Rekishi (Histories)
30 Years of Katari Taiko
Sunday, November 1, 2009, 2pm
The Cultch, 1895 Venables Street
$20 (general) / $15 (students & seniors) / $10 (12yrs & under)
+ service charges
For tickets call The Cultch box office at 604.251.1363 • www.thecultch.com
For info call 604.683.8240

When Katari Taiko celebrates its 30th Anniversary with a concert at the newly refurbished Cultch (formerly the Vancouver East Cultural Centre) on November 1, it will mark three decades of dedication to not only the art of drumming, but the community that gave birth to the group.

Katari Taiko rose out of the burgeoning Asian Canadian movement of the mid-seventies, a time when many younger Japanese and Chinese Canadians were beginning to actively question their identities and to explore their Asian heritage. Tonari Gumi was open for business on Hastings Street; Sakura-so, a home for Japanese Canadian seniors, had opened on Powell Street; the Japanese Canadian Centennial Project had published A Dream of Riches, a photographic history of the community; the Japanese Canadian Centennial in 1977 had given rise to the annual Powell Street Festival.

A performance by San Jose Taiko at the 1979 Powell Street Festival was the catalyst for the formation of Katari Taiko, the first group of its kind in Canada. A Japanese group, Ryujin Daiko, had performed at the inaugural Powell Street Festival and the world-renowned ensemble Ondekoza had performed several times in Vancouver, but they were clearly Japanese in both their approach and aesthetic; while they were to be admired, they seemed somehow out of reach. San Jose Taiko, on the other hand, was something else again. As young Asian Americans, they exuded an energy and exuberance that was both inspiring and accessible. The majority of the group were also women, defying the stereotype of the passive Asian female—something that struck a chord with many in the Japanese Canadian community. Following their performance, the members of SJT actively encouraged the formation of a local group and with that, the taiko seed was officially planted on Canadian soil.

Katari Taiko - Vancouver Folk Music Festival 1982. Photo Tamio Wakayama.

It soon became apparent that both drums and instruction were needed in order for a Vancouver taiko group to progress beyond an idea. Seiichi Tanaka, founder and sensei of the San Francisco Taiko Dojo, was invited to give the group a week-long intensive at their new home at the Strathcona Community Centre. Tanaka is widely credited with introducing taiko to North America and had given SJT members their first instruction. He was, they said, a hard task-master, but would give them a good grounding in taiko skills.
If SJT made taiko look easy, studying with Tanaka brought the reality home: the joy expressed on stage during a taiko performance was only achieved through hard work in the practice studio. Tanaka’s style of drumming, influenced by his own teachers in Japan, owed a great deal to the discipline and repetition of martial arts and, like most senseis, he ruled with an iron fist. For the members of Katari Taiko, used to a more relaxed North American approach, it was a bit of a shock and some rankled at Tanaka’s my-way-or-the-highway style.

Still, by the time Tanaka returned to San Fancisco, the group had its first two songs under its belt, had learned how to make and skin their own drums using wine barrels and, more importantly, had learned the basic techniques and rhythms of taiko drumming. From then on it was a matter of developing their skills and forging an identity as a group. Responding perhaps to Tanaka’s autocratic style, the group chose to fashion itself as a collective, with a rotating leadership and all decisions made by consensus. While somewhat unwieldy, the collective model set the tone for the next 30 years. The endless meetings required by this mode of operation also gave the group its name—katari means “to talk.”

Katari Taiko was never intended to be a performance group, so in 1981, when the group was invited to send four members to perform in Faro, Yukon, as part of a Japanese cultural group it caused a mini-crisis within the group. With only two pieces in its repertoire, no uniforms and no method for selecting performing members, it wasn’t an easy decision to accept the performance request. In the end, makeshift uniforms were thrown together and four members were chosen to play what would turn out to be the first of many public performances in this tiny mining town perched on the edge of a mountain.

As word got out about the group and it became apparent that they would be getting more and more performance requests, it became necessary to increase their repertoire and several members began composing pieces. They also collected a few pieces from American groups, including a Buddhist group in Los Angeles, Kinnara Taiko. In 1982, six members of the group travelled to Japan, where they visited several groups and learned a piece from the group Kodo on Sado Island.

By the summer of 1982, Katari Taiko was beginning to receive attention within the mainstream community. In keeping with their mandate of supporting progressive causes, the group performed at several of the large peace marches held in Vancouver—performing one year for an estimated 80,000 people at Sunset Beach.
A big turning point for the group was an invitation from Artistic Director Gary Cristall to perform at the 1982 Vancouver Folk Music Festival where they debuted on the Friday night mainstage to a rapturous response from the crowd.

Before long, the group was performing at events across Canada, including Winnipeg’s Folklorama. In 1985, Katari Taiko represented BC in the cultural component of the  Canada Summer Games in Saint John New Brunswick. The group also performed at the FolkLife Pavilion at Expo 86.  Their collaboration with Kokoro Dance in the internment-based piece Rage marked a departure for the group, with a dance component that stretched the boundaries of many of the drummers. The multi-disciplinary piece was performed at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival and the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa.

In the early days, taiko was not widely known outside of Japan and as Katari Taiko began to attract a wider following, taiko itself was introduced to many audience members for the first time. And just as San Jose Taiko inspired the members of Katari Taiko to pick up drum sticks, so too did Katari Taiko inspire other groups to form across Canada, through workshops and performances. There are now groups across the country in most major cities. Vancouver alone now has half a dozen groups, each with its own approach to drumming, and the majority of them can trace their origins directly to Katari Taiko.

Group members have come and gone over the years—a recent survey came up with 60 plus members who have gone through the group at one time or another—but what has remained steady is a commitment to a collective model as well as a mandate to support progressive, community-based causes.

When the ten-member group takes the stage at the Cultch on November 1, they will be joined by a number of alumni and will also premiere a new piece.

Michael Tora Speier

According to Carter, very little work was required on her part: “I was very lucky that the exhibits came to me! Before I was hired, Michael made a very kind offer to help the museum. Once I had a chance to meet with him, hear about the work, and also learn about the conference, all the pieces seemed to come together in a very short amount of time. I really appreciate Michael’s and Leslie’s flexibility to work on this tight schedule.”

In Speier and Komori, Carter has two artists that eschew the academic in favour of a more community-oriented approach. Both have worked at a community level in various capacities over the years and this shows in their approach. Says Carter, “When people think of oral history, they often think of a serious, formal interview with a tape recorder and a notepad. These two wonderful and whimsical exhibits can be viewed as another way to inspire and gather memories. Leslie invites viewers to imagine themselves on the streets of Lemon Creek, and she is looking for recollections that are personal, and even humorous. Michael is juxtaposing imagery, symbols and words onto sculptural “monuments” that can inspire new ideas. With a family background in California, he also brings a different cross-border perception to the discussion of the internment.”

While the upcoming exhibit will be on display for the next several months, Carter sees it as part of a larger plan to bring the Museum into clearer focus. “The Japanese Canadian National Museum has extremely important collections and can help tell many significant stories for the community—relating to history, life today and on into the future. I hope we can play an essential role in many collaborative community events, and that we can expand to truly represent the national story of Japanese Canadians. I hope to see lots of activity around the museum in the next few years, with more school groups, public programs, researchers and stimulating exhibits. So keep posted!”

INTERVIEW

In Her Own Words
Leslie komori

I’ve been to Lemon Creek, or the site of where it was anyway, and it’s just a big field now. Yet at one time it was the largest internment camp, when you count Bayfarm and Rosebury. How did you come up with the concept of the Lemon Creek Map Project?

I went up to Lemon Creek with my mom and visited that same field. As you saw, there really is nothing much there, nothing to mark four years of thousands of peoples’ lives. There are depressions that mark the former locations of outhouses and metal spigots. But that’s about it. I was hoping that my mom could locate the location of her house but the lack of landmarks disoriented her.

We went to the adjacent lodge and they had this incredible map. And there in black and white was proof that my mom was really there, 14 Holly, Mochizuki, the street address of her shack. The map said that my mom and her family lived there whereas the cow field yielded very little evidence of their lives there. I figured that the map and all those names contained thousands of stories. I thought a map might function as a good vehicle to collect oral histories of the camp.

What is the Lemon Creek Map Project?
The original map was produced by the 1991 Lemon Creek Golden Reunion group. Mary Ohara, a former Lemon Creeker, spearheaded the project. In the 1940′s, a group called Hakko-kai had produced statistics, listing all the different families and corresponding street addresses. Mary’s brother-in-law translated the document from Japanese to English. The map grew from the lists of those names and addresses.

The Map Project attempts to create a small scale layout of the original Lemon Creek Internment camp. People can walk down the streets. Gildead, Fir, Spirea, and find the location of their old house. There are blank “houses” drawn on the map, with only the address. The intent is for survivors of the camp, or their relatives to write information in the house, with stories, with the names of people that lived there. My hope is that in writing one’s name down, in including a story, people can re-possess the memory of that very difficult time and also mark their presence at the camp. Much has been done to obliterate the presence of the survivors at the physical site of Lemon Creek. Possibly in just writing down your name, writing a short story, the survivors get to re-assert their presence at the camp and say, yep, I was there.

