I would like people to remember that there are other people around you, not just yourself. This whole jibundake — me, me, me, shouldn’t be. You have to think of others around you. To try to be thankful. Try to get along with others. That’s what I would like people to remember. But that could...Continue reading
Author: Mak Ikuta
How do I self-identify?
I’m sort of Japanese Canadian, rather than Japanese or Canadian. If you ask a kid to draw the sun, the Japanese kid would draw a red circle. But, it’s not red, is it? It’s sort of white-ish. So when I realized that I’m no longer thinking the sun is red, I thought, oh I’m not...Continue reading
Anti-Asian racism
I remember a story from Mr. Rintaro Hayashi. He said there was a man living in Queensborough before the war. He was going to the market in New Westminster to take his vegetables. A Mountie flagged him down. He didn’t know what was wrong. The Mountie said: I have a flat tire. You have a...Continue reading
Does JC history matter?
I don’t think a lot of the grand nephews and nieces know the family history because we don’t talk about that sort of thing. Why bring back memories that are unpleasant? You want to forget about it. Shikataganai. I don’t think it’s necessary for them to know. They haven’t really asked about it. Society is...Continue reading
Intermarriage
I think that Japanese Canadians look up to hakujin. They feel somewhat inferior to them and want to become more Canadian. I believe that’s the reason why they choose to marry hakujin.
Queen’s, Niagara Falls, back to Steveston
After the war ended, I went to Toronto to earn enough money to go to university. I was hoping to become a doctor because my uncle was a doctor. I wanted to go into medicine but missed the application deadline so would have had to apply the following year. I didn’t want to waste another...Continue reading
Return to BC
My family came back to B.C. in 1951. They decided to come back instead of staying in Alberta because there were a lot of Japanese who moved back to Vancouver as well as Steveston and they wanted a Buddhist minister. The Buddhist congregation in Kelowna had an established temple as Japanese in the interior did...Continue reading
My parents didn’t explain things…..
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...Continue reading
Going to school in Raymond, Alberta
My father used to come to the Raymond High School. There was one period during the week when the school allowed someone from some religion to come and talk. My father would talk to the Japanese students and say: Japan is great. You have trains and subways. We didn’t have Shinkansen then but still the...Continue reading
Sugar beets
[When we were forced to move off the west coast], we moved to Raymond, Alberta to do sugar beets. We didn’t know anything about farming whatsoever and had to learn from scratch. Some congregation members would come and help us. I remember you had to leave the sugar beet plants about 10 to 12 inches...Continue reading
Early years
I was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1929. My family lived in Kyoto but we went to Tokyo because my mother was from there. She was giving birth to my sister Kyoko. I came to Canada when I was 8 years old. We first went to New Westminster because my father was a Buddhist minister and became the minister there. I don’t remember much else because I was just a kid.Continue reading