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 recall exactly what I said—it was something about the conditions in the camps, I believe—but she let me know in no uncertain terms that having not been there, I had no business making sweeping generalizations. It is something I never forgot and have since made an effort to be more careful in my writing.
Lois took issue with much that was written in The Bulletin over the years—particularly when it came to the Internment—but I respected her for her determination to speak her mind, even when I didn’t agree with her point of view or her approach sometimes. I always knew when an article or letter was going to draw her ire and I remember waiting for the ensuing indignant e-mail with a degree of trepidation.

Several years ago, her son Gordon, who goes by the name Hashimoto, released a CD and Lois was tickled when I gave it a positive review. It made me smile to receive an e-mail a few weeks later, thanking me for it.
My sincere condolences to Lois’s family on their loss.

This month, as we head into the Olympics and the 2010 Cultural Olympiad, we focus on the performing arts, with a look at some of the many performances on offer over the coming months. In tandem with our look at upcoming shows, we also focus on the recently-announced cuts to arts and culture funding by the provincial government and their affect on artist and organizations. These are devastating cuts that will have a profound effect not only on working artists, but on non-profit organizations like the Powell Street Festival, National Nikkei Museum & Heritage Centre and Tonari Gumi, to name just a few.  If you believe that arts and culture are crucial to a society that you want to be a part of, and that organizations like those listed above deserve support, please lend your voice to those who are protesting the Liberal Government’s move to hamstring arts and culture organizations across the province.

Recent cuts to arts funding in BC have had a terrible effect, threatening community arts organizations that have few other sources of funding to support their public programs and activities.

One such group is Katari Taiko, started 30 years ago by a group of young Asian Canadians eager to reclaim part of their cultural heritage lost during the war and the subsequent largely unconscious drive to assimilate.
Members volunteer their time, attending up to three weekly sessions to rehearse and develop original taiko music. Almost all of the group’s repertoire has been composed by former or current members and is performed in public at a professional level. Over the years, some Katari Taiko members have become professional musicians and composers. But becoming professional was not the intention of Katari Taiko as its music is firmly rooted in community development and outreach.

Community-based arts organizations like Katari Taiko must cover considerable costs including studio rental and storage, liability and instrument insurance, drum purchase and maintenance, costuming, venue and production costs. These organizations are largely volunteer-based. Existing grants tend to support new projects that are directed by paid, professional artists and do not fit the mandate of community arts groups.
Direct Access to Charitable Gaming, a funding program which was suspended last year, covered 30-40 percent of Katari Taiko’s expenses. The rest has been covered through earned revenue from festival, community and corporate performances and donations. In the performing arts, whether taiko, theatre, dance or chamber music, earned revenue seldom covers more than 30 per cent of the costs to create and present new work to the public. These costs continue to increase.

Funds through Direct Access are not guaranteed and although the department will be accepting applications for funding this year, there are questions regarding the level of funding that will be available, the increased competition for funds after a year of cutbacks and how applications will be assessed. Arts organizations have been encouraged to develop long term strategic plans through special infrastructure and organizational development programs but these seem bound to fail without a more stable financial environment and without greater support for and recognition of the value of the arts by federal and provincial leaders.

Arts and cultural organizations contribute enormously to the quality of life in British Columbia, not just for the wealthy who can afford to attend ticketed events but also to those who attend free events and festivals such as at the Heart of the City and Powell Street Festivals. Images, recorded music and live performances have been used to promote tourism and to launch major events, skytrains and businesses as well as to draw attention to issues of first nations, women, injustice and poverty.

Collaboration with other community-based artists helps overcome linguistic and cultural barriers, nurturing greater understanding of both our neighbours and our visitors. With major cutbacks to a community that is already stretched and overly dependent on the passion and the kindness of others, much of BC’s vibrant cultural life will be lost to residents, tourists and businesses alike.

The cuts to Arts and Culture are short-sighted and punishing to those who have been efficient, resourceful and responsible in contributing to the life and well being of communities in BC. We might well be entering another Dark Age. The light at the end of tunnel will be those of us living throughout BC who protest loudly that our music, our dance, our theatre and our visual arts be able to continue to nourish our minds, our bodies and our spirits and to reach across our borders.

Funding the Arts . . .

by Jay Hirabayashi

The BC Government has slashed funding to the arts by 80 to 90 percent over the next two years. 40% of those cuts will be to the BC Arts Council, which funds companies like Kokoro Dance. Gaming funds through Direct Access grants will be cut completely by next year. We will lose $50,000 in funding support from Gaming alone. We will taxed further, when the HST is implemented in July, for things that previously were not taxed such as tickets to arts events. This will also have an impact on our revenues.