You first set up the project at the Powell Street Festival several years ago—what was the response to it then?
I’m not sure actually. I’ve displayed the map at PSF a few years ago. I also took it to Toronto for the Lemon Creek reunion in 2007. People have been participating, not so much writing stories but usually listing all the members of their families in the houses.

How has the Project changed since its Powell Street Festival incarnation, and what are you hoping will come out of this latest one, considering that it will be up at the Museum for a relatively long time?
I have a bunch of my mom’s old pictures from Lemon Creek. I’m not sure how she has pictures because cameras were banned. I’m going to try to hang the pictures relative to street addresses where they were taken. I’m hoping the pictures will inspire some memories. I hope to encourage survivors to write more stories on the map. I would also like to encourage the children, grandchildren, great grandchildren of survivors to write questions on the map. I don’t know how easy it is to write a story about camp. But when prompted by questions, former Lemon Creekers are good at answering questions about camp.

The upcoming conference, Honouring Our People: Stories of the Internment, is intended in part, as I understand it, to elicit memories and stories from the Internment years. There is a perception that those who were interned didn’t want to talk about it afterwards. What is your experience with that, when it comes to your own family?
First, I want to put in a big plug for the conference. I think this important conference gives an opportunity for people who went through the war to share stories but also the relatives of those survivors to hear stories and maybe even ask questions they have always been afraid to ask. The conference happens September 25 – September 27 at the Nikkei Centre.

Talking to my Sansei friends, I think some families talked about the war and some families did not talk about it. My family did not talk about it openly. My parents threw out all these pieces and echoes of the history but did not tell me anything directly when I was a child. My mom would refer to friends she knew in “ghost town.” My parents would send me up to the Cariboo for summer vacations, where my dad’s side went to a self-supporting camp. I never understood why or how the family moved from Vancouver to 70 Mile. Once I went to the PNE with my uncle and he happened to mention that he stayed at the PNE for a few weeks. That information really confused me. I can’t remember if he mentioned the Livestock Building. But in retrospect, I understood why my mother never took us see the Agricultural exhibits.

My grade three teacher, Janet Vesterback, gave me Shizuye Takashima’s Child in a Prison Camp. That book directly taught me about camp for the first time. My teacher said, this is what happened to your family. I thought, no way. We live in a middle class neighbourhood, and live a charmed middle class life. No way this stuff in the book happened to my family. But then I got more evidence. My sister Lucy, a yellow power hippie in the 1970′s was working on a Japanese Canadian history project with the Powell Street Revue. So through osmosis, I was picking up on our family history through her community work.

About eight years ago, I started to ask very direct questions to my mom. At first she was reluctant to talk. She had always preserved the Japanese value of kodomo no tame for the sake of the children, protecting my siblings and me from the reality of her own history. But I persisted with my questions and at some point she started talking. She talked about the forced removal from Haney, her brief stay at Hastings Park, life in Lemon Creek and the adventure being a repat in Japan. I am very grateful to my mother for sharing her history. It’s not my right or privilege in any way. I don’t think it’s easy to talk about this stuff. For me, her sharing of camp stories is a precious gift.

What does Lemon Creek mean to you? Does it have meaning beyond its historical significance, or is it just a field?
I think that physical places hold psychic and spiritual memory. Even though Lemon Creek is just presently a cow field, I can sense the spirits of the people who live and died there. Lack of historical markers at Lemon Creek site and other sites of wartime camps really pisses me off. In the states, the National Park Service has recognized many former incarceration camps as significant historical sites. I have heard that Roy Inouye in Kamloops heads an effort to have the British Columbia government put up historical markers at the different sites. I hope Lemon Creek gets a marker so all Canadians will remember.

I am pessimistic as I feel that our community’s ugly history will repeat and has repeated itself. I think post 9-11 events, like the illegal deportation of Maher Arar, the delayed lack of habeas corpus or an open judicial process for Omar Khadr, the numerous hate crimes against Muslim and South Asian Canadians, have echoes of our community’s history. However, I posit that the education process about the camps through the redress campaign may have tempered a more potent racist backlash after 9-11. I’m not an academic so I’m not really sure. But I figure the marking and remembering of Lemon Creek may help to foster the “never again”.

Not to compare the actual experience, but some children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors identify themselves as “the second generation” as they inherit part of the legacy of the Holocaust. As a Sansei, I identify with the experience of inheriting a history on a different level. The wartime experience is an important part of Canadian history. On a practical level, I need to remember Lemon Creek and to know the nuts and bolts of this history so I can educate future generations of all Canadians. On a more personal level, I feel the need to understand Lemon Creek because that experience indirectly has shaped me and my world view. It’s my belief that I need to know my family’s history so I can understand how I operate in the world and can change it. Pretty humble eh!!!

Leslie Komori is the youngest daughter of Fuzzy Komori and Kay Komori (nee Mochizuki). She is a third generation Vancouverite, literally born and bred in Oakridge. She is a producer of loud sounds and paradoxically a registered audiologist. She began working in the Japanese Canadian community as a teenager with organizations such as Tonari Gumi and the Powell Street Festival. She has also done community organizing in the East Asian queer community in Vancouver. She would like to express her appreciation to Michael Speier for kicking her off her butt and giving her another opportunity to remount the exhibit and to Beth Carter for her practical help and support.

Within the Vancouver Japanese Canadian community, the Asahi baseball team is legendary. Established in 1914 by Harry Miyasaki, who was determined to build a team that could be competitive with the senior baseball teams in the Province, the Asahi soon became the toast of the community.  Recognizing that he needed an edge in order to compete, he emphasized ‘smart ball’, which used speed, bunts, and stolen bases to complement their hitting and pitching.  Miyasaki ‘s vision was fulfilled in 1926 when they won their first Terminal League Championship against bigger and more powerful Caucasian teams. Faced with racism, discrimination and financial hardship in their daily lives, come game day it was a different story. On the baseball field the rules were fairly applied and the umpiring was generally fair, so the Asahi’s were able to play on a level playing field.  That first championship proved to be a harbinger of greater things and the team won many more championships in the years leading up to 1941 when the Second World War and the forced removal of the Japanese Canadians from the west coast broke up the Asahi baseball team.  Despite being dispersed, the former Asahi players continued to play and coach baseball in the internment camps and in their new home towns after the war.

Although the Asahi were the best-known of the Japanese Canadian teams, there were many others up and down the west coast that provided Japanese Canadians—both players and fans—with much-needed recreation and enjoyment.
Baseball in Japan also has a long history. It is extremely popular throughout the country and has produced many outstanding ballplayers, several of whom have been recruited by American major league teams.  These days it is not unusual to hear about the exploits of Japanese ballplayers such as Daisuke Matsuzaka (Dice-K) and Ichiro Suzuki in the same breath as other stars like Roy Halladay and Jason Bay.

In Vancouver, we have our own local team to cheer for. The Vancouver Canadians have always been popular with sports fans in Vancouver and the current owners have spruced up the venerable Nat Bailey Stadium, making it even more comfortable and inviting, while still able to retain its title as the prettiest little stadium in baseball.  The Vancouver Canadians have had a few Japanese players on their roster including Lenn Sakata and Kurt Suzuki, who is currently with the Oakland A’s.

They also have a few Japanese staff and interns including Teppei Fujino. Teppei played baseball in Japan for many years and decided that he would like to stay involved with the sport, if not as a player then as a staff member. He joined the Canadians last year as an intern and although he returned to Japan at the end of last season, was asked by the Canadians to return to a paid staff position for 2009 as part of the grounds crew as well as working in community relations. Talking with Teppei, one cannot help but catch his enthusiasm for baseball and for the Canadians, making him a perfect ambassador for the team.

The Canadians have continued to enhance and expand their collaboration with the local community in an effort to make baseball accessible to as many fans as possible. On Monday, August 3rd at 7:05pm, Japanese and Canadian baseball will come together at Japanese Heritage Night at Vancouver’s Nat Bailey Stadium. This special event, sponsored by the Vancouver Canadians, will feature a game between the Vancouver Canadians and the Yakima Bears. Doors open at 6pm and the evening will feature many Japanese and Japanese Canadian-related activities including booths featuring Japanese toys such as origami and kendame (cup and ball), a Vancouver Asahi photo exhibit, sushi eating contest, watermelon breaking contest (suika-wari), and staff in traditional Japanese clothing.  Fans can also enjoy sushi at the permanent Japanese food kiosk.

Japanese Heritage Night, which is supported in part by the Consul General of Japan, National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre, National Association of Japanese Canadians, Powell Street Festival Society and Vancouver Japanese Language School, is a wonderful opportunity for fans to enjoy some of the antics and excitement that occur during Japanese baseball games. In a nice touch, the opening pitch will be thrown by former Vancouver Asahi player Kaye Kaminishi

Come out to support your Vancouver Canadians on Japanese Heritage Night and have fun:
Vancouver Canadians
versus the Yakima Bears
Monday, August 3, 2009
7:05 pm (gates open at 6pm)
Nat Bailey Stadium
4601 Ontario Street, Vancouver

If you require more information, please contact Teppei Fujino, the Japanese Heritage Night Coordinator  by phone at 604.722.6138 or email at  tfujino@canadiansbaseball.com

Baseball fans who want to take part in a fun community baseball game are also invited to participate in the fourth annual Powell Street Festival baseball game the day before on Sunday, August 2 at Woodland Park, just prior to the second day of the Festival. The game, co-sponsored by the Japanese Canadian National Museum and Carnegie Community Centre, celebrates the Vancouver Asahi baseball team’s legacy and is a chance for Nikkei baseball enthusiasts and Asahi fans to play a fun game while paying tribute to the team that once played at PSF’s traditional home at Oppenheimer Park. Please contact the Japanese Canadian National Museum for more information or to sign up to play. Join in the fun at this free public event, or just come and watch! Youth, adults, seniors and families are all welcome.

