Browse "Asian Canadians"

Displaying 31-43 of 43 results

  • Memory Project Archive

    Victor Eric Wong (Primary Source)

    "“Why should you go when you’re not even a Canadian?” So we all decided in our town hall meetings that the best way to do is to go and sign up and go and come back and lobby for the franchise. This is exactly what we did." Victor Eric Wong served in the Canadian Army and the British Army's Force 136 during the Second World War. See below for Mr. Wong's entire testimony. Please be advised that Memory Project primary sources may deal with personal testimony that reflect the speaker’s recollections and interpretations of events. Individual testimony does not necessarily reflect the views of the Memory Project and Historica Canada.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/MemoryProject/VictorEricWong/2446_original.jpg Victor Eric Wong (Primary Source)

  • Article

    Olivia Chow

    Olivia Chow, mayor of Toronto 2023­–present, politician, organizer, artist (born 24 March 1957 in Hong Kong). Olivia Chow began her career in Toronto municipal politics as a school trustee in the 1980s. She went on to serve as a city councillor from 1991 until 2005. In 2006, she entered federal politics as a Member of Parliament. She took a prominent role in the NDP caucus alongside her husband, NDP leader Jack Layton. In 2023, Chow became the first racialized person elected mayor of Toronto.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/Olivia_Chow_at_Mayoral_Candidates_Roundtable_2014_cropped.jpg Olivia Chow

  • Article

    Palbinder Kaur Shergill

    Palbinder Kaur Shergill, QC, judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia in New Westminster (born in Rurka Kalan, Punjab, India). Shergill spent 26 years practising law before she was appointed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia. She was the first turbaned Sikh woman to be appointed as a judge in Canada.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/new_article_images/PalbinderKaurShergill/Palbinder_Kaur_Shergill_Tweetonly.jpg Palbinder Kaur Shergill

  • Article

    Prem Watsa

    V. Prem Watsa, CM, businessman, investor (born 7 August 1950, in Hyderabad, India). Watsa emerged from modest beginnings to found and develop one of the most prominent financial holding companies in Canada, Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., of which he is chairman and chief executive officer. Fairfax is engaged in property and casualty insurance and reinsurance, as well as investment management. Among the companies Fairfax either owns, or owns enough shares to give it controlling interest, are Sporting Life, William Ashley, and Prime Restaurants, which has many chains including East Side Mario’s. Fairfax also has investments and owns insurance and other companies in Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Brazil, Poland, Malaysia, Singapore, Barbados and Hong Kong. In 2016, it had revenues of $12.3 billion and held $58.3 billion in assets. Watsa is sometimes called Canada’s Warren Buffett for his shrewd investment practices. According to Forbes, he had an estimated net worth of over $1.08 billion (as of 2017) and was ranked the 31st wealthiest Canadian.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/943ac83e-6ec9-43dd-abe4-65b1c8c10001.jpg Prem Watsa

  • Article

    Preston Pablo

    Preston Pablo, singer, songwriter (born 30 April 2001 in Timmins, ON). Filipino Canadian pop and R&B star Preston Pablo is perhaps best known for his quadruple platinum hit song “Flowers Need Rain.” It earned him the 2023 Juno Award for Breakthrough Artist of the Year, as well as nominations for Single of the Year and the TikTok JUNO Fan Choice award. Pablo was also featured in the global Punjabi hit “Admirin’ You” by singer-songwriter Karan Aujla and the charity recording of Serena Ryder’s “What I Wouldn’t Do (North Star Calling).”

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/Preston_Pablo.jpg Preston Pablo

  • Article

    Ruben Cusipag

    Ruben Javier Cusipag, journalist, social activist (born 12 July 1938 in Paco, Manila; died 9 July 2013 in Markham, Ontario). Cusipag was a pioneer in Filipino Canadian journalism. He contributed to several newspapers and was the founding editor of Atin Ito, one of Canada’s oldest Filipino newspapers, and founder of the Toronto-based newspaper Balita. Cusipag also co-authored Portrait of Filipino Canadians in Ontario (1960-1990) (1993). (See also Filipino Canadians.)