In a BC government fact sheet of September 22, 2008, deputy ministers were given an average salary increase of just over 7% to bring their average salary to $217,758; assistant deputy ministers now average $157,608/yr representing a 21% increase in salary. The average salary for artists is about 26% below the average salary for all workers according to a study compiled by Hill Strategies Research Inc. In May, 2009, the average wage was $790.22/wk or $41,091.44/yr or $19.76/hr. The average salary for artists, therefore, can be estimated to be $663.78/wk or $34,516.81/yr or $16.59/hr. If we are to take 40% off of that salary because of BCAC cuts to our funding, we will leave the artist with an annual salary of $20,710.09 or $517.75/wk or $8.77/hr. After thirty-two years as a professional artist, I earn $20/hr for 40 hours per week, $0.24/hr better than the average. My job, however, requires that I donate another 20 to 30 hours a week without compensation. If I take a 40% cut in my salary, I can look forward to earning $12/hr for those hours that I am paid, and unfortunately, I do not have the time to get another job to supplement my artist’s salary because I am already working evenings and weekends as a volunteer in service to the organization that I started. I do not have mortgage payments because I do not own a home. I do not have RRSP’s either, however, so I cannot really afford to retire. I am sixty-two years old and these cuts come at a point when I should be thinking about retirement. If I have to retire because of these cuts, I have nothing to look forward to except social assistance. Kokoro Dance Theatre Society is a nonprofit charitable organization that produces the annual Vancouver International Dance Festival. We annually pay wages and fees to over a hundred artists, technicians, and administrators. Every dollar that we receive from the BCAC is multiplied sixteen times in terms of the amount of funds that we return to BC’s economy. However, every dollar that we are short in balancing our budget can come from nowhere other than my salary. I cannot ask the already impoverished dancers that we hire to take a wage cut. Unlike BC Government politicians, we lead by example so when we are hit by obscene and heinous cuts to our grants from the BCAC, we will take the hit personally.

. . . and Culture

by John Endo Greenaway

Miko Hoffman has been involved in the arts and culture sector for much of her life, with deep roots within Vancouver’s Nikkei community. Her mother, Linda Uyehara Hoffman, is a founding member of Katari Taiko, Canada’s first taiko group, and has been involved with the Asian and arts communities in many capacities over the years. Miko’s father, Avron, is a retired library worker and published poet.

Miko served as General Manager and Programming Director of the Powell Street Festival for six years (and before that was Festival Coordinator for two years) and is currently the Executive Director of the National Nikkei Museum & Heritage Centre in Burnaby where she oversees the operations of the Centre including programs and finances. Having  had so much experience with both the curatorial and funding aspects of running a non-profit society, Miko is keenly aware of the fine line that non-profit organizations tread every day – balancing the ever-present need to raise funds with their mandate to create programming that is meaningful and innovative.

The recent funding cuts by the BC government have affected not only arts groups but sports and community organizations like the Powell Street Festival, Tonari Gumi and the NNM&HC.

I spoke to Miko Hoffman about the potential impact of the cuts on non-profit community organizations.

In all the furor over the cuts to the arts, other parts of the equation, like cultural and sports groups, were almost pushed to the back. How have the cuts affected the NNM&HC?
We relied on the Gaming grant to help sustain our basic operations. Because we are such a unique organization, being a museum, cultural centre and community centre all in one, we have had some difficulty accessing funding from various government sources. It has been quite discouraging because in recent years we feel we have gained a lot in terms of capacity — we are strengthening our programs, building our infrastructure, and creating a vision for growth and expansion – but now we have lost one of the few government grants we have been able to count on.

The government has justified their slashing of funding, framing it as food for hungry children vs. funding for arts and culture. How do you respond to arguments like that?
Arts and culture is integral to the development of society, especially for children’s development, growth and education.

Given the fact that the Society has lost this funding, how will you make up for the shortfall?
Our staff and volunteer finance and fundraising committees have been hard at work developing plans for diversifying revenues and increasing some of the earned revenues we already receive, such as private rentals. We are planning to apply for many different grants this year. We are working closely with the Nikkei Place Foundation (an endowment fund set up to support the operations of the National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre and the Nikkei Seniors Healthcare and Housing Society) to run our annual fundraising campaigns. We also have a slew of fundraising events planned for this year, including the 2nd annual Asian Canadian art auction on April 24, golf tournament on June 27, and our 10th Anniversary Gala in September.

People often feel powerless in cases like this, faced with government edicts. Is there anything that people can do to help?
There are several ways that people can help their favourite charitable organization. They can show their support by donating, or by signing up to be a new member or volunteer. There are also ways to let the government know how you feel. The Alliance for Arts and Culture administers an advocacy group called Creativity Counts, and the mandate is to restore funding for the arts (and I would hope, for culture as well). They have a blog, found here: creativitycounts.wordpress.com/

The Bingo Council of BC has also set up an online petition to reinstate all charitable gaming grants in BC: www.petitiononline.com/VCBS2010/petition.html

