There’s a new reason to make your way to the third floor of the Royal BC Museum in Victoria — and it’s more than just a stroll through Old Town.
The museum has officially opened its latest exhibit, Chinese Canadian Nurses, in partnership with the Victoria Chinatown Museum Society.
Tucked into the reimagined Old Town, New Approach space, this display tells the powerful stories of two trailblazing Chinese Canadian women who broke barriers in BC’s healthcare system at a time when racism and sexism kept many doors firmly shut.
“This display sheds light on the difficult realities of racism faced by Chinese Canadian women in the workplace during the early 1900s,” said Tracey Drake, CEO of the Royal BC Museum. “We’re honoured to help share these stories of resilience and determination.”
And resilient they were. Back in the early 20th century, options for Chinese Canadian women were few and far between.
While nursing and teaching were the go-to career paths for many women, Chinese Canadian women were systematically excluded from these roles. Opportunities were often limited to private clinics or schools within Chinatown.
The display focuses on two incredible women: Anna Fong Dickman and Rebecca Leung.
Dickman was the first Chinese Canadian Registered Nurse in BC. After graduating from Nanaimo General Hospital’s training program in 1929, she was turned down by four hospitals because of her ethnicity.
It wasn’t until 1931 that she finally got a job at King’s Daughters Hospital in Duncan — a major milestone in the face of racial discrimination.
Leung made her mark a bit later as the first Chinese Canadian nurse to train and work in Victoria. She graduated from St. Joseph’s School of Nursing in 1943 and worked at the hospital until she married and moved to Vancouver in the 1940s.
Visitors to the exhibit will find uniforms worn by Leung, personal photos, handwritten notes, textbooks, and more — a deeply human look at two women who made history simply by doing what they loved and refusing to give up.
“This is about acknowledging the intersection of race and gender in these women’s lives,” said Grace Wong Sneddon, chair of the Victoria Chinatown Museum Society. “It’s the first step toward moving forward in a meaningful way.”
The exhibit is part of a larger effort to expand representation in the museum’s human history galleries. The refreshed Old Town, New Approach space aims to tell more of BC’s untold stories — with this new display leading the charge.
You can find the Chinese Canadian Nurses display near the train station area of Old Town on the 3rd floor. It’s a powerful reminder of how far we’ve come — and how much further we can go.
For more about the exhibit or the organizations behind it, visit royalbcmuseum.bc.ca.
