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Fighting for Citizenship

Heroes Remember

Fighting for Citizenship

Transcript
Well it did, we did feel very good that we gave we earned the franchise for our people, the Chinese people, in 1947. It was because of our service that we were able to obtain the franchise for the people and be Canadian and that was the difference that I felt anyway. Yeah and that the professions, like being a doctor a lawyer, or a teacher, engineer anything of high profession that we can also be that now. As you know, we went in not being citizens, although the army allowed us to be citizens once we joined. We were the only ones, the first ones to be Canadian citizens and it wasn't until 1947 that we had Douglas Jung to also fight in parliament to get us our citizenship, which through us being Veterans, how can you deny them the citizenship now, you know, and they had to give it to us. In our case, we went because I think it would enhance our position to have, to get the franchise for our people. I think that was the major situation where we all joined, 99% of us .9 I say went general service. We didn't just say we want to be home fight for home defence being zombies, you know, we just went. Matter of fact, a lot of them tried to join before being called up and they didn't want us to be in the air force or in the navy, they said those are, the air force and the navy are mostly for occidentals but eventually they even allowed us, they were segregated for during those forces.
Description

Mr. Wong talks about the impact that the war years had on him, and on the Chinese community.

Victor Eric Wong

Mr Wong was born in Victoria, BC and enlisted in 1944 at the age of 18. He went overseas to fight in China after training at Camp Shiloh in Manitoba. He was a rifleman with the Special Operative Executive that fought in Burma and was trained in guerilla warfare.

Meta Data
Medium:
Video
Owner:
Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:
02:48
Person Interviewed:
Victor Eric Wong
War, Conflict or Mission:
Second World War

Copyright / Permission to Reproduce

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