From left: Athena Asklipiadis , Krissy Kobata, and Jeff Chiba Stearns. Krissy is 27 years old and part Japanese/part Caucasian with Myelodysplastic Syndrom (MDS) and is actively searching for a bone marrow donor.

In 2007 filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns heard from a friend of his, who was a cancer survivor, about a young SFU student who was looking for a bone marrow donor. What complicated things was the man’s race. Part Chinese and part Caucasian, it made it more difficult to find a match. Stearns’ friend pointed out that as a hapa—part Caucasian, part Japanese—Stearns would have a good chance of being a match. Since matching is based on genetics, they were looking for more hapas to join the registry. Ultimately, Stearns says, he didn’t join the registry, “partly for a lot of the same reasons other people don’t join. I was busy, I didn’t know how to, and I really didn’t understand the complexities associated with multiethnic matches and how hard it is for mixed people to find a match.”

The experience resonated with Stearns, though, and he is serving as Director and Executive Producer of Mixed Match, a documentary currently in production that looks at the issue of finding bone marrow matches for mixed race people facing life-threatening blood diseases.

The Bulletin talked to Stearns about Mixed Match and the issues the film raises.

You’re known primarily as an animator. What made you decide to make Mixed Match?
Around a year ago I was approached by Athena Asklipiadis, founder of Mixed Marrrow (www.mixedmarrow.org). She mentioned that she wanted to create a documentary to raise awareness for this cause and the complexities associated with finding matches for multiethnic people. Hers is the only group in the US that specifically targets multiethnic people to join the national registry in the US, which is Be The Match. After I talked to Athena and learned more about the topic, as well as read articles about patients who were searching and read research on the science behind it, I realized it was something I had to take on as a documentary subject.

This is very different from other film projects you have been involved with—does it signal a new direction for you?
This is the first medically-related documentary I’ve ever worked on. But I don’t want this to feel like a medical documentary. I want this to be a character-driven documentary that captures the stories of the patients and subject we’re working with. I want their stories to resonate with the audience and so the call to action is to get more people to join their national registries and consider donating cord blood to stem cell banks. I am trying to find a way to incorporate animation into the film, since I have a huge love for the medium of animation. I love animation and I love documentary so it’s great when I can create this hybrid of both in one film. What I also like about this topic is it continues to explore my love of the topic of multiethnic identity.

It sounds like you’ve become emotionally invested in the topic.
A lot of these patients are at a crucial stage in their lives where identity is starting to play a role in how they understand the world around them. It’s difficult when their mixed heritage is the direct reason why they are having such a hard time finding a match. As well, with the increasing number of mixed kids being born today, especially in the Japanese Canadian community, it’s difficult to find enough mixed people of my generation to join the registry since you have to be over 17 in Canada to join the registry.

You talk about not knowing the issues when you were first asked to join the registry. I’m with you there. What are the issues?
Race and ethnicity play a big role when it comes to finding a marrow match for those suffering from fatal blood diseases. A lesser-known fact is that in order for a marrow or stem cell match to occur between a patient and a donor, genetic markers on cells must line up. These markers are inherited from parents, so their children are a blend of both their parents’ markers. This means that for mixed patients, their mono-racial parents and relatives will not likely be a match, and their siblings only hold about a 1 in 4 chance of being a match. Many markers on the cells are specific to certain ethnic groups so multiethnic people have a difficult time when their tissue typing has unusual or uncommon combinations. To put this in perspective, if your background is Egyptian, Japanese, and Russian, there is a likely chance that only another person with a similar ethnic blend could be a possible donor if you are diagnosed with leukemia.
Our film addresses the fact that every year over 30,000 people in North America are diagnosed with life threatening blood diseases. For many of them, a bone marrow transplant is their only chance at survival. Of the seven million registered bone marrow donors and 100,000 cord blood donors in the US, less than 3% are multiethnic. This statistic, although proportionate to the population of mixed people in the country, is a real challenge for a mixed patient, given the endless variety of possible genetic combinations in the registry. Finding a multiethnic marrow match in the public registry is akin to finding a needle in a haystack or winning the lottery.
According to the 2010 US Census, the number of people who associate with having more than one ethnic background has increased by almost 50% since 2000. But despite the rapid growth of the multiracial population all over the world, people don’t realize the risks that lie ahead for mixed people when it comes to blood diseases, and the almost endless search for a donor match.

Those are sobering statistics, how will you bring the subject matter to life?
As I said, I don’t want this just be another medical documentary and it’s the human angle that will ultimately  touch viewers and keep them engaged. We’re going to show the lives of young patients and their families as they struggle to overcome life-threatening blood diseases. Mixed Match will be a character-driven documentary highlighting a number of exceptional, courageous, and inspiring people. The film will follow recently-diagnosed multiethnic patients in search of donors. Some of them are struggling to hold on to hope through countless rounds of chemotherapy while also searching for a match. We also look at a patient who is in remission after a successful stem cell/marrow donation. Another patient, who ultimately succumbed to his illness story, has his story told through his surviving family members. On an uplifting note, the documentary will feature an emotional reunion between a donor and patient after a successful transplant, with the two meeting for the very first time.
Mixed Match is ultimately a human story told from the perspective of youth who are forced to discover their identities through their illnesses. Their mixed backgrounds threaten their chance at survival, highlighting why in this day and age, race still matters.

The patients are looking for mixed race donors and you’re looking for donors of any race to finish the project. What’s your goal?
We have been able to secure enough funding to start the project, but we don’t have enough to complete it, which is why we decided to try this venue. There are still so many more stories we need to capture and more footage to film with the subjects we’re working with now. We have a number of perks we’re offering on our website (www.indiegogo.com/mixed-match). The contribution amount that you are able to fund will determine the perks you will receive. It is our hope to raise $25,000 to cover expenses in the production and post-production stages.

What other projects do you have in your back pocket?
Right now along with Mixed Match, I’m also working on another incarnation of my animated short film Yellow Sticky Notes. This time, it’s an animated anijam called Yellow Sticky Notes: Canadian Anijam. It’s where I get 15 animators from across Canada to contribute their own section of animation and together they form one big animation, although no animator knows what the other animators are doing. It’s going to be a really amazing showcase of animation talent from across Canada and we’ve got some super talented animators working on the project, some of whom have even been nominated for an Academy Award for their animation work, like Cordell Barker, who created the NFB hit, The Cat Came Back. As well, I’ll also developing another feature length doc, entitled Mixed Media about multiethnic representation in film and TV. We’ve already interviewed some mixed Canadian actors such as Julie Tamiko Manning and Glee’s Patick Gallagher. That said, Mixed Match is my main priority right now and we’re really hoping to get back to filming this summer when we can secure a bit more of a budget. So we really appreciate if people could helps us out by donating at www.indiegogo.com/mixed-match. We’ve got some amazing perks and incentives for their generosity.

Tuesday, October 27

Kay and Emma went to a meeting about the teaching jobs after breakfast, so I was on my own. I took a long walk along the main road until there were no more houses. The only traffic was a big truck loaded with logs. I noticed a sign to Rosebery, another internment camp north of here, and another sign pointing east to Sandon and Kaslo. I kept going as far as the railway tracks and nearly jumped out of my skin when a boy my age suddenly appeared and asked if I was lost!

I told him I wasn’t. Then he asked me whether I was from Rosebery or The Orchard, because if I was from Rosebery, it was faster following the tracks than using the main road. I thanked him and said I was from The Orchard, even though that’s not entirely true! He smiled and said he might see me there. His father is one of the Doukhobor farmers in the area who sell vegetables to the Japanese. They’re usually at The Orchard on Thursdays.

The boy’s name is Alex Davidoff. He likes walking the tracks because he often sees birds and deer. We headed back to the road together just as a bearded man in a horse-drawn wagon pulled up. Alex said it was his father and went to meet him. But before he did, he tipped his cap and wished me good day! I waved as the wagon went by and Alex waved back. It’s strange he wasn’t in school.

