My response to the first question surprised me a little, as it was something I’d never articulated before. And it was this: I care about Japan and Japanese culture in the sense that it is the country and culture of my ancestors on my mother’s side. I am also attracted to the culture in the way that many non-Japanese are drawn to it. It is an easy culture to tap into, at least on a number of superficial levels, not the least of which is aesthetics, which have always been important to me. I certainly don’t feel any ownership of the culture—I have no innate claim to being Japanese. To be honest, I know many non-Japanese that are far more “Japanese” than I am—they’ve lived there, speak the language, understand the customs and social mores and can navigate the culture with ease. Does that override any claims that I have on the culture and identity that are based on ethnicity? I’m not sure, but I’d probably lean towards yes.

Did I cheer for Japan in the 2009 World Baseball Classic once Canada has been eliminated? Sure. I consider it a bit of harmless jingoism.

Do I enjoy visiting Japan? I’ve only been there twice for a total of about six weeks but I’ve enjoyed both visits. Like comedian Russell Peters on his first trip to India, though, I knew the minute I stepped off the plane that I was 100% Canadian and was “just visiting.”

So in terms of caring so much about a culture that is far removed from my own, that’s not really what it’s about for me. But while I don’t consider myself Japanese in any way, I do consider myself Japanese Canadian. It is a culture that was passed down to me through my mother; it is a culture I immersed myself in during my formative years and have absorbed through my skin; it is a culture that is born out of hard work and perseverance in the face of great hardships on the part of many who came before me; it is a culture that I have had a hand in perpetuating in my small way; it is a culture that has a proud legacy and it is a culture that I am passing on to my children. It’s not a culture that sits in a museum to be taken out for special occasions, it’s a living breathing culture that continues to evolve and grow and transform. It’s a culture that you can marry into or be adopted into. You can call it Japanese Canadian. You can call it Nikkei. You can call it Canadian Nikkei (my favourite). Whatever you choose to call it, it is not exclusive and there are no rules for admittance.

As for the second question, “why is it not enough just to identify as Canadian?” I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me it’s a matter of defining an identity, of saying this is who I am, of refusing to simply be absorbed into a homogeneous, characterless culture. What is “being Canadian” anyway? Beyond the hockey and the poutine and the toques that we see in commercials for mediocre beer, what is Canada?

One of the wonderful things about Canada is that there are no hard and fast rules. We aren’t weighed down by century upon century of history and the baggage that comes with it. We are a work in progress. As such, we are all little threads in a wondrous fabric being woven minute by minute, day by day. It’s a fabric that isn’t just trotted out at Canada Day festivities and multicultural fairs, it’s a fabric  that stretches across the country from sea to sea to sea. It’s not a smooth, uniform sheet of cloth either, it a riotous, multi-coloured, textured fabric with uneven seams and little threads sticking out here and there and holes in that have been patched many times over. And one of the seams running through this fabric is called Japanese Canadian. It doesn’t start at the beginning, it starts somewhere in the middle. And it’s not big, but its strong. And it’s bright. And while it meshes beautifully with the surrounding fabric it also stands out proudly. So pardon my mixed and ungainly metaphors, that is why I call myself Japanese. And Canadian. Proudly.

The battle for redress was fought not only with the Canadian government, but within the community itself and The Bulletin was crucial for disseminating information and building support within the community. When the JCCA Board of Directors declined to support the demand for individual compensation, it was taken over by community activists at the 1984 AGM. Both the editor and Bulletin staff resigned.

October 1984 marked the first issue of The Bulletin under a new board and new editorial staff with Tamio Wakayama as managing editor, Tamio and Randy Enomoto as English editors and Sumio Koike as Japanese language editor. Fumiko took on the role of office manager but soon took over as managing editor as Tamio shifted to editor-in-chief.

Within a few months, a new format began to take shape, one that would set the template for The Bulletin we have today. The November issue featured news from Tonari Gumi, poetry by Roy Miki and Joy Kogawa, Tamio’s photography, a review of Katari Taiko’s 5th anniversary concert at the Playhouse, a Remembrance Day feature and a piece on the NAJC redress brief and other redress updates.

In December of 1984 the first Community Kitchen appeared with recipes from Lillian Kadota (Jelly Mochi) and Lynn Enomoto Westwood (Magic Cookie Bars).

Appearing sporadically at first, the column soon became popular among readers and within a few years was a regular fixture.

