"At the time I arrived, Canada was still fully operating the Chinese Exclusion Act, which had been enacted in 1923 to discourage “immigration from countries that were not white, particularly Chinese.” I have seen the page in the ledger where I am listed as a nine-year-old girl coming from Hong Kong in 1947. I do not understand why we were not listed right away, and to my knowledge we were never asked to pay the hundred-dollar “head tax.” Sometimes systems are not enforced, sometimes they are neglected, and sometimes people benefit. My family and I were one of those."
Adrienne Clarkson
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