PSF Baseball Game
Sunday, 10:30am, Woodland Park
Contact Japanese Canadian National Museum
jcnm@nikkeiplace.org or 604.777.7000 ext. 109

INTERVIEW

In his Own Words
Teppei Fujino

Tell me a little about your background please Teppei.
I was born and grew up in Yokohama, which is a sister city to Vancouver. I have played baseball since I was seven years old because baseball is very popular in my city. Daisuke Matsuzaka, the present Red Sox pitcher and World Baseball Classic MVP, graduated from a Yokohama high school in my city.

Have you always been interested in baseball?
Yes, but although I like to play and watch baseball, I am not only interested in baseball. I mean if I do have a choice, I will definitely choose baseball because I am more familiar with baseball than other sports. But I like to watch all other sports including football, basketball and hockey.

Were you involved in baseball in Japan?
I used to play baseball in Japan and was a catcher on my team. I also played baseball in an American collegiate summer league in 2004 and this experience had a great influence on my career. I saw how the owner ran our team, and some interns, almost all of them college students, helped our team be successful on the business side.

How did you come to be working for the Vancouver Canadians?
I came here as part of a project which a Japanese organization launched called the “Hoshino Dreams Project.”  It was started by Senichi Hoshino, a former baseball player and manager who had a dream of a system of developing sports in Japan through internships with professional or semi-professional teams in North America (www.hoshinodreams.com/english/index.html). They sent me to Vancouver to intern with the Canadians, to learn how to manage professional sports teams and bring people to the stadium efficiently.

You’re a baseball fan who is now working with a baseball team – that must be exciting. What is your role with the Vancouver Canadians, and what is your favourite part of working for the team?
My job this year is on the Grounds Crew. Almost every day I cut the grass, water it and drag the field to make it look good for the fans coming to Nat Bailey Stadium. People who are not involved in the sports industry ask me what I do all day, every day.  They don’t know how much we care for the field. The field has to look good as well as be a good, safe playing surface for the players.

My favourite part of the job is that I do Japanese community outreach. I feel the Vancouver Canadians are not popular enough within the Japanese and Japanese Canadian communities in Vancouver. This was a shock to me, since Japanese people traditionally love baseball and there is such a large Japanese community in this city. I want to inform them of the Vancouver Canadians and bring them to Nat Bailey stadium. I definitely think they will like our ball game and have a fun time. So that’s my favourite part of the job!

Baseball is very popular in Japan . . . why do you think that is?
This is a very interesting question. I have no idea why baseball is so popular in my country, actually. But if I had to guess, I think it would be affected by two major newspaper companies, the Asahi and Yomiuri. Asahi held the high school national championship for baseball to increase a circulation of their newspaper. Baseball was a great news item Japan in the 1900s. At the same time, Yomiuri launched a Japanese professional baseball league to increase their circulation. So I think the present popularity of baseball in Japan is due to the competition between two major media companies.

Do most Japanese players dream of playing in North America, or are players happy to play in Japan?
I think it depends on the player’s goal. These days, although it is easy for all Japanese professional ball players to transfer to a team in North America, some players want to stay Japan, like Yu Darvish. He is half Iranian and half Japanese. He grew up Japan and has played in Japan since he started to play baseball. He thinks we need some star players in the Japanese professional baseball league for people, especially kids, to look up to. If all players left Japan, why would the fans keep watching? He doesn’t want to play in the MLB because he does not want Japan to lose a star player. That’s why I think it depends on players’ aim and surroundings.

Do you follow Major League Baseball in North America. What is your favourite team? Who is our favourite MLB Japanese-born player?
My favourite team is the Atlanta Braves. I don’t know why, but they are. I think it’s because they have cool jerseys.
My favourite player is Hideo Nomo. He was a pioneer and paved the road to the MLB for Japanese baseball players. I doubt Ichiro would be in the MLB right now if it was not for Nomo’s success

I guess you were rooting for Japan at the World Baseball Classic!
Of course, I did!! I was screaming at my house when I saw Japan beat South Korea in the final!

Tell me about the Japanese Heritage Night. How did the idea come up?
Japanese Heritage Night is a theme and community night. This idea came to me when I was thinking of how to bring Japanese and Japanese Canadian people to the stadium. As you know most Japanese people do like baseball. For Japanese Canadian people, baseball is kind of a special matter because of the Asahi and the history of that team. I want to let Japanese people know about the Asahi baseball team that has such history in this city and at the same time let people know about the Canadians.

What do you think of Canada?
Awesome!! There are beautiful mountains, beaches, sports and so much more.  I like it here. The people are so kind and generous. There are so many majestic natures here. I also like the way people spend their holidays by biking, boating, camping, etc… Although I think it may be difficult for baseball to root its popularity in this city because of hockey, I still feel that this is the best place to live in the world.

A long-time film maker specializing in documentaries, Tabata stresses the Ohanashi DVDs are not documentary films. Instead, they are nearly full-length interviews, between 30 and 50 minutes each. While there are some photographs and other graphics interspersed throughout, the bulk of each disc consists of the subject recounting their experiences in Canada and, sometimes, Japan. Subjects were given a chance to remove sections they felt were too personal or sensitive, but overall there was minimal editing for content.

It was, Tabata says, a challenging project, given a tight timeline and budget, not to mention the well-documented reticence of many Nikkei seniors to talk openly of the past. Still, she is satisfied with the end result and feels projects like this are not only important, but pressing: “We are at crossroads in our country where our elders—regardless of their ethnicity—are leaving us. With them goes the entire tapestry of Canadian history. That is why ‘oral history’ is so important.”

In Her Own Words

Susanne Tabata

Like me, you’re the product of a mixed-marriage, growing up in the early sixties when it was relatively rare. How did the two families handle the news that they were getting married?
My parents married in 1959, a time when inter-racial marriages were unusual and generally unacceptable. As my father has disclosed, his mother would have preferred he marry a Nisei. His father did not care one way or another. On the other hand, my mother was raised by a social democrat who was also a single mother. She approved of my father because he was a hard worker and they shared the same political views. I do think that the cultural differences between my parents created tension in the house at times. But it also created a platform for creative and critical thinking.

How did your parents meet?
My parents met in Nanaimo at a nurses dance. My father was working at the Biological Station in Nanaimo after he got his masters in Oceanography and my mother was working as a nurse at the ‘Indian Hospital’.

You spent some time in Japan as a young child.
My first life memories stem back to life in Tokyo, where we lived for two and a half years. My family lived in a duplex close to the University of Tokyo, where my father was studying. I was raised in the strictest Japanese fashion by both of my parents. I remember studying dance and learning calligraphy at the age of four. There were a lot of little earthquakes there. There were street venders who sold soba and imo (sweet potato snacks). I recall being adored by adults because I was able to speak Japanese and look ‘cute’. Things were a little different in school. I was physically larger than my classmates. I certainly did not look Japanese and I felt quite different.

In 1965 we moved back to Canada. My father had finished his PhD in Oceanography from the University of Tokyo and returned to the Biological Station in Nanaimo to continue his research. I remember I had to repeat Kindergarten even though I had a formal education in Japan. I was an outcast in Nanaimo more than in Tokyo.

I was going to ask you about that, how being bi-racial affected you, or affects you.  How does your identity relate to your work? Some people have talked about bi-racial identity providing a window into both worlds . . .
Being biracial means that you come into this world somewhat cautious of stereotyping or prejudging people. Hopefully it gives you the edge to understand humanity. I have never been asked that question before but I do believe it helps me to be able to ‘put myself in the shoes’ of the person I am interviewing. Isn’t that just common sense?
A lot of your work has been based in and around the North American music scene, along with surfing and female skateboarding culture—worlds that skirt the edge of mainstream culture. I’m guessing that this is a world you feel comfortable in. Would it be presumptuous and simplistic to connect that to your childhood?

That’s a great question. Since I can remember I have never really ‘fit in’ so perhaps it is my lack of pedigree which makes me fascinated with ‘worlds that skirt the edge of mainstream culture’. I value originality as long as it comes with integrity.

You’ve produced a number of documentary films, yet this is the first time you’ve documented the Nikkei community. Do you feel you have insights into the workings of the Japanese Canadian psyche and if so, did it inform how you approached the project?
First of all this is not a documentary film. It’s a series of interviews which have been condensed around key events in history and in people’s individual lives. It would be too general of me to say there is a specific psyche but I can tell you from my own family experience that my parents’ generation did not talk candidly about their experiences. I learned of the events of WWII when I was in Grade 12 because my high school teacher told me. So I approached the project on a more personal level. Who are you? Where are you from? Describe what happened to you? It was up to the individual to take it from there.