After lunch, my sisters and I went to visit the Yamasakis. I was stunned when we went inside but tried not to show it. It’s tiny, yet Mrs. Yamasaki said it’s really a two-family cabin. There’s no electricity and no running water here either. The wooden kitchen sink has a hole that drains straight outside!

Mrs. Yamasaki sent her daughters to fetch water for tea so I went along to help. It’s quite a distance to the village. The full buckets were very heavy but Mrs. Yamasaki gave the youngest girl a metal teapot to carry instead. Now I understand why Sachi wrote that this was such hard work.

The girls are so polite, not yancha like Harry. Dori is nine, Joy is seven and Bonnie is five. The older lady, Mrs. Imai, is Mrs. Yamasaki’s mother and the girls’ baachan. Mr. Yamasaki owned a Vancouver dry cleaning shop, but like Mas, he was sent to Angler for protesting back in May. His family hasn’t had a letter from him since September.

The cabin has two wood stoves, one for heating and one for cooking. My sisters helped Mrs. Yamasaki start the fire in the cooking stove because she was so used to her electric stove in Vancouver. The ocha was good and Mrs. Imai brought out a tin of senbei to munch on. Mrs. Yamasaki apologized for not having any nice teacups but, like everyone else, the family left their good dishes behind at home. We had a nice visit all the same and made some new friends. And I think I may have made friends with a Doukhobor today too!

from Torn Apart, The Internment Diary of Mary Kobayashi, by Susan Aihoshi.

The latest book in Scholastic Canada’s Dear Canada series, Torn Apart, The Internment Diary of Mary Kobayashi, is by Toronto’s Susan Aihoshi. Written in the voice of a fictional 12-year-old girl, the first entry is May 24, 1941, Mary’s birthday—several months before the events that would change the lives of all Japanese Canadians living on the British Columbia coast. From there it goes on to chronicle the building tensions in Vancouver, fanned in large part by the media and anti-Japanese politicians. The story itself is familiar but what sets it apart is the age and gender of its narrator.

The book is poignant in its depiction of a community swept up in events beyond their control as seen through the eyes of young girl trying to make sense of it all. Labelled an enemy alien even as she is affirming her own sense of self, Mary is by turns bewildered, outraged and powerless. She watches her father lose his job as the government tightens the restrictions on those of Japanese descent, leading eventually to their removal from the coast to internment camps in the interior, all of which she chronicles in her diary.

The Dear Canada series, which recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, is aimed at Canadian girls, with each volume written in the voice of a young girl and covering a portion of Canadian history. As such this book is good way to introduce young people, particularly girls, to the wartime experience of Japanese Canadians.

Susan talked to The Bulletin by e-mail from her home in Toronto.

Susan Aihoshi: In her Own Words

Your parents and grandparents were interned in New Denver during the War.  Tell me about your family’s history in Canada prior to that.
I am the only daughter of James Naotaka Aihoshi, who died in 1967. My father’s father, Naosuke Aihoshi, was a tailor in Vancouver. I am unsure when my grandfather came to Canada from Kagoshima-ken in Japan but he first worked on the railroads and quit soon after when he saw how the Chinese workers were being exploited as cheap labour. He decided he would learn to be a tailor instead and set up his own business. His wife died shortly after the last of my father’s five siblings was born. I always thought my father had been born in Vancouver but as I only recently learned, he was actually born in Japan and came to Canada as an infant. It was a struggle for my grandfather to raise his family and earn a living. He adopted a young Japanese woman, Mary Wari Shimodozono,  to look after his children, someone we always regarded as part of our family.

My mother is Marie (Molly) Aihoshi, nee Iwasaki. My mother’s mother, Sakai Kusu, died when my mother was three years old. Mum had an older brother and two older sisters when her father, Yoriki Iwasaki, remarried the woman I knew as my maternal grandmother—Midori Iwasaki. They had another daughter and son, and later adopted another girl who was left without family in the internment camps. Before he remarried, my Iwasaki grandfather worked at Powell Drugs in Japantown.

My Iwasaki grandparents both worked at the Tairiku Nippo Sha or Continental Daily News because my grandmother’s uncle, Yasushi Yamazaki, owned the newspaper. Great-Uncle Yamazaki was famous for organizing the WWI Japanese Volunteer Corps that eventually enlisted in Alberta and fought bravely overseas.

Did you grow up hearing about the War years, or did your family, like many others, keep generally silent?
My grandparents never talked about Vancouver or the internment. Even if they had, my inability to speak Japanese would have hindered any real communication. My parents, aunts and uncles occasionally mentioned New Denver or the ghost towns but that was all. My mother did tell me about her childhood growing up in Vancouver but those stories were pleasant—being in Girl Guides, playing tennis with her friends, cycling to Lion’s Gate Bridge. And even though my mother and her two older sisters had been teachers in New Denver and Rosebery, I never thought to ask them why. The past, especially that of my older family members, did not interest me in my callow youth! I was so ignorant that, growing up in urban Toronto, I looked at the photos in my mother’s album and envied what I thought was my parents’ idyllic time in the beautiful Slocan Valley.

Are there parts of this book that mirror your family’s history or experience?
There are many aspects of the book that reflect my own family’s experiences, from small domestic details to real-life incidents. For example, my aunt told me that once, when she picked up her family’s party-line telephone to make a call, someone actually said: “Get off the line, you dirty Jap!”

Were various characters based on real individuals?
Because of the nature of the Dear Canada series, I had the liberty of creating my own fictional family, the Kobayashis. But Mary and the others are loosely based on my mother and her immediate family, as well as my father and his brother closest to him in age. Mary’s parents are roughly modelled on my maternal grandparents, with a bit of my paternal grandfather thrown in for good measure. I certainly had to rely a great deal on my mother’s and her oldest sister’s memories to bring Mary’s story to life.

From a young age, I have always enjoyed reading and someday hoped to become a writer. I studied creative writing and English literature at the University of Toronto and have worked in publishing most of my life, but had never written a book before. I’d quit a full-time editorial position in an attempt to become a writer back in 2002 but ended up as a freelance editor before I was offered a contract to write this book in 2009. Most people in my family were pleased and excited to learn I’d finally be writing one, particularly on this subject.

How did you get hooked up with Scholastic Canada?
It was thanks to my former manager, Hugh Brewster, a well-established children’s book author in his own right, that I was put in touch with Scholastic Canada. He told me that I was capable of writing a book for the Dear Canada series about the internment years and I guess the timing was right as my proposal was accepted!

How did you research the book?
Once I was offered a contract by Scholastic, I knew I had to begin my research in earnest. Although I became more aware of the uprooting and evacuation of the Japanese community during WWII as an adult, I realized how little I really knew about how it happened. I pored over Ken Adachi’s The Enemy That Never Was as well as Barry Broadfoot’s Years of Sorrow, Years of Shame and Muriel Kitagawa’s This Is My Own. That last work was a real eye-opener for me because for the first time I was hearing the anger of the voice of a nisei writing about those terrible events at the very time they were happening. I also read other books on this subject, both historical and fictional, along with various newspapers and magazine articles of the time. And I talked to my older family members. Many were reluctant to speak to me, largely because they thought they had nothing of interest to say—how wrong they were! And I also spoke to others who were not family, as well as my mother’s close hakujin friend from those long ago days in Vancouver. They all gave me different but still valuable perspectives. I gathered a wealth of material, more than enough for another book.

Was it difficult trying to squeeze so many historical details into one girl’s diary?
It was a great challenge to cover so much historical detail in one book and in the format of a 12-year-old girl’s diary too. I knew it wouldn’t be possible to include everything relevant, but I tried to incorporate as much as possible. For example, one of my uncles had been one of the few Japanese Canadians to join the army before WWII was over, so I wanted to depict how difficult it was for young men like him to enlist at the time. That’s why Mary’s older brother wanted to sign up.

