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.

What if we were to look into the face of the “other” and see not the enemy, but ourselves? Or better yet, what if we were to look in the mirror one morning and see the “other” reflected back at ourselves. Most of the barriers we set up are, after all, invisible. If we were to dismantle the artificial walls that we have erected around ourselves the world would be a more wide open and tolerant place.

It is no accident that prior to the war, while Japanese Canadians were facing racial discrimination in their everyday lives, the best minds of the community were engaged in legal challenges before the courts, arguing for equal treatment before the law. They understood that as long as they were seen as second class citizens in the eyes of the law, that they would never achieve equality in the eyes of their fellow Canadians.

In retrospect, walking through the door that night on Cordova Street, guitar in hand, changed the trajectory of my life. Following my performance, I was approached by a group of folks who invited me to join their band, Kokuho Rose. And just like that, I was part of a community.

It was a revelation to discover that this new community I was suddenly part of was in fact made up of three distinct generations: the issei, my grandparent’s generation, whom I couldn’t understand; the sansei, as described above; and the nisei, who fit neither description.

If there is one thing that separates childhood from adulthood, it is the perception of snow. For those of us who have to drive anywhere (and I’m talking west coast here – all you east of the Rockies folks can go plug in your block heaters, smugly sip your double doubles, and keep your opinions to yourselves), snow any deeper than 2cm causes untold grief. When it first falls it has to be shovelled, using muscles that haven’t been exercised since last winter; once it’s shovelled it freezes and gets …