My father, Yoshio, was born and raised in Vancouver, the oldest of six children of Arthur Kozo (1887-1957) and Tomeko (1901-1992) Arai. In 1942, after signing an agreement which stipulated that no one in the family would ever ask the government for financial assistance, Dad’s family was allowed to move, intact, to Sunnyside farm, about...Continue reading
Author: Patricia Lowe
Learning About Internment
When I was growing up, I would hear about the internment anecdotally from my father. Sometimes he would say “when we were kicked outta here …” when he was referencing something that happened to him or his family either here in Vancouver or later in Grand Forks. Dad was a young adult at the time...Continue reading
The Impact of Dispersal and Dispossession
The uprooting of the Japanese Canadian community irreparably slashed the social fabric that had previously provided threads of connection between and among friends and families. Formerly strong bonds were severed by time and distance. Many JCs, especially the Issei and older Nisei, sadly never had a chance to see some of their friends or family...Continue reading
Living in Japan and Learning Japanese
Knowing the difficult lives that my grandparents had here in Canada early on made me curious about the country they left behind. In spite of my staunch childhood declaration that I would never have any interest in ever travelling to Japan, I participated in the UBC-Japan Exchange Program, visiting Japan for six weeks when I...Continue reading
Language Classes
I’m sure my parents wanted us kids to learn to speak Japanese in the hopes that we might develop an interest Japanese culture. Growing up, my sisters and I were forced to attend Saturday morning Japanese language classes at Kitsilano Community Centre for about five seemingly extra long years. For me, that was from ages...Continue reading
Parental Expectations, Passed On
I never met my paternal grandfather as he passed away before my parents were even married. Judging from the stories my father would tell of his childhood in the 1920s and ‘30s, my grandfather was a strict man who set high standards for his family. I saw this trait in my father, too, especially as...Continue reading
Intermarriage
Since the internment and subsequent dispersal of the JC community greatly served to weaken cultural and language bonds, and integrate JCs into the larger, English-speaking Caucasian population, it’s no surprise that there is such a high out-marriage rate among JCs. When I was growing up, there were hardly any other JCs in my high school,...Continue reading
How I Identify
Growing up in an almost all-white neighbourhood, in my mind I viewed myself as being white since we spoke only English, ate western food, and my closest friends were white. When I started at UBC, I was taken aback at the sheer number of Asian-looking students! There was even a UBC-Japan Exchange Club which allowed...Continue reading
Why JC History Matters
The catastrophic effects of internment, dispossession and dispersal are, I think, no more than uncomfortable truths to many Sanseis. I truly believe that those who suffered, although many have already passed away, would want their stories told and for society to know what the Canadian government did to some of its own citizens. That part...Continue reading
Dealing With Racism
How do you go about teaching tolerance? And how do you measure it? Is unconscious bias something that can be nullified? Children are not born prejudiced against people due to hair colour or eye colour or the location & history of the country of their forefathers. Rather, they pick up on unspoken cues and learn...Continue reading