Was it a challenge writing in the voice of a 12-year-old girl?
It wasn’t as hard to imagine myself as 12 years old as it was to write in the diary voice. It is unlike any other writing I have done because you can’t simply rely on narrative description or dialogue to tell the story! My wonderful editor, Sandra Bogart Johnson, helped me to find the right tone.

Did you have people who would have been the age of Mary read through the manuscript for authenticity? Or have others got through it?
Scholastic is very thorough—the manuscript was fact-checked for accuracy and period detail. Even the candy that is mentioned had to have been available back then! An academic historical consultant, Dr. Michiko (Midge) Ayukawa also read the text. I even asked a friend’s daughter close to Mary’s age to read through a version to see if it was credible to her. She found many of the events shocking but told me that the diary seemed “real” to her.

Was there anything you came across in your research that surprised you or gave you new insights into the internment experience?
The surprising aspect of my research was learning more about the family history of both my parents. It is an unexpected gift. I also have an enormous pride in what my grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles were able to overcome as well as a greater appreciation for how I have been the beneficiary of their hard work and effort. I realize how much I had emphasized my Canadianness when I was growing up. Now I recognize how much I owe to the Japanese side of my heritage.

There have been many books written about the internment, A Child in a Prison Camp is one that comes to mind. How is your book different and why should people read it?
A Child in Prison Camp by Shizuye Takashima is a moving, lyrical work beautifully illustrated by the author’s own watercolours. Both Takashima’s book and Joy Kogawa’s retelling of her novel Obasan for children, Naomi’s Road, explore life in the camps in much greater detail than mine. Although the subtitle of my book is The Internment Diary of Mary Kobayashi, one reviewer felt somewhat misled by it. But in showing more of Mary’s life as an ordinary Canadian girl who happened to be of Japanese heritage, I hoped to more fully dramatize the sustained impact of the community’s uprooting over several months in 1942, as well as its eventual displacement. I hope I have succeeded.

Addressing Injustice: UBC’s Response to the Internment of Japanese Canadian Students – Then and Now

“70 years ago, 76 Japanese Canadian students who were attending UBC were forcibly removed and exiled from the BC coast. They were unable to complete their degrees or to graduate at convocation with their classmates. This symposium will examine UBC’s role in this injustice 70 years ago and raise questions about UBC’s responsibility.” (from the symposium program)

On March 21, almost 100 members of the Japanese Canadian community and UBC faculty met to address issues of ethics, history, responsibility, and the future. Among those present and speaking were UBC Provost and Vice President Academic Dr. David Farrar; UBC Dean of Arts Dr. Gage Averill, University of Victoria Professor Dr. John Price, UBC Professor Dr. Henry Yu, UBC Director Simon Neame, Elder-in-Residence Larry Grant; Mary Kitigawa, Stanley Fukawa, and retired professors Dr. Roy Miki and Dr. Sus Tabata

Since the issue was raised by Mary Kitigawa in 2008, the university has gone through soul searching to respond in a meaningful way for both the Japanese Canadian community and the university. In essence, the question became “What can we do to learn from the past and to educate for the future?”
UBC has responded with a three part commitment:
• Granting honourary degrees at a special ceremony on May 30 to all Japanese Canadian students of 1942, including posthumous degrees to those who have passed on
• Collecting oral histories and digitalizing newspapers and other records
• Offering an Asian-Canadian studies program beginning in September 2013

UBC’s multi-level response and willingness to work closely with the Japanese Canadian community demonstrates their commitment to Dr. Farrar’s words “social justice resides in the heart of our university.” This is momentous as it underscores a commitment that will continue for many years.
The phrase “shikata-ga-nai” was echoed by Roy Miki in his call to learn from the past while moving into the future. As with many others, he spoke of how education is paramount in the generational transfer of knowledge and in retaining optimism and human dignity.

Our deepest thanks to Mary Kitigawa. Her speech was comprehensive and from the heart. At its conclusion she received a well-deserved standing ovation from all present. We thank Mary for her commitment, tenacity, and grace.

UBC launches community-developed program as part of tribute to Japanese Canadian students of 1942

As part of UBC’s efforts to recognize Japanese Canadians affected by internment in 1942, the university is asking the Asian Canadian community to help guide the creation of an interdisciplinary program that will highlight the contributions of Asian Canadians and examine anti-Asian racism that produced events like the forced removal of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.

The new Asian Canadian Studies minor program in the Faculty of Arts was announced by Dean Gage Averill at Addressing injustice: UBC’s Response to the internment of Japanese Canadians students, a symposium held by the University to

explore its own role and response to the internment of 76 Japanese Canadian students in 1942.
“The goal of the Asian Canadian Studies program is to learn from anti-Japanese and anti-Asian racism and discrimination in our history so that future generations can engage better in issues of justice, equity and inclusion,” said Averill. “Our commitment in the Faculty of Arts is to help nurture our future citizens and leaders so that they can strive to build a more tolerant and just society.”

The program will be developed by an advisory committee made up of faculty, students and community members.

“We will consult and listen to those both on and off campus who have a stake in this program so that it will reflect a genuine engagement between UBC and the communities it serves,” said Henry Yu, the UBC professor who is leading the community consultation for this program.

“Students should learn about the events of 70 years ago through the lives of those who endured the racism and discrimination, and through the actions of those who spoke out and stood up against injustice.”

In November 2011, the UBC Senate unanimously approved three measures to recognize and understand what happened to Japanese Canadian UBC students in 1942. These measures include recognizing the students with honorary degrees, preserving and bringing to life the historical record of that time, and developing initiatives to educate future students about this period in history.

Once the details for the proposed program are created out of community consultations, the Faculty of Arts will present them to the UBC Senate for final approval.

The initial framework for the program will be multidisciplinary, with courses in history, literature, sociology, and other departments in the Faculty of Arts, as well new interdisciplinary courses with a core element of community engagement. The intention is to begin a process of community consultation this spring in order to make the program available to students beginning in fall 2013.

When US President Franklyn Delano Roosevelt signed executive order 6099, he took away the civil rights of 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese Nationals. They were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to concentration camps. In Canada, the War Measures Act invoked by the William Lyon McKenzie King’s government followed the American lead and removed 22,000 innocent Canadians of Japanese descent from the coast to prison work camps by separating the men from their young families, sugar beet fields of the prairies, confinement camps and Prisoner of War camps in Ontario. The 76 UBC students were not exempted from this mass removal.

There was a difference in how the universities in the US and UBC reacted to the expulsion. In the US, the Presidents and members of all of the faculties of the universities protested loudly to the US Government, the inclusion of their students in Executive Order 6099. When that effort failed, the Presidents of the universities sent their faculty members to the camps to help their students write their final exams so that they could graduate or get credit for the year they were in. Arrangements were also made for many students to register at universities outside of the exclusion zone of the three coastal States. At UBC, very few spoke out for the students. Two exceptions were Economics professor Henry Angus who spoke out against the expulsion of the students and Commerce professor E.H. Morrow who advocated for his students by helping them write their final exams at other educational facilities outside of BC. He also wrote to eastern universities on their behalf but most would not accept them. In Ken Adachi’s book, The Enemy that Never Was, it is stated that,”McGill University barred Japanese Canadian students on the frank contention that serfs of an inferior race deserve no education.”
Dr. Elaine Bernard, currently of Harvard University, while studying for her Master’s degree at the University of Alberta in 1977, wrote a paper called, A University at War: Japanese Canadians at UBC during World II. She stated there were 49 male Japanese Canadian students registered in the Canadian Officers Training Corp. In January of 1942, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, they were summarily dismissed by the Senate Committee on Military Education. These senior UBC administrators sided with the racist voices outside the gates of UBC and pushed these students out. They were President L.S. Klink, Chancellor R.E. McKechnie, Dean J.N Finlayson, Mr. B. Wood, Mr. Edward McBride and Lt. Col. Gordon Shrum. This was an example of the failure of leadership at the university that made scapegoats of these Japanese Canadian UBC students. They were shocked and devastated that UBC, the symbol of truth and enlightenment had bowed to the pressures of hostilities boiling outside of their campus. They always only thought of themselves as Canadians and wondered what their crime was. They were never charged and were never allowed to defend themselves. Shortly after, according to Adachi, “The UBC Dean of Women had gathered the Japanese Canadian women students together to explain to them that the UBC will not assist them to remain in Vancouver and continue their education.”

