "Education Was The Most Important Thing," parents were instrumental in teaching these women that education is the way to overcome discrimination in Canadian society. Parental influences are...