The Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre bears witness to the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War and the history of internment camps located in the interior regions of British Columbia.

Located at the heart of one of the camps constructed under the authority of the British Columbia Security Commission, it is one of the few sites that still contains tangible evidence of this episode in Canadian history. The buildings associated with internment constitute an important place of memory for the Japanese Canadian community, and the ongoing existence of these structures supports the survival of the history of this event.

On February 24, 1942, a federal Order in Council under the War Measures Act authorized the internment of “enemy aliens” and Canadians of Japanese descent were moved to camps for the duration of the war. By the summer, the British Columbia Security Commission, the provincial agency charged with implementing the federal government’s internment policy, had constructed a makeshift centre at New Denver, a hamlet in British Columbia’s southeast interior. The first internees arrived soon after.

In its layout and overall character, the New Denver camp was similar to other internment facilities in the interior. It consisted of a grouping of frame shacks or living quarters, a Japanese bath, which was soon converted to a community hall, and a series of outbuildings.

While other centres were demolished after the war’s end, some of the buildings still exist or have been reconstructed at New Denver. Managed by the internees through their own Kyowakai Society, the New Denver camp housed roughly 1500 persons during the war. At conflict’s end, the camp was transformed into a tuberculosis centre, while healthy inmates were required to abandon the British Columbia camps and start life anew elsewhere.

The Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre offers compelling insight into the Canadian government’s treatment of Japanese Canadians in the 1940s. For Japanese Canadians, the centre’s creation bears witness to the Japanese renaissance of the 1970s and to the redress movement of the 1980s. With its Centennial Centre and peace gardens, the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre has become a treasured place of remembrance and community identity for today’s Japanese Canadians.

Funeral of Masatora Abe

On November 7, 1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed, as the Last Spike was driven home in Craigellachie, not far from Revelstoke, British Columbia. In the process of building and maintaining this ribbon of steel that created a corridor across Canada, the lives of many people from different nations were lost.

In early March of 1910, a severe storm lasting some ten days lashed the western areas of North America, resulting in a number of massive avalanches. On March 1 of that year, 96 people lost their lives at Stevens Pass in Washington, Northeast of Seattle. Just three days later, on March 4, Canada’s worst-ever avalanche occurred at Rogers Pass in the Selkirk Mountains. Fifty-eight railway workers were killed as they dug out the debris of an earlier avalanche that had come down Mount Cheops in the late afternoon. Around 11:30pm, as the crew was almost finished digging a snow trench, another avalanche came down from Avalanche Mountain and buried them some nine meters deep in the trench.

According to articles appearing in the Japanese-language newspaper Tairiku Nippou (????), published at the time in Vancouver, both Japanese and Caucasian workers were on the site. Tragically, 32 Japanese and 26 Caucasians were taken by the avalanche. The 32 Japanese, all between 19 and 40 years old, came from prefectures across Japan: Miyagi, Nagano, Shizuoka, Fukui, Shiga, Okayama, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Fukuoka and Kagoshima.

After more than a year and a half researching the incident, the graves of the 32 Japanese victims were discovered at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver, as well as 11 families of the victims living in Japan. During the research process, some wonderful pictures of the times and the victims were also discovered, thanks to the families in Japan. Also uncovered were some previously-unknown details of Japanese involvement in the Canadian Pacific Railway.

This research was undertaken with great support from Revelstoke Museum and Archive in Revelstoke; the National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre; Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver; the University of British Columbia (UBC) Rare and Special Book Library in Vancouver; Tuneharu Gonnami of the Asian Library, UBC; Professor Norifumi Kawahara, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto; Research Center for Natural Hazards & Disaster Recovery Niigata University in Niigata; the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affair archives in Tokyo, and several local Japanese newspapers,

On March 4, 2010, a winter commemorative event marking the 100th anniversary of the avalanche was held at 7pm in downtown Revelstoke. About 800 locals attended the ceremony, where 11,000 origami cranes folded by people in British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon, the USA and Japan were hung up on the main street of Revelstoke (strings of the folded paper cranes are a traditional memorial display in Japan).

This summer, a series of celebrations of the anniversary will be held; one of the highlights will be the participation of four of the Japanese families, who will take part in the commemorative ceremonies at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver on August 12, and at Rogers Pass in Glacier National Park and Revelstoke on August 15, 2010.

Everyone is most welcome to join in this remembrance of these somewhat unexpected Japanese builders of the Canadian railways, and unfortunate victims of the country’s worst avalanche disaster. The August 12 ceremony at Mountain View Cemetery will be held at 10am, and is made possible by the kind support of the National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre, Mountain View Cemetery, Buddhist Temples of Canada in Vancouver. The Rogers Pass event on the 15th will be held at 2pm, with kind support from Parks Canada, 1910 Rogers Pass Snow Slide Commemoration Committee, Revelstoke Railway Museum, Revelstoke Museum & Archives, Canadian Pacific.

Please contact Tomoaki Fujimura (canadianalps@gmail.com) if you have more information and pictures about 1910 Rogers Pass Avalanche,  Japanese involvement of Canadian Pacific Railway, Shokichi AKATSUKA photos in the early 1900′s and/or Japanese graduates from Britannia Secondary School.

Tomoaki Fujimura moved from Japan to the Interior of BC in 1995 at age of 18. After living in Fernie for seven years he moved Revelstoke in 2007 and now makes it his home. Over the past ten years, he has been learning how to forecast avalanches in the Interior mountains and is now a professional member of Canadian Avalanche Association.  In the winter of 2009 he was invited to become a member of the 1910 Rogers Pass Snow Slide Commemoration committee and to do research on Japanese victims and stories. www.canadianalps.com.