In the US, the State Governments stepped in to make it possible for all universities to confer honorary degrees to their former Japanese American students. I thought that the BC government could do the same. I wrote to George Abbot Minister of Education who passed my letter onto Naomi Yamamoto, Minister for Advance Education. She informed me that the BC Government does not interfere with UBC affairs. I then wrote to Michelle Mungall, NDP Critic for Advanced Education. She was most helpful in finding out what the Senate appointed Task Force was actually doing and informed me of its progress. There was some movement but not enough. Hoping to speed up the process, I started a letter writing campaign to have the wider community support my cause. People from across the nation began writing to the Tributes Committee and the President‘s office. I felt that this process was taking effect. However, I thought that I needed more people to help with this cause so I began a petition, getting signatures from all across Canada. I have hundreds of names stored in my cupboard.

Still, I was not receiving any communications from the Tributes Committee so I decided to contact the media. First, I went to the Nikkei Voice, a Japanese Canadian publication originating in Toronto. In the article I explained what I was seeking and gave the history of how the Americans had dealt with the issue. That publication brought many names of the 1942 JC UBC students or relatives to our desk. It was a beginning of the process that would last many months. I also wrote to the Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association Bulletin, a Vancouver publication that brought in several more contacts. At this time, I thought it best to go seek wider publicity. I contacted Patricia Graham, Editor in Chief of the Vancouver Sun at that time, now VP Digital. I had met her at a Women’s Conference in Victoria in 2010 where I was one of the speakers. She thought that this topic was newsworthy so she agreed to have it published. Gerry Bellett, her reporter, wrote a half page column on August 22nd 2011 after interviewing me and several people including a former student. From that article, I received many requests for interviews from other newspapers such as The Globe and Mail and several radio stations. The articles in the student-run campus newspaper The Ubyssey gave me hope because the editor and reporters understood the rightness of our cause and supported us. I was happy to have this topic out in the public domain.

On October 5, 2011, I received an update from President Toope’s office on the process by which UBC was determining how best to honour Japanese Canadian students whose education was disrupted in 1942. I was informed that a working group struck by the UBC Senate Tributes Committee in 2010 was in the final stages of working out details of a three-pronged plan that would include providing personal recognition for the former 76 UBC students, initiative to educate future UBC students about this dark episode and for the UBC Library to preserve and bring to life the historical record.

When a request came to have me send the list of the 1942 Japanese Canadian students to the President office, I knew that a decision was near at hand. An agenda was posted on the UBC Senate website for its November 16, 2011 meeting where I saw as the last item a mention of honorary degrees for Japanese Canadian UBC students of 1942. I felt anxious for a while because I did not know how the voting would go. However, I received an email from the President’s office moments after the Senate decision was made informing me through the media release that what I was seeking had come to pass. I felt relieved and happy for the Japanese Canadian UBC students of 1942. They were finally being acknowledged and were going to be welcomed home to UBC, the university from where they were so cruelly swept away 70 years ago. By making this decision, UBC has restored the bond that was broken between her former students and the university in 1942. It also helped to validate the students’ sense of self-worth, dignity and honour. Through courage and perseverance in the face of adversity, they endured and survived. By picking up the broken pieces of their lives, they rebuilt and continued to be exemplary Canadian citizens. I hope that UBC, a symbol of truth and enlightenment will continue to stand for justice and human rights, now and into the future. The lessons learned by UBC from the experiences of the 1942 Japanese Canadian UBC students should never be forgotten again.

I would like to thank all the people of conscience who helped anonymously behind the scenes to bring this cause to this noble end. Because you believed in the nobility of justice and acted, the 1942 Japanese Canadian students will be able to enjoy this gift that you have given them: the May 30, 2012 graduation ceremony when they will finally receive a degree from UBC.

In the Hastings East district we had a close relationship with a few other families, Japanese families, and one of the members was Tatsuo Sanmiya and amongst our group who were attending UBC together, Tatsuo had a car, which was unusual, but he was a leader in that respect. We met in Tatsuo’s car at lunch with our brown bags quite a lot of the time and spent our lunch hours that way. It was probably more than timidity—we were a bit captious, being by ourselves, that was part of the support effect of attending the University of BC, so Tats was instrumental in keeping things open and certainly he introduced us to a lot of the kinds of things with mixing with other people . . . Roy Shinobu

That’s right, because for me, living in an enclosed compound, so to speak, at home, for me to go to the University of British Columbia and then having a University Japanese Canadian Nikkei Club was wonderful . . . and that’s how I got introduced to alumni there . . . and when you think about it, the Nisei Students Club was always grateful . . . you know, Vancouver was not a quiet, non-racist city in those days. and to have a Japanese Students Club at the University was magnificent . . .  Mary Shinko Kato

A Degree of Justice: Japanese Canadian UBC students of 1942 is a new half-hour film created in conjunction with the awarding of honourary degrees to Canadian Nikkei students who had their studies at UBC cut short by the forced removal of all Japanese Canadians from the west coast in 1942. Directed by Alejandro Yoshizawa, the story is told through the voices of six former students, and recounts both their pride in attending this prestigious university and the shock and dismay of being told they had to leave not only their studies, but their homes and communities.

The film ends poignantly with their thoughts on UBC’s efforts to formally recognize and honour them.

Former Students Featured in the Film
Ruth Fusako Cezar (Nagata) UBC, 1941-42
Mary Shinko Kato (Nagata) UBC, 1940-42
Tom Nishio UBC, 1939-42
Fred Sasaki UBC, 1938-42
Dr. Roy Shinobu UBC, 1938-42
Mits Sumiya UBC, 1941-42

Film Credits
Directed by Alejandro Yoshizawa
Production Coordinator Elena Kusaka
Produced by Mary Kitagawa, Tosh Kitagawa, Henry Yu, and Shirin Eshghi
Copyright: UBC Library

To view or download a high resolution version of A Degree of Justice, visit japanese-canadian-student-tribute.ubc.ca/the-people/

Fumiko and John, 1961

Tell me about Grandma and Grandpa and how they came to Canada.
My father came from near Sendai, in Miyagi-ken. He immigrated to Canada before the First World War and he worked here for maybe 20 years, on the railroad, in hotels, before going back to Japan to marry my mother, who was from the same area. The marriage was arranged by his family back in Japan. He sold his little restaurant that he owned on Ballantyne Pier and went back. I think they’d selected two or three different brides for him, and he chose my mother. She didn’t have a choice of course . . .
Anyway, they got married in Japan and then came to Vancouver where they stayed for a year. This was around 1927. It was difficult to find work and a friend in Saskatchewan told them that there was a C.P.R. hotel being built in Moose Jaw and they would need some people. So my father decided to go to Saskatchewan. My mother worked as a chambermaid until I was born. That was in Moose Jaw, 1929, April 16th. I was followed by three sisters and a brother.

How old were you when Pearl Harbor was bombed?
Let’s see . . . I must have been around 13 or so. It didn’t have too much of an impact on me. I felt like my parents and their friends were a bit agitated, but I didn’t quite understand what it was all about. Because already there was the war with Germany and we were doing all kinds of things, you know, making afghans and balaclavas for the soldiers overseas. I don’t know if they ever wore them—they were awfully itchy.

