Where were you born, and where did you spend the war years?
I was born in Mission City, BC in 1927 on my father’s farm on Mt. Maryanne where the Westminster Abbey presently stands. My earliest memories are of Santa’s visits, sleigh rides, watching a black bear approach as we hid in a shed, mochitsuki, potato roasts on our cliff, singing and watching the moon come up over Mt. Baker, the summer influx of friends who came from Vancouver to pick berries in the summer, and most of all, our parents love. In 1934 we moved to Dewdney where there were only four nisei in the four-room school. We met with no racial discrimination in the community or at school and our best friends were Caucasians. When the war in Europe began we bought war savings bonds, collected foil wrappers, knit for the war effort, and were in the school formation marching cadets. We were heart broken when the war with Japan began and were told we could no longer join the marchers. The four of us stood forlornly by and watched.

In June of 1942 we sadly bid all our friends goodbye and left for Lethbridge, Alberta, where our family of seven was assigned to a small farm. Eldest brother Kim found work as a book keeper in the Broder Canning Co., father as a worker in the cannery and Tak as a student in town. Father also contracted acreage of beet work which was left to mother and the remaining three children (ages 15, 9, 6) to work, with the men-folk helping on the week ends. My mother and I topped beets by moonlight well into the freezing night. But we had our enjoyments: school, participation in basketball games, music festivals and Camp Kasota. After we moved to West Lethbridge my sister and I started piano lessons. Imagine a piano in a shack where our drinking water was carted from the irrigation canal, which was also our swimming pool, where we sat around the kitchen table with one lamp doing our homework while father wrote his interminable letters and his diary, mother reading.

Where did you relocate once the war was over?
In December of 1944 we moved to Montréal to join my brother Kim who had enrolled at McGill for his MA in Commerce on his way to his Chartered Accountancy. I graduated high school the following year with just six months of French thanks to a most understanding examiner. Then came McGill, graduation, a lab technician job in the Anatomy Department, and finally nisei friends. I joined the Nisei Fellowship Group, the drama club, ski outings, dances, choir, softball team. A year later my boss, Dr Friedman, accepted a position as Head of the Department of Anatomy at UBC in the Medical School which was to open in the fall. He asked me to join him and I accepted upon assurances from President Dr Mackenzie that there would be no racial prejudice practiced at UBC. I left BC in 1942 in tears as I felt my country had abandoned me and returned in June 1950 with high hopes for a wonderful future. I worked as a Research Assistant with Dr Friedman for 42 years.
Having lived mostly in the country where prejudice is scarce, I had my first encounter with it when my friend and I went room hunting. On the phone we were told that the room was available but when we appeared at the door they said sorry we just rented it to someone. But there are wonderful people everywhere and our subsequent landlord was one of them.

Can you describe arriving back in Vancouver—what was the mood like among the returning Japanese Canadians?
Vancouver was beautiful, the returning Japanese Canadians were definitely optimistic, excited with their jobs, happy to be ‘home’ again. They started businesses, dry cleaners, gardening, florist shops, corner stores, barber shops, restaurants, garages, not only around Powell Street, but around the city. There were a number of school girls working and completing their education, boys enrolled in vocational schools. The JCs were scattered from Dunbar to Burnaby but gathered in places like the Maria Stella Club at the Sisters of Atonement social centre, or the United Church (where the Buddhist Temple now stands), or the Japanese Language School for community meetings.

You started The Bulletin in 1958. Were you involved in the community before then?
In 1950 I became involved with the Japanese community and had to keep the 200 or more Nikkei returnees informed of our activities. We used a mimeograph machine to print the flyers for mailing. This continued for a number of years and as the Nikkei population grew and with it the activities and mailings, we decided in 1958 to make it a monthly publication. I must admit, my brother Kim in Montreal was the editor of the Montréal Bulletin and I fashioned our publication on his, taking even the name as the JCCA Bulletin. He was editor for over 40 years until his death, while my tenure was but two years until my marriage. I was happy that Gordon Kadota took over the editorship

The Greater Vancouver JCCA was formed in 1952, I believe, three years after restrictions were lifted and Japanese Canadians were allowed to return to the coast. What kind of role did the JCCA play in people’s live back then?
The JCCA played an important role in the local, provincial and national life of the Japanese Canadians. Provincial conventions were held annually in Kelowna, Vernon and Vancouver, the National, less frequently. As I recall,the main issues were obtaining the franchise and the Crown Land Timber Rights. The Greenwood BC group had begun studying these and other cases in 1945 and these people were the forerunners of the Vancouver JCCA. The JCCA brought the community together as we were now scattered from UBC to Aldergrove and beyond. An interesting fact in those days was the tension between the issei and the nisei. Yes, the nissei made representations to the city and the government but within the community the issei still wielded the power. Luckily there were certain issei who understood the nisei and they diplomatically eased the tension towards a smooth working organization. In Vancouver the JCCA along with the social activities, sponsored an Oratorical Contest and a Scholarship that was awarded each year.

Tell me about the operation in those early days, I’m sure it was much different than it is today.
Our Bulletin staff in 1958 consisted of the Japanese section editors, Mr and Mrs T. Sato, art editor Sets Takemoto, circulation manager Bob Miysaka, business manager Barb Adachi, set and typist Chizu Uchida, Gestetner operator Min Urata, and many others who volunteered their services every month to print, collate, staple, address, stamp and finally drive our finished product, usually after midnight, to the downtown post office. Our circulation of 400 included all JC’s in the lower mainland. Our Bulletin budget was I think $40 a month. The assembly was done at the editor’s rented lower level home on Dunbar and 25th, the printing in the furnace area. The postage for mailing at that time was 2 cents.

You’re long-since retired—how do you spend your days now?
My husband Min and I have done a good bit of travelling, the most recent, a South American cruise around Cape Horn, an adventurous trip full of wonder and surprises. At home Min is busy with his mums and his bonsai, his crosswords and sudoku but golf will soon take over as spring has arrived. We both enjoy books, movies, theatre, bridge and entertaining. I enjoy my volunteer work at Nikkei Home and the museum, and the Oral History Project. The nisei are such a unique lot, they have accomplished so much, have done amazing things, have such fascinating stories to tell, but so many of them are too modest to speak of themselves or feel they are not sufficiently eloquent to have their histories recorded. Such a loss to the community as they are gradually leaving us, taking their stories with them.