We started the VIDF to strategically develop a sustaining audience for dance and to put Vancouver on the international map of dance. Our company, Kokoro Dance, had developed its own audience but its numbers had peaked with the 1,848 people that came to see Sunyata in 1997. Audiences for dance were dwindling after that high water mark. Part of the reason was that there were increasingly infrequent occasions when touring companies would pass through Vancouver. Vancouver audiences and dance artists needed to be stimulated by seeing what the rest of the dance world was doing. We thought an international dance festival would remedy this diminishing interest in our chosen art form, and we thought that it would take no more than a few years to establish the VIDF as a self-sustaining organization. In 2003, however, paid attendance was 1,848 people, the same as our attendance record in 1997, but this was for six companies instead of just us. It seemed that we were sliding backwards. There was also virtually no funding support for the festival. We had started it and paid for it with our own resources and three years later, we had one $7,000 grant from the Department of Canadian Heritage and the rest of the $181,000 in costs still came out of our own pockets.

My wife, Barbara Bourget, and I have constant conversations about keeping the VIDF as it sometimes seems just a drain on our lives. We have made progress, however. Attendance last year was up to 6,364 people and we presented 22 companies. We have more funding for the festival, but it impacts on Kokoro’s resources by over a hundred thousand dollars a year. We remain hopeful.

In the 2010 VIDF that runs from March 12 – 21 at the Roundhouse and Playhouse theatres, we will be presenting dance artists from across Canada, and from Denmark, Taiwan, New Zealand, and the United States. Coinciding with the Paralympic Games, the 2010 VIDF will be part of the 2010 Vancouver Cultural Olympiad. The line-up at the Roundhouse starts March 12 – 13 with Vancouver’s Mascall Dance premiering a work featuring a set by renowned public art sculptor Alan Storey (he did the swinging pendulum in the HSBC building). Come early at 7pm and you can see a 30 minute premiere by Kokoro Dance of a new work called L.S.D. (Love, Sex & Death). On March 16 – 17, butoh fans will appreciate the performance of Denmark’s Kitt Johnson, who promises to undergo a metamorphosis from primordial creature to human. The free 7pm shows those evenings are Vancouver’s Flamenco Rosario and Out Innerspace who each will also address L.S.D. (Love, Sex & Death). Next up on March 18 – 19, is Taiwan’s LAFA & Artists, who are proclaimed as the best new contemporary dance ensemble from that country. The final Roundhouse shows feature Bill Shannon, an extraordinary hip hop dancer who performs on crutches as he has been disabled since childhood. On the same program is work by the renowned Canadian dance icon, Peggy Baker. Preceding those shows, at 7pm on Saturday and 5pm on Sunday, is butoh artist Michael Sakamoto from Los Angeles performing with musician Amy Knoles. At the Playhouse, on March 16 – 17, Toronto Dance Theatre brings their fine assemble of dancers in Artistic Director Christopher House’s Dis/(sol/ve)r— a work, built on the theory of quantum mechanics, that accumulates moving images of profound human relationships. On March 18 – 19, New Zealand’s acclaimed Black Grace brings their Samoan/Maori influenced contemporary dance to the Playhouse stage—highly physical and energetic together with aboriginal spirituality. The Playhouse series ends March 20 – 21 with Ronald K. Brown’s Afro-American Evidence Dance Company that includes a performance of Grace, originally choreographed for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.

We hope you will help us celebrate our 10th anniversary (and help keep us going) by attending these shows. www.vidf.ca

When we examine the arts, we generally talk in terms of vision, of creativity, even entertainment value. Sometimes the arts thrill us. Sometimes they infuriate us. Hopefully they make us feel. What we don’t often talk about, or even think about, is arts and culture as a component of the business sector and the economy. If we do stop to think in terms of dollars and cents, the image of the starving artist comes readily to mind. Indeed, many artists live close to the bone, often supplementing their art-derived income with low-wage menial jobs. Few embark on a career in the artistic realm with visions of wealth dancing in their heads.

Yet recent cuts by the provincial government have brought the financial aspect of the arts to the fore. Arts groups, galleries, festivals and arts-related organizations across the province are mired in uncertainly and despair over massive cuts to their operating budgets. Some have folded already, others are considering whether they can continue on in the current financial climate.

It is ironic, then, that this sudden crisis and focus on arts funding is taking place in the midst of a cultural explosion. The 2010 Cultural Olympiad, the cultural component of the 2010 Winter Game, is underway, bringing with it a mouth-watering feast of performances and events for every taste.

The question is, what will this explosion leave behind once the dust has settled . . . a legacy of increased audiences and funding for the arts for locals arts groups? Or a blackened wasteland devoid of life, with the current wealth of performances, exhibitions and events but a distant memory?

With budgets to be drawn up and grants to be applied for, arts organizations are not passively sitting by, waiting to find out what their futures hold. Instead, they are actively lobbying the government, forming advocacy groups, and urging audiences and members of the public to contact their government representatives to restore funding. They are not looking for charity. Rather, they are trying to drive home the fact that the cuts to the arts are both short-sighted and misguided, ignoring the reality that arts and culture, rather than sucking money from the provincial coffers, generate much-needed dollars for the economy and the government.

