George Chow, WWII veteran and member of Vancouver’s Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society.wt | Photo by Vincent L. Chan, courtesy of The Chinese Canadian Military Museum
Remembrance Day is devoted to honouring men and women who served and often perished in armed conflicts. Yet the cultural diversity of Canadian veterans, and the broader social contexts that guided their decisions to enlist in the military, as well as shaped their experiences on the front lines, are less frequently the focus of discussion.
Seeking refuge from racism
For many ethnic minority veterans who experienced racism and prejudice in Canadian society at large, the national military was a place where they generally received more respectful treatment.
Ojibway veteran Allen Derouin at the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre Society. | Photo by Sonja Grgar
Allen Derouin is an Ojibway veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces who joined the military in 1950, and spent 21 years in the service.
“In those days there was a lot of racism towards Aboriginal people, and it was hard to find a job, so most of us joined the service to try to support ourselves and our families,” he explains.
Derouin was shipped to the Korean War in 1951, where he spent two and a half years on the front lines. Fighting in that war was not only physically arduous, but also made for a difficult emotional recovery upon return to Canada.
Derouin did not have access to any counselling upon his return and also felt that Korean War veterans did not receive sufficient recognition from Canadians.
“Once you took the uniform off, you were forgotten, especially us boys from the Korean War. We weren’t even recognized,” he says.
However, despite the challenges of healing war traumas and the lack of recognition, Derouin is grateful for his military career because it gave him steady employment, as well as a refuge from the racism directed at him by Caucasians and other Aboriginal nationalities.
“In the armed forces, there was no racism, they didn’t tolerate it; we were all one,” he says.
Derouin is therefore proud to celebrate events such as the National Aboriginal Veterans Day on Nov. 8.
Ramona Gus, a veteran of Nuu-chah-nulth and Salish background who served for about a year and a half in the Canadian military during Second World War, had a much less positive experience with the organization.
Gus worked as a medical assistant at a hospital in Nanaimo. Though she felt the hospital staff treated her with respect, she experienced a lot of racism from the military patients and left the military after a short tenure.
“I didn’t care for the military. There was no respect for Natives,” says Gus.
Avenue to social justice
Chinese-Canadians are an ethnic group whose contributions to the Canadian military are only recently receiving wider recognition. In fact, Chinese-Canadians did not have full citizenship status in this country until 1947 and as such were officially banned from entering military service.
Some managed to enlist anyway and fought in the First and Second World Wars in hopes of obtaining citizenship in exchange for their military service.
Howe Lee, Founder and past President of Vancouver’s Chinese Canadian Military Museum, in front of the exhibit commemorating William Gun Chong, who received the British Empire Medal for his WWII intelligence work in Hong Kong. | Photo by Sonja Grgar
Howe Lee is an Honorary Colonel with the Richmond-based 39 Service Battalion and is the founder, past president and current advisor to the Chinese Canadian Military Museum (CCMM), which opened in Vancouver in 1998.
Lee explains that it was Chinese WWII veterans’ petitioning of the federal government that contributed to the creation of the Canadian Citizenship Act, which finally bestowed citizenship rights to all Chinese individuals living in Canada.
For Lee, the CCMM, the only museum devoted to Chinese-Canadian military contributions in North America, plays a vital role in educating the public.
“This is our mission to bring in photographs, documents, to have them available for future generations so that the veterans could leave their legacy behind,” he says.
In 2012, Lee and his team arranged for the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa to hold an exhibit comprised of material from the CCMM. Representatives of the museum also liaise with other groups of ethnic minority veterans, such as the Tuskegee Airmen, an elite WWII African-American airforce fighter unit whose contributions to fighting racism in their own country match those of their Chinese comrades.
George Chow is a member of the CCMM and a WWII veteran who served as anti-aircraft gunner in England. Though not directly in combat there, Chow was in the midst of it during brief deployment in Normandy. He still recalls the smell of decaying bodies and a feeling of all-around devastation.
However, he also remembers fondly the camaraderie of eating from the same dish with a fellow soldier. He says that although he was lucky to find a job immediately after the war, the adjustment away from living in the military collective was challenging.
“Back in civilian life, you are on your own,” explains Chow.
Conjuring hope for peace
Iranian-born Mike A. Mousavizadeh values his decade-long tenure in the Canadian Forces because it allowed him to get to know Canadian culture better after joining in 1999 as a recent immigrant.
Mousavizadeh did one tour of duty in Afghanistan, where he served as a translator. Though proud of his service there, he is critical of the Harper government’s approach to international affairs.
“Foreign policy-wise definitely we [Canada] are more aggressive, which is not a good thing. There are a lot of different powers who play games in Afghanistan, which does not make it easy for the Afghan people,” he says.
Mousavizadeh is a Sergeant of Arms at Branch 60 of the Royal Canadian Legion in West Vancouver. Scottish-born Donald Sinclair, who served in the British Armed Forces in Burma and India during WWII, is the president of that branch.
Though he was not directly in combat, Sinclair recalls the shock of learning about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs.
“I remember thinking, what on Earth has been unleashed in the world that would stop the war in four days time,” he says.
Sinclair believes that in addition to honouring those who served or died in wars, Remembrance Day should promote peace.
“The day symbolizes very much the desire [to acknowledge] that war does not solve anything at all,” he says.
Nov. 8 is National Aboriginal Veterans Day. Events begin at 9 a.m. at Carnegie Centre, 401 Main St. in Vancouver. For more info, visit http://www.cfne.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=24107
Vancouver’s main Remembrance Day Parade and Ceremony will be held at Victory Square Park (West Hastings & Cambie) at 10:15 a.m. on Nov. 11.
Chinese Canadian Military Museum is holding its own Remembrance Day ceremony on Nov. 11 at 12:30 p.m. Visit http://www.ccmms.ca for more info.
