Some may think that an apology doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but it does. It recognizes a wrong. The way the media and some politicians have framed and blamed the pandemic on “the Chinese” in particular have such parallels to the persecution of Japanese Canadians during WWII, it is frightening. It matters...Continue reading
Author: Mackenzie Dyck
The Sato Gene
Most of what I learned of the internment was briefly taught in school, and from the MJCCA. The suffering and loss was not described in a personal level in my family. I learned much of my family’s involvement as an adult, but we had always held on to things, and loathed to waste, keeping careful...Continue reading
growing up, work in progress
I believe efforts to shield the young nisei during the internment and assimilate after didn’t allow for emotional vulnerability for the issei, impacting relations between generations in my family. My relatives encouraged me to participate in my culture from childhood, as they yearned for the opportunity when they were younger. It was our duty as yonsei...Continue reading
family historian
My great grandparents passed away while my father was still young, so I had little idea what kind of people they were, or what relationship they had with their nisei children. For a long time, to me, they were just “the ancestors from Japan”. I think it was similar for my Dad and his siblings,...Continue reading
identity: the struggle is me
A yonsei in the Canadian prairies, reclaiming and preserving Japanese heritage was a principle I grew up with, but it often felt external and performative; how I am seen, as opposed to how I see; what I learned to do with my community rather than what I knew to do at home. Being mixed race,...Continue reading