In an August 2009 letter to Plank Magazine (www.plankmagazine.com), Jann LM Bailey, Executive Director Kamloops Art Gallery, writes about the financial benefits of a funded arts community: “Like any business, the arts sector is fundamental to a robust economy. It is a large, labour-intensive, cost-efficient, high-growth industry representing approximately 2.4 per cent of the gross domestic product. Government of Canada statistics indicate that Canada’s heritage institutions, including historic sites, art galleries and museums, zoos, planetariums, observatories and botanical gardens, attracted 35 million visitors in 2004, while not-for-profit performing arts companies attracted 12.9 million visitors in 2006 (2 million in British Columbia alone) and earned $1.2 billion dollars the same year. The arts in Canada represents the fourth largest industry in terms of employment, supporting over 260,000 core jobs (2001 statistics) and are a source of pride in communities from coast to coast to coast.”*
Artists are a resilient lot. Given a lifetime of scraping by, most are experts at turning a sows ear into a silk purse, if not an entire evening gown. Still, the current cuts are a deep blow that threaten the livelihood of many working artists. As Jay Hirabayashi points out on page 5, for some artists the alternative will be unemployment and social assistance.

It is amidst both this financial uncertainty and the bounty that is the Cultural Olympiad, that we present our Spring Arts Preview, showcasing some of the performances coming up over the coming months.

These artists and their creations are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the incredible creative forces at work in studios and rehearsal halls, galleries and workshops across the province. They are part of an enormous and dedicated workforce that work endless hours out of love for what they do, and we are all the richer for it.

* to read the complete article, visit: www.plankmagazine.com/feature/bc-arts-cuts-gaming-money-evaporates-effective-immediately

Other related websites:
www.stopbcartscuts.ca
www.allianceforarts.com
creativitycounts.wordpress.com
www.petitiononline.com/VCBS2010/petition.html

File under Cover-up
Finally, keen-eyed readers will notice that we’re kicking off the new decade with a colour cover. A minor miracle you say? Not at all, we’ve simply switched printers, moving over to the good folks at International Web Express, and thought we’d offer up a splash of colour to mark the new year and what will hopefully be a long and fruitful partnership with IWE. We will be printing colour covers now and then throughout the year.

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe holiday season. Each year gets busier and busier, or so it appears anyway.

Our membership is invaluable to us as a community organization. Each annual membership, along with the funds from our advertisers, provides us with the means to support the day-to-day functions of the GVJCCA, providing programs and services, and publishing The Bulletin each month. We encourage our members to keep their membership up to date. With our economy in such rough shape, we realize that sometimes this may be difficult. Please check the mailing label on the back cover for the expiry date. Your membership provides The Bulletin as an invaluable source of information about the Japanese Canadian community.

Upcoming this month will be the Greater Vancouver JCCA Keiro-kai which will be held on Saturday January 9th from 12noon to about 3pm at Nikkei Place at 6688 Southoaks Crescent in Burnaby. We have another excellent program planned to  honour the Nikkei seniors who have been part of our community for so many years. All those who are over 70 years of age, please register through Tonari Gumi (604.687.2172) soon as possible. Those of you who would like to volunteer, please contact Shag Ando at 604.922.9226.
The annual Nikkei Community New Year’s Party (Shinnen-kai) will be held at Nikkei Place on Saturday January 16th. Doors will open at 5:00pm, dinner at 6:00pm. Tickets ($45) are available through Nikkei Place. Please phone 604.777.7000 for additional information.

The GVJCCA will be holding its annual AGM on Saturday March 20th  in the GVJCCA office from 2-4pm. We are always looking for individuals who are interested in helping the community in all areas of community development, social justice, human rights, and Nikkei relations. Please come and attend. If you would like more information please contact the GVJCCA office.

Next month, Vancouver will be on the worlds stage, welcoming all the world’s top winter athletes for the 21st Winter Olympic Games (February 12-28) and 10th Paralympic Winter Games (March 12-21). This will be a great opportunity for Vancouver to show the sights and the multiculturalism that is part of our daily lives here. I hope you will be able to take this opportunity to be participate in this as well.

Have a great month.

