Japanese Canadian Family Stories
This Tsunagu website grew out of a workshop Connie Kadota and Lucy Komori organized in February 2020 with the support from the Nikkei National Museum in Burnaby. More than 100 registrants and volunteers from nisei and sansei to yonsei and gosei shared their family stories and personal reflections. We were particularly interested in hearing about the impacts of the incarceration of Japanese Canadian families during World War II. We learned that many families did not share their experiences and this workshop was an opportunity for participants to talk and begin their individual explorations.
With the Tsunagu website, we want to give Japanese Canadians from different generations a public platform to share their thoughts and experiences. We asked each of our contributors to address some specific questions. By having stories posted on one website, we hope to shed light on the complexity and variety of perspectives of our shared history.
The website is organized by generation. The contributing nisei all experienced the wartime dislocation first hand. The sansei are post-war children who may or may not have been aware of the treatment of their parents. The yonsei and gosei are the grandchildren of the nisei survivors of the incarceration.
How do stories and history pass from one generation to another? What relevance do these stories have for people today, particularly young people? Tsunagu means to connect and the Tsunagu website is a platform that connects the past to the present through the voices of second, third, fourth and fifth generation Canadians of Japanese descent.
In 2022, Lucy was awarded a TELUS STORYHIVE grant to produce a short documentary film called Tsunagu. In 2024, the film was screened at community events: the Powell Street Festival, the Vernon Japanese Canadian Film Festival, the Kamloops multicultural film series, and at the Momiji Active Living Centre in Toronto. It was shortlisted for Best Canadian Short Documentary at the 2024 Vancouver Asian Film Festival.
In 2024, Connie and Lucy received a Japanese Canadian Legacies grant for Tsunagu: A Deep Dive. A Deep Dive looks further into the issues that came up in our earlier Tsunagu projects. We felt people were ready to discuss issues at a deeper level, and we were fortunate in recruiting people we knew and trusted us. We also knew we wanted to involve Japanese Canadian mental health professionals to guide our participants safely through difficult discussions. Three families, with two or three [generations involved, participated.
Here's a quick guide to navigating the site.
To provide context to the posts in Tsunagu, you can find more information on the history of Japanese Canadians by visiting the following websites:
Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre
National Association of Japanese Canadians: http://najc.ca/japanese-canadian-history/
Nikkei Stories: http://nikkeistories.com/
Tashme Historical Project: http://tashme.ca/
Tsunagu Workshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DshjVErKhP4
Library and Archives Canada: bac-lac.gc.ca/…/japanese-immigration.aspx
Landscapes of Injustice: https://loi.uvic.ca/elementary/historical-overview.html
University of British Columbia, Asian Canadian Studies