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.
Identity
People know me as Japanese Canadian. I feel like I am one, but I have lived and worked in a Caucasian / white environment for much of my life. I just try to imagine what other people think of me. I don’t feel that they feel that I’m any different once past the initial conversations....Continue reading
The importance of recapturing our history
A huge loss as a result of the internment is the non-existence of a full expression of the history of the JC immigration story. So much of the history has been lost and remains unknown. An example is the story of Vancouver’s Japantown and also of the many other once thriving BC JC communities that...Continue reading
Is the current rise in hate crimes similar to what happened to JCs during WWII?
Racism is racism then and now. I think to a huge extent racism against JCs is now minimal as compared to times past. Institutional racism is almost gone but bad apple racism remains, driven by personal animosity from upbringing, economic stress or sometimes ideology. Things have changed. Things are much better now thanks largely to...Continue reading
Thoughts about intermarriage
I think that persons should marry whomever they want. I do not have an explanation for why JCs seem to have the highest intermarriage rate. It is interesting that it started almost immediately after internment and never slowed down. My opinion is that the dispersal of JCs to many non-Japanese communities across Canada is a...Continue reading
Child rearing
I do not think the knowledge of our family history has influenced the way we raised our children. Our values and the way we raised our kids were very traditional. They are interested in their family history to varying degrees and only in recent years since I have been active in working on JC projects...Continue reading
Is there intergeneratonal trauma in your family?
No. My grandparents were not in the picture. My parents were raised and schooled in our public schools and so were very conventional Canadian parents. Both my parents were very fluent in English. We grew up speaking English at home. My parents were of course bilingual so they were very fluent in Japanese, too. But...Continue reading
Long-term affect of internment
The internment experience affected my outlook in that for many years after we returned to Vancouver I had this sense of not belonging. In 1951, the Japanese were not welcome. As a teenager, I experienced my share of discrimination, mostly name calling but nothing uglier than that. In Alberta, there was some discrimination, but the...Continue reading
Property dispossession
Many families suffered greatly from the loss. There were significant financial losses but also loss of family possessions. This dispossession without consent was a huge injustice. Fortunately, my parents’ loss was modest. They had few valuable assets; they rented their home in pre-internment Vancouver, they had some financial assets and their possessions consisted mostly of...Continue reading
Post-war move
My parents were clear on their decision to remain in Canada and chose to move to AB until the restrictions on moving back to the coast were lifted. We as children were not involved in these family decisions. I was eight years old at the end of the internment. My brother was five years younger, so...Continue reading
Affect of incarceration on my parents
I never heard my parents complain or express anger at what was happening. My father acted in the best interests of the community. I think my parents knew that they were in a privileged position because of my father’s role in the community and their ability to fluently speak both Japanese and English. In addition...Continue reading
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
Adult perspective of the incarceration
I observed the many hardships imposed by camp living but thought little about them at the time. I did not observe anything that suggested there was an emotional toll on the internees. It seemed to me that everyone was trying to adapt and make the most of the situation. It was only much later as...Continue reading
Childhood perception of the incarceration
I was too young to realize what was happening. It was all new and different but nothing seemed traumatic or horrifying. It was an adventure. My memories are that the experience was mostly fun. My family went through internment relatively unscathed because my father was able to maintain his practice in the internment camp and...Continue reading
Memories of Tashme
I don’t have memories of how we got to Tashme, except to say that we drove there because my father, who was a doctor, was exempted from the expropriation of his car because there might be an occasion when a patient had to be moved from Tashme to a hospital in Vancouver. That’s my understanding...Continue reading
Family History
Grandfather: Meinosuke Ishiwara b. 1881 Kyoto; immigrated to Vancouver 1901; practiced medicine among Japanese immigrants; a prominent and highly respected member of Japanese community; active in many community organizations including Vancouver Japanese Language School; returned to Japan 1941 following the death of his wife Masu, re-immigrated to Vancouver 1956. d. 1961 in VancouverContinue reading