On December 16, 2010, Tomoaki Fujimura will give a talk on the 1910 Rogers Pass avalanche and Japanese involvment at the  National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre.

Now, when something needs fixing around the house I pull out that old tool box and rummage through it to find the right tool for the job. And I feel good using these tools that were made to be used, that fit in the hand just so.

Why am I telling you about my father’s tool box? A few weeks back I was at the Nikkei Centre preparing for this month’s lead story on the late Canadian artist Aiko Suzuki, the subject of the latest exhibit at the Japanese Canadian National Museum. I knew of her peripherally but was not familiar with her work.

One of the people helping prepare the exhibit was Aiko’s daughter Chiyoko Szlavnics, a musician who lives in Germany. I was taking some photos for the article and Chiyoko was putting the final touches on the fibre sculpture hanging in the Ellipse Lobby, a monumental piece called Lyra Refrain. The work consists of hundreds, maybe thousands of single strands hanging from wooden slats. As we talked, she ran a comb through the strands, ensuring they lay just so. It struck me as I watched her work that just as I connected with my father through his tools, she was connecting to her mother in a similar way. She ran the comb back and forth through the strands, just as her mother must have done, years ago, and it struck me how precious it was to be able to touch, in a real and tangible way, those memories we hold most dear.

Photo by Kaz Ehara

Aiko Suzuki was a remarkable and prolific visual artist, known and loved in Toronto. Although she was born in Vancouver, until now she has only had one exhibition of her work on the coast (in 1984 at the Burnaby Art Gallery). When Midi Onodera contacted the Japanese Canadian National Museum in Burnaby, BC to suggest showing her DVD project on Aiko, it seemed the perfect opportunity to showcase this important Japanese Canadian artist.

Aiko Suzuki (1937-2005) was born in Vancouver, and was interned with her family in the Slocan region before moving to Ontario. For 25 years, she was a mentor to many artists, and was involved in arts education with countless students throughout Toronto. In 1994, Aiko was a founder of the Gendai Gallery in Toronto —dedicated to contemporary art by Asian artists. She received numerous awards for her contributions, and in 2005, she was elected to membership in the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. In her final work, Bombard/Invade/Radiate she used video, audio and photography and turned the camera onto herself to produce a bold and intimate reflection on her experiences with breast cancer. Aiko Suzuki lost her battle with cancer on December 31, 2005.

Getting to “know” Aiko through this project makes me really wish I could have known her in person. By all accounts she was a dynamo—an energetic and intriguing person who was intensely creative and a lot of fun. Aiko was known for creating minimalist yet stunning dance sets, and she was an early proponent of collaboration, using sound in some of her early pieces, and often including jazz, contemporary music, poetry and dance at her openings.

Aiko Suzuki, Bourrée, 1985. Watercolour and india ink on paper.

Aiko was constantly searching for new materials, and worked in a wide variety of media, ranging from monumental textiles, to acrylic, oils, and monoprints. This exhibit pays tribute to Suzuki’s life and work through a display of some of her original work and three multimedia installations by writer Joy Kogawa, composer Ann Southam, and visual artist Grace Channer, who were each inspired by Suzuki and worked in collaboration with Toronto filmmaker Midi Onodera. Midi consciously chose this “fragmented” non-linear approach, feeling it was impossible to capture the energy and vitality of Aiko in a more traditional film documentary.

Visitors to the exhibit are immediately welcomed with Aiko’s monumental hanging fibre work, entitled Lyra Refrain, 1984. Lyra Refrain has a unique form, but echoes the huge sculpture called Lyra that Aiko created in 1981 for the main lobby of the Metro Toronto Reference Library. In one of her interviews, Aiko explained that “Each suspension was created by laying down the fibres one by one, then securing them with wooden dowels. Each piece took several months to complete—there was a lot of walking and ladder work—they were very physical.”

The other works in the exhibit illustrate the diversity of Aiko’s practice. She was sometimes criticized for switching mediums so often, but she explained that she was drawn to use the medium that best suited her inspiration. From huge brightly coloured oil paintings to dramatic swooping india ink works, Aiko’s work is deceptively minimalist—in fact, she fills the space with movement and energy.

One of her few non-abstract works is the charcoal diptych, The Package, 1990. She says: “My father sent me some bamboo from his garden. He stitched burlap pieces together and used found string and made rope out of it. I loved the rope—all tied together—lots of knots. The parcel was so beautiful, I couldn’t open it. The package was a statement of love, and I did a lot of sketches of just the package—all large scale. I needed to do it big.”
The three DVD works developed by Midi Onodera reflect varying approaches from artists who knew Aiko well and were inspired by her in different ways.

Ann Southam is an acclaimed Canadian composer who first met Aiko when they worked together for the Toronto Dance Theatre: Ann was composing music and Aiko was creating sets. They collaborated often over the years and became close friends. For this piece, Ann created an exquisite minimalist piano work inspired by Aiko’s painting Spatial View of Pond. Midi paired this music with film footage of two other works by Aiko. In the gallery, the film is shown in a black box, with a reflecting pool in front of the screen. The viewer is mesmerised by layers of reflections and richness of sound.

The second piece in the DVD is a video poem, written by acclaimed author Joy Kogawa in homage to Aiko. Joy was born in Vancouver in 1935 and during WWII, Joy and Aiko knew each other slightly when they lived in the same internment camp in Slocan. The poem, Portrait of the Artist as a Donkey, highlights aspects of Aiko’s personality: her “stone” quality and resilience. Midi matched the poem with shifting, split screen imagery taking the viewer between the busy movements of an urban landscape and the graceful textures of nature. Aiko’s daughter, Chiyoko Szlavnics, a composer now based in Berlin, created the accompanying soundscape.

