My parents didn’t explain things but we went along with what they said. I do think that by osmosis we accepted a lot of things. I knew there was a war going on but thought shikataganai [it can’t be helped]. My parents weren’t bitter.
One of the reasons my father chose to go to Raymond rather than go to somewhere like Slocan is that he said: Education is important so we’ll go to Raymond, Alberta. We went to regular public school with other students who were not Japanese Canadians. That town was built on sugar beets so school didn’t start until after harvest was finished.
