Kilts and family history abound during two episodes of the 6-part Generations series on CBC Newsworld

Find out what a 250 year old Anglophone family in Quebec City and a 120 year old Chinese-Canadian family in Vancouver have in common.

Both have:
bagpipes and kilts
+ accordion music
+ canoe/dragon boat racing
+ immigration as a topic
+ Church music
+ archival photos/newsreels of an ex-premier
+ cultural/racial discrimination stories
+ prominent Canadian historical events to show how
   the families embraced them or were challenged by them
+ both featured saving a historical literary landmark.
+ younger generation learning the non-English language

Generations: The Chan Legacy features Todd Wong, founder of Gung Haggis Fat Choy, a quirky Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner, which inspired a CBC Vancouver television performance special.  Todd's involvements with Terry Fox Run, Joy Kogawa House campaign and dragon boat racing are also shown.

July 29th 4pm PST / July 30th 12am

 4:00 p.m. Generations: The Chan Legacy
- Missionaries from China come to the West Coast help Westernize Chinese immigrant workers in the late 1800's.		 Generations: The Chan Legacy
August 5th 4pm PST

4:00 p.m. Generations: The Blairs of Quebec
- An Anglophone family with 250 years of history in Quebec City struggles to maintain it's heritage.		 Generations: The Blairs of Quebec

July 4, 10 pm ET/PT, July 8 10 am ET, July 29, 7 pm ET
The documentary begins with Todd Wong playing the accordion, wearing a kilt. He promotes cultural fusion, and in doing so, he honours the legacy of his great, great, grandfather Reverend Chan Yu Tan. The Chans go back seven generations in Canada and are one of the oldest families on the West Coast.
Chan family
The Chan family
Reverend Chan and his wife Wong Chiu Lin left China for Victoria in 1896 at a time when most Chinese immigrants were simple labourers, houseboys and laundrymen who had come to British Columbia to build the railroad or work in the mines. The Chans were different. They were educated and Westernized Methodist Church missionaries who came to convert the Chinese already in Canada, and teach them English. The Chans were a family with status and they believed in integration. However even they could not escape the racism that existed at the time, the notorious head tax and laws that excluded the Chinese from citizenship.
In the documentary, Reverend Chan's granddaughter Helen Lee, grandson Victor Wong, and great grandson Gary Lee recall being barred from theaters, swimming pools and restaurants. The Chinese were not allowed to become doctors or lawyers, pharmacists or teachers. Still, several members of the Chan family served in World War II, because they felt they were Canadian and wanted to contribute. Finally, in 1947, Chinese born in Canada were granted citizenship and the right to vote.

Today, Todd Wong, represents a younger generation of successful professionals and entrepreneurs scattered across North America. He promotes his own brand of cultural integration through an annual event in Vancouver called Gung Haggis Fat Choy. It's a celebration that joins Chinese New Year with Robbie Burns Day, and brings together the two cultures that once lived completely separately in the early days of British Columbia.

We also meet a member of the youngest generation, teenager Tracey Hinder, who also cherishes the legacy of Reverend Chan, but in contrast to his desire to promote English she is studying mandarin and longs to visit the birthplace of her ancestors.

Produced by Halya Kuchmij, narrated by Michelle Cheung.

July 11, 10 pm ET/PT, July 15, 10 am ET, August 5, 7 pm ET

For 250 years, the Blair family has been part of the Protestant Anglophone community of Quebec City. The Anglophones were once the dominant cultural and economic force in the city, but now they are a tiny minority, and those who have chosen to stay have had to adapt to a very different world. Louisa Blair guides us through the story of her family, which is also the story of a community that had to change.
Ronnie Blair
Ronnie Blair

The senior member of the family today is Ronnie Blair. He grew up in Quebec, but like generations of Blairs before him, he worked his way up the corporate ladder in the Price Company with the lumber barons of the Saguenay. Ronnie Blair's great grandfather came to the Saguenay from Scotland in 1842. Ronnie's mother was Jean Marsh. Her roots go back to the first English families to make Quebec home after British troops defeated the French on the Plains of Abraham in 1759. The Marsh family amassed a fortune in the shoe industry in Quebec City.

The Marshes and the Blairs were part of a privileged establishment that lived separately from the Catholics and the Francophones, with their own churches and institutions. The Garrison Club for instance, is a social club that is still an inner sanctum for Quebec's Anglo businessmen.

Blair family
The Blair family

Work took Ronnie Blair and his family to England in the 1960’s but his children longed to return to Canada, and to Quebec City. Alison Blair was the first to return, as a student, in 1972. Her brother David followed in 1974. Both were excited by the political and social changes that had taken place during the Quiet Revolution in Quebec and threw themselves into everything Francophone. David learned to speak French, married a French Canadian and settled into a law practice.

Then came the Referendum of 1995, a painful moment in the history of the Anglophone community, and for the passionate Blairs. But David decided he was in Quebec to stay, and today his children are bilingual and bicultural. More recently his sister Louisa also returned to Quebec City and a desire to rediscover her past led her to write a book called, The Anglos, the Hidden Face of Quebec. Her daughter is also is growing up bilingual and bicultural, representing a new generation comfortable in both worlds.

Produced by Jennifer Clibbon and Lynne Robson.