The final work focuses on Aiko’s hands, their energy, their fluidity and the connective imagery they evoke. Grace Channer is a Toronto-based artist and animator who shared a studio with Aiko for some time, and was greatly inspired by her. In Estuary, she employed digital animation techniques with music, again by Chiyoko Szlavnics. An estuary is a transition zone where fresh water from streams mingles with the salt water of the ocean. In the same way, Grace states, Aiko was the one who created these tributaries that led to different places… she had the capacity to bring communities together.

Tributaries: Reflections of Aiko Suzuki runs through to August 28 at the Japanese Canadian National Museum, 6688 Southoaks Crescent, Burnaby, BC.

Copies of the DVD Tributaries: Reflections of Aiko Suzuki are available for sale in the Museum shop.

Thank you to our sponsors: Powell Street Festival , Deux Mille Foundation, The Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation, and The Hamber Foundation.

by Beth Carter

Conversation Piece

Midi Onodera and Chiyoko Szlavnics

I’m standing in the main gallery of the Japanese Canadian National Museum in Burnaby. Packing materials are strewn about; a few paintings are mounted on the wall already, others lay on tables or against walls. In various parts of the gallery, staff and volunteers are busy assembling viewing stations and booths. Out in the lobby, an enormous fibre sculpture hangs suspended from the ceiling, transforming the space with its gentle presence.

The works are by Aiko Suzuki, the Toronto-based artist who passed away in 2005. With me are filmmaker Midi Onodera, musician/composer Chiyoko Szlavnics, and JCNM Director-Curator Beth Carter. Tributaries: Reflections of Aiko Suzuki, the new exhibit the three are in the process of mounting, is in some respects a posthumous introduction to those of us on the west coast that know little or nothing about the life or work of this seminal Canadian artist.

Chiyoko, Aiko’s daughter, has travelled from Germany, where she lives, to help mount the exhibit and to take part in the opening reception here on June 29. As executor of Aiko’s estate she loaned a number of her mother’s works to the Museum for the exhibit.

Midi, an award-winning filmmaker for over twenty years, has flown in from Toronto to oversee the exhibit. Her recently-completed DVD, also titled Tributaries: Reflections of Aiko Suzuki, forms the basis for the exhibit.

Over the course of an hour we walk through the gallery, looking at the various works and talking about the exhibit. The discussion ranges from the DVD to the east-west divide within the Canadian Nikkei community, to Japanese Canadians in the arts, and of course Aiko Suzuki herself.

by John Endo Greenaway

Following are edited excerpts from our conversation.

Chiyoko Szlavnics and Midi Onodera w/ Beth Carter

John Endo Greenaway Going through this DVD, it isn’t a documentary as such, is it . . . ?

Midi Onodera I didn’t want the DVD to be simply a documentary about Aiko because number one, I never felt that Aiko was a linear kind of spirit. I felt that she was kind of like all over, but in a really organized way. She had an incredible energy to her that wasn’t linear, And I’m also not a linear thinker in my work, and I’m not a documentary filmmaker, so I felt like this DVD, conceptually, was the best way to articulate what she was about or what her spirit was in a way, and then to have those other artists translate their feelings about her or her work just abstracts it more, and so it’s not just simply a memorial about the artist.

Chiyoko Szlavnics And what’s nice is that each of the three artists and you were very close to Aiko, so the pieces really do reflect something of her, of her spirit.

MO And at different points of her life, too. I only got to know Aiko close up, you know, only a few years before she died, really. So we’re also reflecting different periods, I think, in Aiko’s life.

Basically I found out that Aiko had cancer and I thought oh my God, I have to do this now, or else there’s not going to be the opportunity. So I remember I called her up and I said let’s have lunch, and she was a bit suspicious about my intensions. I said I want to start shooting you. I told her, I don’t know what it will be, but I want to do it, and in exchange I will help you with your show, because she had a retrospective up at Gendai Gallery, and so she had to get from downtown to Gendai all the time, and I had a car, so that was it. It was an exchange, because that’s kind of the way Aiko worked. So I really got to know her driving up, all those times to Gendai and shooting a lot of footage of her preparing for her show.

The main reason that I wanted to do this DVD is for educational use, because I feel that there aren’t enough works by senior contemporary Canadian artists to begin with, but there are even fewer about Japanese Canadians, and we’re at the point in our culture where we are losing some of the more senior members. So what does that mean for the preservation of our own culture in Canada? It’s a history that I think needs to be recorded somehow. So I received some Canada Council funding to produce a DVD. It’s a non-linear DVD that is somewhat fragmented, there are many different elements to it.

I guess the entire DVD has quite a strong feminist framework as well, because they all talk about feminism, and then there are interviews with the contributors, and Chiyoko’s on there too because she contributed the sound to Grace’s piece, and we worked together on the Donkey piece.

A section that you might find interesting is a conversation that Aiko and Kerri Sakamoto and myself had, mostly talking about her last installation piece, which was a bit of a departure for Aiko, wouldn’t you say?

CS Mm hmm. She created some video installations. Midi worked on the project with her, she was basically addressing her experiences with cancer.

MO This was her last installation, Bombard/Invade/Radiate.