Ron Nishimura
President GVJCCA

By Tatsuo Kage

In November 2009, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) of the Federal Government introduced a new Citizenship Study Guide titled Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship. Compared with the old guide, A Look at Canada, published over a decade ago, this new 63-page guide provides more details on topics such as the British Royal Family, Canada’s military services, Canada’s history and citizens’ responsibilities. Starting from March 2010, citizenship applicants will be tested on the knowledge presented in this new guide.
In order to come up with this new citizenship study guide, CIC (Jason Kenney, Minister) has consulted many experts including historians. There is a list of acknowledgement attached to the end of the guide which includes numerous organizations and individuals. However, as Japanese Canadians have noticed, the term used to describe the incarceration of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War remains inappropriately and erroneously “relocation”—an expression used by the government at that time. Furthermore, while it is natural to mention the capture and maltreatment of Canadian prisoners of war after the fall of Hong Kong, it is hard to understand the purpose of mentioning Japan’s paper balloon bombs and its attack on a lighthouse on Vancouver Island as neither event caused any real damage. I believe that these two events should belong to a more specialized history book of WWII.
Sometime ago, in 1999, I participated in producing a study guide in Japanese titled Kanada no Jyoshiki (A Guide to Canada) published by the former Greater Vancouver Japanese Immigrants’ Association. This study guide in Japanese provides readers with common knowledge that Canadians should know, as well as outlines of the history of Japanese-Canadians and sample citizenship interview questions. At this moment it is hard to access whether we will need an updated guide in Japanese based on the information presented in the new citizenship study guide, but I strongly feel that there is a need to examine the new citizenship study guide in details. The reasons are:

1.    This new citizenship study guide is distributed to all applicants in preparation for their citizenship test. Therefore, it is essential that the information should be clear, simple and accurate;
2.    I understand that the government may distribute this citizenship study guide to all high schools in Canada and it will be used as a course material for social studies. Therefore, it is crucial that the content be based on well-balanced judgment that is historically accurate.

Proposal: Discussion on the new study guide
Firstly, I urge you to get a copy of this Discover Canada and read it over. You can request for a hard copy which will be distributed in mid-December 2009.
You may also be able to read it online at

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/pub/discover.pdf

Secondly, I would like to propose a discussion on the contents of the new citizenship study guide. I encourage both immigrants and Canadian born people in the community to participate who are interested in Canada’s history, politics, concerns regarding rights of citizens including aboriginal groups, multiculturalism or education, and make their critical voices heard.

Thirdly, it would be a good idea to share our ideas and comments not only among Japanese-Canadians, but also with members of other ethnic communities. Then, our comments and critique should be presented to the government.

As a proposed process, I would like to urge the JCCA or the NAJC to take the initiative for an activity of reviewing the study guide.

It has often been pointed out that many Canadians lack common knowledge of their country, therefore, during the introduction of the new citizenship study guide, Jason Kenney implied that those citizenship applicants who have studied this citizenship guide might become more knowledgeable about Canada than those who were born and raised in Canada: “I’m frankly more concerned about historical amnesia and civic illiteracy amongst native-born young Canadians…”

All of us, including Japanese Canadians, are looking forward to having newcomers from various parts of the world who become active members of their own communities and contribute positively to Canadian society. Although this new study guide talks about multiculturalism, it hardly discusses how ethnic communities or immigrants have contributed to our society by helping shape our nation and culture. From this point of view we want to collect feedbacks from minority groups and immigrants on how they would like their ideas to be incorporated into the new study guide.

Our Image of Canada
It is natural that immigrants and new citizens are expected to abide by the law of Canada and fulfill their responsibilities as residents of Canada. But many of us have different opinions and some reservations on areas such as Canada’s political structure, human rights within the country and Canada’s role in international conflicts. For example, the role of the Queen as our head of state; Canada’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan, and Canada’s failure to support the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which is endorsed by the vast majority of the member states are issues which immediately come to mind. I believe it would be great if we could open up discussions including these issues and let the government know what the outcome of our discussions would be.

*This article was written originally in Japanese and submitted to the JCCA Bulletin, December 2009 issue. This is a translated version with some revisions.

Cy Saimoto sat down with The Bulletin at the Vancouver Japanese Language School to discuss his recent trip to Japan and his vision for the School.

In His Own Words

Cy Hisao Saimoto
INTERVIEW

You were born in 1928, so you remember the pre-war years. What was life like back then?
For the first immigrants to come here, it was a tough life with all the discrimination. Because the Japanese traded amongst themselves, Powell street became Japan Town before the war. They all lived around this area. Before the war, the Japanese School had over a thousand kids.

What did your father do before the war?
He came here in 1907, working as a fisherman, and then as a fish buyer for B.C. Packers. Fish buyers would buy the fish from the fishermen and bring it to the cannery and get a commission to sell it to the cannery. He had a 62-foot seine boat built called the “May S”. But the Japanese couldn’t get a licence to seine, so he chartered out his boats. They used it to haul salmon in from Alert Bay into Steveston with this boat. In summertime I used to go to the packer on the river, collecting fish.

