New Chinese Canadian Museum opens in Vancouver

The Chinese Canadian Museum that opens Saturday in Vancouver's Chinatown on the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

When the Chinese Exclusion Act came into effect in 1923, it didn’t just effectively halt Chinese immigration to Canada — it extinguished the family lines of thousands of labourers already here.

Many were condemned to bachelorhood or cut off from loved ones in China, said Catherine Clement, curator of the inaugural exhibition for the Chinese Canadian Museum that opens to the public on Saturday in Vancouver’s Chinatown, on the 100th anniversary of the controversial law’s enactment.

“They just withered here,” Clement said. “They had no descendants left to tell their stories. Nobody even remember they existed … they broke while they were here.”

Some ended up in mental health institutions, including Coquitlam’s Essondale Hospital, said Clement, calling them “the face of exclusion.”

Now their stories are being told at the exhibition, “The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act.”

Executives at the Chinese Canadian Museum said they chose its opening date as a poignant reminder of a part of Canada’s history that has often been overlooked.

“I think many people felt that through their history lessons or through schooling, people never understood the full history,” said Grace Wong, the museum’s board chair.

“We take that as our mandate, that public education is so primary to what we should do. And part of that is to help tell that full history.”