What was the effect on your family of Japan entering the war?
At that time I didn’t realize it . . . but I know my father lost his job, because he was working for the C.P.R. hotel. So he went on relief, that’s what they called it in those days. I think at first he was too proud to go on relief but money was running out, so he finally had to. He did a lot of outdoor work, cleaning up parks, working in skating rinks during the winter. It was a very difficult time. Fortunately the churches were quite charitable, so at Christmas time we got CARE packages . . .

Did you see a sudden influx of Japanese families as a result of the evacuation from the West Coast?
Not until the war was over. There was an R.C.A.F. camp just outside Moose Jaw and suddenly there was a great influx of Japanese Canadians. It’s only in the last few years that I discovered why they came there. Because all the internment camps were closed down and people had to choose to go east of the Rockies or go to Japan. I think some of the Japanese Canadians were allowed to go back to the coast in 1949 but a lot of them had lost everything and decided to make a new life elsewhere.

There are a fair number of well-known people from Moose Jaw, aren’t there?
Let’s see . . . I was looking through an old Moose Jaw reunion book a couple of days ago . . . There are people like Peter Gzowski, Earl Cameron, Elwood Glover, they all worked for the CBC. Roy Kiyooka was born there—my mother and father knew his parents. Lets see . . . Don McGillivary, he writes for the Sun, Emile “the Cat” Francis (goalie for the Moose Jaw Canucks)—Moose Jaw had one of the best junior hockey teams. Art Linkletter . . .

Were you the first one in your family to leave Moose Jaw?
Eventually. After finishing high school I took one year of Commercial—typing, book-keeping, that sort of thing—what young ladies were supposed to learn. Then I worked for four years in a Chinese grocery store. I didn’t figure out ’til later that it was because I was Japanese that it was difficult for me to find work. But these Chinese partners, they knew my father, and they gave me a job as a book-keeper/clerk at their store. And I saved up my money. My ambition was always to be an artist, so I saved up, quit my job and went to art school in Regina, where I spent two years. Then I got a scholarship to go to Philadelphia—The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and also the Barnes Foundation, which was a great honour. Not many people were accepted to attend their lectures. I’d only seen great paintings in books—it was amazing to see original Picassos, Matisses and Rembrandts.

You met Papa around this time.
I met Tod through my art teacher in Regina, Art McKay. Tod and Art and Roy Kiyooka had all gone to art school together in Calgary. Art had just returned from Paris and got a job teaching at Regina College. Anyway, Tod was in Toronto, working, and he’d hitch-hiked to Regina. I think he was just passing through on his way to visit his parents and met me and stopped there. That was about 1953, I think, before I went to Philadelphia. I came back from the States in ’54 and we got married.

You were separated for a year?
Yes. Isn’t that romantic? (laughs)

Uh, huh. Tell me about your wedding.
Well, I wanted a simple one. But because I’m the oldest in the family my mother and father and sisters felt I should have a church wedding and a banquet at the hotel where my father worked. And all the old friends of my parents from Moose Jaw and Regina attended my wedding.

What did your family think of this man you were marrying?
Well . . . he was a bit strange. Because he was an artist. Anyway, after we got married we stayed in Regina for a year. I worked at the college, in the library and Tod was working, I think, for the Regina radio station. Then I got transferred to the University of Saskatchewan library in Saskatoon and Tod worked for the TV station, making up advertisements for television. And then we took off to Europe. (Editor’s note: Tod and Fumiko spent a year or so running a fishing camp in Lac La Ronge in northern Saskatchewan before going to Europe.)

That must have been quite a change from the prairies.
It was! We lived in London for a few months and then travelled in the south of England for a couple of weeks and then we took off to Spain, right after Christmas and lived there ’til summer. We were able to live in Spain because Tod had just finished selling a one-hour script to the CBC, a drama. It was nice to get a cheque in the mail which kept us going for a while. From there we went to Venice and stayed there for a month and then travelled through Europe back to London with 25 cents in our pockets—25 shillings actually. And then I found out that I was pregnant. Since we had no money to come back to Canada, we stayed there in London and Tod worked as a temp—as a temporary secretary. And then he found a film producer, Derek Knight, who was interested in his writing, so he started writing documentary films. So we stayed there for four years—you and Rachel were born there. It was interesting, we met all kinds of people. We made friends with people from Jamaica, and people from Scotland, mainly all . . . lay-abouts (laughs), artist types. We met Quentin Crisp in London and got to appreciate vintage cars and spent a lot of time at the British Museum and Victorian Albert and the Tate Gallery. London was a place where you could just walk and walk and walk, and everywhere you turned it was interesting.

It sounds like you didn’t have too much connection with your Japanese side for all those years.
No. I didn’t meet anyone until we came to Vancouver, actually. Even though we lived in Toronto and Montreal we didn’t meet any Japanese people . . . I spoke Japanese at home until I was five. And once I started school, of course, I started speaking English. I remember that my mother always emphasized that we lived in Canada and we should act Canadian.

What made you decide to come back to Canada?
Well, England was no place to make a living, and we had two children, so we decided to come back . . . I guess we were homesick too. The reason we left Canada was because it was getting pretty boring. Nothing too much was happening in the way of the arts. It was very conservative. So we thought that travelling would give us something . . . when we came back to Canada we were surprised—all our artist friends had become quite well known. It was really a time when they blossomed and the scene became much more exciting. That was the time that the Beatles really got going. Although in England I wasn’t really aware of them, that was the time they were getting started. We went to Montreal because Tod was offered a job at the National Film Board and we stayed there a couple of years. Rafael was born there. And then we moved to Toronto where Tod worked as a freelance writer and photographer for documentaries. We didn’t like Toronto too much, so when Roy Kiyooka called to say that there was an opening at the Vancouver Art Gallery for a photographer, we packed everything into a U-Haul trailer and drove out. I’m glad we came. Roy was really our only Japanese Canadian friend at this time, he wasn’t involved in the community either. We just poked around, went to Kits Beach . . . enjoyed ourselves.

And then I found out through a friend that they were building co-op housing in Strathcona. So we went to some meetings and ended up joining S.P.O.T.A.—the Strathcona Property Owners and Tenants Association—and I got involved in the Chinese Canadian community.

Were you involved in the fight to stop the freeway from being built through Chinatown?
No, that was before we got involved. But in the aftermath of the fight there were all these empty lots where some of the old houses had been torn down. So they figured it was best to start filling them with housing. So the C.M.H.C. agreed to do the financing. And there was this quite large lot and the C.M.H.C. wanted to see a co-op built. We were one of the first to sign up. Most of the people who first lived in the co-op were Chinese but I don’t think they really liked it—they couldn’t get equity, so they started moving out and the Japanese started moving in. We’d met Takeo by this time and he moved in. And then Tamio moved in and Motoko and Clyde, Keiko and Keskei and then the Domon family later. . .

Was it a conscious decision on your part to become involved in the Japanese Canadian community?
Not really, it wasn’t a conscious effort, but when the opportunity came . . .
A friend of mine at S.P.O.T.A. told me that the Centennial Project needed a book-keeper, so that became my first involvement with the Japanese Canadian community. Tamio, Roy Miki and Randy Enomoto, Linda Hoffman and a lot of other people were involved in the project. It was very interesting—most of them were sansei and quite a few had come from Japan—what you’d call shin-ijusha, new immigrants: Takeo and Michiko and Kuniko, Maia. Through Takeo I got involved in Tonari Gumi and I volunteered there. I guess I met more sansei than I did nisei, I think Tamio was the only one. They were all very enthusiastic and excited about this community. And the enthusiasm was there from the shin-ijusha as well. It was like being in a new country! I think one thing about Vancouver was that I felt very comfortable being among the Chinese community, maybe because they were Asians . . . It was almost like coming home, in a sense.