Min tells me that you and your staff are doing a great job with the Bulletin, bringing to light the many people who are contributing so much to the community. Your coverage includes the issei to the yonsei, all of whom we need to keep the community vibrant and progressive. The Nikkei Centre is doing a great job bringing the generations together with their participation in the sales and social events. The Kaede Seniors Club which is comprised mostly of golfers is gradually attracting the shin issei and I enjoy seeing them socializing with the nisei, in fact the two groups are equally represented on the various committees.

But what of the in-between years, the period following the lifting of wartime restrictions in 1949? The franchise had finally been granted to Japanese Canadians, four years after Japan’s surrender, and they were free to live anywhere in the country and enter any profession. The New Canadian, the only Japanese Canadian newspaper allowed to publish during the war had closed down its Kaslo operations and relocated to Winnipeg. After the uprooting and trauma of the wartime years, it was time for families and individuals to take stock of the situation and plan for the future. For the many who rejected the government’s offer of free passage to war-ravaged Japan there were several choices—put down roots wherever they happened to have touched down, move east, or make their way back to the coast. Virtually all property, including businesses, boats and vehicles had been confiscated and sold at fire sale prices to help pay for the internment, so there was nothing to return to, save memories and a familiar environment. Indeed, many chose to remain in the east, to start over again with a clean slate.

Many felt the pull of the coast, though, and beginning in 1949, Japanese Canadians began filtering slowly back to lower mainland—some returning to fishing or farming, some taking up new occupations. Younger people enrolled in universities or began to enter professions previously barred to them.

It was time of uncertainty, but also of hope, as people began the process of rebuilding their lives. It became evident early on that an umbrella organization was needed to provide advocacy for the community and the Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizen’s Association was formed in 1952.

IN 1950, A YOUNG NISEI NAMED Mickey Nakashima returned to the coast from Montreal. She became involved in the Vancouver community and the JCCA and in 1958 came up with the idea of starting a newsletter for members. She named the new publication The Bulletin, after the Montreal Bulletin, and the rest, as they say, is history.

To look back over 50 years-worth of back issues is to trace, issue by issue, page by page, the rebuilding of the Nikkei community in BC. To look at the 50 years worth as a whole is to see a cross-section of history, the ebb and flow of a community in flux. As can be expected, the transition for the JCCA and the community wasn’t always easy. The issue of how to reintegrate into the mainstream Canadian society begged another question: what kind of identity did the Japanese Canadian community want for itself?

Even as early as the third issue of newly-launched Bulletin, the issue of how Japanese Canadians conducted themselves came to the fore, with the following guest editorial appearing in the June 1958 issue of The Bulletin:

It was ten years ago that the National JCCA and the BCJCCA with its headquarters in Greenwood were fighting to eradicate the last vestige of legal discrimination. The biggest problem at the time was the right to vote. At least 50% of the Japanese population in B.C. at the time were dependent upon employment in crown contracts, on crown land and crown timber. By legal means these employments were closed to those citizens who did not have the right to vote. The battle of course, as you are all aware, was won in 1949 when all Orientals were given the privilege to vote.

With the granting of the franchise, many Japanese Canadians have returned to the fishing industry without any restrictions to their licences; others are operating and maintaining logging camps upon crown land and timber. Other fields, such as pharmacy and law, have all been opened. In the practical sense with the last group of barristers and solicitors admitted to the Law Society of British Columbia all fields of employment, whether professional or otherwise, are now open to the Japanese Canadian.

Therefore it was shocking to hear the other day from a Japanese Canadian whom I believe had seen the worse days of economic discrimination say, “if it weren’t for those DP’s I would not be unemployed.” With the current economic recession there appears to be more of it in the daily conversations of not only Japanese Canadians but also of our society in general. This statement shows an astonishing reversal of the opinions or attitudes of the Japanese Canadians. At one stage we were united to fight such discrimination.

Now in our more favourable atmosphere we are treating the new group of immigrants in the very act which we fought so hard to eliminate. An occidental friend drew two morals from this observation. Firstly, that one easily forgers the hardships and difficulties one had once encountered, and secondly, how well integrated Japanese Canadians are into the current Canadian society and its opinions.

Should we not be more careful of harbouring any sort of discriminating opinions but rather assist those in more unfortunate circumstances? Should we be as any other Canadian and resent the possibility of immigrants taking our jobs? The question is what is integration, and further to what extent should the Japanese Canadian be integrated. Is assimilation our aim? I should leave the topic and let your memory and conscience undertake the answer.

The writer is George Fujisawa, a thirty-year-old nisei who was among the first to return to the coast. A graduate of the UBC law school, he had been called to the bar a month before penning this piece. The opinions shared in this article reflect to a large degree the issue of the day, and that is the degree to which Japanese Canadians, faced with a greater acceptance (both legally and socially) are assimilating into mainstream Canadian society.

ALMOST FROM THE BEGINNING of The Bulletin’s appearance, the question of the JCCA’s usefulness begins to appear in print. In the March 1959 issue, one year into publication, the editorial reads, in part, The JCCA is you and I and all those others whose interests and lives may diverge in a thousand ways, yet who all have the common bond of a racial and cultural ancestry. And as long as this bond exists between the individual members, there will be a Japanese Canadian community and, we hope, a JCCA.

In that same issue, however, a feature piece by Gordon Kadota takes a different view: Today it not only seems that the JCCA is no longer a true representative body of the Japanese Canadian populations, but it is actually void of any such aspects. The majority of Japanese Canadians in Vancouver have absolutely no concern for the organization that is supposed to represent them in their civil and social welfare. The present JCCA is merely a convenient medium for the almost-self-elected executive to assume representative chores. This is not the fault of that executive but the fault of the people, if they ever complain or mumble about misrepresentation.

The piece goes on to point out the general apathy within the Nikkei community and lack of support given to the JCCA. The editor’s note attached to this piece, while questioning some of the conclusions, welcomes the comments and invites others to voice their opinions.

Kadota’s piece would prove prescient, as the theme would be repeated many times over the ensuing years.

