While both of my parents said they didn’t feel consciously traumatized by their internments, both of their families were quite poor before, during and after the war. My mother’s parents felt that the best way to escape poverty was for their kids to go onto post-secondary education and pursue well-paying jobs using their brains rather...Continue reading
Tag: Growing Up Parenting and Family Relations
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
Growing Up, Family, Parenting
I remember always being encouraged by my family to participate in KJCA activities, such as odori, taiko, and language classes. My grandparents were delighted that I was able to do a high school exchange in Osaka. Overall, I spent my childhood very culturally connected to the Kamloops Nikkei community. It’s difficult to trace the legacy...Continue reading
How the children / grandchildren relate to JC culture and traditions
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
Growing up, parenting and family relations
The impact of the violence my grandparents experienced and my parents experienced growing up, definitely impacted the way I was raised. There were words of advice that like mantras were repeated over and over: Get a good education so you can get a good job. Others can take away your material possessions but no one...Continue reading
We are still lost
I don’t speak Japanese. The war took the urge from my grandparents to pass it down to my father, and to me. I am mixed-race. The war discouraged my father’s parents from settling in neighbourhoods with other Japanese. His stories of internalized racism are not mine to tell. But they are no less real. We...Continue reading
A Very Personal Thing
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