Chinese immigrant, 107, was oldest to pay head tax

Three generations of Ralph Lung Kee Lee's family gathered for a memorialin Toronto Monday to say goodbye to the oldest member of the Chinese-Canadian community to have paid the head tax.

Lee died at his residence in Pickering, Ont.,on Thursday, five days after celebrating his 107th birthday.

"I'll miss him being around in terms of honouring our ancestors, having the traditions passed down through the community," his granddaughter Lindy Anderson said,fighting back tears.

Born March 10, 1900 in China's Guangdong province, he immigrated to Canada at the age of 12 and moved to the northern Ontario community then known as Fort William, now the city of Thunder Bay.

He spent five years working as a dishwasher there in order to pay off the $500 head tax he was forced to pay upon entering Canada.

All Chinese immigrants entering Canada from 1885 to 1923 had a head tax imposed on them, with the intention of deterring Chinese immigration after Chinese workers helped build the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885.

A symbol of community's history

Lee later worked at maintaining the railway a previous generation of Chinese labourers had helped to build.

To many in the Chinese-Canadian community, Leerepresents the history of Chinese immigration to this country, said Colleen Hua, president of the Chinese Canadian National Council.

"What they see him as symbolizing is a person who, although excluded, still persevered and worked through it and lived to the very end to make sure that he saw an end to the exclusion and the redress," Hua said.

Lee returned to China and found a wife before returning to Canada.

But because the Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited Chinese immigrants from bringing their families to Canada, Lee's wife and son were unable to join him. By the time the act was lifted in 1947, his son had died during the Second World War.

Eventually, his wife and two daughters were brought to Canada to live with him.

Lee later started his own business importing and exporting goods from China.

Joined 'Redress Express' journey

He participated in another historic chapter for the Chinese-Canadian community when he was one of several head-taxpayers who travelled to Ottawa from Vancouverin 2006 on a train dubbed the "Redress Express."

At the end of the journey on June 21, Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologized for the fact that the head tax had been imposed and promised symbolic payments to those who were affected.

Lee, who was 106 at the time, carried the symbolic "last spike" given to the Chinese community by author Pierre Berton in recognition of work done by immigrants to build the railway.

He is survived by two daughters, seven grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

Of an estimated 80,000 Chinese immigrants who paid the tax, about 30 remain alive, as well as several hundred widows of men who paid the tax.