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/TCE_placeholder.png Ruben Cusipag

  • Article

    Ruth Lor Malloy

    Ruth Lor Malloy (née Lor), journalist, writer, activist (born 4 August 1932, in Brockville, ON). Malloy was a key figure in fighting against discrimination in Ontario in the 1950s (see Prejudice and Discrimination in Canada). She participated in the high profile Dresden restaurant sit-in of 1954. In 1973, she published the first English-language guidebook to China in North America. Throughout her decades-long career, Malloy worked tirelessly to foster intercultural dialogue and justice for marginalized groups.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/RuthLorMalloy/ruthlormalloy.JPG Ruth Lor Malloy

  • Article

    Sandra Oh

    Sandra Miju Oh, OC, actor, producer (born 20 July 1971 in Nepean, ON). Sandra Oh is a versatile actor whose performances in film and television have won popular and critical acclaim. She won Genie Awards for her performances in Double Happiness (1994) and Last Night(1998) before gaining international recognition for her role in the successful ABC medical drama Grey’s Anatomy (2005–14). Her work has been groundbreaking for the visibility it has brought to roles for Asian actors in North America. With her lead role in the BBC America drama Killing Eve (2018–), Oh became the first actor of Asian heritage to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for best actress and the first to win a Golden Globe in that category since 1981. She was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2011 and won a Governor General's Performing Arts Award in 2019. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2022.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/Twitter_Cards/Sandra Oh 1.jpg Sandra Oh

  • Article

    Sinhalese Canadians

    The Sinhalese are the largest ethnic group of Sri Lanka. Immigration to Canada began in the mid-1950s and increased in the late 1980s. According to the 2016 Canadian census, 7,285 people claimed  Sinhalese ancestry (4,355 single and 2,925 multiple responses). The census reported 152,595 people of Sri Lankan origin in Canada. 

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    https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Sinhalese Canadians

  • Article

    South Asian Canadians

    South Asians trace their origins to South Asia or the Indian subcontinent, which can include India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Most South Asian Canadians are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from these countries, but immigrants from South Asian communities established during British colonial times also include those from East and South Africa, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji and Mauritius. Others come from Britain, the US and Europe. In the 2021 census, 2.6 million Canadians (7.1 per cent) identified as being South Asian.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/South_Asia_non_political-_with_rivers.jpg South Asian Canadians

  • Article

    Southeast Asian Canadians

    Immigration to Canada by Southeast Asians is relatively recent; most arrived in Canada after 1974. Southeast Asia is located south of China and east of India. It consists of multiethnic nations with common histories, structures and social practices, as well as a cultural system that recognizes ethnic pluralism. Southeast Asia is comprised of 11 countries: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, East Timor and Vietnam. In the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS), more than one million Canadians indicated that they were of Southeast Asian origin. Filipino Canadians were the most numerous (662,600), followed by Vietnamese Canadians (220,425), Cambodians or Khmer (34,340), Laotians (22,090), Indonesians (18,125), Thais (15,080), Malaysians (14,165), Burmese (7,845) and Singaporeans (2,050). Southeast Asians of the Hmong people (an ethnic minority living in the mountains in the south of China, and the north of Vietnam and Laos) have also settled in Canada, as well as several hundred Chinese originally from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos who came to Canada following the “boat people” crisis.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/4c5ddfb2-39e9-4fcc-8912-9181fd38dead.jpg Southeast Asian Canadians

  • Article

    Sugar Sammy

    Samir Khullar (a.k.a. Sugar Sammy), comedian (born 29 February 1976 in Montreal, QC). Sugar Sammy is an award-winning multi-ethnic and multilingual comedian. He is best known for his observations about Canada’s Francophone and Anglophone communities from his vantage point as the child of immigrants who settled in Montreal. His groundbreaking 2012 bilingual tour, You're Gonna Rire, sold more than 371,000 tickets and grossed over $17 million. Sammy is also a star in France. He was hailed as the “funniest man in France” in 2017 and has been a judge on the French version of America’s Got Talent since 2018.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/7268787770_317b460ec9_c-2.jpg Sugar Sammy

  • Article

    The New Canadian

    The New Canadian (1938–2001) was an English-language newspaper published by and for the Japanese Canadian community. Initially, the newspaper was founded as a forum for second-generation Japanese Canadians to express and foster their identity as English-speaking Canadians and to support a mission of “cultural, economic, and political assimilation.” (See also Canadian English; Languages in use in Canada.) The newspaper became the primary source of both English- and Japanese-language news for Japanese Canadians during their forced uprooting from the west coast in the 1940s (see Internment of Japanese Canadians). It continued to be published in the postwar years, with its English-language content shifting towards social and community news while its Japanese-language section grew in importance for pre-war and postwar Japanese immigrants. The newspaper was sold to Japan Communications in 1990 and its final edition was published in 2001.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/thenewcanadian/thenewcanadian.jpg The New Canadian