After Redress was achieved in September 1988, The Bulletin retained its relevance in a community that was coming into its own with a new energy and sense of purpose. Bulletin staff came and went, but Fumiko remained the constant—maintaining a steady course and a sense of continuity.

Although she retired as managing editor in the spring of 1994, Fumiko continued the Community Kitchen column. Her final recipe appeared in 2000, shortly after suffering a stroke. In June 2001, she and Tod moved to Nelson, BC, looking for a quieter lifestyle. That move marked the end of an era for our family.

When Fumiko passed away in Nelson, BC on December 21 it brought back many half-buried memories of my childhood and beyond, of growing up in England, Montreal and Toronto, but mostly of our life in Vancouver, specifically after when we moved to Strathcona. It was here, in a little housing co-op on Union Street that she began to reconnect with her Japanese heritage and roots. And it was here that I myself became aware that I was part of a larger community and got involved, first through music and taiko and then through The Bulletin. In retrospect, we were both embarking on journeys that would profoundly impact the next thirty-plus years of our lives.

At her Celebration of Life, and in the days leading up to it, I was able to see Fumiko’s life in the context of the broader community and the times she was living in and to more fully appreciate both what she gave to others and what she got back in return. Even as she was playing an important role in the post-war Nikkei community it was nourishing her, giving back a sense of herself as a Japanese Canadian.

I was also able to gain a deeper appreciation of my relationship with her, both as a son and a colleague, and the many ways she gently guided me through the years and helped me come into my own. I am proud to be following in her footsteps and to carry on the work at The Bulletin that she and the others started so many years ago.

Shortly after taking over editorial duties I interviewed Fumiko and in the process learned many things about her life that were new to me. This month, in her honour, we reprint that interview along with several of her recipes from the Community Kitchen.

In a similar vein, page 12 contains a notice of a Special General Meeting for members of the JCCA (if you receive The Bulletin in the mail, you are a member!). This is an important meeting in that it deals with a proposed collaboration between the JCCA and Tonari Gumi in support of seniors in our community. Both organizations have a long history of vital community work and your support and input is welcomed.

The JCCA and The Bulletin have had an office in the Nikkei Centre since it opened in 2000 and we are happy to be part of the Nikkei Place community. Congratulations to the  society that runs the Centre and Museum for their new name and logo. While the name change—from the National Nikkei Museum & Heritage Centre to the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre—is not a seismic shift, it is important in that it further defines the identity of the society and the Centre. The new logo, which differentiates the Centre from the Nikkei Place complex (which retains it’s familiar crane logo), speaks to the issues of clarity and identity—an important currency in these days of media and information saturation.

This month’s issue spotlights the many initiatives ongoing within our Canadian Nikkei community, from the aforementioned Health Care survey and Tonari Gumi expansion to the Hastings Park redevelopment (page44) and honourary degrees for former UBC students (page 14). The common theme of these stories is people working hard behind the scenes for the betterment of our community, seniors in particular, but ultimately all of us. Together they make up an identity that we can all be proud of.

On a personal note, I’d like to thank everyone who sent cards or e-mails following the passing of my mother at the send of December. Although she spent the last years of her life in Nelson, she touched the lives of many within the Vancouver Nikkei community during the many years she and my father lived on Union Street in Strathcona. When I first came on board as English editor of The Bulletin in September of 1993 I joked that I would be forever known as “Fumiko’s son.” It is title I will gladly carry through the rest of my days.

As Gordon said in 1988, “I never look at my case as just my own, or just as a Japanese-American case. It is an American case, with principles that affect the fundamental human rights of all Americans.”

This  month we say goodbye to Gordon Hirabayashi, who passed away on January 2nd in Edmonton at the age of 93 after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s. I met Gordon only once, briefly. It was back in the late eighties, and I was travelling through Edmonton with Kokoro Dance, a dance company co-founded by Gordon’s son Jay. Fittingly, at the time we were touring Rage, a butoh/taiko collaboration based on the Internment and inspired in part by Gordon’s experience during the war.

We are fortunate to have a preponderance of quiet heroes in our community. Gordon was one such hero.

Last month we lost another one of those quiet heroes (although she would have scoffed at the description), and I lost both a mother and a mentor, when Fumiko Greenaway passed away in Nelson, BC, at the age of 82, on December 21.
In the mid-seventies, having lived in Europe and in central Canada, our family moved into a little housing co-op on Union Street in Strathcona, a move that would have an enormous impact on all of our lives. It was here, blocks away from the historic home of the Japanese Canadian community, that Fumiko rediscovered her Japanese roots. She would spend the next several decades immersed in the Nikkei community, working mostly behind the scenes, happy to stay out of the spotlight.