In another article, George Fujisawam writing again, asks, Whither to, Vancouver JCCA? He goes on to write, Has the JCCA outlived it usefulness? This question appears to be in the minds of various Japanese Canadians in the city of Vancouver. We have, during the past few years together with other ethnic groups, accomplished the enactment of the ‘Fair Employment Practices Act,’ amendments to the ‘Cemeteries Act,’ and an enactment in the Vancouver by-law known as the ‘Fair Accommodations Practice By-law.’ These are almost the last of the discriminations in our society. Although it is the law of the country, of course, it is only used as a “standard” upon which our society should base their behaviour on the matter of racial and religious discriminations.

THE REFERENCE TO THE CEMETERIES ACT goes back to the April 1960 issue of The Bulletin that highlights discrimination on the part of two Vancouver cemeteries, who practice segregation in the allotment of plots, with Asians and Blacks restricted to certain areas of the cemetery. Due in large part to pressure from the JCCA and threats of wider publicity, the cemetery by-laws that read in part, . . . any person of Asian or African blood in any degree whatsoever shall not be buried in any part of the park except in that portion allotted or set apart for such purposes, were amended, providing, as the article concluded, De-segregation from the cradle to the grave.

Given victories like this, together with the earlier achievement of full rights for Japanese Canadians including the right to vote, the issue of relevance continues to crop up regularly in the pages of The Bulletin. Despite this, the JCCA manages to stay afloat and The Bulletin continues to publish on a more or less regular basis with support from members and the business community. A glance through early issues reveals ads from Kami Insurance, Pender Florists, Maison Lawrence Coiffures (where artistry in hairstyling begins), Regent Television, Mikado Enterprises (Gift Items, Japanese Medicines, Sporting Goods, Groceries), Murakami Studio, Kay’s Seafoods, Japan Airlines (Direct Flight to Tokyo from Seattle), Dave Koby Collision and many others. Amazingly, a number of the above-mentioned companies continue to exist today.

A COMMON THREAD RUNNING through the early writing, apart from the questions of the JCCA’s relevance, is the issue of citizenship, and what that means to the Nikkei community. (I should point out, that while I use the term Nikkei throughout this article, it was not a term that was in usage back then.) Exhortations to vote in upcoming federal elections (along with coverage of the candidates and their platforms) run regularly, as do articles discussing the responsibilities of Japanese Canadians as members of a democracy. These are, one supposes, issues nearer and dearer to the heart of a community that until recently, had no such rights.

As JCCA Board member Arthur Hara writes in the September 1962 issue, Whenever the subject of the JCCA is discussed, inevitably the question is raised, ‘Now that we have complete equality, is the JCCA necessary?’ Let us for a moment examine this question.

It is an elementary proposition that whatever rights are given to a person, those rights may be taken away from him a person who is activated by prejudice and greed. It is up to each person to take adequate measures to ensure that his rights and privileges are not taken from him. The ultimate duty, responsibility, and necessity of providing adequate safeguards against the denial of his rights, rests upon his shoulders, and his shoulders alone. These who shirk this duty and responsibility are only shirking the very duty and responsibility that he inherits as his birthright as a citizen in the free world.

Hara goes on to make a case for the continuing relevance of the JCCA to the community.

This tendency towards self-examination is not confined to the Vancouver JCCA, as frequent articles in The Bulletin show a similar pattern across Canada, extending to the national level. A JCCA National Conference on the 1961 Labour Day weekend is called to look at the future of the JCCA.

Still, for the most part, the early Bulletin tends towards lighter fare. A 1960 issue announces the opening of the Nitobe Gardens at UBC. In October 1960, it is announced that founding Editor Mickey Nakashima is stepping down to marry Min Tanaka. Mickey, without a shade of a doubt, has accomplished a “par excellence’ task for the JCCA ever since she returned to BC in 1950. Thus the Bulletin editorial torch is passed on for the first, but certainly not the last, time. Feature writer Gordon Kadota takes over as Editor, a post he would hold for a number of years.

Under Kadota, The Bulletin content continues to reflect the current preoccupations of the day. Regular notices include information on JCCA picnics (held at various parks throughout the lower mainland), bowling clubs (including the Nisei Mixed 10 Pin Bowling League and 5 Pin League), Nisei Badminton Club, Nisei Varsity Club, miscellaneous sports news, news on visiting Japanese training ships, regular reports from the Vancouver United Church and Anglican Church, the Vancouver Buddhist Church, classified ads, consulate news and reports, JCCA Scholarship recipients, membership drives, Canadian citizenship examinations, and the annual keirokai. In the July 1962 issue, an announcement is posted, notifying members of the inaugural JCCA Golf Tournament, to be held in Chilliwack. News from outside the immediate community makes the odd appearance, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.

During the mid 1960s, the debate over the usefulness of the JCCA, coupled with the struggle to attract members continues. Still, there seems room for hope. In the March 1965 issue, Tom Hara writes: Today the Japanese Canadian enjoys all of the rights and most of the privileges of this democratic country. In fact, they enjoy a better than average standard of living founded on hard work and perseverance in the pursuit of their employment and business. Japanese culture is in vogue and considered ‘the thing’ among high society and to a lesser degree among the average public. Japanese cooking and flower arranging classic (sic) abound with interest and activity. Modern architectural designs reflect the simplicity and beauty of Japan. The volume of Japanese business, particularly in mining and logging, is most vital to the continued economic boom in Canada. Almost everyone has a transistor radio or camera made in Japan and many are buying Japanese cars.
A November 1966 headline by Gordon Kadota (now President of the JCCA) announces, So We Shall Continue.

WITH 1967, AND THE CANADIAN CENTENNIAL in full swing, a sense of optimism seems to grip the country and the tone of The Bulletin begins to shift with it. The June 1967 issue kicks of with this upbeat statement: Looking at all the current events and planned projects of the JCCA, this year appears to be one of the more if not the most active year of the recent JCCA. The Nisei council members, with welcomed support from the Isseis, are exerting a genuine effort to serve both the community and society.

The priority project for the Vancouver Japanese Canadian community during the Expo year is the donation of a crocodile pool to the Vancouver Aquarium. That same June issue features this report on the front page: The B.C. Japanese Canadians’ Centennial Project to donate a Crocodile Pool to the Aquarium has surpassed the $7,500 goal in a short six months after it started last December.

As of May 31st when the campaign was officially ended, 263 pledges of $30.00 each totalling $7,890.00 was received. Although pledges were accepted for payments over a period of two years, the actual cash received is $7,226.00, an amazing 91% of the pledges.

