Su said she was shocked to have learned how little was mentioned around the city about the history of the former Chinatowns. (Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7FM)

When Amelie Su first moved to Nanaimo she wanted to learn about the history of the area.

She learned a lot about the Snuneymuxw First Nations, the European settlers who first came to the area and the mining boom.

So when Su, who is originally from China, attended the Nanaimo Art Gallery exhibit Bleached by the Sun: Perspectives on Chinatown,《陽光下的褪色：關於華埠的觀點》 that examined the history of Nanaimo's former Chinatowns, she couldn’t believe how little she knew about the subject.

“I actually bursted into tears after I finished the exhibition, I was quite embarrassed to be honest. I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is so touching.’ I saw a lot of really moving and touching stories that were not being seen by a lot of people, and I feel like it's really a shame to be, in a way,” Su said. “That's why I want to speak about the Chinese community story because I feel like there is a lot of meaning and importance to it.”

She said she was shocked to have learned how little was mentioned around the city about the history of the former Chinatowns.

“It was the third biggest Chinatown in B.C., and just totally disappeared,” she said. “That's really a loss.”

One of the pieces of Jackie Wong’s *Lost Intersections* located at Esplanade Street and Victoria Crescent. (Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7FM)

She said as she was learning about the history, the City of Nanaimo unveiled Jackie Wong’s temporary public art project, Lost Intersections.

“The artist herself was making three art pieces which use Chinese characters 1 2 3 to mark the first, second, and third [Chinatown] where they were because they were gone, literally gone. You can’t see them anymore,” Su said. “So with this small marker, it's not a big one, it's just a small marker, but it's very meaningful.”

Lost Intersections features three neon lights placed near where three Chinatowns once stood. Su said she was able to meet Wong.

“I actually expressed my appreciation to her,” she said. “I said ‘I really like your work, and I can feel the emotion, like the importance in your work.’”

A motion from Nanaimo City Councillor Hilary Eastmure last week sought to direct city staff to investigate making the temporary art exhibit into a permanent one. Su attended the meeting and spoke in support of the idea.

Su said her reasoning for wanting these markers to be a permanent fixture in Nanaimo goes back to the early days of the city, when Chinese immigrants worked in the coal mines, alongside other settlers.

“The reason Chinatown existed in the first place was because the white settlers prevented them from living with the white people,” Su said. “They basically just pointed at a very small and wet place and said ‘okay, this will be your own place,’ and that's the region of Chinatown.”

She said throughout history Chinese immigrants and Chinese-Canadian faced discrimination and exclusion through legislation like the Chinese Head Tax and the Chinese Immigration Act, commonly called the Chinese Exclusion Act.

“It was a difficult history, and I'm not here to blame anyone because we cannot change the past, but what we can do is we need to acknowledge the past,” Su said. “To understand why history is so important, so we don't repeat the same mistakes again.”

Su said she encourages people in Nanaimo to visit the former sites and to learn about the history of the Chinese community in Nanaimo.

“It's a truly multicultural society, and to become a truly multicultural society we need to understand each other,” she said. “We need to be interested in each other's story, and then we can truly become a community together. That's why this art piece is so important because it marks Chinese history.”

The motion for staff to prepare a report identifying the process and estimated costs to purchase the three pieces of Lost Intersections passed unanimously.

Council is currently on break with their next meeting scheduled for September 21st. CHLY reached out to Lost Intersections artist Jackie Wong who declined to comment as the matter is still in the early stages.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.

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