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
Tag: Racism
Incarceration, Dispersal, and Dispossession
In my early teens, I took a tour through incarceration campsites. It was the first time I was able to contextualize my grandparents’ wartime lives; during the time when they should’ve been planning their futures, they were instead forced to exist in limbo for years. I don’t think it’ll ever be possible for me to...Continue reading
COVID-19 and Racism
The pandemic and subsequent rise in anti-Asian sentiment is just the most obvious way in which racism still permeating our society has revealed itself in the past few years. I think there’s an undeniable commonality with the WWII incarceration. Although COVID-19 is a different beast than a global war, “Asianness” continues to be the way...Continue reading
We tried hard to be accepted
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
The Present
Question from Tsunagu: In recent years (particularly since the arrival of COVID-19), we have seen a rise in anti-Indigenous, anti-Black, and anti-Asian hate crimes. We see a disproportionate number of racialized people, too, enduring homelessness, criminalization, police violence, and other forms of struggle. Do you see a thread of connectivity between these conditions and what...Continue reading
Do you see trauma showing up in your family, if at all? How?
I don’t feel that I can speak on behalf of other family members about any trauma that they may or may not have or experienced. But I will speak about my own, including how it relates to ancestral trauma. The first time I was a target of racist remarks was when I was old enough...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
Affect of the war years and racism
Above photos of my grandparents: Left is Matsunosuke and Haru Komori newly married around 1913. Right is Nisa and Kin Mochizuki taken in Japan in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s. I never met my grandfathers who likely were the most impacted by the racist treatment in Canada. For my grandmothers, this history seemed like just one...Continue reading
History matters
Our history matters. We can still see the same systems, the same attitudes, the same rhetoric in place today directed at other marginalized communities. We can replace “Japs” with racist slurs for Muslims, Indigenous peoples, Blacks and on and on. We personally may not face the same overt levels of racism of our parents and...Continue reading
What wisdom do I want to pass on?
I’ll pull out the tropes now. Representation matters. I was responsible for marketing the University of Toronto’s Continuing Studies program in the 1980’s. I produced 300,000+ program calendars and distributed them through the Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto. It had pretty wide reach. This was a time before the internet. I would make sure...Continue reading
The present
I have always felt that there will always be an undercurrent of racist attitudes and this is sparked by events such as the arrival of the Vietnamese “boat people’, the influx of Hong Kong ex-pats etc. Whenever there is an influx of visible minorities, this sparks a backlash against these persons of color. I would...Continue reading
The Present
With the arrival of COVID-19, we heard from the media of anti-Asian violence in Canada and the United States. According to the media, the problem was even worse here in Canada. I can understand that when people feel disenfranchised they want to lash-out at the closest or most visible example of their perception of the...Continue reading
Impact of the incarceration on current views
[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
Life Before the War
Before the war, Yosh had aspirations to become a pharmacist when he was in high school. First I wanted to be a druggist. In Grade 10 when I was 14 or 15, the teacher said: "You can't get a job like that." He didn't know what to say. By law, you couldn’t be one. Continue reading
Racism
MacMillan Bloedel always hired the top graduate from Fairview Commerce. In 1940, the top student graduated from Grade 12 with a 98.2% average. That student was Midori Yoshida, and being Japanese Canadian wasn't offered the job.Continue reading
Anti-Asian racism
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
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
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
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