You went to Minto Mines during the war, what was it like?
We were evacuated from here in ‘42. The thing is, the B.C. Security Commission was run by government people: Austin Taylor, H.R. McMillan, and W. H. Moffatt. Austin Taylor controlled all the mines, Bralorne mine up north in the Chilcotin there, it was still going in ‘42 and he had people in that area looking after the property they owned. They had homes built there for the miners, and then the depression came and the gold went flat so they all moved out, so they were ghost towns. But someone had to look after the place, right? So there was a fellow called Bill Davidson that looked after that property and they said it was a good deal for the Japanese to come here, good rent. So that’s what happened. We paid rent, we were what you call self supporting, we didn’t get any help from the government. Our parents thought the war would only last a year or so, so we didn’t have to get any help from the government. Quite a few families went on their own. But most couldn’t go on their own, so all the people on the coast, the government shoved them all into Hastings Park, the stables there. I’ll never forget that. You don’t treat people like that. I’ll never forget all that in my lifetime, anyway. We want to let the young kids—second, third, fourth generation—know what happened. It’s history.

Was there school in Minto Mines?
I didn’t go to school no. I worked in the sawmill, 42 cents an hour. I worked all over. There was no high school there, so my dad says, oh, we better move out of here, so in 1945 we moved to Revelstoke. There was a high school there, but you couldn’t live in the city limits either, there. So that’s where I finished my high school. But during that time I worked in the logging camps in Rogers Pass. And then in ‘49, I even worked for the C.P.R., 55 cents an hour, this kind of thing. I worked in the ice house. Do you know how they cooled those the C.P.R. rail passenger car cars? With blocks of ice underneath. The air comes up and cools the car. I used to ice those hot air conditioned cars, and then fill the seaboard freight cars, you know, fill them with ice, because they’re shipping fruit and produce from the Okanagan. But it’s good training for you, you know. You’re a young kid. But I just felt sorry for my parents, that’s all. That age, coming back, nothing to start with, you know, that’s tough to take, to losing everything . . .

You become involved in the Vancouver Japanese Language School shortly after the return to the coast. What was the importance of the School to the community?
This is the only institution that’s been here over a hundred years. A lot of people think oh, the Downtown Eastside is a bad area, so they dump everything here. But to us, I like to save the heritage, the Nikkei heritage. In order to do that you’ve got to have a building or place so the young people have somewhere to gather. And all I tried to do is bridge this for the sansei and the yonsei, so they can carry on back and forth with Japan, so the culture keeps carrying on. It’s a legacy, you know. We’ve been here over a hundred and thirty years. The first Japanese came here in 1877, and the school started in 1906. And then the First World War came, the Depression came, and the Second World War came, we lost everything. Discrimination was so bad here. They (the Canadian government) tried to send us all back to Japan, to repatriate in ‘46, ‘47. But we didn’t go. We fought like hell trying to get something back. We got the School back. This is the only property officially that we know of that was returned.

What did your father do after the war?
My father was a good businessman, you know, his line of credit was good. Before the war my dad was in the salting business, packing caviar and salted salmon to Japan. So he had a lot of connections in Japan and he had a lot of connections here too. After the war, he got back into the import/export business working with the Nelson Brothers Fisheries and the St. Mungo cannery on River Road in Surrey. Richie Nelson was the boss you know. You shake hands with him and the deal’s on. You don’t know what our parents had to go through. Even going through life, we can’t imagine what kind of hardship they had to go through. That’s why I’ve always wanted something like this, this community area saved. If nobody’s around here, it will be forgotten.

In addition to helping rebuild the School, you were one of the founders of the Vancouver Judo Club.
Yeah. I used to play judo at the judo club in Steveston before the war and when I came back, bunch of fellows like Tamoto and all those guys called me up and said, Cy, how about coming up and help us form the Judo club. I didn’t know too much but I picked up all the rules and everything before the war. So I came out and helped them out. We started the club in 1950, Vancouver Judo club.

One thing about Judo, any sport, doesn’t matter, you learn discipline. You come into the dojo, take off your hat, shake, bow, practice and that discipline is good. Today we lack that discipline. And that’s the problem with young people. You don’t have that discipline. Because you got to get that discipline when you’re still a young kid. It automatically grows in them. Today a teacher can’t discipline your kids. You know, that’s what people expect. I say, what do you mean? They can’t do that. It’s the parent’s job to discipline.

But it’s nice that you’re in a position that you can help people. That’s a good feeling. You can’t buy this kind of thing. I know friends that got all kinds of money, they’re lonelier than hell.  What the hell for? do something I said. But they’re that type: they don’t want to go out and this and that. I like to help people, the community. If the bottom moves up, you move up automatically. You don’t have to have that ego. But everybody isn’t that way.

There was pressure to relocate the school somewhere else, wasn’t there? A lot of Japanese left the area years ago . . .
That’s right. A lot of people want to forget, want to forget the past. That’s why I was involved with the church, too, the Vancouver Buddhist Church. We built that new building 30 years ago. We asked all the membership what they wanted to do, they said they wanted to build there. 1977 was a hundred years since the first Japanese came here, so we made a project and built the Church in ‘79—exactly 30 years ago.