What were you doing for money?
Gee . . . I had so many jobs! I started out being a volunteer parent at City School, the new alternative school you and Rachel attended and eventually got hired on as a staff member. And then the school moved and I decided to leave. I wanted to get a job at Tonari Gumi but my Japanese wasn’t good enough so I got a job at Intermedia Press as a book-keeper. After a while I got bored with book-keeping and I wanted to learn typesetting so I learned from Linda Hoffman who was working there also. Business got slack so I quit that and went to work for a software store until they went under.

How did you end up working for the Bulletin?
That was in 1984 when the redress movement in Vancouver was gaining momentum. I attended quite a few meetings with a lot of sansei who wanted to get this movement going. And the only way the government would listen to us was if we became part of the JCCA. But it was difficult, at that time, to get the JCCA to do anything about redress. So, in order to become JCCA we had to . . . take over. So we attended the AGM and managed to get most of our members elected and ended up taking over the board. And then the people who had worked on the Bulletin—they were mostly volunteers, really, plus a part-time office worker, resigned. At that point I jumped in and said that I would like to help, along with Tamio. So I got hired on to look after the office as well as run The Bulletin. Tamio was the English editor and Sumio Koike, who was a graphic artist, was hired to edit the Japanese side as well as design the paper. Koike-san had a Japanese computer which was a great innovation.

So, at that point, did the Bulletin become a vehicle for the redress movement?
Oh yes, definitely. We had to get the message out to all the people in the community.

Was it difficult to garner support for the movement?
No . . . not really, not in that sense. I felt the community, on the whole, was a bit passive about the redress movement. So it needed the energy of the few who were really . . . who felt something should be done, to put an effort into it. A lot of the sansei were quite, how do you say . . .  indignant about what happened to their parents and that nothing was being done and I guess the example of the redress movement in the United States urged them on to do something here.

It seems like the Centennial Project and the formation of the Powell Street Festival was a rallying point for the Nikkei community, which in turn gave way to the redress movement.
I think so. Because Powell Street and the Centennial Project drew people in to renew the community and a lot of them became the core of the redress movement.

That must have been quite something, when you heard that the government had agreed to compensate the Japanese Canadian community.
Oh yeah . . . We were still at the office at the language school when the news came. That was the same office where we had a meeting with David Crombie. He was the minister of Multiculturalism, and then he went out and Weiner came in. I think Weiner was more sympathetic, and that helped the ball get rolling.

Do you think it’s important to have a Japanese Canadian community as such?
Gee . . .  I don’t know . . . maybe I’ve taken it for granted. Because it feels good . . . Powell Street . . . working at the JCCA, having these different occasions happening in the community, Keirokai . . . yeah, I think it is important. It’s up to the children really. Maybe they don’t care anymore . . . whether they feel like being in the community, I don’t know. Maybe they’d rather just slip into the mainstream. But my own feeling is that I certainly feel much more comfortable being involved in the JC community. We don’t necessarily agree on all the same things, but there are certain things in our upbringing . . . maybe there’s something in the Japanese culture that gives us something in common.

The Japanese Canadian community is such a big part of your life.
Well, I like being with people. And I feel at home here. It’s given me an opportunity to do some writing, which I didn’t feel very secure about. It’s given me a lot more confidence in myself and I feel like I’ve got a lot of things to offer the community, like being involved in conferences and so on. I never thought of myself as being a public person, but it seems to have happened anyway . . . Sometimes I long for a quiet life, but, I don’t know, I think I like the excitement. I’d like to travel more, or even shoot rapids. If I was younger I’d take up kayaking and maybe do some white water . . .

Image courtesy of Taketeru Kudo

Shinichi Iova-Koga and Dohee Lee of inkBoat, photo by Pak Han

The 12th annual Vancouver International Dance Festival kicks off on March 2nd, and features artists from San Francisco, Montreal, Vancouver, and Japan. This year’s festival highlights the potent polarities of ballet and butoh, two dance forms that have traditionally been placed in opposition to one another.

Ballet has its roots in European culture where it developed in the 15th and 16th century in the Italian Renaissance courts. It is characterized by graceful and fast movement with lots of jumps and turns. Ballet dancers try to be light on their feet and female dancers, in particular, strive to appear weightless. They dance on point shoes and the emphasis is on elevation and geometric lines.

Butoh, on the other hand, is more interested in conveying something more connected to the earth and to the realities of human existence. Butoh dancers move in a more grounded way, often appearing to be in slow-motion. There is more time to think about what the dancers are saying about humanity through their movement. Butoh reflects on the human condition in a far different way than ballet dancers. Butoh arose in Japan in the late 1950s so it is a much younger art form, although paradoxically it is performed more often by older dancers. The butoh dancers performing at the Roundhouse Arts and Recreation Centre are between the ages of forty and seventy.

The butoh companies programmed in this year’s festival were chosen for their excellence and demonstrate the diversity and breadth of the expression today. Vancouver’s Kokoro Dance was founded in 1986 by Jay Hirabayashi and Barbara Bourget. Jay began dancing at age 30 as a form of rehabilitation after a ski injury. He will be performing a solo piece entitled Rock my body . . . set to the music of his son’s band, Aunts & Uncles. For Jay, dance is a way of conveying his emotions through his physical self.  This work responds to the passage of time, the repetition and sometimes monotony of daily life, the remembrance of ones who have left us, and the realities of aging.

inkBoat is a San Francisco based performance collective, founded by Shinichi Iova-Koga in 1998. inkBoat will be performing Line Between, a work that explores the state between sleep and waking. Shinichi has an approach to butoh that incorporates Action Theatre; his interpretation of butoh explores the darkest parts of existence but also retains a sense of lightness and humour.

Yoshito Ohno and Lucie Grégoire will be returning to the VIDF to complete a trilogy begun with Eye and Flower (both previously performed at the VIDF). They will be performing a work entitled In Between, inspired and named by a poem by Francoise Cheng.  Yoshito is connected to the very roots of butoh, as the son of the legendary Kazuo Ohno, a central figure in butoh credited for exposing western audiences to this astonishing aesthetic. Devoted to performing and directing the works of his father, who passed away in 2010, Yoshito continues his father’s legacy through teaching artists in his Yokohama studio and bringing his own unique performance to the world stage.

Natsu Nakajima  will be performing a work entitled Tsunami. Natsu is one of butoh’s seminal figures, having initially studied with butoh founders Kazuo Ohno in 1962 and then performing with Tatsumi Hijikata a year later. In 1969, she formed her own butoh company, Muteki-Sha, and toured throughout North America, Australia, Asia and Europe.

Taketeru Kudo is also returning to the VIDF after a haunting and affecting solo Go-Zarashi (A Karma Exposer) performed at the 2008 VIDF. This year, he will be performing a work entitled A Vessel of Ruins, a work which continues to explore the themes of destruction and ruin that have been major motifs in his work. Kudo has performed with the companies of butoh pioneers Koichi Tamazno and Yukio Waguri as well as with Sankai Juku.

The breadth and quality of this year’s offerings offers a viewer a crash course in butoh. For the seasoned fan, or the newbie just finding out about the dance style, there is something for everyone. For tickets or more info visit www.vidf.ca or call 604.662.4966.

I went back to Japan for the New Year celebrations at the end of 2011. It was my first visit to my hometown since the awful natural disaster of last March. I had been getting occasional updates from my people, but I needed to feel my land with my feet and my eyes. So here are a couple of stories to share with Vancouverites who have been working so hard to support Japan for the past year.

