Vietnamese Canadian Experiences in BC

Vietnamese Canadian Experiences in BC

Phan Family Collection

Chrystal Phan’s family fled Vietnam in 1980. In 2019 they donated the items they came to Canada with to the Royal BC Museum.

A woman stands amongst clothing items. There are shirts hanging on a clothing rack and a table in front of her with folded pieces of clothing. With white gloves she examines a red silk embroidered baby-carrying garment made in Vietnam.
A woman sits behind a table smiling. On the table are garments that are folded and displayed including knitted sweaters and embroidered pillowcases. In front of this table is a rack of hanging shirts.

Chrystal Phan Paintings

Chrystal Phan creates paintings about her family’s experiences in Canada and the awkward and sometimes humorous outcomes of combining Vietnamese and Canadian values and traditions.

A woman stands between two colourful paintings. On the left is a painting of a woman cutting up chicken. On the right are children playing in a backyard pool. Parents watch from the side.
Oil painting of a Vietnamese Canadian family having a pool party
Oil painting of a Vietnamese Canadian immigrant cutting up a turkey in her kitchen.
Oil painting of a Vietnamese Canadian family having a traditional dinner. There is a family altar at the end of the table with fruit.
Oil painting of a Vietnamese Canadian father and daughter sitting on one side of the family table eating dinner. They both have pensive expressions, the daughter looking toward her father, and the father looking to the side of the table.
Oil painting of nine Vietnamese Canadians at a campsite at night. Most of them are sitting or standing around propane gas fire pit, with one man carrying chopsticks and cooking dinner. A monkey is sitting on the left, and in front of it is an open Cheezies bag on the ground.
Oil painting of a Vietnamese Canadian man on his bike on a forested road. He is a few feet away opposite a Vietnamese Canadian woman looking out from the passenger side of a red car with the window down.

Life in British Columbia

Adapting to a new life in Canada was not easy, but there were many positive memories for the Phan family. These images show a few memorable moments in their first decade of life in BC from 1980 to 1990.

A family of recent Vietnamese migrants pose for a photo standing behind a dining table in a residential home. The table is set with candles, incense, bowls of citrus fruit and a roasted chicken. Behind the table stands a young new mother holding her one-month-old baby, three young adult men, a nine-year-old boy and another toddler being held by one of the young men.
A brown car, a Chevrolet Monza, sits parked in a driveway on a residential street in 1983.
A Vietnamese family composed of an adult man, an adult woman and two young girls stand in the driveway of a suburban home in Victoria, BC, beside a blue Ford Escort station wagon. There are hydrangea bushes full of flowers behind them with a dark brown single detached home in the background.
A Vietnamese Canadian family poses in a Sears Portrait Studio photograph. The young father and mother are centred, and two young girls dressed in homemade pink lace dresses are at either side.

 

The Copyright Act applies to materials that are part of Royal BC Museum and Archives collections; this includes but is not limited to still images, documents, cartographic records, sound recordings and moving images. Copies provided by the Royal BC Museum and Archives may only be used for the purpose of education, research or private study, and any use of the copy for a purpose other than education, research or private study may require you to obtain the authorization of the copyright owner of the work in question.

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