Meet Jennie Chow, who became the first Chinese Canadian Stampede Queen at the 1958 Calgary Stampede,
Meet Jennie Chow, who became the first Chinese Canadian Stampede Queen at the 1958 Calgary Stampede, the world’s largest annual rodeo show. That’s right, back in 1958, rodeo fans in Alberta voted for the 22-year-old Chinese Canadian beauty, among 33 contestants, to reign as Stampede Queen. The story began when the Calgary Fire Department, whose Firehall No. 1 was located directly across from Chinatown, approached the Calgary Chinese Council with the idea of fielding a Chinese candidate, which they believed would boost interest and fundraising efforts. Jennie was a tall, athletic second-generation Chinese Canadian whose parents had come from China in 1933. She had lived in San Francisco and Vancouver as well as Calgary, where she worked as a secretary in a local oil company and spoke English with a slight Western twang. She was a smooth, charming public speaker, and was described at the time in local papers as “a typical Canadian girl” who liked dancing, swimming, and jazz.When she was named Stampede Queen, newspapers and radio outlets across Canada picked up on the story and for a spell, Chow was a national celebrity, interviewed on CBC radio and pictured in the Montreal Gazette. Keep in mind, Canada’s Chinese Exclusion Act had only recently been repealed in 1947. In fact, anti-Chinese immigration policies remained in place until 1967. Yet in 1958, Chow thrived as the face of the largest cultural event in Western Canada, illustrating once again the internal contradictions of systemic racism.Perhaps cognizant of the unique tensions of her position, Chow donated her full $300 prize to local charity. Her tireless media appearances and promotion of the Stampede resulted in high ticket sales that year, which in turn rewarded the Calgary Fire Department’s fundraising efforts, boosting that year’s donations to children’s hospitals and other civic organizations. When it was all over and done with, Chow went back to her job and it must have all seemed like some wild, strange dream. But it happened, and Jennie Chow remains a bright spot on the mixed landscape of Chinese Canadian history. -- source link
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