Were there any special challenges interviewing Japanese Canadians?
I believe that everyone has a story to tell. And each person is no less important than the other. So I somewhat dismiss the idea that you must be a ‘professional’ to have credence in this community. Ohanashi was challenging because there was so little time to do the project. We tried to get participants whose life experiences were all varied so that viewers could get glimpses of the same historic events from different perspectives.

The issei are almost gone and many of the nisei are now in their later years (although that doesn’t seem to be slowing them down). It seems to me that projects like Ohanashi recognize the importance of documenting the experiences of the elders before it’s too late. What would you suggest for people that are interested in documenting the memories of their parents and grandparents?

Just do it. Be bold. Be respectful. Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Especially if there is a family member who is elderly.

You interviewed your own father for this series. What was that like? Did you get insights into his life that you were unaware of? Was it easier or harder interviewing a relative?
Someone asked me if I chose to interview my father. Actually he was on a list given to me by the museum and when one of our potential interviewees cancelled, I was desperate to find another male. He agreed on two day’s notice. Interviewing my father was not difficult for me. I think it was difficult for him. He has spent a lifetime moving away from painful memories so for anyone to ask him to recount those memories would naturally give him cause to reflect. I did get an insight into his life.

Did you have a particular agenda going into this project?
I was never given a design criteria for this series of interviews. But with the knowledge that they would be put into archives and used for research purposes I tried to keep the interviews as complete as possible. These are biographical testimonials. For Ohanashi to become a TV program, it would have to be re-edited using a few of the subjects AND I would approach it much differently.

As a documentary filmmaker, has the project changed the way you see the world or approach your craft?
In terms of the way I see the world, the Ohanashi project has absolutely ignited my interest in recording oral histories and working with elders. Isn’t it fascinating to hear so many different sides to a series of historical events? It has made me appreciate the perseverance my parents and grandparents AND it has made me understand ‘where a part of me comes from’. I want to do more work in this area.

I conduct a fair number of interviews for my job, and I always find it difficult. Is there a mindset that you get yourself into to prepare for an interview? Is there a lot of research involved or is it more intuitive?
A curious person will always ask good questions. In terms of conducting an interview, each one is different. Try to imagine yourself in your subject’s shoes, ‘literally’, and start from there. A good interview is intuitive.

In order to condense a lifetime of experience into an interview, you have to be able to make deliberate decisions about a person’s character and assess their willingness to share their stories. This is intuitive. A good interviewer has to find an internal balance between confidence and humility. And walk it to the end.

Did any particular interview provide a special challenge?
The most challenging interview was with Tom and Shig Kuwabara, the two brothers who spent the entire war in a real ‘internment camp’ at Petawawa after protesting what was happening to Japanese Canadian citizens during their detainment at Hastings Park. They had less than 24hrs notice. Tom lives in Edmonton and was visiting Shig. I had been introduced to them in the museum through Liz (Nunoda) and the next morning Richard Kobayashi—who was my shooting partner—and I were on for an interview. When we showed up to do the interview, Shig withdrew citing heart problems. Knowing this would be the only time we could get the two of them together I persisted. We set up the camera and microphone in the lobby of the apartment building. If we were to get the two of them together, it had to be now or never. Through all the noise and commotion of elevators dinging and doorbuzzers going off, we did the interview. Like true professionals, they would stop talking when there were noise distractions and pick up the sentences as soon as the noises stopped. Shig became very ill towards the end and we wrapped things up. His wife had every right to be displeased with me. I arrived a few weeks later with the ‘rough cut’ and a sincere apology. I think the family was pleased with the final result.

I would like to thank all the participants who responded to our requests for interviews.  The project belongs to them.  I just assisted it.

Ohanashi – The Story of Our Elders
A new 10 part series of Nikkei life stories. On DVD 30 to 47 minutes each. Interviewed by film maker Susanne Tabata.

The Museum gratefully acknowledges the financial support of 2010 Legacies ArtsNow, British Columbia Direct Access, Burnaby Arts Council, Hamber Foundation, National Association of Japanese Canadians, and other donors for this project.

Kyle - Age Eight

When San Jose Taiko performed in the summer of 1979 at the third annual Powell Street Festival, the effect was that of a shiny pebble dropped in a still pond, with ripples spreading in an ever widening arc across the country. Katari Taiko, Canada’s first taiko group, was formed that same fall—inspired by the youthful exuberance of the American group. Over time, following Katari Taiko’s example, other taiko groups began to spring up across Canada and soon there were groups in most major cities. It started slowly, but over the past thirty years, taiko has embedded itself in the public consciousness, with audiences everywhere embracing that same contagious energy that San Jose Taiko brought to Powell Street that summer.

Vancouver’s Chibi Taiko is one group that can trace its lineage directly to the influence of the San Jose Taiko Group. In fact, while none of the members were even born that summer, the group, as much as any other, carries on the bloodline of taiko in Canada. Three of the members, Kayo Homma-Komori, Emiko Newman and Kaya Newman, are the children of two original Katari Taiko members. Shinobu Homma, the founder and head instructor of Chibi Taiko joined Katari Taiko shortly after its founding, while assistant instructor John Endo Greenaway, Emiko and Kaya’s father, was a founding member of both Katari Taiko and Uzume Taiko, Canada’s first professional taiko ensemble.

Shinobu founded Chibi Taiko in 1993, shortly after arriving back in Vancouver from Toronto where he had co-founded Wasabi Taiko along with his wife Lucy Komori, her sister Leslie, and Rick Shiomi, all Katari Taiko alumni.

One Big Happy

Shinobu made the decision not to resume performing, but to instead turn his energies to teaching taiko to children. Partly, this was to provide an opportunity for daughter Kayo to learn taiko in the company of other children. He chose the name Chibi, or child, and recruited five other children between the ages of six and ten. Two retired Katari Taiko members, Naomi Shikaze and Joyce Chong signed on to help out and the group was off and running.

Parental involvement has always been important in terms of the operation of the group, so while the instructors take care of the practices, parents are involved in keeping the group operating.

Karen Riley, whose sons Brandon and Jordy are among the senior members, recalls her entry into the world of taiko: “In September 1995, my aunt saw an ad for a children’s taiko workshop and suggested that my kids might enjoy it. Well, she was right! They loved it and wanted to sign up right away, and have been playing ever since. Besides the friendships they have made, taiko has taught them to work together as a group, and the many stage performances have helped to build their self-confidence.”

By its very nature, a children’s group faces a high turnover over the years and Kayo is the sole remaining original member, although the core group of senior players has been together for a long time now. As Jordy points out, it is a close-knit group that has in effect grown up together: “The most rewarding aspect of being with Chibi Taiko is the cohesion of our group and how that has developed throughout the years. I see our group as more of a team, with everyone having unique traits and skills about them which defines each individual member. Bringing different styles and backgrounds (dance, concert percussion, sports, size, age, gender) together makes our group dynamic, rather than having everyone look the same. The concept of bringing different strengths while playing a song together is very intriguing to me.”

Six years ago, a new crop of junior drummers were brought on board to prepare for the time that the senior members began moving on to other pursuits, however an unusually high dropout rate meant that only Emiko remains with the group. At age 15, she is in the process of transitioning into the senior group, leaving her in a unique position. “Because the seniors are all older than me and have been playing together for a long time and the juniors are all younger than me, it’s kind of strange because I am in the middle, and I play with both groups.” Still, she says, it is a good challenge learning the advanced repertoire and trying to keep pace with the older players. “I try to elevate my playing to match their abilities.”

The senior Chibi members are almost all in university now, and a new crop of younger drummers is coming up behind them. The junior members, aged eight to twelve, are in the process of learning more advanced repertoire and are beginning to do simple solos on the drums.

Like Karen, Yuko Horn saw an article on Chibi Taiko in a local paper. “Dayna got so excited about trying something new. Dayna’s younger sister Cassandra was at practice every Sunday and we naturally thought that she would join when she got older. I LOVE seeing the kids perform at the local festivals and events and ‘wow’ the audience. Even though I know all the pieces from their practices, every performance looks different. It feels like Chibi is one big family. The senior members are like my daughters’ big brothers/sisters, and I can picture them as the future Dayna/Cassandra. I would love to see them in a duo someday . . .”

KASA Workshop on May 14. Left to right: Emiko, Becky, Yoshikazu Fujimoto, Brandon, Shinobu.

For her part, eleven-year-old Dayna is enjoying being a part of the Chibi family. “It’s fun to watch the older, more experienced members play. They are more entertaining to watch. I play drums in my school band, but it feels very different from playing taiko. The sound is so different. Playing taiko is more fun because we can do all kinds of different sounds and express ourselves more even though it is only one drum we play at a time.”

In addition to appreciating the close-knit nature of the group, all of the parents agree that the cultural component is very important to them. For some of the kids, taiko is their only connection to their Japanese roots (almost all of the Chibi members are hapa), while others stay connected to their heritage through Japanese school or other activities.

Yuko notes that the cultural component is important to her, but having her two children in Chibi Taiko has also changed the way she herself looks at taiko: “It is funny that I have been trying to experience something Japanese after I moved here. I did go to lots of local matsuri when I was still in Japan, but taiko was just one of the festival performances, nothing too special. But hearing the taiko beat here in Canada always gives me chills, goosebumps, sometimes I get tears in my eyes. It must be something that my DNA is feeling without me noticing.”