Fumiko had a way about her that earned people’s trust and respect and over the years she built up an incredible network of friends and acquaintances. She was able to maintain a non-partisan stance, refusing to be drawn into the politics of a sometimes-fractious community, preferring instead to move things forward wherever possible. It was a position that served her well.

When she and my father Tod left for Nelson in the late nineties she was missed by many on the west coast. Those who knew her will not be surprised to hear that she quickly became a favourite at the care home where she spent the last few years of her life.

As I write this, a cup I brought back for her from Japan sits by my computer. It’s a simple white cup with her name on it in black type—FUMIKO. For the past two years it sat in a glass case outside her room at the care home. It’s a simple reminder of her that is somewhat bittersweet in that she never made it to Japan herself, even after the Redress settlement gave her the funds to make the trip. It was, I think, one of her few regrets in life.

A celebration of Fumiko’s life will be held in February, a chance for her friends and family to share memories of her and smile. Look for details in the February Bulletin.

Reflecting on the lives of Gordon and Fumiko, and others who have passed away this holiday season, I am reminded again of the importance of family and of community. As someone wrote in reference to Gordon’s passing, “we carry our parents with us wherever we go.” Comforting words indeed in a cold season.

I’d like to wish all our readers the very best for the coming year. May the Year of the Dragon bring you peace, health and happiness.

The decision by the University of British Columbia’s Senate Tributes Committee to grant honourary degrees to former students who were unable to complete their degrees, while largely symbolic, is important in that it ties off a loose end left by the wartime injustices that saw Canadian citizens stripped of their rights seventy years ago. What makes initiatives like this all the more urgent is that those directly affected by the wartime displacement are getting fewer by the year. At the September 18 Asahi Tribute game held at Oppenheimer Park, two of the three remaining Asahi players were in attendance. Within a few weeks of the game, one of them, Jim Fukui, was gone—a poignant reminder that our links to the past are more and more tenuous and all the more precious for it.

My phone interview with the forward-thinking Dr. Nori Nishio reminded me that the nisei are a special breed unto themselves—a generation that had to make the best of challenging times. How many of us can imagine taking a sitting Prime Minister, let alone a Prince, fly fishing?

Dr. Gordon Hirabayashi is another case in point—a nisei who not only refused to bow down in the face of injustice, but later fought to clear his name, and won. He has now had a human rights award created in his name.

In this issue we spotlight two books that have long been unavailable but have now deservedly been reprinted. The first, My Sixty Years in Canada, was written by the late Dr. M. Miyazaki. It’s a remarkable recounting of life as seen through the eyes of a country doctor, through the war years and beyond.

The second book, Opening Doors in Vancouver’s East End: Strathcona, has a personal connection for me. My father, Tod Greenaway, took many of the photographs in the book and as his darkroom technician at the time, I made the original prints. I was too young at the time to fully recognize or appreciate the immense scope and value of the book that collected interviews with 45 Strathcona residents, including a half dozen Japanese Canadians. What is fascinating from a Nikkei perspective is to see the stories of the Japanese Canadians within the greater context of the neighbourhood and to be reminded that the prewar Japanese community did not live within a sealed vacuum, but were in fact part of a larger community. To read their stories side by side with those of Italian, Jewish, Black, Chinese, Polish, British and other residents is to remember that times were tough all over in the prewar years, at least for those on the “wrong side” of the tracks and that an indomitable spirit ran through the entire downtown eastside community.

I was pleased to see this valuable resource reprinted by Harbour Publishing as a Vancouver 125 Legacy Book.

Online Edition
For those of you who prefer to get their community news online, the Bulletin website has undergone a makeover in the past month and is now more user-friendly (and just plain usable). In addition to a new interface, we will be posting stories as we receive them, rather than having to wait until the print edition goes to press. This way we are able to share breaking news more quickly and keep our readers better informed. It also allows us to share our stories with the world at large in a way that was unimaginable not that long ago. Check us out at jccabulletin-geppo.ca. And feel free to leave comments!

Gift Idea
The Bulletin has been an indelible part of the west coast (and beyond) Nikkei experience since 1958, not long after Japanese Canadians began returning to the coast. Over the years the community has undergone significant changes and The Bulletin has changed along with it. We strive to serve as a link between generations and to keep our widely dispersed community informed. It is a never-ending but gratifying challenge.
This holiday season, why not give the gift of a JCCA membership to someone in your family who does not get their own copy of The Bulletin delivered to their door each month? As a not-for-profit publication, we rely on memberships/subscriptions along with your generous donations and advertising revenue to keep publishing in the face of challenging economic times. Each paid membership/subscription goes towards funding the activities of the JCCA and the publication costs of The Bulletin. A membership/subscription form can be found HERE.

