Andrew R.S. Marchese
Born Wong Suey Yick in 1903 in Namcun village, Toisan, Kwangtung Province, Wong immigrated to Victoria, B.C., in 1913 as the son of a merchant. Soon after, he arrived in Winnipeg with his brother Mark and became one of the few Chinese children in Manitoba at the time. Later in life Wong would go blind, and despite this disability continued to be at the forefront of struggles for great civil rights. Wong was not an unproblematic man; he was a well-documented advocate for the marginalization and internment of Japanese-Canadians, and at least favourable to the notorious displacement of Toronto’s first Chinatown. Despite this, his story is a testament to the oft-overlooked histories of both Chinese Canadians on the Prairies, and those with differing ability—those who endured racism, exclusion, and often invisibility within their community, yet whose work shaped the landscape of Canadian civil rights.
Prairie Beginnings
Arriving in Winnipeg at age 10, Wong adjusted to his new environment through excelling in venues outside of Chinatown. He was a standout student at Kelvin Technical High School, celebrated as both a football champion and the author of the “class prophecy”—akin to a salutatorian address. He was often the only racialized person on sports teams or in contests, including YMCA swimming competitions and lifesaving trials at Winnipeg’s Cornish Baths. He joined Boy Scouts Troop 17, quickly rising through the ranks. By 1923, he had achieved King’s Scout—the highest honour—with a record 22 badges and a gold cord. He was the troop’s acting Scoutmaster and a beloved mentor to younger Scouts.
Wong’s oratorical talent soon became his hallmark. In 1923, he won a Lions Club speaking contest with a passionate defense of the Chinese contribution to civilization, urging Canadians to reconsider prejudices during the rise of exclusionist sentiment. The biases he encountered can be seen in the subtext of The Winnipeg Free Press headline about his 1924 YMCA speech: “Chinese Youth Wins Speaking Competition: Yick Wong Triumphs Over Canadians.” Wong was not considered Canadian by the headline writers.
That same year, he joined the Winnipeg Commercial Club and enrolled in engineering at the University of Manitoba—another rare feat for a Chinese Canadian at the time.
A Rising Advocate and Intellectual
Throughout the 1920s, Wong spoke frequently at churches, schools, and political rallies. He tackled complex subjects such as Chinese politics, democracy, and global inequality. At a 1927 Saskatoon rally organized by the Communist Party of Canada titled “Hands Off China,” he demanded the renunciation of imperialist treaties. His radical views, especially his references to Bolshevism, made him a lightning rod in the Chinese Canadian community, attracting criticism from the conservative Chinese Nationalist faction called the Kuomintang (KMT).
Still, Wong remained active in community life. As a young professional he taught swimming for the Royal Life Saving Society and worked as an interpreter and correspondent in Winnipeg. He graduated from the University of Saskatchewan in 1928—no small feat for someone facing the intense systemic racism of the Exclusion Era.
The Perils of Brokering
In 1928, Wong was arrested in Winnipeg for fraud over a forged CNR telegram claiming to be from his brother Wong Mark, requesting $50 be paid to Yick Wong by a Wong clansmen. Though he repaid the amount and was sentenced to only 35 minutes in jail, the incident foreshadowed growing compromises between his idealism and the difficult moral landscape of community leadership.
Wong had become closely involved with the Chinese Freemasons 洪門致公堂—a powerful but controversial mutual aid and secret society often associated with gambling operations that challenged the KMT across Canada. In 1930, when violence erupted in Winnipeg’s Chinatown over protection rackets and underground gambling, Wong was again in the public eye. He downplayed the violence as “not a tong war” though privately, the Freemasons had engaged in violence by defending their property with axes and bats. In the confusion of one melee, he was grievously assaulted. Wong later narrowly escaped being assassinated in 1931—a fate that befell fellow merchant Wong Sam, killed in a case of mistaken identity during a feud between the two main rival Chinese organizations. Despite internal strife, Wong remained committed to public service. As secretary of the Wong Wun San Benevolent Society 黃雲山公所, he helped mediate conflicts and protect the welfare of their working membership. He even served as an expert witness in gambling trials, demonstrating a command of both English and Chinese cultures that continually shocked mainstream audiences, expecting to see the Fu Manchu stereotype behind the stand.War and Reconciling Factions
By the late 1930s, the political landscape within the Chinese community had changed due to the impact of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). With war in Asia escalating, former enemies found common cause. Wong became national secretary of the Central Canada District of the Freemasons and presided over their 8th national convention in 1937. At that gathering, for the first time, the Freemasons flew the “white sun blue sky” flag of the KMT party (and Republic of China)—a sign of unity as Chinese Canadians rallied against Japanese aggression.