Jean Yi enrolled her daughter Torin in Chibi Taiko four years ago and her son Kyle, who is eight, joined the junior group recently. As a second generation Korean Canadian, she has a different perspective:  “We’re there mainly for the drumming. But I am a self-professed Japanophile who studied Japanese language and went overseas to visit Japan before Korea (which didn’t go over well with my parents who lived through the occupation but they’re pretty liberal and support the kids in taiko). It was my idea for them to join the group to get some Asian cultural exposure, learn to perform and work within a group and I admit, because I’m too old to learn to play myself. In any case, we are enjoying being part of the group more and more, and I really enjoy seeing the kids developing. John and Shinobu are truly dedicated instructors and still shine when they perform, setting a great example for the kids.”

For the past few months, the drummers, instructors and parents of Chibi Taiko have been preparing to head to Japan, where they will spend ten days in Onomichi, a small seaside town near Hiroshima, as well as in Osaka and Tokyo. Filmmaker Linda Ohama, whose daughter Caitlin and granddaughter Skye are both in Chibi Taiko, has been living and working in Onomichi and is helping coordinate the visit for the twenty children and adults who will be descending on the town in mid-July.

Chibi Taiko will be hosted by Betcha Taiko, a local intergenerational taiko group whose members range from children to seniors. Plans include learning one of Betcha’s original pieces and preparing for a joint concert in the town on the final night before heading to Tokyo. In between the taiko workshops, the group will be getting a taste of traditional Japanese culture and exploring the countryside. The Chibi kids will be billeted with local families for an authentic Japanese experience.

In preparation for the trip, Chibi Taiko is presenting a fundraising concert at 2pm on Sunday, June 21 at the National Nikkei Heritage Centre. Joining the senior and junior members of Chibi Taiko for this concert will be the Chibi Taiko beginners group, who have been training under the direction of Leslie Komori, in what will be their first public performance. There will also be special guest appearances by Steveston Tera Taiko and Yuaikai Ryukyu Taiko. Tickets can be purchased at the door or through e-mail at lkomori@telus.net.
www.chibitaiko.bc.ca

Taking issues of race, culture and identity and throwing them together in a blender, co-writers Julie Tamiko Manning and Adrienne Wong have created at a theatrical concoction called Mixie and the Halfbreeds. Produced by Neworld Theatre in association with the Powell Street Festival and directed by Maiko Bae Yamamoto, the play revolves around two Asian Canadian women of mixed race who approach their cultural dualism in very different ways. Inviting the audience to explore questions of mixing in contemporary Canadian society and popular culture, Mixie and the Halfbreeds poses a number of questions: Where does culture come from? How do we mix cultures without losing our whole sense of self? What does it mean to be mixed race?

Co-writers Julie Tamiko Manning & Adrienne Wong discuss some of issues brought up by their play, which has its world premiere on June 18 at the Vancity Culture Lab (at the Cultch).

In Their Own Words
Mixie and Trixie (Julie Tamiko Manning & Adrienne Wong)

Adrienne Wong (Trixie) and Julie Tamiko Manning (Mixie) might not be carbon copies of their Mixie & the Halfbreeds personas, but as Asian Canadian women of mixed race, they’ve struggled to find a balance between their individual senses of self and the push-and-pull of their racial hybridity. Adrienne and Julie reflect on embracing their mixie-ness and what it takes to survive and thrive as a self-aware hybrid in 21st century Canada.

Mixie and Trixie each deal with their hybridity in their own unique way. How common do you think their attitudes are among Canadians of mixed race?
JULIE: Funnily enough, I have never discussed hybridity with my sister, brother nor my cousins, the majority of whom are of mixed race, nor have I with most hapas within the Japanese Canadian community. Until recently, at least for me, my attitude towards being of two races has been more about identifying as “different” than identifying with a “community of mixies.” So, it’s hard to know. It’s a bit of undiscovered country. I am hoping that Mixie and the Halfbreeds will at least awaken some sort of recognition within the mixed race community. Sometimes it can change everything when you discover that you are not the only one out there with these feelings. Maybe when mixies discover their new label, they can find some pride and identity in that!
ADRIENNE: I think that we intentionally chose two extremes because of the dramatic potential. These two characters have opposing points of view and a yearning for otherness. The characters are set inside of contemporary North American society where the other is still defined as racially different. I think that there’s opposing tension in Mixie and Trixie, a yearning for that otherness and the specialness it confers. We live inside a media culture that places things Eastern on a bit of a pedestal. We have a bit of hangover from Orientalism, and then you add in the contemporary images of China and Japan and what’s happening there now, and the nostalgia for your ancestors’ time, the stories that you may have heard or invented, and all of that affects how you live your life now, and whether or not you see people like you on the street.

Do you think it’s possible to be a hybrid and live without tension or struggle or conflict?
ADRIENNE: I think so. To me, conflict lies in any person’s struggle to understand their identity and their social identity as a human. In the case of these two characters, they’re really hung up on their racial and cultural identity, but I think for some people, those cultural differences are not necessarily in conflict with each other. Instead, they are avenues that open doors where what’s wonderful about being a hybrid or a mixie is the feeling of having the best of all worlds. You can choose this but not that part of your heritage. You can put all those best things together into your own image of yourself.
JULIE: I believe that the conflict is partially within ourselves (sometimes literally!) and partially from outside society. There is a sense of pressure from the outside world to be what people identify you as. Many people will identify people of mixed race with their non-white part. A perfect example is President Barack Obama. He is almost constantly referred to as black. Not to take away from such an historical moment for African Americans, but every time he is referred to as black, a large part of his existence is being denied. There is a comedy bit from The Chappelle Show, called Racial Draft, where delegates of different races (Black, Jewish, White, Latinos and Asian) draft people identified with multi-cultures into their race. For example: the Black delegation drafted Tiger Woods (played by Dave Chappelle) onto their racial team. Woods’ response was: “It’s a tremendous opportunity for me to finally be part of a race, have a home. I’ve been so confused. I Love you Dad!” This is a perfect and hilarious commentary on life as a multi-racial person. Feelings of not fitting in, confusion, guilt for identifying with the race of one parent over the other’s. Then again, some people may never look at life that way. If you see yourself not as half, but someone with two cultures instead of one or none, the conflict dissipates.

How closely does your life experience mirror that of either of the characters?
ADRIENNE: Not that closely. I think what’s interesting is that often when you see pieces about identity, frequently the writers are writing from personal experience, and I think that also happens in the immigrant storylines we’ve seen and the reconciliation between generation’s storylines that we’ve seen. What’s different about this is that it’s not based entirely on Julie’s life or my life. We have definitely exaggerated some things, and hyped some things, and created opposing tensions so that we can explore this issue from extreme angles, from angles of extreme entry, and hopefully by doing that throw some ideas or notions into relief.
JULIE: I would love for this play to not be my diary or my therapy session because I don’t think that that would be very interesting or accessible to anyone else, though I can only write from my own experiences, so most things are based in truth. This being my first written work I’ve fallen into that way of writing a lot. That has been and remains a big challenge for me. On the other hand, the reason why I wanted to write this is because I wanted to add my voice to the Canadian plays already out there. I didn’t think that this voice, the voice of a mixie, was out there yet. Mixie is pretty much me magnified. For example, though I am not a recluse like Mixie, her behaviour is a magnification of my feelings of being an outsider.

Was there a moment in your life when you realized that you were a hybrid?
ADRIENNE: I grew up in Calgary and because my last name was Wong, I felt like I was Chinese even though there weren’t really any Chinese kids in school with me, but that’s what I identified with. But at the same time I went to French immersion school and my mom is French-Canadian from Manitoba, so we spoke French, and learned French Canadian traditions, all the food and songs and so I felt, growing up in Calgary, very connected to that French Canadian legacy. I remember feeling very different.
JULIE: As soon as I started to attend school I knew that I was different. In kindergarten I was the only English kid in a completely French environment. I don’t even think I recognized that our differences were racial. In grade 1 my best friend was the typical blonde, pretty one. Even though her adopted sister was Korean, I only saw that I was not the blonde, pretty one. It still wasn’t about race, I guess. But it WAS about being blonde. It was only when I was around 10, 11, 12 that I realized that my parents were of different race and that made MY existence confusing, because then I had to negotiate around TWO cultures when I had never even recognized them previously.

Have you found in your career that being of mixed heritage has been an advantage or a hindrance?
ADRIENNE: I think that what’s interesting is that being of mixed heritage, I will always be seen as Asian, but I’ll never be seen as White, so the French Canadian side of my heritage is in some ways invisible. Nobody would look at me and say, are you French Canadian?
Because our culture is so visual, and we take in a lot of information through our eyes, and when white people look at me they see an Asian person, and when I meet Chinese people, they know that I’m not fully Chinese, and they want to know what I am, and that’s really the question that always surfaces: what are you? Which is a strange question and doesn’t occur as much as I’ve grown older, although it still happens, although people have found different ways of asking that question, such as: where are your parents from originally? I think that it sets up a false idea that we are somehow pie charts that can be sectioned off. Always people say you’re half, and I say, which half? Top half? Bottom half? We are all mixed up inside of us, and we are intrinsically mixed. You cannot take half away and be left with half. You take half away and you’re left with nothing. The math doesn’t work.
JULIE: My emotional response would say that my racial ambiguity has been a hindrance. In my experience there has rarely been much room for non-traditional thinking in Canadian theatre, and so it has been frustrating. My mindful response would be that it has been an advantage, because I have found great opportunities and challenges in the plays that I have worked on and have met inspiring and exciting artists through these projects that I never would have had I not been who I am.