ANOTHER SIGNIFICANT OCCURRENCE in 1967 is the new immigration policies put in place by the Trudeau government, using a point system, rather than race, to determine eligibility of new immigrants to come to Canada. With this new policy in place a new wave of immigrants from Japan begins, bringing new faces into the Nikkei community.

These two short notices from the Japanese United Church News section of January 1967 Bulletin show the increasing part that new immigrants are starting to play in the community.

Niseis Welcome New Comers:
The Nisei group of the Renfrew United Church has undertaken a project to make the recent immigrants from Japan feel at home. Approximately forty Niseis got together at two social gatherings in the holiday season. Already a warm relationship is developing between these two groups. We are hoping to have these young people as an integral part of our regular Nisei group.

Nobody Fails in English Class:
Classes designed for New Canadians and Immigrants are being Held every Wednesday evening, 7:30 P.M. at First United Church, Gore and Hastings. This class is especially beneficial to those find the Vancouver School Board’s New Canadian Classes difficult to follow. Instructions are given in both English and Japanese. There is also a club for those who are preparing for their Canadian Citizenship examination; Japanese Nationals who have been here more than five years and wives of Canadians more than one year. About 30 pupils have gone through this class and we are proud of the fact that no one has failed to pass the Citizenship test. If any Niseis are interested in volunteering as teachers, please contact Miss Grace Namba.

IN 1968, THE BULLETIN CELEBRATES its tenth birthday. By this time the format has evolved from a collection of type-written sheets to a more standard magazine format, although the Japanese section continues to be written out by hand. The Bulletin is on its eighth editor by this point.

The Anniversary editorial concludes with this statement: Less and less emphasis should be placed on the immigrants and older generation and more and more upon the vital and policy moulding citizens of today and tomorrow. It should express the thoughts and ambitions of the people of our race within the context of the Canadian society.

We must partake in the emergence of nationhood; in the political, social and economic forces that are part and parcel of ‘Canada after Expo 67.’

Over the next ten years, The Bulletin, having survived its infancy, continues to provide a forum for Japanese Canadians in the Greater Vancouver area and beyond, growing from an initial readership of 200 families to over 4,000 by 1977. The tendency towards inward-looking reflection has given away for the most part to a more outward, proactive stance. This is reflected in the involvement of Japanese Canadians, specifically Nisei, in Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan, with Canadians like Frank Moritsugu and Norman Takeuchi involved in the Canadian Pavilion there.

In January, 1969, an article by Richard Kazuta brings up the subject of building a Japanese Cultural Centre in Vancouver. He announces that an interim Cultural Centre committee has been struck to contact other Japanese Canadian organizations to collect their views. This is the first mention of what would eventually become the National Nikkei Heritage Centre, some 30 years after it is first proposed. Although the initial meetings are informal, they set the scene for a push by the Vancouver Japanese Canadian community to not only provide a legacy for future generations, but to take ownership of their own history and culture. By the early 70s, it became clear that a seniors housing component should be included in the plans for a cultural centre.

OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL YEARS, the JCCA engages in a research project, funded by the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, to look at the feasibility of building a seniors home. Questionnaires are sent out to thousands of homes with three stated purposes: to obtain a picture of the Japanese Canadian community in BC; to solicit response for a Japanese Canadian community centre; and to solicit response for a Japanese Canadian seniors citizens home.

The responses to the survey, published in The Bulletin, provide a fascinating overview of the state of the community and are used to help plan future projects, including the creation of Sakura-so on Powell Street and, years down the road, the Nikkei Place complex in Burnaby.

In April, 1972, the JCCA presents a brief to a conference on the Role of Cultural Minorities in Bilingual Society.

The brief reads, in part, The Japanese Canadian experience is unique in recent Canadian history and we would be remiss in our duties if we do not warn others that even in this relatively enlightened nation, citizenship cannot be taken for granted, and that full participation as citizens is possible only after such time that all ethnic groups, majorities and minorities, recognize and respect as valid those special racial qualities inherent in all peoples and the proposition that these qualities cannot but help enrich our society.
Of the conference, Board member Harry Aoki writes, The existence of racial discrimination was attested to by all the non-European minorities but the saddest plight in Canada appears to be that of non-status Indians whose-economic status is at a lower than acceptable level.

The conference revealed that the collective power of minorities is considerable and that co-operation between groups could develop a potent political force (30%) while the smaller groups such as the Japanese Canadians (0.1%) standing by themselves could be ignored with impunity by those in power.

The cultural emphasis also underlines the important role of our new immigrants, but it also shows that those who arrive with “Americanized” attitudes would need to seriously re-evaluate the rationale behind the trend to deliberately discard their natural heritage.

The JCCA needs to support the efforts of our serious-minded Sansei in their first attempts to actively help our society, and their deep and sincere concern for the Issei gives all of us cause to re-examine the priorities within our community.

IN 1975, THE BULLETIN ANNOUNCES THAT author Ken Adachi has neared completion of a book, The History of the Japanese Canadians. The book, eventually titled The Enemy that Never Was, is the first comprehensive look at the history of the Nikkei in Canada.

Around the same time, former New Canadian Editor Toyo Takata, identifies Manzo Nagano as the first known Japanese immigrant to Canada. He pinpints 1877 as the year of Nagano’s arrival and begins to make a case for the celebration of the Centennial in 1977.

Writing in the June 1976 Bulletin, he makes his case: According to a relative, Manzo Nagano stowed aboard a British ship sailing out of Yokohama in March 1877. While steam-powered ships were in existence at that time, the ship he boarded was most likely under sail. Assuming that this is correct, he would then have reached the West Coast likely in May.

To expedite Centennial planning, therefore, the Centennial Organizing Committee in Toronto has designated Saturday, May 14th as Centennial Day, the day commemorating Manzo Nagano’s first historic step ashore 100 years ago. Ideally, it is the most appropriate time of the year almost anywhere in Canada to open the 1977 Japanese Canadian Centennial Celebrations, continuing on during the spring, summer and early fall, possibly closing around the end of October.

Everything has a beginning. Japanese presence in Canada began nearly 100 years ago when the brash young Manzo Nagano set foot on Canadian soil. To everyone in Canada who traces ancestral ties to Japan, Centennial in ‘77 is a significant milestone.