My House
I arrived at my house. Yes, thankfully, my house is still there. I opened the sliding door of the genkan and went inside. I didn’t feel warm, literally. Yes, this is a Japanese house with no central heating system. I brought a sekiyu stobu (paraffin heater) to my room, hoping it would heat up the room. I waited for a while, but it didn’t. I ended up wearing my coat all the time when I was in my room. I sat just 50cm away from the heater, but I could still see my breath, and my hands were paralyzed with cold and couldn’t keep typing on the keyboard for more than a couple of minutes. The reason was not simply that my house is an old traditional Japanese-style house and that the winter in Tohoku is severe, but that the doors of the house can’t close tightly as the house is warped from the earthquake. The freezing wind was blowing in the house, and just a paraffin heater was not enough to heat even a 50cm range of space.

Coastal Area
I went for a drive around the coast line with my sister. All the rubble has been taken away, but there are no new buildings yet. What I saw was a open flat land with a couple of heavily damaged buildings that survived the tsunami. I also saw mountains of rubble here and there, like the elementary school ground, even 50km away from the coast line, close to my house. My friend told me the amount of the rubble was too much to handle. Indeed, she continued, some other prefectures have offered to take care of some, but transporting the rubble costs a lot, and therefore the rubble is still here and there in this area like small mountains.

A couple of local train stations have not been reconstructed yet. Since I knew there was a station, I could find a sign of the station. However, if you were new to the area, you may not realize that there was one. There is a lot of discussion, not of when the stations are reconstructed, but whether they should be reconstructed at all. This is a depopulated area, so building tracks again means building an unprofitable railway line. Though there are people for whom the railway is their lifeline, with the limited amount of resources, the construction hasn’t started yet.

Friend’s story 1
Knowing I was coming back, a friend of mine had offered to show me around the tsunami-affected area around the coastline. Meeting up, getting in her car, we started driving, but she kept saying let’s drop by at another friend’s place, let’s visit the koto teacher’s place, and so on, and didn’t seem to want to take me there. She confessed that she was reluctant to go to the area. She is one of those who witnessed the area soon after March 11. At that time, she emailed me saying it was just like a bomb dropped in this area. She was fine when she was talking about her own situation at March 11: she couldn’t go back home for a week as all the transportation was stopped and had to stay in her office and its neighbourhood with little more than the clothes on her back. Nevertheless, she still couldn’t head to the tsunami affected area yet. She is not ready to see the area again. So we didn’t go, but dropped by one of our junior high school friends who we hadn’t met since our graduation and surprised her mom.

Friend’s Story 2
I met another friend of mine. She is a daughter of a fisherman and from a town next to Kesennuma, where a huge fire occurred right after the earthquake. She got married  a bit before the earthquake, and it was when she was about to send invitations to her wedding reception that the earthquake happened. She first thought to postpone the reception; however, soon after she realized that many people who she was going to invite lost someone close to them as she did. Thinking about what they were going through, she gave up her wedding reception.

I met her at Ginza as she now lives in near Tokyo. She also shared her story about when she was back to hometown for the New Year. She and her husband were walking around town and ran into an old friend of her mom. He was telling her that he hates those “tourists” who come to town and take a lot of photos of this “extraordinary scenery” after the tsunami and just go. He continued, it might be “extraordinary” to them, but for us, it is everyday ordinary scene in which we have life, and we are not having this tough life here to entertain them.

Listening to her story, I questioned myself. What does it mean to take photos and share them? Photos are great media to tell people stories, but at the same time, I wondered what it is like to be an object of strangers’ cameras. Probably, even though I understand the importance of the media, I wouldn’t be happy to be objectified if I, or my loved place and people, was having a hard time. I didn’t bring any photos about the affected area but a photo of a normal scene of my hometown to share with you. Just to introduce you another face of my homeland, Tohoku.

Having said that, I must say that people there are great and working so hard to reconnect to their land and rebuild their town with limited resources. After seeing them, I am positive about the future of Tohoku with their spirit and efforts. They have the strength to face their reality and stand up and keep working for a better life. When I talked about BC Japan Earthquake Relief Fund activities they were so thankful for and moved by how people here were considerate and what was done from here, such a great distance from Tohoku. Now we know that the distance doesn’t matter. There are a lot of things that we can do from here. Hopefully Vancouver can help some portion this year as well.

Kozue Matsumoto is from Matsuyama, Miyagi-ken, Japan, and has been living in Vancouver since 2004. She is a koto/shamisen/shinobue player and a member of BC-JERF.

Kozue Matsumoto’s account of her recent trip home, particularly the poignant stories of the impact on the everyday activities, illustrates the raw emotions that still exist in Tohoku and the need for continued support at all levels, from infrastructure projects to mental health.

When the BC-Japan Earthquake Relief Fund (BC-JERF) first discussed the idea of organizing a one year anniversary concert, we felt it was important to do something to show our friends in Tohoku that they were not forgotten. Though we had a number of successful initiatives in 2011, we had much more modest expectations of what we could put together. However, reaching out through our networks, we were amazed by the number of individuals, organizations and businesses willing to get on board. Consequently, the event, titled One Year Later: Shaken But Never Broken, has grown from a two-hour concert, our initial ambition, to an all-afternoon gathering.
We have a special lineup of performers and guests, starting at 1pm with shiatsu in the lobby offered by donation and from 1:30pm when both Japan Love’s Photo Exhibit 365days and a Silent Auction will be available.

Yuaikai Ryukyu Taiko will be welcoming guests with a pre-concert performance from 2:30pm.

The concert starts at 3:00pm with JaVan, Sakura Singers, Yayoi Hirano & Chieko Konishi , Cattleya Chorus, a shakuhachi and koto ensemble, followed by Baggy Bootz and finally, Chibi Taiko.

Linda Ohama will also talk to reflect on her experiences working in Tohoku to help children affected by the disaster.

Once again, it has been truly inspiring to see the selfless work and goodwill of so many dedicated people to pull this event together. With these efforts, it is humbling that the Nikkei community in the greater Vancouver area has not become the passing “tourist” but a humanitarian partner to the Tohoku people.

Tickets for One Year Later: Shaken But Never Broken are available at Nikkei Centre, Tonari Gumi and the Vancouver Japanese Language School & Hall in advance (adults $25; seniors, students and children $15) and at the door (adults $30; seniors, students and children $20). All proceeds will be used to support Chikyu no Stage and Ashinaga Ikueikai, two organisations that are working on the ground to provide support services for children in the affected areas.

For more information, please visit bc-jerf.ca or call 604.777. 7000. We look forward to seeing you on the 11th at Nikkei Centre.

by Ross W Halliday

While most Canadian sons dream of sporting success with skates and hockey sticks, one Richmond man decided to travel a different path and instead followed in his father’s footsteps onto the battlefields of international rugby.
In the seventies & eighties, sansei Gary Hirayama was travelling the world with the Canadian Rugby team, including playing in the first Canada sevens team to compete at the famous Hong Kong Sevens Tournament.  He went on to win 12 caps at fly half for his country.

History was made twenty-five years later when, in May 2007, at just 19 years, two months and two days, his son Nathan took the field against the renowned New Zealand Maori in the Barclays Churchill Cup in the UK.
In doing so, not only did he become Canada’s youngest test debutant but it also cemented his family name in the record books as Canada’s first-ever rugby-playing father/son duo.
Since then and still only 24 years old, Nathan has emerged as one of the country’s most important players.

In 2011, he helped Canada earn the admiration of the international rugby community with powerful and committed performances at the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand and by winning gold at the Pan-American (Pan-Am) Games in Mexico.
This year, there is Olympic qualification at stake and The Bulletin caught up with Nathan at the team’s hotel in New Zealand where he is currently playing for Canada in the Wellington Sevens (February 3-4) – the first of two qualifying tournaments to take place in February.

Canadian Rugby Team in New Zealand, January 31, 2012

Nathan Hirayama: In his Own Words

You don’t hear of too many Japanese Canadian rugby players, what is your family’s history in Canada?
Both my parents were born and raised in Richmond, British Columbia, as were my sister and I. I was introduced to Rugby at an early age as my father played for Canada in the eighties.