What do you think that audience members who aren’t of mixed race learn from Mixie?
JULIE: My hope is that people will recognize that there is a pride in being of mixed race, that being a mixie is a specific identity. AND this may sound cheesy, but that we are all the sum of our parts, whatever those parts may be. Whether we identify as mixed-race, mixed culture, mixed gender, mixed education, mixed emotion, mixed parts, mixed nuts, whatever the mix is—it creates a 100% whole-grain person.
ADRIENNE: For me, I always hope that when people come and see the work that they leave and have a slightly different perspective on what it is to be human and what it is that the other humans around them need to be those humans. We know ourselves, we can know ourselves as well as we can, as well as we want to, but we’ll never really know other people unless other people tell us what it’s like for them.

When the book Spirit of the Nikkei Fleet: BC’s Japanese Canadian Fishermen is launched on April 5th and 8th at the Steveston Community Centre and National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre, respectively, it will mark the final chapter in an almost ten-year project to honour the pioneering Nikkei fishermen of the BC coast.

The Nikkei Fishermen’s Reunion Committee was formed at the turn of the new millennium by three sons of fishermen who had recently lost their fathers to Alzheimer’s and death. Realizing that the way of life that their fathers and grandfathers had experienced was fast disappearing, they resolved that the sacrifices and hardships that they had endured must be acknowledged and commemorated. The committee came up with a series of goals.

First up was a reunion dinner for the older fishermen, which was held on November 3, 2001. Retired fishermen gathered from all over Canada and reminisced as they pored over their photos. Some had not seen each other since their forced dispersal from the BC coast in 1942. In the second stage, a bronze statue of a Nikkei fisherman, commissioned to sculptor Junichiro Iwase, was unveiled on September 20, 2002 overlooking the Fraser River on the Steveston waterfront. Two years later, on June 4, 2004, Her Imperial Highness, Princess Takamado of Japan, rededicated the statue on her visit to Canada to commemorate 75 years of diplomatic ties between Canada and Japan.

The final stage was the publication of two books. The first, Nikkei Fishermen of the BC Coast, containing biographies and photographs of Nikkei fishermen, was published in 2007 by Harbour Publishing. The second book, also published by Harbour Publishing is a history of the Nikkei fleet written by Mas Fukawa with Stan Fukawa and the Nikkei Fishermen’s History Book Committee. The book, an exhaustive yet intimate look at the 130-year history of Nikkei fishermen on the BC coast, begins with the arrival of Manzo Nagano in 1877 and traces the evolution of the Nikkei fleet from its humble beginnings, through to its dominance in the pre-war years, its forced dispersal following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the gradual return to the coast once restrictions were lifted in 1949 and up to the present day, when only a handful of Nikkei fishermen ply the BC waters.

The book focuses on the history of the Nikkei fishermen and their families, yet in reading through the various chapters, one can see it as a microcosm of the Canadian Nikkei community as a whole. While the details may differ, the story is the same: perseverance in the face of great hardships, a determination to create a better future for the next generations, and a gradual integration into the broader society.

In her Own Words | MAS FUKAWA

It’s difficult to believe, but it’s been almost ten years since the Nikkei Fishermen project was conceived and initiated. This new book is a fitting culmination to everything that went before it. How did you get involved in the project?
Mr. Murao phoned me one morning in 2003 and asked if I would come and meet with the Nikkei Fishermen Reunion Committee because they wanted to compile a biography of fishermen and wanted me to help them. I knew Mr. Murao because he was a neighbour of ours when I lived in Steveston. He arrived from Japan where he was “repatriated” and we had moved from Greenwood the year before in 1951. The Reunion Committee morphed into the Nikkei Fishermen Book Committee.

The Reunion Committee had completed two of the three projects that they embarked upon. The third was the book. They knew that I had just finished writing two resource books on the internment and redress for the Ministry of Education with a team of teachers and members of the Japanese Canadian community. The timing was good for me.

The first book, Nikkei Fishermen on the BC Coast, Their Biographies and Photographs was published by Harbour in 2007. It received honourable mention by the BC Historical Society. I think the fishermen and their families are very pleased with the book.

How did you approach the new book?
The second book is the collective history of Japanese Canadian fishermen. I tried to include as many voices as possible since no one person can represent “a typical Nikkei fisherman.” Unlike many occupations, fishing is a family commitment and I included as many stories of women as space allowed. Most people are aware that many Nikkei women worked in canneries but perhaps less known is the role they had as partners on their husband’s fishing boat. They were also cooks and “bottle washers” at fishing and herring camps and it is said that the reputation of the husband as “boss” rested on the cooking skills of the wife or woman in the camp kitchen. And of course, there’s Nadene Inouye who is the one woman who became a bonafide commercial fisherman.

I imagine there were many challenges along the way in researching and writing this book.
The scope and size of the project presented challenges. The history covers 130 years from the first immigrant who became the first Nikkei fisherman to the present. Geographically, it involved the whole coast of BC from the Nass and Skeena area, Vancouver Island, the Gulf of Georgia and the Fraser River. During the internment years, the area became larger as fishermen were scattered across Canada and were exiled to Japan.

They also fought on many fronts for equal rights: on the water, on foreign soil in two world wars and in the courts all the way to the Privy Council in London, England.

Since I wanted to present a multi perspective to fishing for a living, access to Japanese sources was essential. Fortunately, Stan did the research, translation and interpreting of those sources so that I could analyze and select what was appropriate in telling the story. The personal experiences of the members of the History Book Committee were invaluable. They also encouraged others to tell their stories and thus enriched the telling of their history.

In taking on the task of compiling the history of the Nikkei fishermen and distilling it into the two books, you’ve been able to look at it from the bigger picture. At the same time, you have a personal stake in the history. What is your connection to the Nikkei fishing story?
My maternal grandfather, Yokichi Ishida, arrived in BC about 1904 and after three years as a puller (deck hand) was able to become a British subject and therefore eligible for a fishing licence. He went into cod fishing. When we were living at Pipers Lagoon in Nanaimo, he visited us and pointed to where he used to fish near Hammond Bay. He mentioned that Hammond Bay was called kujira (whale) bay because there was a whaling station there. He then pointed to Shack Island in the Bay and said that they were built by Japanese fishermen who traveled up and down the coast or fished in the area. They are now used by the locals as summer cottages.

My father, Yoshiharu Shinde, became a fisherman after he was called home to Steveston from Osaka where he was studying to go into business. His father’s sawmill on Gabriola burnt down and he could no longer send him money to continue his education.

Both their boats were confiscated and sold in 1942. My father returned to fishing but my grandfather was too old to do so. My brother Doug was the third generation in fishing but the fishermen of his generation cannot make a living in the fisheries.

I know from my own forays into research that one of side benefits is learning about things one may have never come into contact with. I imagine that was true for you.
I gained a deep appreciation of their spirit in enduring hardships, fighting injustices and for their love for fishing. They left future generations a proud legacy. I marvel at their strength in times of crises. Knowing how much their boats mean to them, I can’t imagine how they managed to endure the pain of having their boats confiscated and then sold. Now I understand why my grandfather used to mutter “those ****!” as he watered his vegetable garden in Greenwood.

You got to hear a lot of stories while compiling the book. Was there one that stuck out for you?
Everyone I interviewed had a wonderful a story to tell and I wish I could have included them all. There are still more stories that I would like to hear and record before “seniors’ moments” become all too frequent and they are lost to us forever.

One story I did want to tell was that of Buck Suzuki. I just hope I did justice to the contributions he made to the fishing industry. It was very largely thanks to him that Nikkei were able to re-enter the fishing industry 60 years ago. He was also one of the first, if not the first, to raise awareness of the need to protect salmon habitat in the Fraser River.

In the final chapter of the book you include a section called The Last Nikkei Fishermen in which you actually pinpoint two fellows, Justin and Troy, who are most likely the last of the Nikkei fishermen to fish the west coast. It’s somehow sad that after 130 years it’s come down to this. How did you arrive at these two as being the last of their kind?
At the turn of the 20th century there were about 4,000 Japanese fishing in BC waters. The new millennium began with 44 and now there are even fewer. Justin is the second generation to fish. He also works as a chartered account. Troy’s fishing lineage goes back five generations. He fishes year round. There have been no new entries into BC fishery since they started fishing for a living in the 1990s.

Editor’s Note: proceeds from the sale of the book will be towards a fishermen’s exhibit at the Japanese Canadian National Museum.