CS This video installation was inspired by Susan Sontag’s writing about cancer, the terminology and language that’s used, how war terminology is used by oncologists when talking about cancer and treatments. Aiko then relates this to the second world war, pointing out the irony in the fact that the chemotherapy she was receiving, you know, contained mustard gas and other chemicals that are, or were used in warfare. So that’s what the whole exhibition was about, and I think that was her way of processing and coming to terms with the disease, her own involvement in it, and the victimization one feels as a cancer patient: you’re out of control of your body, and the medical system is basically controlling you. One video installation showed bomber planes dropping bombs during the Second World War, with the single word, “Witness,” flashing on the screen. That was also about her whole cancer process, and struggle––her battle with cancer. She was never literal like this in her work previously, it’s the only non-abstract piece I know. I think she really wanted to bring these kinds of messages across. That was also the idea of using semaphore for the words “Bombard.Invade.Radiate.” as well—like signalling from a ship at sea to try to get the message across with words, but in an abstracted way.

She also did a series of new works about three months before she died, a whole new series of these incredibly gorgeous, intense, rich collage and paint combinations, five in total. Some were triptychs, some were in five pieces, some were ten. But it was just phenomenal, she was so ill and had so many side effects and stuff, it’s amazing that she just put out a table in her backyard that summer, and created this additional series.

MO And Chiyoko did these . . . what would you call them?

CS Aiko called them “listening posts”. She wanted to have some recordings of visits with her oncologist in the exhibition, so she created these “listening posts” where you could more or less eavesdrop on very intimate conversations about her cancer, its diagnosis, and its treatment.

MO So there’s that conversation, and then there is this 30-minute piece, which is Aiko talking about her work. We basically went through a bunch of slides with her and she just answered questions about her work. And then the last part is myself talking about my feelings about Aiko, the project, and things like that.

JEG Did she feel a need to document her art and her life, do you think?

MO I don’t think so. I think that she just got used to having me hanging around. We talked about art a lot and since there are so few Japanese Canadian women artists, it was a great opportunity for me, to get to know her, someone I had so much respect and admiration for.

CS She was very good at documenting her work and being very organized about getting professional photographers in to document it, and so on, but I think she was more interested in creating art than creating a career, so she put all her energy into the artworks and documenting them . . .

JEG The mediums she was working in were so diverse. As opposed to, say, a poet, where everything can be contained in a collection, this seems more ephemeral in a sense . . .

MO Oh, yeah. You can see from the wide range of her work. She was not an artist who was limited by her choice of media at all. Aiko did a series of works based on the bamboo wrapped in burlap . . . the package was sent to her from her father, who was in Vancouver. So in a way, this has traveled to Toronto, and now it’s back here. Aiko talks about that story in the DVD, doesn’t she? She talks about that package and what that meant, and you know, just a bit of her relationship with her father, and then the creation of these art works.

And then there’s an essay by Cindy Mochizuki, you can download a PDF, and there is also another essay on my website by Kyo Maclear that was commissioned. So really it’s designed so that, for instance, if you were involved in new music you might look at the Ann Southam piece, if you’re interested in Aiko alone, you might just look at the Aiko section, look at how her earlier work developed and progressed through the years. You know, there’s a number of ways to sort of access the material. So it’s not structured like a feature, where you just throw it in and it’s like a passive viewing experience. That’s why I call it a fragmented narrative.

Beth Carter If you watch the whole thing, all the different sections, it really, really works. Like I started just going through the Aiko early works, because I wanted to know more about her actual art work, and that’s precious, to have her talking about her work documented that way and you get such a good sense of her, and how she expresses herself.

CS Yes, the interview segments are really fabulous. You get a sense of her personality, also through all the recollections, memories, and so forth.

BC And then when you put together the artists, all these different approaches, how inspired they were to create something else because of Aiko, the meaning she had for them as artists, and being in the community. I think it’s brilliant.

JEG I’m glad to see Aiko’s work coming to the West Coast, too, because you know there’s such this great divide between Toronto and Vancouver basically. We know nothing about what’s going on out there . . . it’s three thousand miles but it sometimes feel like a million . . .

CS A relative told me a very compelling story last night about how that divide might have begun. After the war, BC refused to allow Japanese Canadians to stay in this province. And so a number of people signed up to go back to Japan, but apparently the first ones who did go sent messages back to Canada saying, “Don’t come, don’t come, it’s horrible here, there’s no food, we’re starving!” etc. And then a bunch of people got the BC ruling overturned after the political atmosphere settled down, and ended up staying in BC after all, while some families, including mine, had already moved east. Could that have played a part in the division, besides the geographical distance? It’s an interesting anecdote, because I wasn’t even aware of it, and you talking about this difference, your bringing it up now . . . it could have deep-rooted reasons. In any case, it’s very complex.

BC I was really interested that Midi contacted us and offered, you know, the opportunity to do the show, and I thought it was great for that reason, you know that we want to build bridges, we want to be pulling community together, and I just didn’t think that Aiko was well enough known here on the coast.

JEG We have our little world here, our little pond. People from the east come through, but it always feels so fleeting . . .

CS But she knew Roy Kiyooka and Tamio Wakayama . . .

JEG Perhaps within the artist world there’s more cross-pollinization, but otherwise . . .

The conversation turned to Roy Kiyooka and Japanese Canadian artists in general . . .

MO Well, I think also too, though, it’s the fact that there were just so few artists of that generation, period. You know, so I think that the overall reception wasn’t that strong from the mainstream community itself. You know, they wanted to have their children become doctors and lawyers, not bankrupt artists who were living hand to mouth. I mean, even for me, my parents want me to become something like that as opposed to an artist because it’s that thing that they felt they missed because of the war, because of being interned.

