My father, Saijiro Miyasaki, came from Amakusa, Kumamoto and my mother, Mitsuye(Soga), came from Otsu, Kumamoto. I’m not sure what year my father came to Canada but he was born April 30, 1886, so it was early in the 1900’s. My father was employed as a house boy where he learned to speak and write...Continue reading
I don’t have many memories from that time. However, I remember my mother saying that she had to take me to the sugar beet fields with her. I can kind of remember those days when my sister and I were left under the shade of trees. Many of the sugar beet workers came from the...Continue reading
I was four at the time. My sister Naomi was two. We don’t remember much of that time. Like many of the Issei, our parents never spoke about the evacuation so we didn’t know too much about it or how it affected our parents and family. My father never spoke about it. All that I...Continue reading
I feel that had we stayed on the farm, my father would have been healthier and had a better quality of life. He was an entrepreneur in his early years. Both my parents worked hard and achieved much to have it all suddenly taken away. My father worked until he was at least 75 and...Continue reading
When the war ended, my family was already east of the Rockies in Winnipeg. The Japanese community was not large in Winnipeg. We all knew each other. After a while, many of my mother’s former neighbours from Mount Lehman and her very good friends left Winnipeg to go to Ontario where opportunities for work were...Continue reading
NOTE: Janice is Jean’s daughter Janice: I think my dad would have been so much better off if he and his family had gone into internment camps. He would have had community. I think all the families would have done better being together with other Japanese families. Jean: When I first went to school in...Continue reading
In Mount Lehman, my parents built the farm from scratch. They had a two storey, eight room house. Plus they had a picker house and barns. They also had chickens. They owned a truck to transport fruit to the Empress jam factory. Before they were forcibly removed, my father rented the property and sold the...Continue reading
Certainly, I think the treatment of Japanese Canadians had an effect on families. We knew we were expected to be better, to excel in what we were doing and try to fit in as much as possible, which we tried to do. Schooling was very important. Raising our own children, we probably expected more from...Continue reading
Question: We hear nisei quite often tell their children: You have to be better and you have to do your best. Do you feel that you passed those kinds of values on to your children? Jean: I hope I did. Certainly their education was very important to them as well as to us. I don’t...Continue reading
We did not have many conversations relating to these times. However, my grandchildren have studied Japanese Canadian history in school and through this, the questions and conversations are coming out. I am trying to explain our experiences as I remember them, but I was so young. I think it’s very important that they learn this...Continue reading
I know my parents and certainly my husband’s parents didn’t want us marrying “out.” They were quite happy that both my sister and I married Japanese. But when it came to our children, my parents never said anything. I don’t know what the future is going to bring. I don’t know why there is such...Continue reading
Jean: The food mostly. I take them to the Buddhist Temple for special occasions like Obon and Shotsuki (Memorial) services. I think it’s important to introduce them to as many Japanese experiences as possible. Also, the Nikkei Centre is very helpful in this way. Janice: I think the food for my kids. Also, they all...Continue reading
Being in Manitoba with few Japanese in those days, I stood out and sometimes I was made to feel different. I haven’t experienced many racist acts, but certainly you can feel it. It doesn’t have to be said or acted on. You sort of feel it. We tried so hard to be accepted. I believe...Continue reading
Jean: I identify as Japanese Canadian Janice: I would say the same. I think for me growing up in Winnipeg, I identified more as Japanese and I was different from my friends and classmates. Jean: There weren’t many Japanese people, especially in school. We were the only Japanese or Asian people in school. Janice: We...Continue reading
About the past and the present—I don’t know. I… read? or I heard, wayyyyy back when—you know, decades ago—one of these wise Greek, philosophers, or maybe a philosopher out in the far east, said the same thing that we’re saying now: This is terrible—you know, what is happening to our community, or whatever. Nowadays, because...Continue reading
Because we’re such a small group of people, Japanese people, it’s hard to meet someone from the same, uh, ethnic group. So, it’s, it stands to reason that this [intermarriage] would happen. It is… you know, there’s no other way that you could meet some other person—unless you go to Japan, and then, you know,...Continue reading
Raising children… That’s a very difficult question for me. Because my parents were very… gentle. Never laid a hand on us. It was always gentle. Um… they never… said anything about doing the wrong thing or a bad thing, except not to… they said, Don’t deface your family’s name. I remember that. But… I married…...Continue reading
I think it’s because of my parents, that we don’t have too much—trauma, as you call it. Because whenever anybody asked my father, Wasn’t it a terrible war? And you were incarcerated?, he would say: War is war. And left it at that. So, I think we adopted that, um, feeling, or whatever you call...Continue reading
In Greenwood, there were so many children that it was fun—at my age, eight or nine, ten. Lots of friends to play with! We were out there all night, playing! Kick the Can, and… you know, there’s a lots of games that we played. But I had one particular friend. He was, uh… I forget...Continue reading
When it comes to family history, what I think of immediately is how my mother and father got together. My father had a store in Steveston, on Moncton Street, a grocery store, and of course, he couldn’t… he was first-generation Canadian, so he couldn’t speak English that well, and he did have—well, they were called...Continue reading
My sister always gets mad at me because I always say Japanese Canadian or Indo Canadian or Chinese Canadian. She says we’re all Canadian. But for older people like me, it’s just natural for us to say, Japanese Canadian or Chinese Canadian. Other people look at us and they don’t say, we’re Canadians. They always...Continue reading
[There was] that camp at Oppenheimer Park in front of temple. When we were going to have the Powell Street Festival, older people said: we understand what it’s like to be moved. So, they understood why they would leave them alone. [Regarding the treatment of Indigenous people.] We weren’t taken away from our home to...Continue reading
I always thought the high rate of intermarriage amongst Japanese Canadians is because there are so few Japanese. There are so many more Chinese people. I don’t see intermarriage as an issue. Not anymore. Certainly when I was growing up [it was]. My cousin married a hakujin / white fellow. I think there was a...Continue reading
The older generation have been taught not to say anything. To be quiet. Just go on with your life. My mom’s favourite expression was “you shouldn’t be saying that.” I think that’s quite common with the older issei from Japan. Don’t rock the boat. She would always say: “It’s okay to say that at home,...Continue reading
[One day] when I went home from school to get my snack, I heard my father saying to my mom: “Nihon senso ni maketa.” Japan lost the war. But at that time it didn’t ding on me what it meant. Later, my mom signed to go back to Japan. And my dad said, “No.” He...Continue reading