You are the younger half of the only father/son duo to play for Canada, albeit at different times, have you ever had a chance to play together?
Unfortunately not and I’ve never seen him play either so if anyone has any photos or videos please let me know. My dad retired from playing a couple years after I was born but I have heard from many people that he was a pretty good player. He played in the same position as I do so he is able to give good advice from time to time.

Did you play any other sports growing up or did you always know you were going to follow your dad into rugby?
I grew up playing basically every sport imaginable. I played baseball and soccer from age five-18, as well as hockey, golf, volleyball, basketball. I come from a pretty active family. My mom was a very keen runner and my sister currently plays soccer at University of British Columbia. I started playing rugby in high school but I didn’t really begin to fully concentrate on it alone until I went away to university. I did find it a bit strange at first only concentrating on one sport and I still miss playing the other sports competitively, but rugby has given me a lot – the chance to travel and see the world, make friends with people from different walks of life. Opportunities I don’t think I would have gotten otherwise.

Your rise through the ranks of the Canadian under-17 and under-19 was very quick and at 19 you became the youngest player ever to be capped for Canada, how did you handle the pressure?
Playing school rugby at Hugh McRoberts Secodary gave me a good start in the game and it helped being able to climb through the ranks of the age grade teams but it was daunting winning my first cap at just 19, I did feel quite a bit of pressure to perform. Growing up and usually being a regular starter on age grade teams, I found it difficult being left out of line-ups mostly because I felt as though I was not able to prove myself and abilities like I wanted to. But over the years I’ve come to realize that’s just the way things go. Sports at any level is all about testing yourself against that pressure, it is what I thrive on.

You are currently studying Physical Education at University of Victoria, how do you juggle playing rugby for Canada with your academic studies?
It is a difficult task at times juggling school commitments along with rugby but I don’t think I’ve ever had it any other way. I’m currently a full time student at the school (taking a full course load), along with on-field and in-the-gym training sessions about five-six days a week (for the University, or the National team). Add in the odd two-week 7s trip and it’s a pretty tough schedule mentally as well as financially. But it’s been this way for me since I was 18 years old so you get used to it. I’ve gotten a lot better at managing my time and getting things done when I have to. I just have to keep my head down and get on with it.

At last year’s World Cup in New Zealand Canada earned the admiration of the international rugby community with their own brand of “never say die” attacking rugby, what has the reaction been like back home?
There is no doubt that the team is beginning to receive a lot more support here in Canada. The reaction when we arrived home from New Zealand was incredible, a lot different from past trips. It seemed like the tournament received a lot of attention back home and the Canadian public responded. We received many messages of support, which had a very positive impact on our performance and it obviously helped that TSN (Bell Media) was broadcasting the tournament. I thought that although we did not advance through to the quarter finals , there were still periods of play where we played very well and showed our true potential and abilities.

A month or so after the World Cup you went on to win gold at the Pan-Am Games with the rugby 7s team in Mexico, what was that experience like and what does it feel like to win a Gold medal?
Winning the Pan Am Games was without a doubt one of my greatest sporting achievements. Going into the tournament we were confident we could do well but we knew it wouldn’t be easy, especially beating the likes of the USA and Argentina. To actually finish the tournament as gold medalists was indescribable, it is something special, something that can never be taken away.

OLYMPIC DREAMS – THE ROAD TO RIO, 2016
Similar to the ATP Tennis Tour, the IRB Sevens Circuit is an elite-level competition between rugby nations where teams compete for the ‘Sevens World Series’ title by accumulating points based on their finishing position in each tournament. In 2009, Sevens Rugby received Olympic status for the 2016 Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro.
On Friday 2nd December 2011, Canada’s men’s and women’s rugby teams took their first steps towards qualifying for 2016 when they made their season debut at the Dubai Sevens.

However, the road to Rio is a complicated one with Canadians first looking to earn core member status on the IRB World Sevens circuit. Canada has been a part-time player since 2007. This season is will take part in five of the nine annual tournaments.

After Dubai (2nd-3rd Dec), the Canadians competed in South Africa (9th-10th Dec) before flying to New Zealand (3rd-4th Feb) and USA (10th-12 Feb) events before taking part in the pivotal Hong Kong Sevens (23rd-25th Mar).
The Hong Kong tournament will serve to decide the 15 core teams for the 2012-13 series, up from 12 last season and is being split into two separate tournaments. One has the current 12 core teams competing against each other and the other has Canada and 11 others competing for the three remaining spots for the 2012/13 season.

The Canadian men will face opposition from the likes of Japan, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Tonga and Zimbabwe in Hong Kong. Core status would mean taking part in 10 tournaments, which Nathan believes would be a huge boost for the game in Canada.

What are Canada’s chances of qualifying for the Olympics in 2016 and what would it mean to you to be an Olympian?
I always feel we are going to do well in any of the 7s tournament we enter. The great thing about 7’s is, the games are short, there is lots space on the field, and every team has athletes capable of playing attacking rugby. It means no teams are completely safe from potential upsets.

Our pool for Wellington has in it – Australia, France, and Kenya – but we feel our chances of advancing through to the cup round are strong, which means winning two of the three games on day one. Every tournament from now until 2016 is important for us. As of now, I believe that the Olympic tournament is only expecting to invite 15 teams (most tournaments are at least 16). We strongly believe that we belong in that top 15. It is important for us to make sure we are playing to that standard so that everybody knows (the teams and IRB) that we belong in that top bracket.

My dream is to be a part of the 2016 Olympic games – it’s the pinnacle – I don’t think it can get any better then that, can it?

Aside from the Olympics in 2016, what are your dreams & plans for the future?
As for my plans or dreams for the future, it’s hard to really narrow it down at the moment – I guess I just hope to continue doing things I am passionate about. For the time being, I’m really enjoying playing rugby and being a student. I’m studying to become a teacher at university at the moment so I could very easily end up doing that, but still I’m not 100% sure. I just know that I want to keep my options open.

Your father moved into teaching when he retired as well as coaching – he is the longtime coach of the ‘McRoberts Strikers’ – can you see yourself staying in the game and passing on your experience to the next generation of Canadian rugby players as a coach?
I definitely see myself continuing to be involved with the game in one way or another. Whether it’s coaching or in another capacity – it just seems like rugby is one of those sports that stays with you for life. Not many people are able to cut ties with it completely when they’re done playing for some funny reason. I know already that I won’t either.

For more information on the IRB Sevens Series, including schedules, player bios, and stats, please visit www.irbsevens.com or www.rugbycanada.ca

CANADA 7s Squad for Wellington and Las Vegas tournaments
1.    Tyler Ardron
2.    Nanyak Dala
3.    Sean Duke
4.    Ciaran Hearn
5.    Nathan Hirayama
6.    John Moonlight
7.    Tay Paris
8.    Conor Trainor
9.    Sean White

Staff:
Head Coach: Geraint John
Assistant Coach: Kieran Crowley
Manager: Brian Hunter
Therapist: Isabel Grondin

In case you are wondering what a ‘cap’ is:
In the sport of Rugby Union, a cap is a metaphorical term for a player’s appearance on a national team. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap (an item of headgear) to every player in an international match of association football. In the early days of soccer, the concept of each team wearing a set of matching shirts had not been universally adopted, so each side would distinguish itself from the other by wearing a specific sort of cap.

The act of awarding a cap is now international and is applied to other sports as well. Actual caps are not always given anymore, but the term “cap” for an international or other appearance has been retained. Thus, a cap is awarded for each game played and so a player who has played x games, for the team, is said to have been capped x times or have won x caps.

Ross W Halliday is a Toronto-based journalist and filmmaker. Together with his partners he runs www.MoringaMedia.com, a digital communications and media production company. He is an ardent sports fan and retired from Rugby in 2003, shortly after representing Scotland U21s and Watsonians RFC (Edinburgh, UK). You can follow him on Twitter@RWHalliday