CS It’s interesting because I think also for Aiko’s generation, there was a very difficult personal struggle with identity because of the war and post-war experiences. I think redress was extremely important in bringing the community together again, and right at that time of redress, significant people in Toronto suddenly came together. There was a kind of political momentum, and it gave people a sense of empowerment, I think, and new connections were made within the community that might not have existed before because of the war, and post-war experiences.

MO But also, as we all know, redress wasn’t a black and white thing. There were still people who were, like, no way, you know, and people who were, yes, absolutely, and you could see those tensions and frictions throughout and I think that was probably the most dramatic moment, besides the internment in our history.

JEG Yeah, in one sense it was pulling the community together, in other ways it was driving another wedge . . .

MO Yeah, exactly. It was like another, you know . . . .

JEG Line to cross?

MO Yes, exactly.

JEG It’s interesting, Chiyoko, you were talking about the rift developing because of people going back to Japan and so forth. I’ve also heard that the people who went east were so bitter about the way they were treated by BC that they swore they would never step foot in BC again . . .

CS My grandfather was extremely bitter about how they had been treated, but he moved back to Vancouver when he retired. He loved it here.

BC I think Aiko speaks herself too about her relationship to being Japanese Canadian and whether she . . . I mean she basically says she didn’t link herself with that in her art practice. But then through the course of discussing her art work, she’s, oh this one’s very Japanese and this one . . . you know, she’s pointing out that.

MO I was asking her about how she named her work, you know, Hokusai’s Dream or something, and she said, I couldn’t name it McCaffey’s Dream or something. So what does that mean? What are all those connections all about? So you know, hopefully that is a marker of some kind for the younger generation to see that those discussions happened or to see what relevance it is in their own lives and their own identity. I think that having this discussion framed in an art context makes it a bit safer, it’s not about you personally. It’s distanced.

I hope that the DVD will encourage other artists not just Japanese Canadian artists, but other women artists, other emerging artists to have this kind of document, to see what other contemporary Canadian artists have been doing for the last what, how many years, you know.

CS It’s fabulous that you started this project before she died, because you were able to gather a lot of interviews. I wonder whether a video was ever made about Roy [Kiyooka]. . .

JEG The thing is, Roy died suddenly, so in a way it kind of negated any chance of that.

MO But then again it comes back Chiyoko as well and her role in the preservation of Aiko’s work . . .

CS But it helps when there are more people working who are interested because to have all the responsibility yourself––what do you do with that?––it’s just overwhelming. Especially since I live in Germany, it’s more difficult when all the art work is in Toronto and I live over there in Germany. It would be fabulous to commission essays and publish a really great art catalogue with all her work in high quality photographs. But such a project is pretty much impossible to organize from afar.

BC What comes across to me is how collaborative she was. I know she did the works herself but she was really inspired by music, by dance, by other artists, and did a lot of teaching and educating. It seemed to me that even though she was really focussed on her art work she also carried with it the spirit of collaboration all the time.

CS Yeah, she didn’t always like to be just by herself in her studio.

JEG So do you think—I mean it’s probably obvious—did the knowledge of her own mortality shift her focus, do you think?

CS I think after she discovered she had cancer, she tried to learn as much about it as she could. She did her own research, to really be engaged in the process as it was happening, so that she could make informed decisions. So I think her life became occupied by those things, and that’s probably why it came out in her work. She was definitely consciously working through it, and yes, in her last exhibition, she really needed to process it––to bring her inner world, all of that which was occupying her, out into the world.

JEG It sounds like she was an artist right to the end?

MO Oh, absolutely.

CS In fact, even while she was dying, she exclaimed, “But I have to organize the exhibition, otherwise it won’t happen!” She wanted to organize an exhibition for her last series of works, the ones she had made the past summer. She was still calling galleries in December, the month she died, trying to find a venue for the works. And at some point she really was dying, and said, “But I need to organize this exhibition!” She was basically saying that she couldn’t die because then the works would never be shown. (laughs) Physically, the disease and chemotherapy are so debilitating. She didn’t have that much energy in the final year, but when she did get it back, what she did with it was create more projects.

MO Oh yeah for sure. At points during the production of her Bombard/Invade/Radiate piece, I could see that it was very hard on her. I know It was very hard just to be out in the sun and physically working, take after take after take. We had several cameras set up so she wouldn’t have to do as many takes but it’s just the nature of production, so it was very intense at that time. And then we had to go back a second time because we didn’t quite get enough footage, so I know that it was difficult, but she was absolutely determined to do it. There was no way that you could talk her out of it . . .

“A”s, they’re one thing. Joy. Now that’s another matter. Sometimes these days it seems everyone I know is so consumed by deadlines and other pressures that there is precious little left over for luxuries like joy. We can charge our i-Pods and smart phones by plugging them into the wall overnight. How do we recharge ourselves physically, mentally or spiritually?

For our kids it’s the summer holidays—their chance to leave behind the pressures of assignments and homework and rediscover, yes, joy.

Although spring has been here for a while (you wouldn’t know it sometimes), I’ll leave you with another lovely lyric from Mr. Ritter . . .

hello blackbird, hello starling / winter’s over, be my darling
it’s been a long time coming / but now the snow is gone

For the translation workshops, participants prepared translations of both J-E and E-J texts given prior to the event and shared their thoughts and experiences as well as their translation in small groups. A good mixture of experienced and new translators in each group provided an opportunity for the participants, who often work in solitude, to share knowledge and solutions in translation. Some of the practical wisdoms shared by the experienced translators included reading articles on the similar topics to mentally prepare to dive into the subject matter prior to translating: using search engines to confirm how a particular word is used in the related fields: and examining the background and capacity of the speaker to determine the tone of the quotes in the article. The constant seeking spirit to deepen the knowledge of the language and having the latitude to contemplate on the more refined expressions seemed to be the common traits of the experienced translators.