On behalf of the small but mighty staff at The Bulletin I’d like to wish each and every one of our readers the very best for the holiday season and the New Year. A special thank you must go to our dedicated volunteers who show up every month filled with good cheer, regardless of the season, to prepare The Bulletin for mailing and to our loyal advertisers who help keep us going through thick and thin. May the year of the dragon bring you health, happiness and prosperity.

half circle of faces
hands in pockets, cenotaph
stands at attention

scattering of red
poppies, laid gently to rest
on a bed of stone

What I’m reminded of, reading Kirsten’s description of her time studying the internment experience is how much the actual landscape and geography of the BC interior impacted those who lived through those profoundly life-altering years. When she talks about the terrain of memory, she is not speaking simply in metaphors, but of a very real place, where memories are stored, embedded in the landscape, in the trees and rivers and mountains.
As we move further and further away from the events of the 1940s—the events that so permanently altered our collective trajectory—it is important that we not lose our connection to the hills and fields that played host to a community in exile.

There are efforts afoot to keep the memories of that time and place alive. Over the next year or so we will be following and reporting on some of those efforts in these pages. I hope you will follow along with us, and perhaps contribute some of your own memories.

I would like to congratulate the recipients of the inaugural Nikkei Place Community Awards, feted this past weekend at the Nikkei Centre. As we’ve illustrated so often in these pages, our community is filled with quiet heroes, people who work long and hard hours for the greater good, often with little or no acknowledgment, and it is good to see them receive credit where credit is due. We are all the better for their efforts and unrelenting dedication.

The other day a brand new reusable lunch bag appeared on our kitchen counter. Despite the fact that it’s an attractive  piece of minimalist architecture, I balked a bit at the $25 price tag still attached to it until someone pointed out that our daughter had been using her old lunch bag every day for the past four years and it not only smelled bad it was a serious health risk.

Looking at the bag sitting there all shiny and expectant brought home the fact that Labour Day is just around the corner and long months of packed lunches and packed schedules are looming once again. Our two daughters are looking forward to the coming school year for the most part, as is my wife, an educator with the Surrey School District. Still, there are mixed feelings about the end of summer.

In a household where three of the four of us have an entire two months off, summers are a time of relaxed mornings and too-late nights, of weekend festivals, fishing trips and campfires. While I myself am chained to my computer much of the summer, my timetable is much looser and there’s a sense of energy and busyness around the house that’s lacking during the school year when I have my home office to myself. This year our older daughter got her first summer job, a rite of passage signifying that the path to adulthood is that much shorter than it was last time this year. The red “L” on the back of our car is about to give way to a green “N”, and that too is a marker of no small significance.

Our younger daughter spent part of the summer volunteering at an outdoor camp and she too is blossoming before our eyes, gaining confidence and independence with every passing day. This fall she is enrolled in an outdoor leadership training course, something that will add to not only her resume, but her range of abilities.

Watching our daughters grow and come into their own, and to see the children of friends take their own steps into adulthood—even talking to the JCCA summer students at the office—I feel a sense of hope and optimism that is hard to find when scouring the news. In some ways it is a harder world that they are stepping out into, with fewer jobs and higher expenses than when I left home. On the other hand they have access to more information and broader experiences, largely through the internet, but also through a great mingling of cultures and world views that is a result of a more diverse society.

This month’s community profile looks at Naomi Yamamoto, the Liberal MLA for North Vancouver-Lonsdale. As Minister for Advanced Education, she has a great responsibility—overseeing the colleges and universities that we give our children over to in the hopes that they will given the tools to navigate not just the job market but the world that they are inheriting. Shrinking budgets and financial turmoil in the world markets mean leaner times and hard decisions for government—we can only hope that the future, our children’s future, is not sacrificed in the name of fiscal restraint.

Happy New (school) Year to all our readers!

The Festival arose directly out of the 1977 Japanese Canadian Centennial, marking the arrival of the first Japanese Canadian immigrant, Manzo Nagano. It was the first time that the younger generation of Japanese Canadians, the children of those that suffered the indignities of the Internment, began to come to terms with their shared heritage and to start asking questions about their history. It was this process of questioning, of stirring the pot, that set the stage for the Centennial, the Redress movement and, ultimately the rebirth of the Japanese Canadian community.

