Author: John Endo Greenaway

Before she completed her PhD Midge often participated in many of our museum & archival projects and activities around 1993. She joined a group of Japanese Canadian Nikkei …

How do you begin to sum up the life of one of the most esteemed scholars on Japanese Canadian history? You do as Midge would have done, you assume the role of good researcher, and you reach out to connect with people whose lives intersected with hers.

Photos from this year’s Remembrance Day Ceremony at the Japanese Canadian War Memorial in Stanley Park.

When Sgt. Masumi Mitsui passed away on April 22, 1987 at the age of 100 years he was one of the last surviving Japanese Canadian volunteers of World War I.

In Singapore, when I was working in the war crimes unit, a Japanese prisoner who was a high ranking officer was allowed to go before a firing squad instead of going to the gallows, because it was considered to be more honourable for a soldier to die by firing squad.

I recall Mrs Nishi telling me that a wounded soldier put out his hands to thank her at a Remembrance Day ceremony held at the Japanese Canadian War Memorial in Stanley Park. She thinks he could be the wounded soldier Hikataro had on his back when he stepped on the mine and got killed. This was in the thirties.

In restoring the cenetaph, we will once again fulfill the hopes of Corporal Sainosuke Kubota, a veteran of the 50th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. On his last official function as the secretary of No 9 Legion (defunct) on September 30, 1958, he said…

Sheltered from the rain under a makeshift canopy and tucked in the corner behind the stage, I did not have a good view of Rev. Bernice King or the other speakers, but as I listened and joined in the walk, I was reminded of our own rally for redress on Parliament Hill twenty-five years ago in April 1988.

We have seen the long-term impact of residential schools. There are devastated communities where there is incest, suicides, violence and severe alcohol and drug addiction. Some First Nations people spend their lives in prisons, or on the streets of our towns and cities. The inter-generational impact stemming from residential schools is immense.

Japanese Canadian seniors were sitting in the packed City of Vancouver council chambers on the morning of September 25, 2013 to hear a long overdue apology.

“With humility and respect, the City of Vancouver formally apologizes for its complicity, its inaction, and for failing to protect her residents of Japanese descent.”