Networking and friendly exchanges were carried out cheerfully and enthusiastically over refreshments in the warm spring sun. The bright faces and cheerful noises proved the value of and the need for opportunities such as this to connect with each other. Among the feedbacks we received were several requests to expand the workshop to a full-day event next year.

The workshop was organised by the following certified members of ST.I.B.C.: Yasuko Garlick, Kumi Hardin, Tatsuo Kage, Yuko Ikegami Lee, Agnes Li, and Masako Sharpe. Other certified members joining as facilitators were Stanley Fukawa, Yoshie Hancock, and Masaru Nagashima.

by Kumi Hardin

Left to Right - Tatsuo Kage, Henry Yu, Stan Fukawa, John Price, Larry Grant, Masako Fukawa, Rika Uto, Bill Saunders, Harbhajan Gill, Jane Turner.

A gathering of the representatives of three Asian community groups—Chinese, Japanese and South Asian—plus the Musqueam First Nation and the Vancouver Labour Council, who had formed the Anniversaries ’07 Steering Committee, marked the achievement of a major objective of the organizers in commemorating the centennial year of the Vancouver Anti-Asian Riot of 1907. The Vancouver Riot took place in Chinatown and Japantown over a few days beginning on September 7, 1907 but it had gained impetus from an Anti-South Asian Riot in Bellingham, Washington just across the Canada-US border on September 5 which had used violence to run the minority out of town.

The Monday May 31 meeting was held at the Vancouver Japanese Language School, whose first building an arsonist tried to torch during the historic disturbance. JLS president Rika Uto, one of the three co-chairs of the organization, welcomed the group which included the other co-chairs, Henry Yu, a History Professor at UBC, and Bill Saunders, President of the Vancouver and District Labour Council. Other principals were Larry Grant, Elder of the Musqueam Band and Harbhajan Gill, President, Komagata Maru Heritage Foundation—both on the A07 steering committee.

After Elder Grant welcomed everyone to the traditional land of the Musqueam people, Jane Turner, the BC Teachers’ Federation manager of the Resource Project presented to the A07 group the curriculum resource materials which were the most significant outcome for everyone involved. She described the process used to create the lesson plans and materials written and pre-tested by master teachers and utilizing the framework of the Critical Thinking Consortium under Roland Case. The approach in this instance requires students to adopt the identity of one of the five pivotal groups and to try to understand their adopted position as well as the positions of the others. It is quite an exciting approach to teaching and learning history. The project was funded by the Law Foundation of BC and supported by the BC Teachers’ Federation. The resource is available through the Critical Thinking Consortium at www.tc2.ca.

Born in Raymond, Alberta, Iwaasa attended university in Lethbridge for a year before making the decision to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. At age 19 he was sent to Japan for two and a half years, where he served in Tokyo and throughout western Japan. After completing his mission, he returned to Lethbridge to complete his undergraduate degree. He married Jane in July of 1972, after which the couple relocated to Kyoto as David had received a scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Education (Mombusho). After a year and a half, they returned to Canada, where David completed a Masters Degree in Economics and was recruited by the federal Department of Finance. The next thirty years were spent working for the federal government in various assignments, living in a number of cities including Ottawa, Washington, D.C., Paris, France and Tokyo. The last three years before relocating to Canada were spent in Fukuoka in Southern Japan where they presided over a mission for their church.
When the position of executive director at Tonari Gumi came up several months ago, David decided the time was right for a new challenge. Attracted by Tonari Gumi’s commitment to the concept of volunteerism and the strong grassroots support it enjoys within the Vancouver Nikkei community, he applied for and got the position.

Four months into his new job, David spoke to The Bulletin about this latest chapter in his life and the path that led him to Tonari Gumi’s front door.

Interview with David Iwaasa

You were born and raised in Raymond, Alberta. What are your memories of growing up there?
I have very positive memories of growing up in Raymond. It is a small town and I grew up on a small farm near town. My grandfather had moved to Raymond around 1909 and was a pioneer in the town. There had been a small Japanese community within Raymond from about that time and so the Japanese were well-accepted within the town. In fact, in a research paper that I wrote on the history of the Japanese Canadians in Southern Alberta, I contend that the existence of a Japanese community in the area was part of the reason why the West Coast Japanese could be “evacuated” to Southern Alberta during WWII because it made it somewhat easier for the local populace to accept more Japanese into the area. The fact that large parts of Southern Alberta, in particular, Raymond, Magrath, Taber, etc. had been pioneered by Mormons who continue to be the dominant religious group in many of these towns, made the atmosphere in Southern Alberta a little different than other areas in the region. Raymond also had a Buddhist Church in the town (housed in a former Mormon chapel) and this allowed me to be part of two different parts of the community as I had both Mormon (largely Caucasian) and Japanese friends. However, as a Japanese Canadian Mormon, I was always conscious of being a minority within a minority and, therefore, I was always a little different. As a Mormon, I was different from many of the other Japanese within the community, as most of them attended the Buddhist Church. As a Japanese Canadian, I was one of only a small group within the Mormon Church. However, it was something that I got used to and was able to bridge a number of different cultural, ethnic and religious divides.

