Chinese Canadian Museum Transcript

My name is Melissa Karmen Lee. I am the CEO of the Chinese Canadian Museum. So the Chinese Canadian Museum only opened a year ago in its permanent space. We've had about 30,000 visitors since we opened. We're in the oldest building in Vancouver Chinatown. It was built in 1889. Our mandate is to really celebrate and tell the stories of Chinese Canadians through history, through culture, through their contributions to Canada.

So when I was growing up in Vancouver, I went to school here, and we never learned about the contributions of Chinese Canadians. There was no learning on Chinese Canadian history. It wasn't until 2006 with the federal apology to Chinese Canadians for the head tax and for the Exclusion Act that Chinese Canadian history was put back into the BC curriculum. So I think for us, as the Chinese Canadian Museum, we're really important as a living testament to what Chinese Canadians contributed and how we were and still are a part of history since 1788 in Canada. It's very rare that new museums are born, especially in Canada, and as Canada's newest museum to win this award it is an incredible honour and we are so thankful for being recognized in this way.

Winning the Governor General's Award for the Chinese Canadian Museum is an incredible honour. It's really important for the public to have a greater understanding of history because not understanding one's own history dooms you to repeat it and also dooms you to not understand your own identity, your own culture, and your own country. A lot of our exhibitions are about exclusion, and for visitors to come in here and see the Paper Trail, see how Chinese were excluded a hundred years ago, it gives them understanding on what drives anti-Asian hate today, and I think also when you think about our other exhibitions, for example Reshaping Collections, it's about how contemporary Chinese Canadians understand their own history by going into collections and reshaping it into art. So there's different ways to engage in the museum in relation to history and one's own contemporary identity.