I know my parents and certainly my husband’s parents didn’t want us marrying “out.” They were quite happy that both my sister and I married Japanese. But when it came to our children, my parents never said anything.
I don’t know what the future is going to bring. I don’t know why there is such a large intermarriage rate among the Japanese. It could be a result of the Japanese Canadian experience. There wasn’t a big population of Japanese. I don’t think we emphasized our being Japanese as much as we could have, a result of us trying to integrate. Having been brought up in “Western” culture, being Japanese was not important to our children and so there was a lot more intermarriage.
I think culturally we lost much of it. I suppose that’s a natural result of living here. I try to keep some traditions and foods for special occasions, especially with my daughter and son that live here. We try to have our traditional New Year’s ozoni and mochi.