A place like this (the Language School) is very hard to put together and maintain. This school is all operated as a volunteer organization. It’s hard to maintain a place like that. Anybody can build something, but how are you going to maintain it if you don’t have young people following? That’s my thinking. So 25 years from now or 50 years, I don’t care, I won’t be around anyway but they’ll say, you made a good school here.

By giving, you get something back, don’t you?
Yes. I don’t expect to get it back right away. Life is a circle. It’s a nice feeling that eventually it will come back, maybe not in your time, maybe your kids time or your grand kids time. It might come back, might not . . . the Japanese expect it to come back all the time. Right away. It doesn’t come back that easy. It’s like my golf game, I go this way and that but at the end I’m going to get it in, you know. You have to have patience, you can’t get mad when you’re helping the society, you know. Sometime you get mad at yourself, but you can’t show that. You have to hold back. Because the good times will come if you hold back. You know, your turn will come.

You are a Buddhist?
Yes, I’m a Buddhist. But I’m not a really religious guy, I’m just a human being. But the Buddhist teaching is really nice, you know. Everyone that dies, you have a first year memorial, third year, seven year, etc. You get all your family together, you know, for the service, and then we have lots of things to eat and drink, and talk about what your father did, your ancestors did. It’s your own flesh and blood. Young kid hear, gee, my grandfather did all that, you know. It might come around. I don’t know, but at least you’re sowing the seed. Just like sowing a seed, do you expect everything to come out? No. A small percentage comes out, that’s great. Same with the School here. That’s why I’m interested in this School. Having a daycare centre and kids coming when they are small. Once they grow up, there’s something there they never forget. When they’re middle aged they say, oh, I went to that school, I better come and volunteer my service here. I don’t know. It might happen. But if I don’t do anything, nothing happens.

We Japanese people are very strong. Once they set their mind, they’ll do something. Right? I mean, we lost everything during the war, and came back. We put up the church, we built a new wing at the School now. I mean you got to give credit where credit’s to be given. They’re fighters. You know, if you don’t have the will, nothing happens.

I don’t imagine you can sustain the school with only Japanese students—is the student population diverse in terms of ethnicity?
Yeah, pure Nikkei is less than 30 percent now. There is a lot of mixed marriages, some with no Japanese blood. That percentage is over 15 percent now I think. They just love Japanese culture and Japanese language, or they had some connection with Japan. Many of the kids that come here are actually trilingual, or quadlingual, so it just enriches their life to have another language.

We want to make this place kind of an educational centre. Eventually, once it starts going, we’ll have teachers from different countries come here. That’s what my dream is one day. Maybe it will never happen but you can’t depend only on the Japanese. The numbers are so small. Today we only have about 70,000 in the whole of Canada. After 130 years.
Before the war we went to English school, and then after, from 3:30 to 5:30 we took Japanese. Lots of parents pushed us to go there. When you’re a kid you want to play hooky and go to the movies in the afternoon, this kind of thing, but I never played hooky because if I got caught, boy, I know I’m going to get it. You don’t learn very much—that’s all right. It’s just like sending the kids here: you think they’re not learning anything but they’re learning. That’s what my dad always said, travel when you can. Meet people. Listen to them. If you don’t meet anybody, you know you don’t hear anything. Business is same too. You know, I am a businessman myself so I used to meet people.

You just came back from Japan, where you received the Order of the Rising Sun for all your volunteer service. How was that?
To me, it’s not a big deal but it’s a big deal in Japan. It was announced November the 3rd and the ceremony was on November the 11th, and so I went there, and for me to go there, you know, it was amazing. It’s an all day deal from nine o’clock in the morning. You sit around and this and that, and then they serve you lunch. And then after all the presentations, the foreign minister gives you the scroll, and then they give you the medal. And then they take you to the palace, to the Emperor, and there’s thousands of people lined up, and he speaks for a few minutes, then he walks all around in front of us there. It’s something. So I got out of there close to six o’clock, you know. All the days I was there I had a party every night. Oh, that’s tough to take, you know,  but it’s a real nice feeling to get that. I thought it was good for the community to get something—I was the only one from Canada.

I just want to make sure it gives a lift to the Downtown Eastside area here, that’s what I want to make sure, not only the Japanese, but the whole neighbourhood. You know, let’s work together, do something, go fight city hall, work together.

One thing that’s impressed me about the school is that you’ve really gotten involved in the community around here and not just kept to yourselves. I understand you have another project underway . . .
Yes, our Heritage Renovation Daycare Project. We’re planning a green renovation of our Heritage Wing to add a full-time daycare centre We’ve received seed funding from the provincial government, so we want to kick off a fundraising campaign to raise another half a million. That’s what we’re trying to do so we can fix the building. When I ask for donations, I say I don’t care how much you give, it’s how much you can afford to give. You know the Japanese way of doing it is the guy who gives the most gets their name on top, you know, put pressure on people. I never did it that way. It’s the little ones that count. These are the people that are going to maintain this place. The big ones are just there, bang, and that’s it, leave nothing behind. But you know, it’s going to last fifty, a hundred years, who’s going to maintain it? It’ll become a warehouse, you know, so you need the small ones, lots of small money donated. It’s not the amount. I want to borrow your heart. Your hundred dollars or the other guy’s thousand is just the same. If you can only afford a hundred, that’s great, you know, people that can afford a thousand, great. People that can afford ten thousand, that’s great too.

