Terry Watada

Editor’s note: B While Terry is on his summer hiatus, we decided to look back on his nearly thirty years of writing about and for the Japanese Canadian community and by extension the Asian Canadian community. We will be reprinting some…

Editor’s note: Terry Watada is on summer break and will return in October. In the interim, we thought we’d publish some “classic” columns by Terry. More than a little while ago I received a letter from a friend who has…

Intergenerational trauma is real and alive in communities deeply affected by residential schools. You can’t attempt cultural genocide for 140 years, for seven generations – the last of these schools closing their doors in 1996 – and not expect some…

“I’m here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the White People’s Choice Awards!” – Chris Rock, February 2016 Chris Rock’s witty and quotable monologue at the top of the Oscars drew what I perceived to be a smug response…

Now where was I? Oh yes, I was about to reveal some surprising facts: surprising to me that is. First off, let me apologize to a long-ago friend of mine. I had promised to include the following subject back in…

It was 1980-something when Lane Nishikawa, playwright and actor, came to Toronto to stage his one-man play, Life in the Fast Lane. I can’t remember how I met Lane but I agreed to produce his play to present something different,…

Poverty is the scourge of nations. Its prevalence causes blight, increased welfare and health costs, homelessness, and untimely death. Perhaps its worst effect is hunger accompanied by malnourishment as a consequence. It is a persistent and pernicious problem, yet no…

I thought I’d start 2016 with some surprising facts, at least surprising to me. Did you know Nobu McCarthy was Canadian? I know, who’s Nobu McCarthy? Perhaps you remember films like the egregious Geisha Boy, The Karate Kid, Part II,…

Matsujiro Watada, my father, died in 1987 at the age of 81. He was a rugged man; his body was sculpted by his years working as a highrigger in a BC logging camp before farming on the prairies. He then…

We all observe customs and traditions no matter our background. They define us, they link us together, they identify us. Pity the individual who rejects them because they are ashamed of their upbringing, their culture, their identity. “I’m just a…

When parents are lost, they tend to fall into myth; that is, you as their child idealize them. So it was I wanted to believe that I inherited my mother’s laugh, her welcoming nature, her popularity. From my father, I…