How did it come about that you became a member of the Mormon Church?
I can trace a lot of my faith to my grandfather, who was the first member of our family to embrace the church in 1941. He was one of the founders of the Buddhist Church in Raymond and probably the first Buddhist service held east of the Rockies was held in my grandfather’s home. However, he was impressed by the examples of his Mormon neighbours and just prior to the outset of the war with Japan, he decided to join the church. This caused a great deal of turmoil in the Japanese community in Raymond at that time and he experienced ostracism from many of the other Japanese in the community, but he held firm in his new faith. I admired his example and was also influenced by the positive examples of my Mormon friends in Raymond which led to me becoming a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Interestingly, as a member of the church, I’ve been given the opportunity to go to Japan and to learn the language of my ancestry. In many ways, by being a Mormon, I’ve been able to reconnect with my own Japanese heritage.

We generally hear about Nikkei from the Toronto area and the Vancouver area, but there was a pretty sizeable population in Alberta, wasn’t there? Is there something that characterizes those Nikkei and sets them apart?
In analyzing the Nikkei from Alberta, you have to first be aware that there are two distinct groups. First, there are what I describe as the “old-timers,” or the Japanese who lived in Alberta (primarily Southern Alberta) prior to WWII. The second group would be those who were forcibly “evacuated” into the area in early 1942. The first group was quite small and never numbered more than several hundred from around 1909 through to 1941. The June 2, 1941 census lists 578 people of Japanese ancestry in Alberta. These are the “old-timers”. By July 1, 1942 the Japanese population in Alberta had exploded to 3,160. The “evacuees” had come because they were forced to leave BC and Southern Alberta was one of the few places where they could move as a family unit. While the “old-timers” were swamped by the “evacuees”, they continue to remain distinct in that they have a stronger attachment to Alberta and have generally remained. The “evacuees” were less-attached to Alberta and many left, either to the East or back to BC after the travel restrictions were lifted. However, it is interesting that a large number of evacuees did choose to remain in Southern Alberta and there continues to be a sizeable Japanese population in the area. In terms of differences between Nikkei groups elsewhere, the Southern Alberta “old-timers” are unique in that they constituted the only sizeable population of Japanese outside of BC and generally did not experience the same racial discrimination as those on the coast. Southern Alberta Japanese could vote locally, enter the professions, and enlist in the Canadian army. Also, they were not “evacuated” during the war. Otherwise, the posterity of both the “old-timers” and the evacuees living in Alberta are infused with the openness and optimism that characterizes Albertans in general.

You have one of those resumes that makes one wonder, how did one person fit all that into one lifetime?!
I’ve had three very different careers up to now: a federal civil servant specializing in international trade and finance, a marketing executive for the Canadian Wheat Board, a church missionary—and now I’m starting my fourth career with Tonari Gumi. I feel that I’ve been the same person in each of these careers. While each career was very different, I just tried to do my best in each one. What was a constant in each case is that I like challenges and I like working with people.

You grew up in Raymond and have lived in so many large cities in various parts of the world. Is there anything surprising that comes out of that experience, as far as how humans interrelate?
If there is anything surprising, it is that people are more or less the same everywhere. While some individuals who live in large cities may be more cautious and wary than those in small rural areas, it’s simply because they have either experienced or heard of horror stores where people were not careful. However, once you gain a person’s confidence, they are all more or less the same inside.

You’re the new Executive Director at Tonari Gumi, a volunteer-based organization. You have a broad base of experience as a volunteer yourself. What are the values of volunteerism, do you think?
Volunteering gives people the chance to broaden their experiences and to have the satisfaction of doing something for others because of desire rather than monetary reward. I feel that volunteering reveals who you really are inside and builds initiative and a feeling of self-worth. Volunteer work allows us to do things and achieve things without having to wait for others or the government to do it for you.

Tonari Gumi has been integral to the revitalization of the Nikkei community in Vancouver. When you look at the role it played in bringing the sansei into the community and the politicization of many younger Nikkei, you could argue that it had an impact far beyond its size. It began as a grassroots organization and really has kept that identity over the past 36 or so years. I know you’ve only been on the job for a few months, but I’d like your perspective on where TG is today and where it’s headed.
While I’ve only been working at TG since March, I’m really excited to be a part of this organization. TG started in 1973 with Jun Hamada and a handful of other sansei and shin-issei trying to assist people who needed help in the community. This is what I like about how TG evolved—people would see a need (e.g. seniors needing a place to socialize, help in accessing the medical system, advice on how to adjust to life in Canada, etc.) and then they would try to do something about it. TG doesn’t just facilitate activities; it organizes volunteers, gathers the resources and gets to work. Based on this self-help attitude, TG not only helped lonely seniors but it also spawned the Powell Street Festival and played a role in the redress movement. As you indicated, TG helped to restore self-worth and revitalize the post-war Japanese Canadian community. I feel that TG has become somewhat pigeon-holed as the organization that focuses on helping new immigrants and Japanese-speaking seniors. There is nothing wrong with these activities as they are much needed, and TG does a great job in meeting these needs. However, as a number of our members have indicated, TG could do much more. We could reach out more to help a wider range of individuals in the community, such as aging Nisei and sansei who need help in English rather than in Japanese. In addition, just as the founders of TG helped to re-build a sense of community by interacting with the issei, today’s TG could play a role in building inter-generational and cross-cultural linkages among the sansei, the shin-issei and their posterities. In other words, the definition of the Japanese Canadian community needs to go beyond the children and grandchildren of the pre-WWII Japanese to encompass the post-war Japanese and their children and grandchildren. I think that this is an exciting prospect and one that could re-energize the Japanese Canadian community.

