To help recognize the historic significance of Cumberland’s other Japanese community of No. 5 Road, there are plans to erect a storyboard in the vicinity of former No. 5 Japanese Townsite that will display photographic images and brief stories by former No. 5 residents of life in the community prior to their forced evacuation during World War II. Funds are available for construction of the storyboard. Such storyboards have been erected elsewhere in the Village of Cumberland to inform visitors of life in the former No. 1 Japanese Townsite and the once thriving Chinatown.

Yukiko and Toni Onley 1980. Photo by Iwao Matsuo.
When iconic Canadian artist Toni Onley died in a plane crash on February 29, 2004, he left behind a legacy of paintings that documented his love of the British Columbia coast. A new exhibition that opens October 24 called Love, Toni xox shows another side of the man, offering an intimate glimpse into the romantic musings and private pain of one of Canada’s most beloved artists. Love, Toni xox is comprised of illustrated love letters written to photographer Yukiko Onley during the …

Titled Re(a)ddressed: I am (Japanese) Canadian, the aim of this workshop was to open a dialogue between Japanese Canadian youth surrounding the present and possible futures of identity and ethnicity in Canada. Very suited to these topics was the collaboration of award-winning Canadian independent animation filmmaker, writer and artist, Jeff Chiba Stearns.

by Tsuneharu Gonnami

On February 6-8, 2008, Professor Atsuhiko Wada of Waseda University’s School of Education visited UBC to conduct research on Japanese Collections in Canada. Professor Wada, who won the 2007 Award of the Japan Library and Information Society for his book, Shomotsu no Nichi-Bei kankei: Ritarashi shi ni mukete (The Japan-US relationship viewed from book circulation: toward [the] literacy history) (Tokyo: Shinyosha, 2007), is chronicling the post-war migration of Japanese books to the USA, where they found their way into the collections of various US institutions.
Who acquired these Japanese …

SFU has announced that Hiromi Goto will be Writer-in-Residence from September 2008 to May 2009. Hiromi is an important and insurgent voice in Canadian literature, with great depth of experience as fiction writer, cultural critic, arts advocate, youth organizer, and teacher of creative writing. Her first novel, Chorus of Mushrooms, was the 1995 recipient of the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best First Book, Canada and Caribbean Region, and the co-winner of the Canada-Japan Book Award. Her most recent book, Hopeful Monsters, is a collection of short stories released by Arsenal …

Once in a while, one comes across a moving story about people who achieved remarkable things with great ideas. As one gets older and such discoveries become rare, one appreciates them all the more. This particular gem—about a unique Japanese ethnologist and his father who influenced him greatly—I came across only eight years ago after I had moved to Vancouver from Singapore in 1997.
I read the biography of the man called Tsuneichi Miyamoto, who lived from 1907 to 1981, which I spotted in a book review and bought right away. …

What fantastic September weather we have had, making up for the miserable August. Here’s hoping for more Indian Summer to come!
I had a Kabucha Salad recipe submitted by Joyce Oikawa. She said that she made this as an appetizer for a luncheon group that she entertained and everyone enjoyed it. She first tried this salad in Tokyo about eight  years ago.
I tried it before I going to print with my column, but my kabucha (also called kabocha) was still too young and not mature, so my salad wasn’t as good …

Hi everyone!
The GVJCCA and NAJC would like to thank the Vancouver Japanese Language School & Japanese Hall, Nikkei Place, Alan Emmott Centre, Canadian Race Relations Foundation, City of Burnaby, City of Vancouver, Japan Air Lines, Front Line for Peace, Tonari Gumi, Powell Street Festival Society, Mary Matsuba and all the volunteers who assisted during the Celebration, the numerous sponsors, all the panelists and the many registrants who participated during the 20th Anniversary of Redress Celebration. If there was any one else I missed please let me know, as without your …

It is one thing to go back over one’s own memories—events that shaped us, for better or for worse. But what is it that drives us to go back over events that we were not part of, that happened, in many cases, before we were even born? What is it that moves us to ruminate on the past? I suppose you could quote George Santayana, who famously said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

It is early evening in late May as my husband and I roll off the ferry at Nanaimo and head north under a clear blue sky to the Village of Cumberland on Vancouver Island. Alongside the highway grow streams of golden broom and purple lupin that light up the earthy tones of the Comox Valley landscape. We are on our way to attend the official commemoration of Cumberland’s Japanese Cemetery as a historical landmark.