Cinéma

Café Daughter is a one-woman drama inspired by a true story about a Chinese-Cree girl growing up in Saskatchewan in the 1950s and 60s.

Charlie Wong emigrated from China to rural Saskatchewan, where he opened a restaurant. But provincial law prevented Charlie from hiring white women to work for him. Katherine, a young Cree woman from a nearby reserve, took a job at the café. In time, the two fell in love, married, and had a daughter — Yvette.

The story begins in 1957, as nine-year-old Yvette Wong helps out in her parents’ café in Alistair, Sask. She’s incredibly bright but has been placed in the slow learners’ class because of her skin colour. Her mother Katherine, who was forced to attend a residential school, is conflicted about her identity and has charged Yvette with a secret — to never tell anyone she’s part Cree. Yvette has dreams that her mother nourishes, but when Katherine dies and Yvette and her father move to Saskatoon, Yvette must try to pursue her dreams alone, carving a path uniquely her own. (From Playwrights Guild of Canada)