Anyone watching the opening ceremonies would be forgiven for thinking that Canada is a nation of English-speaking, fiddle-playing white people who get along well with the First Nations minority and, oh yeah, have some happy Francophones in their midst as well. There were a fair number of comments following the ceremonies expressing disappointment that our country’s diversity wasn’t better represented. Hopefully, they said, this would be rectified in the closing ceremonies. Silly people.

I never met Lois Hashimoto, but was saddened to hear of her passing on January 8th in Laval, Québec. Lois was a regular contributor to the letters-to-the-editor section over the years, firing off an e-mail whenever she was offended by an article in The Bulletin. She seemed to have a soft-spot for me for some reason, but there were definitely issues that pushed her buttons.
I remember she came down hard on me one time about a statement I made in a piece I had written about the internment. I don’t …

Happy New Year to our members, readers, advertisers and amazing volunteers. With the noughties behind us (a somewhat unappealing name, but I’ve yet to hear anything better), we head into a decade that promises to be as wild and filled with uncertainty as the last one. As for The Bulletin, we enter our 52nd year with an ongoing mandate of serving the Canadian Nikkei community with news, commentary and community profiles. Thanks to everyone for your continued support.

File under Rats Deserting a Sinking Ship
Not to be outdone by the tabloids, …

As 2009 winds down, it’s time to take a collective deep breath. Just try not to take in any water while you’re doing it—the seas have been rather rough of late. Between the icecaps melting, the economy tanking, and the H1N1 virus spreading like a bad rumour, it sometimes seems that the waves are breaking over the bow faster than we can bail.
Yes, it’s been a tumultuous and sometimes depressing year in many ways, the election of Barrack Obama notwithstanding. While the election of the first African American (well, mixed-race) …

In the face of death, life goes on, and it is the living who shoulder the burdens (and the joys) of daily living. Still, watching my three children come into their own as teens and young adults, somehow the burden grows lighter, if that makes any sense.

As our family walked through the international arrivals terminal at YVR on our way home from Japan at the beginning of August, my daughter Kaya looked at me and said, “People are so rude in Canada!” As we’d only been back on Canadian soil for 20 minutes or less, the judgement seemed rather harsh, but I knew what she meant.
I remember arriving home after my first trip to Japan in 1982 and having that same feeling—of standing in the middle of a crowded downtown mall and feeling, not exactly frightened, …

It is one thing to read about the living conditions in Internment camps, it’s another to see actual dwellings as they would have looked like, and to imagine two families living in it. Both girls were fascinated by the various artefacts and the attempts to make the places feel like home.

In this month’s lead story, I talk to Teppei Fujino, a Japanese baseball fan working for the Vancouver Canadians. His mission? To get Japanese Canadians back into baseball. Perhaps not at the level of pre-World War Two Asahi (although wouldn’t that be something?!), but at least in greater numbers than now. With players like Ichiro and Daisuke making their mark on the major leagues, maybe it’s time to take someone you care about “out to the ball game.”

I have come to understand that for myself, oral history has an immediacy and intimacy that third-person histories and biographies often fail to capture. So even though I failed at the time to appreciate the rich history that surrounded me as I was growing up in the Strathcona neighbourhood, I am still able to access the stories that were captured by those who had more foresight than I did.

Having deep roots doesn’t mean one is cut one off from the many possibilities of life. On the contrary, they can provide nourishment and sustenance throughout ones’ life. And really, strong and healthy roots below ground ultimately lead to strong and healthy branches reaching upwards towards the sky.