Another situation in our Montreal community that I was keeping my finger crossed hoping not to happen but unable to escape from, is the pandemic-related racism and vandalism that started in Montreal Chinatown last year 2020 March at the same time when the world locked down. Many restaurants and shops in Chinatown got their glass windows and doors smashed. I held zoom meeting with the city, and had meetings in the police station requesting more police officers to patrol Chinatown by foot. I let them know that the hate crimes and racism really scared the residents, restaurant workers and the visitors, who were now in constant fear…!!!
Since I am the President of our Montreal Chan Association and one of the leaders in our Chinese community, our community’s residents and shop owners were calling me for help. It got critical, I couldn’t wait from the city or the police station anymore to come to the rescue. Before anymore bad things happened to anyone, I took the matter into my own hands, and I created our first community watchdog system, educating the residents and the merchants to keep their eyes around their surroundings, but, deep inside my heart it is not good enough, so I called up my friend Eddy Li who is the owner of his security company. After I explained to him our Chinatown situation, he came right away and supported my Chinatown security visions. I felt so much respect and honor, then, our very first Chinatown security service patrol project organization was formed. It is not an easy task. Every time I put myself out there, I put my life in danger. There were so many issues and matters we had to deal with. Everyday after my regular work, I headed to Chinatown for the health and safety task with my friend Eddy and his team taking care of our community’s security and safety.
The pandemic has created a lot of racism and vandalism to the Chinese people. The security patrol system in Chinatown to keep the Chinese community safe and to let the elderly residents to feel secure and not scared , and also because of the lockdown of businesses we patrolled the targeted areas to lessen the risk of vandalism, and also to keep the homeless and drug addicts from using in Chinatown as their new hangout.
With my positive contribution to the community, I am leading the next generation to become part of the community volunteer project for better days to come. Although there’s an improvement and the community is recovering, the “One World One humanity – Humanitarian volunteer” program work is not yet done – my volunteer efforts still has many strong visions to fulfil to create a safer and stronger community.
All my volunteer efforts and giving back to our community is about raising awareness of the situations that we are in, not just in Montreal , but I am sure also in other cities, and hopefully this will encourage others to do the same to make the world a better place.
