Posted on: Friday May 8, 2026
What can a piece of paper reveal about a life? In May, in honour of Asian Heritage Month, the Manitoba Museum invites you to discover how fragile documents—certificates, photos, and government records—reveal powerful stories of tragedy, loss, survival, adaptation, and triumph.
The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act is an adapted travelling exhibition from the Chinese Canadian Museum which shines a light on a monumental but largely forgotten chapter in Canadian history. Crowdsourced from the fragments of memories and documents of hundreds of Chinese Canadian families across Canada, including those from Manitoba, as well as extensive and painstaking research, the stories reveal the impact exclusion left on the lives it touched.
Visitors to The Paper Trail will encounter moving personal stories that bear witness to how a law deeply affected Chinese in Canada during and even after its repeal. This special exhibition connects past and present, inviting reflection on a period of Canadian history that had gone silent.
Image: Regina’s Morning Leader newspaper article, August 21, 1923.
A story from The Paper Trail exhibition. Photo by Larry K.F. Chin.
Wes Wong was born in Brandon in 1922, yet was issued this immigration card. Supplied by: Wesley Wong Family.
Continue learning with the accompanying book, The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act, by award-winning curator and author Catherine Clement, available in the Manitoba Museum Shop. Expanding beyond the exhibition, this landmark book delves deeper into the human experiences of the exclusion years, revealing the lived realities behind one of the most consequential yet often overlooked chapters in Canadian history.
Come see The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act, now on exhibition at the Manitoba Museum.
ID photo from the head tax certificate of Jackie Lee who settled in Winnipeg. Supplied by: Victor Lee.
The award-winning book that supplements The Paper Trail exhibition. Supplied by: Plumleaf Press.
