New mural in Winnipeg honours refugees and their journeys to Canada
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/10/2015 (3990 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A new mural in Winnipeg pays homage to refugees who crammed into tiny boats, survived a perilous ocean journey and settled in Canada.
It doesn’t show today’s Syrians fleeing for their lives and risking death on the water. It shows the Vietnamese boat people who were also forced to leave their homes more than three decades ago.
“It’s important to remind people,” said Tam Nguyen, one of those boat people and the owner of the mural’s canvas, the building that houses Joy’s Convenience on River Avenue.
The Take Pride Winnipeg mural was unveiled Thursday.
Nguyen arrived in Canada 35 years ago. The successful entrepreneur and tailor pushed for the mural to show the life or death struggle of the refugee.
In 1980, he came to Canada as a refugee from Vietnam with no money, no understanding of English and no education.
He fled an oppressive Communist regime, travelling from his village to Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) and then to Malaysia in a small boat. He said they ran out of food and water on Day 2 of the five-day voyage to Malaysia. In the refugee camp there, guards were merciless. Refugees who caused trouble were thrown in the sea.
In Winnipeg, Nguyen worked hard, started his own tailor shop and invested in real estate. Determined to help those left behind, he helped found the charity Canadians Helping Kids in Vietnam.
He hopes the boat people mural by artist Sarah J. Collard reminds passersby about Winnipeg’s refugees and their resilience. It shows the despair at leaving home and the treacherous ocean journey and a beaming Nguyen at his Canadian citizenship ceremony. It’s important to make a positive contribution to his new home, he said. It’s also important to him to remember how he and so many newcomers and their descendants arrived in Canada.
“Don’t forget where you come from,” said Nguyen.
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter
Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.
Every piece of reporting Carol produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter
Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.
Every piece of reporting Carol produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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