The Japanese Canadian community takes up the idea and 1977 is declared the Centennial Year. If the 1967 Canadian Centennial provided a shot in the arm to the Japanese Canadian community, renewing their commitment to their adopted home, the Japanese Canadian Centennial completes the process, signifying a maturation of attitude and a greater sense of self-confidence. Events are held across the country in centres small and large.

In Vancouver, a new festival is announced. The Powell Street Festival will be held in Oppenheimer Park, known to most Nikkei as the Powell Grounds, the home of the legendary prewar Asahi baseball team.

to be continued . . .

Next month: The Redress Years and Beyond

When British Columbia is celebrating its Centennial Year with myriad kinds of activities, it is fitting that the Vancouver J.C.C.A. has chosen this year for the launching of this Bulletin. For this, too, is a sign of progress. Indeed, our community has grown together with this province and has contributed tangibly to its development; this is evident in the ever-increasing number of Japanese Canadians who are engaged successfully in the professions, trades, and industries. For some time there has been felt a need for a regular publication of this kind because in the past decade the local Japanese community has gained steadily in both size and stature. An organ of this nature will help to disseminate news of special interest to the Japanese community and be a vehicle for expressing thoughts of common interest

As we celebrate the Centenary and rejoice in the fact that we are an integral part of this wonderful province which has rewarded our endeavours abundantly for half a century, let us be mindful that while this citizenship has granted us privileges, it has increased our civic responsibility. Since the J.C.C.A. is the only nationally representative organization for Canadians of Japanese origins, it shoulders a tremendous responsibility. Whenever an important issue confronts us, it is inevitably the J.C.C.A. who must take it up on our behalf. When civic and other groups seek contact with the Japanese, they often approach the J.C.C.A. Yet those who are not familiar with the amount of routine work which the J.C.C.A. performs may believe that the organization is inactive or may even doubt its usefulness. It is hoped that the Bulletin will bring to their notice highlights of such functions. For the fact is, there are still matters that require careful attention. Not the least of these is the maintenance of good public relations with the general community. The efficacy of the J.C.C.A. depends heavily on the many fine men and women of our community who serve with devotion for the benefit of our community and country.

Complacency is an evil Japanese Canadians can ill afford. Let us believe positively in ourselves so that we may never be at a loss to show our good citizenship. Opportunities are everywhere—at work, school, church, clubs, and sports functions to name a few. Everyone is a potential public-relations man.

In April, in a house at First Avenue and Dunbar in Vancouver, a little magazine called simply The Bulletin is born. Consisting of a half dozen typewritten pages, the new publication has a simple purpose—to provide the Japanese Canadian families who have arrived back on the coast following the wartime internment a source of information. It is a place to read about the comings and goings of the community and to catch up on news, both local and national.

This month, 50 years later, we look back at the long and sometime tumultuous publishing history of The Bulletin/Geppo. As Editor since October, 1993, it is humbling to look back over fifty years worth of issues, to see the work that my predecessors in the Editor’s chair poured into this publication—month after month, year after year. They are indeed hard shoes to fill. Anyway, there’s a lot to read this month, so I’ll leave you now.

PS: on the cover, there is a mention of an interview with long-time managing editor Fumiko Greenaway. Due to this special issue being split up into two, with Part II running next month, the interview will appear in the May issue.

Ian, you put together the New Canadian exhibit that is on display now at the Japanese Canadian Nation Museum. Could you please tell me what it means to you?

When I first started working on and learning about The New Canadian some fifteen years ago, it was part of larger projects at the Langham and did not receive my full attention. There was a museum to build and employees to manage and deadlines to meet.

With the opening of the Kaslo show on the 50th anniversary of the 1st Kaslo issue of The New Canadian in 1992, I was fortunate enough to spend time with Tommy and Frank and got hooked on the “Great Canadian Newspaper Story.” I was fascinated by both the depth and speed of change: Both the Japanese Canadian community and The New Canadian as its voice had to adjust to crisis on an ongoing basis. Most social or community change is slow business. Kaslo and all the ghost towns were suddenly totally different places, peopled by new and very shocked people. Naomi Klein’s recently developed analogy of massive rapid change as Shock Therapy comes to mind.

As A. P. Allsebrook, a great Kaslo friend of the Nikkei said in a NC letter in 1943, (responding to a recent “Jap baiting” letter in the Nelson News): “Defending our leading citizens from contemptuous intolerance is my duty and pleasure . . . The majority of our able-bodied young Nisei are homeless, driven, bewildered, shamelessly robbed of their possessions, reviled and humiliated, yet remain willing to vindicate their honour and loyalty to Canada by enlisting for service: But our priceless politicians will have none of them.”

Though the NC writers had to toe or move the censor’s line, Tommy’s understanding of his mission, his power and his responsibility to lighten the burden of his people made the paper a critical and pioneering voice in the “Canadian Civil Rights Movement.” A newspaper of national and lasting importance.

And some “accidents” are important. Imagine my surprise in Victoria, years later when Tommy walks down the street in front of my brother’s house and I am able to introduce him to my brother’s wife, a recent immigrant from Japan and his neighbour. While I was able to visit Tommy a couple more times in Victoria, his health was fading. When I called to tell him about the short New Canadian section I had done for Aya’s Story, I realized that it was too late for his good advice.

Like most small town non-profits, the Langham Cultural Society goes through its ebbs and flows, depending on the interests and energies of the people involved. As a multi-use facility in a town of a thousand, there have been discouraging times when paying the bills and keeping the wheels on the road seemed major issues. Lately with some key and competent people like Alice Windsor noting the constant stream of Nikkei visitors and understanding the historic importance of our ecomuseum, we are working towards its significant renewal. We have gathered many new images and voices from the past over the winter. The Langham Collection contains over 200 images and 30 interviews on ghost town life—a collection of national significance. As I digitize this legacy and update our museum, time’s march (leki tei) makes The New Canadian the ultimate authentic source document on internment. The seniors I’ve interviewed this winter were teenagers or youngsters during internment and their voices also will soon be stilled.

Although some pieces of the funding puzzle are slow falling into place, this summer’s visitors to the Langham will note new material tastefully presented, new lighting and the increased coherence of our presentation. Information or financial assistance as always, is welcome at The Langham Cultural Society, Box 1000, Kaslo BC, V0G1M0 and should be directed towards the Japanese Canadian Museum Renewal Project.