We’ll become one of the largest child care centres in BC. And at the same time, because we are a heritage building, we decided to also make it an interpretive centre, to tell the story of our history. We’re doing special green features like the solar thermal panels and green programming as well to make it one of the most innovative centres in BC.

What are your plans for the future?
We’re looking at the long term in the next 25 to 50 years, so we will continue to adapt as we have over the past one hundred years. There are a lot of businesses, small businesses cropping up around here. There’s no hall around here this size, so a lot of people use the place. That’s the kind of centre we would like to be. Basically right now we’re a community centre but in our next phase, we are adding a child care centre. We like to help the Downtown Eastside, not only Japanese—any race, doesn’t matter, just come to the place, use the place.

The Emperor and Empress visited your school during the recent visit. That must have been exciting.
We invited all the Japanese Canadian and local community representatives and you know it was great. This area does have problems but the people are great, actually, and there’s a lot of good stuff happening here. It was really a warm community welcome for them and they really appreciated it. The mayor showed them around and the councillors came and it was really nice because the whole community got together so we were really happy. With Mayor Robertson, we showed them our Centennial History Exhibit and then our plans for what we’re doing now and our renovation plans for the daycare. It was a historic day of celebration for the Japanese Canadian community and the Downtown Eastside.

Any last words you’d like to share with our readers?
To get involved with something like this, you got to sacrifice. So that’s why you have to get the right kind of people around you. Hard to do, but get people working. Become a volunteer. You know, a lot of volunteers say, I got to come and help. I say, don’t think that way. You’re not doing it for anybody. You’re doing it for yourself. That’s the kind of volunteer you want. I know, all the years I’ve been helping this church and the School. I mean, when you’ve gone through life you get to know all the angles. Volunteers are the same, there are a lot of volunteers that have an “I’m doing it for you” attitude. You know, if it’s that way, please don’t come. Come with the feeling that I would like to do something on my own to help you. To feel good yourself. Come in and help, you know. You don’t think that when you’re younger but when you get older, you realize this. That’s what I did, anyway. So I try to help everybody think that way, a little bit that way.

Who will remember?
There has been a lot in the news lately about the coming cuts to arts and culture funding. As a one-time professional artist who is still connected to the arts and culture communities through both The Bulletin and my graphic design work, I can’t help but feel intense anger at the short-sightedness of this government. But this isn’t a rant about funding or the government. Rather, I was thinking the other day that in the constant search for funding and donations on the part of organizations like the Nikkei Centre and the Powell Street Festival (to name but a very few) there is another deficit that can prove just as crippling, and that is the shortage of people to drive things forward.
This was brought on by a discussion with Nancy Kato following the recent Remembrance Day ceremony in Stanley Park. She told me that with Bev Inouye’s passing, the weight of organizing the event has fallen on her shoulders. Together with Roy Kawamoto, Nancy has had to take up where Bev left off (and has given her even greater respect for the work Bev did). What brought me up short was her admission that she and Roy have talked about letting the event die. It’s not a lack of attendance that is the problem; if anything, the event is better-attended every year. It’s not even for a lack of volunteers; every year people come out of the woodwork to help on the day itself, serving tea and sandwiches and anything else that needs to be done. Rather, it is that both Nancy and Roy are feeling the burden of having to organize and plan the ceremony and reception with little or no help.
As a longtime attendee at the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Japanese Canadian War Memorial, it is unthinkable to me that the event will die for lack of a few volunteers. So here it is folks: a callout for a few people to step forward to help organize the Remembrance Day ceremony. I figure all we need is a small group willing to divide up the few tasks that need doing every year. I have put my name forward, but going on the “many hands make light work” principle, we need a few more dedicated souls to keep the event going. E-mail me at john@bigwavedesign.net if you are interested.

Emmie Hirata
Speaking of remembering: this month we lost long-time Bulletin volunteer Emmie Hirata. A resident of Nikkei Home for the past few years, Emmie has been around as long as I can remember, helping out on mailing day and always in the front row of each and every community event, smiling widely in her electric scooter. Our condolences to her family. We will all miss her.

Speaking of remembering (part II): apologies for the error last issue in printing the October Wakumi’s World again instead of the November version. The error was entirely mine. In this issue we present both the November and December cartoons.

This is our last issue for 2009. It is truly an honour serving the community through The Bulletin. Your kind and generous words of support are truly appreciated. I’d like to send out holiday greetings to all of our readers, advertisers, volunteers and contributors. I wish you the very best in the New Year and hope that it will bring you and your family health and happiness. (And remember to get your flu shots!)