That first Powell Street Festival was a statement—it said, “We are here. We have been here for a hundred years. You tried to get rid of us with your orders-in-council and your racist policies, but we prevailed.”

The Festival was a reclamation of not only history, but of place. Oppenheimer Park, once known as Powell Grounds, sits at the heart of what was once a thriving community of shops and services, a place where people worked and played and raised families. They cheered on the Asahi baseball team, finding in sport a level playing field that was denied them elsewhere. Most of all they struggled to gain acceptance in a society that was for the most part closed to them.

Ultimately that acceptance was gained by working hard, by not sticking out, by dispersing across the country like scattered seeds.

By holding a festival, a uniquely Canadian version of a Japanese matsuri, on the old Powell Grounds, the community found its roots again—and the roots proved to be far stronger than anyone could have imagined.
35 years later, the Powell Street Festival is the longest running “ethnic” festival in the Greater Vancouver area, perhaps in all of Canada. Indeed, it is one of the longest running festivals period. Like the Nikkei pioneers who put down roots here, the Festival has persevered in the face of many challenges. Year after year it returns to an area that has been written off more than once and for one weekend banners fly, the smell of shoyu and salmon wafts down the street, hapa children frolic on the very spot where their great-grandparents once played and the beat of the taiko resonates off the old buildings, as if to say, “welcome home.”

As a child, my family moved often, never staying in one place, or even one city, for long, so I never developed that same sense of place. My parents were living in London, England when my sister and I were born; we moved back to Canada when I was three. My first vague memories are of Montreal in the winter, my first vivid memories are of Toronto in the summer—one was very cold, the other very hot. We moved to Vancouver when I was ten—the same year the Vancouver Canucks joined the NHL. My father’s friend Roy Kiyooka was living here and convinced my folks that it was a great place to live. So we packed up a U-Haul trailer and made the trek west.

We lived in several different rental houses before settling in the Strathcona neighbourhood, becoming founding members of Chinatown’s first housing co-op. It was here, a few blocks from Powell Street, that my family found a real home. My parents soon took an active role our new community, joining the fight to stop the freeway from destroying Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhood.

A number of Japanese and Japanese Canadian families took up residence in the small co-op and my mother, Fumiko, began to reconnect with her Japanese roots, getting involved in numerous community initiatives like the Dream of Riches exhibit and book project and the Japanese Canadian Centennial celebrations.

I came of age in the area, roaming the streets and back alleys of Strathcona—it was place rich in character and history. Even when I left home I stayed in the vicinity for many years—doing my shopping in Chinatown and Powell Street, at Benny’s Italian Market and further west at the Woodwards department store.

It was on Powell Street that I was introduced to my dormant Nikkei heritage through people like Takeo Yamashiro, Rick Shiomi and Linda Hoffman who welcomed me into the community with open arms. I joined my first band at the Tonari Gumi coffeehouse on Cordova. I saw my first taiko group at the Powell Street Festival and subsequently helped found what would be Canada’s first taiko group—Katari Taiko. Roy Kiyooka bought me my first donburi at Aki’s on Powell Street. My favourite chicken karaage was served at the Fuji Restaurant right next to the Sunrise Market and I was heartbroken when it left the area; in fact, to this day I’m searching for its equal to no avail. In those days, Powell Street was still home to a number of Nikkei-owned businesses. Tonari Gumi  was open for business, served its senior clientele from its storefront office just steps away from the old Powell Grounds.

When I began editing The Bulletin in the fall of 1993, the JCCA was still on Powell Street, although we relocated to East Broadway soon afterwards, the area in steep decline.

Like the fertile fishing grounds that Nikkei fishermen plied up and down the coast, Powell Street as the centre of the Vancouver Nikkei community is but a fading memory, its glory days remembered by fewer and fewer. The closest any of us come now to reliving those days is attending the Powell Street Festival once a year, when the air is once more filled with the scents and sounds of the matsuri, Canadian-style. Taiko drums pound out their furious rhythms and tako-yaki beckons hungry throngs.

With the Powell Street Festival just around the corner, a beautiful new exhibit at the Japanese Canadian National Museum allows us to rediscover Powell Street in its pre-war glory. Monogatari, Tales of Powell Street (1920 – 1941) captures, through artifacts, photographs and stories a Powell Street that most of us can only imagine. It’s well worth a visit.