The end of the Second World War came with two victories for the Chinese Canadian community: defeating Canada's enemy and also obtaining the right to vote. 

Those contributions and sacrifices are now highlighted in a new exhibit at the Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver's Chinatown, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

The museum in Vancouver unveiled its new military exhibition Monday (May 12), called "A Soldier for All Seasons: Chinese Canadians in the Second World War."

Randall Bud Wong, museum board member, said there was a division of opinion in the Chinese community when it came to enlisting in the war. 

"The elders were quite concerned, because they said, you are basically are treasures of a later generation. Why would you go and sign up to defend a country that treats Asians so shallowly? Of course, at that time, Asians, even when you were born in Canada, were not regarded as citizens," Wong explained.

The Chinese Exclusion Act — repealed in 1947 — prevented Chinese Canadians from being seen as Canadian citizens and having the right to vote. 

But Wong said the younger generation felt that if they signed up and helped the Allies win the war, and the question came up as to how they helped Canada, then they could point to that.

"You could say, 'Well, we fought for king and country now, please give us the right to vote," Wong said.

The exhibition shares the "heartfelt and often overlooked stories of Chinese Canadian soldiers who risked their lives to serve a country that, at the time, regarded them as 'second-class' citizens," a release from the museum says. Chinese Canadian sacrifices in the war were instrumental in leading to the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1947 – a critical step toward full citizenship and equal rights.  

It uses rare photos, immersive design and a 3D holobox that lets visitors hear from Chinese Canadian actors retelling experiences of wartime soldiers. 

Some of those rare photos hold a personal connection for Imogene Lim. Standing in front of a screen, cycling through photos, Lim can point out her mom, Lillian Chan, and her aunt, May Chan.

For Lim, she's thrilled to have the contributions of her mom and aunt highlighted in the exhibition. 

"Both of them have passed on. My aunt had one daughter, she also passed before her mother ... I am one of the few of that generation that cares."

Lim, an anthropologist and retired professor at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, said she taught a course of race and ethnicity in Canada.

"It's meaningful for me to be able to sort of point out these things happened. They affected not just my parents, a whole community and now there is this recognition that, yeah, you contributed to Canada. Your heart soars with pride and joy."

Museum board chair Grace Wong said the board always felt Chinese Canadians' military service should be part of the museum.

"It was in a period of time when the Chinese basically had no status in the country. And yet, how is it that these people would actually still put themselves into military service?"

Wong said that while the subject matter of the museum is Chinese Canadians and their history, culture and heritage, "the museum is not just for Chinese Canadians." She added that people, even younger Chinese Canadians, say they were unaware of the military contributions, or the Chinese Exclusion Act.

"It's so important to highlight all those stories and history that people just never knew. People maybe never knew either – or thought much about – that the Chinese didn't even have the right to vote until 1947, which isn't really that long ago," Wong said.

"The Chinese first arrived in 1788, so it was a long time before Chinese people got to vote. Part of it is the sacrifice of what these people did, that they entered the war, they fought, some of them lost their lives and never came back." 

At the entrance exhibit is a commemorative artwork by Vancouver artist Jeanette G. Lee that features the engraved names of known soldiers.

Lee, the niece of a Second World War veteran, said it's an emotional exhibit, "especially if you know people who have sacrificed their lives for so much, just on that chance (for a better future)." She said she had always heard of the change that resulted from the soldiers' bravery.

"You think about how young the men were when they volunteered. You think, would I have done that, against all odds because the Chinese Canadians were not encouraged."

When Lee was thinking about a piece for the exhibition, she wanted something that would bring light. She thought of jade and its shades of green that bring growth. Forget Me Not flowers, she said, were also meaningful and distinctive to Canadian soldiers, while the screen is inspired by Chinese lattice work.

"It's kind of through the looking screen, the transition of change, life and the flow of energy from the outside to the inside of this exhibition."

Curated by Catherine Clement, Naomi Louie, Dr. Melissa Karmen Lee, and Sarah Ling, the exhibition opened to the public Wednesday.