So after Pearl Harbor and the war beginning against Japan in early December 1941, when the three Japanese-language dailies were closed by the Mounties and only The NC was allowed to keep publishing, it changed from an all-English weekly for Nisei, temporarily to a thrice-weekly sheet with some nihongo for the issei (especially material issued by the federal government about restrictions and other conditions enforced on us).

By the way, a full-fledged Japanese section probably didn’t begin until after the paper moved to Kaslo but am unclear about that situation having been away in a road camp near Revelstoke at that time.

Back to my first stint on The NC: It was a few days after the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7th, and this ex-high-school-editor/ graduate (class of 1940) was working for his landscape-gardener father. But I had little to do then because even in Vancouver grass and weeds don’t grow much at that time of the year. On hearing that The NC was going to come out three times weekly, I phoned Tom at his Powell Street office and offered my help with the extra work the paper had become. He said come on down.

So starting on Monday Dec. 15, the week after the Pearl Harbor attack, I joined the staff in Nihonmachi and learned how a real newspaper was put together from the boss Tommy Shoyama, as well as other staffers such as Yoshi Higashi—original editor Peter Shinobu Higashi’s younger brother—and Seiji Onizuka who was the sports editor. I learned how to type my stories in the Hotel World office and did many things including getting coffee for my elders. I wrote a column filled with hep talk as it was called then (became “hip” later). And the regulars among The New Canadian crowd called me the young staff jitterbug.

This means I was present at a downtown information source during that crisis period when the government was deciding what to do with us; cars, trucks & radios were confiscated; dusk-to-dawn curfew was enforced, and eventually “evacuation” was announced.

I left that first NC stint in February 1942 because the initial announcement about the issei males being sent away to work camps inland meant Dad would be going, and as the eldest son I had better be at home with Mom and my brothers and sisters.

Then after “mass evacuation” was decided, I was sent to the Yard Creek highway work camp, one of five men-only for Canadian-born and naturalized males in the Revelstoke-Sicamous chain. I was at that “road camp” (as we came to call them) from April 1942 until August 1943. That was when Tom Shoyama contacted me via mail asking if I would join The New Canadian staff again, this time in Kaslo and as the assistant English editor replacing Roy Ito. Roy had been accepted by McMaster University in Hamilton. I had known Roy since meeting him in the Powell Street New Canadian office during that last Vancouver winter.

So being allowed to leave the road camp to go to Kaslo to work for Tommy was my second time around. That period lasted about seven months. Under Tommy’s editorship my writing and editing improved, while watching Tommy in action daily taught me much about life and how to handle things in a most positive way.

And in the second half of each week, I would move into the printing shop side next door to our large one-room editors’ office in Kaslo. Then we’d put each English page together, with each column-width line of words in slugs of lead created by young Junji Ikeno on the linotype machine. These leads were put into a frame, following the pencilled page-layouts. Then we would pick the larger-type headlines, character by character and carried on a handheld “stick” and then loaded into the spaces reserved for them. When each page was done and locked firmly into its frame, two of us would carry the completed frame into the next room where the hand-fed printer stood, hoping against hope that nothing would come loose and drop out. If anything did, that disaster meant making the page or a part of it all over again after picking up the fallen bits from the floor and figuring out how to arrange them in the proper order. That was much more difficult and frustrating than putting the toughest jigsaw puzzle together.

As for the Japanese pages, each character in the stories as well as the headlines had to be picked by hand from the various type boxes and put together. That meticulous work was done by the two Japanese-section editors, Mr. Takaichi Umezuki (whom we all called “T.U.”) and Harold Mayeda (Mayeda-san)—both being issei and older.

All this Kaslo training in the pre-computer era stood me in good stead, too, when I became a mainstream magazine and newspaper editor in the postwar years.

My Kaslo stay also meant living with Tom Shoyama and the third NC bachelor—linotypist Junji Ikeno from Lemon Creek (he was a member of the Ikeno printing family)—in a lakeside cottage near Kaslo’s Vimy Park. (In my Kaslo columns I used to call our place Lakeside Villa.)

As for my “aspirations” about becoming a journalist, although I loved the work I never dreamed back then while working on The New Canadian of becoming such a professional. Growing up in BC in the 1920s and 1930s like my nisei contemporaries I knew that nobody who looked like me and had a name like mine could become a journalist on a non-JC publication.

Years later, my mind was completely changed by a dramatic happening that occurred in 1946 in Toronto, and after my overseas service with the Canadian Army in Southeast Asia.

Is there any one incident that sticks out in your mind from those days?
Nothing particularly to do directly with the paper. But going to Kaslo in August 1943 from a road camp meant that for about a month I was allowed to play hardball with one of the two JC teams that played at Vimy Park. The player-managers of the two teams were the two Vancouver Asahis who were sent to Kaslo: catcher Ken Kutsukake and pitcher Naggy Nishihara who had been battery-mates during the final Asahi seasons in Vancouver. I played outfield on Naggy’s team. I had also played a fair amount of softball during the two summers at the Yard Creek road camp, in the house league and also against other camps on warm-weather weekends.

It must have been difficult keeping the censors happy yet still serving as an advocate for the Nikkei community and speaking out against injustice—how did you keep that balance?
That was Tommy the boss editor’s responsibility and he did it so well I became one of many lucky individuals who were so privileged to be allowed to work with him when the world had turned bad for all of us. The dealing with the censor weekly was just being literal and then doing what was ordered in the return telegram (sometimes deleting an entire piece, sometime just deleting a sentence or a paragraph or a section and sometimes not having to make any changes at all.)

What do you see as the main achievement of The New Canadian during the Kaslo years?
Keeping up the morale of our readers as much as possible, informing them of what was happening that they couldn’t learn anywhere else, helping to make them feel their under-attack community still kept existing so they would survive the wholly unjustified mistreatment by our government. And at the same time convincing those other Canadians who were open-minded enough to pay attention that we were loyal citizens of our own country no matter what any racist alleged.

Was The New Canadian sent out to the self-supporting camps and to people in the east, or was it confined to the Kootenay area?
So far as I remember, it was sent anywhere in Canada and also to United States addresses. So keeping morale up and keeping JCs and others informed was not just a local goal.