I’m also very privileged to be working with a very motivated Board of Directors which incorporates many of the different elements of the Japanese community. Derek Iwanaka, our Chair, is relatively young in his thirties, but he is also the son of TG’s first elected chair, linking Tonari Gumi’s past with its future. The other members of our Board also represent the various parts of our constituency and are working together on developing a new strategic plan for the Tonari Gumi. My predecessor as TG Executive Director, Joji Kumagai, even though he is no longer obligated to be involved, is continuing as a Board member and in helping me with the transition, typifying the commitment that staff, volunteers and members have to the ideals of Tonari Gumi. I’m also excited to work with TG’s current staff:  Sayuri Sugawara, our program coordinator, Shihori Scott-Moncrieff, our community service worker, and Junko Takashima, our administrative assistant. They are exceptionally dedicated to Tonari Gumi, coming early in the morning and staying well after closing. I look forward to working as a team to move TG into the future with the same spirit and enthusiasm which symbolized its beginnings.

I understand that Tonari Gumi will be holding a reunion in the summer.
The upcoming TG Reunion scheduled for August 21st is, in my view, an important step in re-energizing Tonari Gumi and the Japanese Canadian community. We are hoping to invite everyone who has had anything to do with TG over its 37 year history to join us at Jericho Beach Park. Because TG encompasses both the new immigrant population and the pre-WWII Japanese posterity, our guest list pretty well covers the entire Japanese Canadian community. This reunion, coupled with the recent publication of our TG history book, Spirit of the Issei: The Story of Tonari Gumi, gives us the opportunity to revive memories of the energy and excitement of the original TG and, in so doing, revitalize that same spirit of self-help, cooperation and pride in community in today’s TG.

Salt Spring Island’s Richard Murakami was among forty-seven British Columbians representing 32 communities throughout the province who were honoured at the seventh annual BC Community Achievement Awards ceremony held at Government House in Victoria on April 28, 2010.

Lieutenant Governor Steven Point and Premier Gordon Campbell presented each recipient with a medallion on behalf of the BC Achievement Foundation.

“These forty-seven individuals exemplify the characteristics and accomplishments of British Columbians who have helped shape our province,” said Premier Campbell. “They are citizens from all over the province whose contributions, leadership and inspiration have helped make British Columbia one of the best places to live in the world.”

“They are dedicated individuals who share the most valuable of today’s commodities; time and compassion. What they all have in common is a passion for the people and places where they live and a strong commitment to making a difference,” said Keith Mitchell, chair of the British Columbia Achievement Foundation.

Richard Murakami Salt Spring Island

Richard quietly and unassumingly gives and gives to his community. He contributes with small gestures and large, from kind acts of generosity at his auto repair business to donations to sports teams, school projects, the Japanese Gardens, and Lady Minto Hospital Foundation. Today, we honour Richard for his most significant contribution…his donation of land, valued at 1.2 million dollars, for a social housing project to ensure that young families and those that want to stay on the Island have a place to live. He does all of this against the backdrop of growing up in family that was interned during the war and struggled to rebuild their lives. Richard is a caring, supportive, generous and much-loved member of the Salt Spring Island community.

On hand to support Richard at the ceremony at Government house were the two nominators, Gail Sibley of SSI and Judy Hanazawa, along with Ron Nishimura, his sisters, Rose and Mary, brother-in-law Tosh, his nephew Landon Kitagawa and niece Karen Bennett.

They’re often difficult to spot, as for the most part they shun the limelight. Not only do they not look for recognition, but they’re often toiling away in committee meetings or writing reports far into the night, far from the public view. The dragons they slay are generally bureaucratic in nature and their uniforms are either business suits or sweat pants. They certainly don’t receive endorsements from Nike or Gaterade, or even Tim Hortons.

I’m talking of course about the people in our community who get things done. Sometimes they’re community leaders, sometimes they work behind the scenes. They’re most often volunteers, either recently retired or putting in their hours after their paying jobs are done. They have been part of the Canadian Nikkei community almost from the moment the first immigrants arrived on these shores. They come from all walks of life—the business world, the arts, the civil service. They don’t always agree with each other, sometimes they work for competing organizations, but they share one thing in common: they work long hours for little or no recognition, even within their own community, to make things happen. They get cultural centres and language schools built. They raise funds for seniors and youth. Sometimes they work on a smaller scale: they take seniors on daytrips. They volunteer at community events. Whatever the scale, they do the jobs that others can’t or won’t do, and we all reap the benefits.

When they’re done, they don’t get their name put on a building. They’re lucky if they someone buys them a drink.

Over the years, we have tried to profile these quiet heroes in The Bulletin. Sometimes we miss them and sometimes we ask but they don’t want to talk about themselves. Generally though, they’re happy to talk about their lives and their philosophies, and their grandkids of course. I always come away from interviewing these people with a renewed sense of purpose and a greater appreciation for the foundation of hard work and fortitude that our community is built on.

Bob Nimi, the subject of this month’s cover story—and a quiet hero himself—came up with a good name for the quality that best suits these people: steadfast. It’s a term that captures perfectly the stoicism that stood this community well through the hard years, that saw my generation and the ones following me grow up well-cared for, even if we don’t always appreciate it.

This month sees two of our own, Bob Nimi and Richard Murakami, being honoured for  the good work that they have done in their communities. It is not work done in the short term, but rather for years upon years, like the waves rolling in from across the Pacific. Their selflessness reflects well upon us all and should serve as an inspiration as we go about our lives. Congratulations to both for their well-deserved accolades.

Steadfast. I like that . . .