I think that most Canadians/Americans judge or assess people by their appearances first, thus for me it has always been the quickest and easiest to identify myself as Japanese or Japanese Canadian. As there were very few Asians in Coquitlam when I was in primary school, many people would ask, “Where did you come from?”...Continue reading
Tag: Growing Up
Post-War Racism
When I asked my parents about their internment experiences, neither of them recalled much since they were both so young during the war. As very small children, neither of them felt particularly traumatized by their internment experiences but they most certainly saw and dealt with plenty of racism afterwards. This racism towards JCs persisted for...Continue reading
Loss of community
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
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