You are now publisher of the Nikkei Voice—do you see the paper carrying on some of the legacy of The New Canadian, or do you think the times are now so different that the role of community papers like The Nikkei Voice and The Bulletin has changed?
Actually I am past publisher—Mel Tsuji replaced me, bless his soul, last year. But in the 12 years or so that I was publisher, I did my best to pass on The New Canadian legacy to my comrades, nisei and sansei (it obviously will always be a part of me).

However, in this post-redress era it’s not so much the community morale but keeping the sense of the Japanese Canadian community together that is of vital importance. We are so scattered now in Canada as well as in other places as the States, Japan, etc. And, as I said in a lecture I delivered last year at the University of Toronto last year, there are no Japantowns in Canada the way there are Chinatowns, Koreatowns, Little Indias and so on. All the more reason why news about people they know and topics that they are familiar with are priorities for the Nikkei Voice staff, in addition to dealing with racism of any kind. And although the staff are mostly sansei or postwar ijusha now, getting more of the younger generations from sansei down to become regular Voice readers the way their parents and grandparents have been is a toughie we try to achieve year by year.

Despite what you said earlier, you did go on to a career in journalism. Tell me a little about that.
As mentioned, growing up in prewar BC as I did, despite my being elected editor-in-chief of the student newspaper of the province’s largest high school (I was elected by the high-school journalism class in which I was the only non-white) and the newspaper winning a Pacific Northwest high-school newspaper award that year, I never dreamt that getting a job on a newspaper or a magazine was possible, even at the Kitsilano Times, the community newspaper at whose plant the KHS Life was printed—and this feeling of mine was strong well before Pearl Harbor and the wartime incarceration, etc.

After the Kaslo NC time and my move to Ontario to join my family, I worked for a year as a farmhand and then when the chance finally came, volunteered for the Canadian Army and served in Southeast Asia as a Japanese-language interpreter-translator with the rank of sergeant in the Canadian Army Intelligence Corps attached to the British counter-intelligence forces. On returning to Canada and becoming a civilian again, I decided to use my veteran’s benefits by going the post-secondary route, and applied to the Ontario College of Art in Toronto (back at Kitsilano High School, I also had been the school cartoonist in Grades 11 and 12.)

But in 1946 there were so many student veterans on campuses that late returnees like me had to wait an entire college year to enroll.

After working in the harvest in the 1946 summer at our St. Thomas home, I visited Toronto for a while. Irene Uchida, who I’d gotten to know during my Powell Street NC days, had followed my New Canadian career (so to speak). This subsequent Order of Canada member and internationally-respected biologist and McMaster professor emeritus had been the first female columnist for the Vancouver New Canadian. Irene suggested why didn’t I see B.K. Sandwell, the editor of Saturday Night magazine? He had been a strong supporter of our postwar anti-deportation cause as a leading member of the Co-operative Committee for Japanese Canadians. I had nothing better to do so phoned him and got an appointment to visit him at his magazine’s office in downtown Toronto.

He was a very nice gentleman, English to the core, and asked me all about my wartime experiences. Then he said, “Moritsugu, why aren’t the Japanese still back in B.C. refusing to come east, even though the camps have been closed?” I answered by giving him 5 or 6 reasons (being 23 at the time I knew all the answers). Dr. Sandwell then said, “Why don’t you write about this for Saturday Night?”

Well, I did some research and wrote the article (my first for a magazine) on a borrowed typewriter in the attic of the friend’s home that I was staying at in Toronto. Irene and Kunio Hidaka, two older Nisei, went over my draft and I followed some of their suggestions and then sent the piece to Dr. Sandwell.

Then back on the farm in St. Thomas, this was in October 1946, I got a call from Japanese editor T.U. Umezuki from the New Canadian office then in Winnipeg. My successor in Kaslo as assistant editor Noji Murase who had moved with the paper to Manitoba the year before was leaving to join his family in Hamilton. If I wasn’t doing anything now that I have been discharged from the Army, would I like to come to Winnipeg and work for the paper again? This time the editor was Kasey Oyama who took over when Tommy Shoyama enlisted in the Army the year before.

So back to the NC I went, for my third and final time. A month later in November 1946, my Saturday Night article appeared. I rushed to a downtown Winnipeg store and bought several copies—of my very first national magazine article. On looking the piece over, and comparing it with the carbons, I found only two short paragraphs missing, and neither was more than being connectors. In effect, my article had been published almost as is, and probably cut a bit to fit into the editorial space between the ads on those back pages.

After my euphoria wore off, it suddenly hit me. Why was I waiting to go to the Ontario College of Art the following September? If with my limited experience, a national magazine had published me, I didn’t have to fall back and become a third-rate commercial artist. I didn’t live in BC anymore with all those doors barred to those like me. In this different world in Eastern Canada I could become a journalist, my first love.

I wrote to my high-school journalism teacher in Vancouver for advice. Miss Jean Story replied why not ask Dr. Sandwell, after all he had been a university professor. So I followed his advice, took a liberal arts program at the University of Toronto. In my third year I was elected editor-in-chief of The Varsity which was a five-times-a-week student daily back then. I won the best editorial award in the annual Canadian University Press competition. And unknown to me, one of the judges of that competition had been Ralph Allen, the best Maclean’s magazine editor ever. In my fourth and final year, he hired me part-time, as an assistant copy editor so I could learn the specific skills during my final semester at U of T

And that’s how this “Jap boy from B.C.” got to be a staffer on Maclean’s, Canadian Homes & Gardens, Toronto Star and the Montreal Star.

And who started it all for me? I was lucky to have the encouragement and support of Miss Jean Story, my KHS English and journalism teacher. And who laid my professional journalistic foundations that made all the rest possible: Tommy Shoyama whose The New Canadian in Vancouver and Kaslo was the essential community machine which helped the prewar nisei and also the issei, to survive one of the worst injustices our nation has committed.

Tommy Shoyama
from the Langham tape collection

When The New Canadian began publishing on Kaslo’s Front Street on November 30, 1942, it became the primary source of news for a community that had been exiled from their homes on the west coast. The only Japanese Canadian newspaper allowed to publish during the war, it carried news of friends and family members in the various camps, along with official proclamations and government policy directives.

