身在異鄉為異客
Final dignity for a homeless man: Friends seek his posthumous citizenship
by
Nicolas Keung, staff reporter
Toronto Star, March 11, 2002
During the 47 years Shui Jim Wong lived in Canada he didn’t call himself a Canadian – in fact, he couldn’t even live under his own name.
But now friends and advocates for the 72-year-old homeless man, who died a pauper’s death in Toronto last Wednesday, hope to persuade government bureacrats to give Wong back his name and posthumously, declare him a Canadian citizen.
They’re also raising money to pay for his funeral and a headstone – with his real name – to mark his grave.
“He came here alone and had had to die here alone with no money, no family and no dignity – it’s a real shame,” said Avvy Go, director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeat Asian Legal Clinic, who fought for years to regularize Wong’s immigration status.
“He died as On Wong. He never got to reclaim his identity back. Can you imagine? You (die) and still couldn’t be who you were!”
Wong, a native of Guangzhou who arrived in Canada in 1955, spent decades toiling in Ontario’s underground economy, working for cash and forgoing benefits such as pension and medical insurance. Unable to develop the linguistic skills that would put him at ease in English, his efforts at gaining legal immigrant status went nowhere.
Because Canada’s restrictive immigration laws tended to exclude Chinese, Wong entered Canada as a “paper son” – one of 11,000 Chinese migrants who posed as someone else to get in.
“Paper son” referred to the practice, common in the 1950s, of buying the immigration papers of an unrelated Canadian-born or naturalized Chinese man who died.
Wong’s story, Go said, “highlights the sad legacy of the racist immigration policy during early years towards Chinese migrants.”
Wong came to Canada at 26 with the help of an uncle, who represent his nephew as another man’s son.
The Chinese Adjustment Statement program was introduced in the 1960s to allow those who came in under other names to reclaim their original identity. Wong applied but never heard back. Because of limited English, he though he had become a permanent resident.
For years, Wong assumed the name of On Wong to hide his identity. He worked as a chef at Chinese restaurants across Ontarion until 1985, when he was laid off by an employer in Fort Erie because he was considered too old.
Since he was in Canada illegally, Wong was not elligible gor social assistance. Homeless, he stayed in garages, abandoned buildings and bus shelters. He lost his papers in a roberry.
It wasn’t until October, 1997, when he was brought to Seaton House, that social workers discovered he had no social insurance or health card, or personal ID.
Staff there and at Birchmount Residence, a shelter where Wong stayed the two years before his death, worked with Go’s legal clinic in a fruitless attempt to give him his identity back.
In an appeal to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, shelter worker Michael Selnick described Wong as “an excellent candidate” for permanemt status.
Despite his limited English, Wong was assigned as a resident staff assistant to the shelter’s recreation therapist because of his interest in helping others.
“He displayed his appreciation for our help to him by showing a willingness to help staff wherever and whenever he could. He earned his recognition as a trustworthy and valuable asset to our program,” said Selnick.
Shelter worker Michelle Baptie described Wong as her adopted grandfather and just addressed him as “Onie.”
“He was a kind and caring person, and just didn’t belong to a shelter. He would go to Chinatown and pick up some broccoli for me when they were on sale. He had little money, but he would bring in chips and KFC chicken he had won at a bingo hall to others in the shelter,” Baptie recalled.
“Onie started going to an ESL class last year and never missed a class. The instructor said he was the best student he’d ever had.”
Despite the arthritis and bad legs, Wong was active and even volunteered to deliver community papers.
“He was very much looking forward to getting his Canadian citizenship and kept telling me he would “get his (false) teeth” first when he became a citizen,” Baptie added. “Yes, we could bury him with a government welfare funeral, but we wanted to go an extra mile to get him a headstone, so he could be buried in dignity.”
Wong had a wife, son and daughter in Hong Kong, but lost touch soon after coming to Canada. He also lost touch with a Toronto uncle and cousins.
Go and shelter staff are raising money for his funeral and asking funeral homes to donate services.
Donations can be made under C.C.N.E.F in memory of On Wong to the Chinese Canadian National Council, 302 Spadina Ave., Suite 507, Toronto M5T 2E7. For details on his funeral, contact Michelle Baptie at 416-392-6290.
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