Vancouver Moving Theatre was formed in 1983 by Terry Hunter and Savannah Walling, who met at the Simon Fraser University non-credit dance program in the early 1970’s and then co-founded the Mime Caravan (1971-73) and Terminal City Dance (1975-83). Over the years Vancouver Moving Theatre has developed an international reputation for creating cross-cultural performances that often featured masks and percussion, frequently in collaboration with other artists from various disciplines. In recent years, the company has shifted from touring towards producing large-scale community engaged cultural events including In the Heart of a City: the Downtown Eastside Community Play (2003) and its offshoot, the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival (2004 – present), an annual event that celebrates the artists, history, culture, people and stories of the Downtown Eastside. Other recent community-engaged productions include We’re All in This Together (2005-2007) a giant shadow screen play about the roots of addiction, and A Downtown Eastside Romeo & Juliet (2008) a tragic-comedy about marginalization, stigmatization and homelessness. Terry and Savannah recently received the 2008 British Columbia Community Achievement Award for their work in the Downtown Eastside community, and Vancouver Moving Theatre recently received the 2008 City of Vancouver Cultural Harmony Award. Vancouver Moving Theatre is one of the producing partners of the upcoming Japantown Multicultural Neighbourhood Celebration.

In their Own Words
Interview with Terry Hunter & Savannah Walling

I met you two way back in the early eighties, when Katari Taiko was first getting started and was itself very much a part of the Strathcona community. In the time I’ve known you two, I’ve seen a real evolution in the company and its focus. You’ve gone from simply being based in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, to actually making the neighbourhood part of your identity, through the work you’re doing. Is that something that happened organically, or did you sit down and map out a plan, as in, “Let’s create a whole body of work based in the neighbourhood we live in”?

TERRY It definitely arose organically. But what is interesting is that the seeds of our present work were established back in the 70s when we first moved into the Downtown Eastside—these seeds were a fascination with interdisciplinary and intercultural work, in bridging barriers between cultures, and in connecting artistic practice with community. And in turn our home community has very much shaped who we are and the work we do. Witnessing the Chinese Lion Dancers at Chinese New Year events in the streets of Chinatown inspired us to take our work out onto streets, plazas and public spaces. Japanese taiko has also inspired us, and led to a number of years where Savannah and I created our own unique style of drum dancing.

SAVANNAH Asian practices of combining dance, percussion and mask inspired us to create characters like Drum Mother with whom we toured around the world. But as we began to raise a family, we started to plant deeper roots within our home community.

TERRY A big step in this evolution to a deeper connection to community came after our son Montana was born in 1990. We began to do less international touring, and began the Strathcona Artist at Home Festival. This festival opened a huge and very rich vein—the history, culture, struggles and story of this area. This work led to an invitation by the Carnegie Community Centre to partner with them to co-produce the Downtown Eastside Community Play, a play which the mandate to celebrate the struggles and history of the community, and to build bridges between the cultures and socio-economic groups of the community.

SAVANNAH I agreed to undertake this gargantuan project in gratitude to the Downtown Eastside neighbourhoods that have contributed to much to our artistic practice and provided a welcoming, culturally rich community in which to raise our son.

TERRY Everything that we’ve done here since producing the community play—from festivals to productions—has been a natural evolution of work for, by and/or with this community. So it very much has been an organic development, with us having no idea how the work was going to evolve over the long-term. If thirty years ago a soothsayer said to me that “Three decades from now in the future year of 2008 you are going to produce in this neighbourhood a festival that features over 1000 artists in 170 events at over 40 locations through the community,” I wouldn’t have believed them.

The Downtown Eastside is famously known as having Canada’s poorest postal code and has faced myriad accompanying issues including addiction, homelessness, prostitution and crime. Yet I sense from you two a commitment that transcends white middleclass guilt or pity. You seem to have a real affection for the area and its residents, and that comes across in your work. How do you see your role in the development of the DTES community?

SAVANNAH This is my home. I live here because I like this home—its values and history, its art forms and cultures, its compassion and courage. I like my friends and neighbours. We share the same kinds of challenges lots of urban and rural communities face. To build healthy communities, all of us are needed. I take the small steps I know how to take—creating art that excites me, involves and engages people from my community, and challenges negative stereotypes. I learn about the neighborhood and share what I learn. Festivals and theatre productions offer lots of opportunities to give voice to many voices.

TERRY Savannah says it so well. I would only add that I see myself as an artist/producer and a resident—a kind of public servant living and working with community.

Given the challenges inherent in living and working in the DTES, do you ever lose hope, or feel that you’re swimming against the current?

TERRY No, I don’t lose hope. I’m a very positive person by nature. But I certainly do feel discouraged at times. One of the central purposes of our work is to counter the negative and two-dimensional portrayal of the neighbourhood in the media. It can be very discouraging at times to see the huge amount of stigmatization and misrepresentation that goes on in the mainstream media, but I don’t let that stop me. I keep plugging away at it and take courage and hope from those in our community who have brought positive change through their fight for dignity and human rights.

SAVANNAH I’m often daunted. I’m not as positive a person by nature as Terry. I know big problems can take generations to repair. They won’t be solved in my generation. I plan as if I’m going to live forever, and try to conduct myself as if I’m going to die tomorrow. When I’m totally lost, I focus on the next step—one step, I can manage. I accept that I’m not perfect and try to do better next time. I remind myself I’m only one of many people who are working to restore our community’s health.

One thing that has impressed me is your commitment to the values of not only diversity, but authenticity. Not in the sense of, let’s go get some authentic Japanese drummers to play at our show, but rather through inviting in performers from the various sub-communities, whether they be Japanese, Chinese, First Nations, Ukrainian or African Canadian, to perform here in their own backyard. When you mount these performances and events, do you have a sense of programming for those from outside the neighbourhood, to show them the talent that’s here? Or is it more a case of providing an opportunity for artists to perform for their friends and neighbours.

TERRY Our work is for both the local community and the larger community. First and foremost, it’s with and for the local community. But the work is presented in an open house format, in which the larger city is invited to see our community and hear what it has to say. We like to create high impact events with strong production values that have a large impact in terms of their depth and scale, within the community and beyond. Communities need allies and partners, and allies and partners from outside the local community are vital to ones success.

SAVANNAH These events create a legacy for our community, documenting its history, its struggles, its people, its great stories and its art. It’s a legacy for our neighbourhood’s children, for the next generation of artists, and for other communities facing similar challenges.

The Japantown Multicultural Neighbourhood Festival came out of the City’s DTES Revitalization initiative, specifically the Powell Street (Japantown) Historical and Cultural Review. How did this review come about and what did it encompass?

SAVANNAH The Powell Street (Japantown) Historical and Cultural Review was commissioned by the City of Vancouver in the context of the Downtown Eastside Official Development Plan, and in response to stakeholders in the Oppenheimer Park Development Plan process. This Review was developed in a community consultation process on the revitalization of the area, it explores the history of the Powell Street area, and it identifies places and activities that can relate its important stories.  Terry and I were part of the Review Team and I co-wrote the historical context statement.

What was the impetus behind the upcoming event, and how did VMT become involved?

TERRY The Japantown Multicultural Neighbourhood Celebration arose from informal conversations between members of some Japanese Canadian organizations to create a collaborative, community-based event following the City of Vancouver’s Japantown Historical and Cultural Review (2008) and the desire to commemorate the 80th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Canada and Japan.  The Japanese Hall, Tonari Gumi and the Powell Street Festival Society wanted to move forward on the review, to do expand the mandate of their organizations Japanese Canadian focus to embrace the present multicultural communities in the neighbourhood, to build relationships with the current community so they together have a common a voice in its future.

Vancouver Moving Theatre was approached by Rika Uto, chair of the Vancouver Japanese Language School and Japanese Hall, to co-produce the event along with other community partners including Tonari Gumi and the Powell Street Festival.   Rika also works at the Carnegie Community Centre with whom our company has a long-standing working relationship (we co-produced the Downtown Eastside Community Play at the Japanese Hall).  We had participated in the Historical Review. We really like Rika and really like working with her, and, well, sometimes you just can’t say “no”.   It was also a natural fit for us—an obvious next step in the evolution of our work – and we are very glad we did as it is really a pleasure to get to know and work with Joji Kumagai of Tonari Gumi and Kristen Lambertson of the Powell Street Festival.

Is this a one-time event or do you seeing things coming out of it?

TERRY It was initially conceived as a one-time event, but the producing organizations are also interested in the possibility that it may continue as an annual event. We will assess the celebration after it’s over and then make a decision about whether to do it again.

And what about VMT—do you have a long-term vision for the company or are you just living festival to festival?

TERRY My long-term vision is to continue to work in community-engaged practice in the Downtown Eastside. There is still lots of work to be done. And I have a lot of energy and passion to do this work.

SAVANNAH Last year, we produced a National Community Play Symposium that drew artists from across Canada who are excited about the kind of art and cultural development emerging in the Downtown Eastside and around Powell Street. I’m beginning to think a lot about legacy and succession and how important it is to document our work—and this community’s work —in a way that it can be transmitted to emerging artists, artists in other communities and to future generations.

TERRY So we continue to do the work while we prepare for legacy and succession.

Illustration by Cindy Mochizuki

“It was a problem of communication. My father read Japanese language newspapers, he could not read English. I read English language newspapers, Japanese newspapers were too difficult in spite of my years at the Japanese language school. Reading a newspaper printed in Japanese required a mastery of 2000 Chinese characters. Few Nisei read the Tairiku Nippo or the Canada Times. My father’s world consisted mostly of Japan, community activities and life in British Columbia, especially discrimination against Orientals. When he and his friends got together, I could hear snatches of conversation about their work in the sawmills, on the fishing boats and the latest news from their villages in Japan. I had no interest in their world.