The New Canadian originally began publishing in 1938 in Vancouver, home to the vast majority of Japanese Canadians. Over 60% were Canadian-born, English-speaking nisei. Billed as the “voice of the Nisei,” the English-only paper carried news of interest to the younger nisei, a generation caught between the expectations of their parents and the lure of the mainstream Canadian culture.

Once the evacuation from the coast began in earnest, the government decided that it would be prudent to allow the paper to continue publishing, with heavy oversight and censorship of course. Realizing that it needed a way to communicate with the Japanese-speaking issei, the decision was made to turn The New Canadian into a bilingual publication.

Tom Shoyama, who had taken over from original editor Peter Higashi in 1939, carried on as English editor and Takaichi Umezuki was recruited as Japanese editor.

Remembers his daughter Marge Umezuki: “I was seven when we were forced to leave Vancouver. On the train, an Italian Canadian conductor befriended us. He said that it was a real shame what they were doing to us. They weren’t doing it to the Italians or the Germans. We stayed in Slocan for about five months I think. My father was apparently still in Vancouver because he was ill. When Tom Shoyama called him to set up a Japanese section of The New Canadian we moved to Kaslo to join him.”

MUNISUKE IKENO WAS SENT BACK TO VANCOUVER to retrieve the Japanese fonts needed to print the Japanese-language section of the paper. The trip also had an unexpected outcome. As former New Canadian Staffer Noji Murase told the Nikkei Voice in 2002, “Amongst the articles confiscated by the Custodian of Enemy Alien Property, warehoused together with the fonts of Japanese type which had belonged to his printing business prior to the evacuation, Mr. Ikeno found a box of harmonicas. With the beginning of the Japanese language section of The New Canadian, the Lemon Creek Harmonica Band was also founded.”

While The New Canadian staff set about preparing to publish, the newcomers and the townspeople were getting to know each other. Says Aya Higashi, “Most of the people in Kaslo had never seen Japanese people. With the propaganda, they had heard terrible things about us. Suddenly a town of 500 was to receive 1100 or 1200 hundred new residents. Were they enemy or foreigners? You could see why the townsfolk would be apprehensive. But most of them treated us very well.”

Marje Umezuki has fond memories of those days: “We moved into a house up the hill on Sutherland’s Farm along with the staff of the New Canadian. My mother used to cook for the whole gang. There was Tom Shoyama, Roy Ito, Harry Kondo and a gentle older man who spoke Japanese, who used to be a photographer and had a collection of beautiful photographs. And I remember Junji Ikeno, Noji Murase and others. They used to play poker in the evenings. I remember it as a very pleasant time. It was like having a bunch of fun-loving uncles who used to kid us all the time . . .”

THE SITUATION WAS FAR FROM IDEAL OF COURSE. Government policy dictated that all copy be vetted by censors, which added an extra strain on top of the pressure of publishing on time week after week. As Frank Moritsugu wrote in a 1958 edition of The New Canadian, “The week’s issue could not be ‘put to bed’ on the press until the wire arrived from the censor (usually late Thursday) giving approval or suggesting certain deletions. What the Censor of Enemy-Language Publications, based in Vancouver, got from us were carbons of all our copies—English and Japanese. And accompanying the Japanese copy were English summaries, which the assistant editor had whipped together on Wednesdays with help of the Kenkyusha dictionary, help from the Japanese editor and a lot of curses.”

Moritsugu says that as the assistant English editor under Tom Shoyama “It was my job to collect all the carbons of items in the issue, and also translate all the nihongo items from Messers Umezuki and Mayeda, so that the Censor of Enemy-Language Publications could do his checking more quickly to meet our weekly deadlines. And that translating for the censor was begun by Roy Ito, my predecessor as assistant editor in Kaslo, and author of We Went to War, Storfies of My People, etc. Noji Murase who succeeded me when I left to join the family who had moved from Tashme to Southern Ontario told me recently he wasn’t able to do such translations, so am unsure who looked after that from early 1944 until the end of the war.”

Any criticism of the government and government policies was forbidden and in 1944, the censors threatened to shut down The New Canadian for criticizing the racist tendencies of Vancouver’s mayor. Shoyama responded to the threat with an editorial that began, “Despite all the things that have been said and done since Pearl Harbor, and despite all the things that becloud the horizon, this Dominion Day serves as an appropriate time to re-affirm here the fundamental purpose for the existence of this Newspaper. That purpose, simply, is to lift a voice and fight to establish the right and privilege of every citizen, irrespective of his racial origin, to walk with equal dignity, freedom and service amongst his fellow Canadians.”

TOM SHOYAMA AND THE REST of the New Canadian staff saw it as their duty to try to keep morale high and to reaffirm the sense of themselves and their fellow internees as Canadians, despite being labelled “enemy aliens.” Treading the line between advocating for their readers and serving as a forum for government directives was often difficult.

As Shoyama said many years later, “Our people were filled with such great feeling of fear, dread, bitterness, anger, and resentment. And we all wondered what the future held for us. To try to create some stability and to try to fill in that huge gap of the unknown was the role of our newspaper.”

IN 1945, FOLLOWING JAPAN’S surrender, The New Canadian moved to Winnipeg, in line with its own editorial policy advocating eastern relocation for Japanese Canadians. Kasey Oyama took over as editor when Tom Shoyama volunteered for the Canadian Army.

In 1949, the paper relocated for the final time, to Toronto, where Toyo Takata took over as editor. The New Canadian, under various editors, continued publishing until 2001, when it closed down due to a combination of declining readership and decreasing advertising sales. The last issue was published in September of that year, nearly 63 years after it first appeared.

An exhibit now on at the Japanese Canadian National Museum looks at the Kalso years of The New Canadian. Developed by the Langham Cultural Society in Kaslo and curated by Ian Fraser, the exhibit features 40 images of New Canadian newsroom staff and Kaslo life between 1942 and 1945, summarizing the Japanese Canadian newspaper story and the careers of the leaders who created it.

All quotes from the Langham tape collection except where noted, courtesy of the Virtual Museum of Canada. Copyright the Langham Cultural Society.

Exhibit
THE NEW CANADIAN Newspaper
March 28-April 19, 2008
Japanese Canadian National Museum

Friday, April 18, 7pm
Presentation by Ian Fraser “A tribute to THE NEW CANADIAN Heroes”

Saturday, April 19, 2pm
Gallery tour by Ian Fraser followed by a closing reception.