When I was 11 my family moved from Montreal to Steveston. My father was a fisherman and didn’t want to commute from Montreal anymore. I remember how shocked I was walking down Moncton Street and seeing so many Japanese people. I had never seen so many, it felt like being in a foreign country. As an adult now, I don’t know how my mother felt about going back to the place where she grew up. On the other hand, my grandmother took a while to visit us. She had to learn how to fly by herself and there was some reluctancy to come back: one was a son who died in a hunting accident – a gun accidently went off while his friend was passing him the gun. Kazuo died despite having to have several transfusions of blood which had to be paid for. So, in the years that passed by Obaasan, as I would call her, would hurry back to Montreal when gunshot sounds of duck hunters could be heard in the distance. I’m sure it must have hard to come back for other reasons.