Wong became a visible figure in the Winnipeg Chinese Patriotic League, organizing boycotts of Japanese goods and defending the Chinese war effort in both English and Chinese presses. He debated the nuances of the United Front—Communists and Nationalists in joint resistance to Japan—against Canadian fears of Communist infiltration. In 1937, he even shared a stage with Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) leader J.S. Woodsworth, linking Chinese resistance to global anti-fascism.
Blindness and Vision
In 1938, Wong went blind due to a “nervous condition.” The cause remains unclear, but he essentially disappeared from public life. After some travels, likely to BC and parts unknown, he moved to Toronto. There Wong began a new chapter as general manager of the Hung Chung She Bo or Chinese Times (黃雲山公所), the Freemasons’ newspaper for the Eastern side of Canada, leading it from 1939 to 1947. While living with his blindness, he remained deeply engaged in community activism. During the war against Japan, he championed the mass singing movement of Chinese resistance songs. He saw collective action through music as promoting the unity needed to overcome the dangers of their times. In 1942, he movingly told a packed Toronto audience: “Catastrophe has made people realize that, irrespective of color or creed, we are all human beings.” It is disheartening, then, to see that Wong wrote wartime op-eds advocating Japanese internment, directly contradicting this universalizing sentiment. When Japan began to crumble in August 1945, Wong and editor Jimmy Leong enthusiastically unfurled a homemade banner over the Chinese Times office with an early proclamation: “Japan Surrenders 日本投降 .” Their photo made front pages across Canada.
Repeal: The Final Legacy
Wong’s final campaign was perhaps his most enduring. In late 1946, alongside fellow Torontonians Irving Himel, Dr. S.K. Ngai,and K. Dock Yip, he co-founded the Committee for the Repeal of the Chinese Immigration Act (CRCIA). They lobbied ministers in Ottawa and held meetings with churches, trade unions, journalists, and business leaders across Canada, working parallel to letter-writing campaigns from traditional Chinatown organizations. In Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Toronto, Wong led assemblies, tirelessly arguing that Canada could not have “two laws, one for the Chinese and one for all other immigrants.” He confronted the racist culture of British Columbia, which he declared “will be our most difficult nut to crack.” By the time they set off on the ferry to lobby the BC Premier in Victoria, the federal government had begun to shift stances, and the Committee which had sent Wong and Ngai on their tour had grown to 80 members, only 20 of which were Chinese. In 1947, the work of the Committee, of the veterans, and of all Chinese Canadians who had resisted since the law began in 1924, was able to overturn this hated cruelty act.
That year, still sick with an unexplained illness, Wong retired. He continued to speak against the racist quota system that followed Exclusion, and for family reunification. Once again defying our ability to map modern politics on to Wong’s, he was recorded as being favourable to the displacement of Toronto’s original Chinatown in 1946. In 1951 he wrote his last known English op ed for the Ottawa Citizen urging collaboration across political divides between the Eastern and Western bloc, worried at the bloodshed rising in the Asian Cold War. Yick Wong died in 1957, only in his early 50s. He had never married, but left a legacy through his support for others, evidenced by his obituary stating “Friends said much of his personal fortune was spent in charitable work and that he died nearly penniless.”Wong was a boy Scout, athlete, engineer, orator, broker, activist, editor, a son of Toisan and Manitoba—a man of contradictions and fierce convictions. In an era when Chinese Canadians were often excluded from full citizenship, Yick Wong demanded to be heard. He made sure his story was told—in English and Chinese, in speeches and in song, from Winnipeg’s muddy alleys to Toronto’s editorial pages. His life, replete with contradictions, foibles, and accomplishments should not be forgotten.
Andrew R. Sandfort-Marchese is an independent researcher and museum worker passionate about preserving and sharing immigrant histories, especially Chinese Canadian history. Through work at the UBC Rare Books and Special Collections, the Chinese Canadian Museum, as well as community archiving projects such as the 1923 Paper Trail, Andrew develops educational programming, leads tours, and supports public archival engagement.
Instagram: @sandfortmarchese
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