“Outwardly my parents did not show any interest in my world. At school I learned about Christopher Columbus and his discovery of the New World, the travels of Marco Polo, the subjugation of the Aztecs and the Incas, the Battle of Hastings, the Magna Carta, the glory of the British Empire. I read poetry like “Relief at Lucknow” immortalizing the bravery of British soldiers in India. I memorized the great poems of Shelley and Wordsworth, sang “Men of Harlech”, “The Maple Leaf Forever”, and “Comin’ Thru the Rye”. I learned about a culture my parents could never understand.

“Meaningful conversation about politics, government, philosophy and religion was difficult between Issei parents and Nisei offspring. Perhaps it was impossible. It was a drawback in our upbringing. The paucity of good conversation at home and around the dinner table probably contributed to the difficulties many Nisei had articulating ideas and thoughts.

“Baseball was one subject everyone could discuss. Father knew and understood the language of the diamond – strike bo-ru, se-fu, au-to… He and every adult male in the community were baseball fans and followed avidly the fortunes of the community baseball team, the Asahi. The box scores were in the Japanese language papers for all to see. More than anything else, the Asahi were a focal point, the pride of the community, and helped to bridge the gap between the two generations. We could talk about baseball with our parents.

“The Asahi played on a dusty diamond known as Powell Street grounds. It was sandlot baseball. There was no grass to speak of. The spectators sat on hard boards in a dilapidated stand which squeezed in 200 fans. Others sat or stood on Cordova and Jackson Streets in the outfield. When the Asahi played it was always to a full house, the grounds completely ringed by spectators who cheered lustily at a good play and even more loudly when an Asahi got a hit, which was not too often. They were a light hitting team and relied on speed and defence in their games with the bigger hakujin. They were crowd pleasers and had many fans even among the white people.

“After classes at the language school on Alexander Street which was only a block away from the Powell grounds, I sat on my school bag, munched on peanuts and watched a game. The Asahi players were our heroes and one in particular was almost akin to god. That was Roy Yamamura, the short-stop, a marvellous player with a magic glove and a personality to match. I’m positive, given the opportunity and perhaps another four inches and thirty pounds, Roy Yamamura would have been a star in the major leagues. In 1933 the Asahi played under the lights at Con Jones Park near Hastings Park. I walked with father and his friends to the game, came home satisfied and happy if the Asahi had won. I can still see a home-run hit by Sally Nakamura. It just cleared the top of the railing and went into the stand for a key run. That brought the crowd to its feet. When the Park burned down and the Asahi moved to Athletic Park, they were outclassed and community interest sagged. This was just before the war.

“We lived in the “Heaps” district around Victoria Drive and Dundas Street and we had a baseball team. Tamio Fujiwara was our captain and manager and we challenged a pick-up team of Nisei who attended Seymour School. I was a pitcher for a while, had good control but lacked speed and was relegated to the outfield, the usual fate of fringe players. My one happy memory of those days was a game we played on the grounds of Templeton Junior High School. Playing centre field I managed to catch a fly ball which I and everyone else thought was going over my head. I ran back as fast as I could, put up my glove at the last moment and the ball plunked into my glove. I was the most surprised player on the field. From then on my short baseball career was all downhill.”

From Stories of My People, 1994
by Roy Ito

These broad strokes leave out some important details, however, including the fact that while in Kalso, Ito joined the staff of the New Canadian, the only Japanese Canadian publication allowed to publish during the war years. And although he soon left Kaslo for the east to pursue an education, his schooling was interrupted by a stint in the Canadian Army, where Ito was one of only a small number of Japanese Canadians allowed to serve the country of their birth. With the rank of sergeant, Ito served with the Canadian Intelligence Corps in India and South-East Asia. Following the war, Ito completed his education and settled down to raise a family and pursue his chosen career in education.

In 1977, Roy Ito was approached by the S-20 and Nisei Veterans Association to compile a history of the army service of nisei in the Canadian Army during World War Two. Ito embarked on several years of research, travelling across the country to interview veterans and delving into the archives. Within a couple of years, the scope of the book was expanded to include the story of Japanese Canadians in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in World War One. While the original manuscript was an exhaustive recounting, through interviews and accompanying text, of the Japanese Canadian experience through the two World Wars, at the urging of others outside the community, the book was rewritten to include historical background that placed the nisei war experience in context. The finished book, We Went to War, was published in 1984 and proved to be a seminal book that stands alongside books like Adachi’s The Enemy that Never Was in documenting the Japanese Canadian experience.

While We Went to War covers several important chapters in the history of the Japanese in Canada, it doesn’t tell the whole story and in 1994, Ito published Stories of My People, a comprehensive, sprawling book that covers the story of the Japanese Canadian community beginning with the moment Manzo Nagano landed in New Westminster and ending on September 22, 1988 with the signing of the Redress Agreement. In between those two pivotal events, Ito covers virtually all of the important events in the community’s history, some well known and others more obscure.

Both We Went to War and Stories of My People should be considered required reading for anyone interested in the Japanese Canadian experience. While the books are notable for their broad scope, coupled with a fine attention to detail, what sets them apart is the passion that lies just below the surface of every page. It is the passion of a man who considered himself a loyal Canadian his entire life yet was interned as an enemy alien, only to be vindicated in the end. When finally given the chance to prove his loyalty by joining the Canadian Army, he did so without hesitation and any bitterness he felt was pre-empted by his sense of duty and honour. The underlying theme throughout both books is one of loyalty, honour, citizenship and pride.

Tatsuo Kage has the appearance and manner of an absent-minded professor, but this façade belies a fierce determination to follow his principles, whether they are popular or not. Over the past 30 or so years, he has been an integral part of the Vancouver Nikkei community, sitting on numerous boards and committees, and championing a number of human rights causes.

Born in 1935 in Utsunomiya, Kage was the son of a military officer. The family moved frequently until setting in Tokyo in the early forties at the outbreak of World War Two.

Developing a keen interest in history at a young age, Kage went on to major in European History at the University of Tokyo and spent two years at Germany’s University of Tübingen on a German Government Exchange Scholarship. In 1969, he became Assistant Professor at Meiji Gakuin University, teaching Political Science and European History. Upon attaining a full professorship, however, he and his wife Diane, along with their three daughters Mariko, Alisa and Eileen and son Ken, relocated to Vancouver. In Vancouver, Kage found work as a bilingual community worker at MOSAIC, a Multilingual Social Service Agency providing services to immigrants. He has also worked as a freelance researcher, writer and translator within the Nikkei community. Following the Redress agreement in 1988, Kage served as Regional Co-ordinator for the Redress Implementation Program under the National Association of Japanese Canadians. His duties including liaising with those who had been exiled to Japan following Japan’s surrender.

Over the year’s Kage’s tireless work within the community has earned him a number of awards and grants and he has written and edited many articles.

Although retired, Kage finds himself as busy as ever. He is currently working on completing the English translation of his 1998 book Nikkei Kanadajin no Tsuihou (Exiled Japanese Canadians) [Akashi Shoten Publishers, Tokyo].

In his Own Words
Tatsuo Kage

You spent the Second World War in Tokyo, is that right?
My father stayed mostly in Tokyo, so I lived there. But one special experience I had is that around 1943, school children were asked to move out from the Tokyo area, so over two hundred school children from the same elementary school were sent to the countryside, and I was one of them.

They were afraid of bombing?
Yes. My parents and two small sisters stayed in Tokyo, but myself and my elder sister, who was in the 6th grade, went to a northern part called Miyagi-ken, in the countryside, and stayed there for two years. That was, you know, quite unusual, to be away from our parents. I was still only eight or nine. And I lived with a few hundred other kids, plus several teachers. It was an old inn or country-style restaurant; the building was used for a dormitory. And the teachers lived in the same place.

So it was almost like boarding school?
That’s right. It had a big banquet room, with tatami of course, that was used for both studying, eating, and even sleeping.

Do you have many memories of the war itself?
I don’t have really have any memories of the war itself, but I remember that during the last year of the war, things were getting worse, especially the food situation and we were always hungry even though where we went was a well known rice growing area. At the beginning, local farmers came to visit us with food, so it was very nice. But the last six months or so, it was not so good. And then after we went back to Tokyo again there were many food shortages. The reason is that Japan lost colonies like Manchuria. It had lots of farming land, but nothing was imported after the war, so I think the worst time was 1946 to 1947.

When Japan lost the war, what happened to your father?
Of course he lost the job, so he was looking for a job. He did a lot of odd jobs, and finally he worked for some trading company. Unusually for his age group, he was conversant in English, so that helped quite a bit. And eventually he managed to establish some sort of small foundation. Around that time the housing situation was very, very poor, partly because half of the city was bombed and burned, destroyed. So he had an idea of forming a research institute for housing. So that was his job until he died— it was 1963.

What were your interests as you got older and went to high school?
Well, I was always interested in history, and I had a very good teacher. Looking back, I think the end of the war, when I was around ten years old, was a big shock for me. Until then I was indoctrinated into believing that Japan was a very special country and couldn’t lose the war because we had some kind of mission. That kind of nationalistic idea was held by almost everybody at that time, including young people like us. But then, when the war ended, everything turned around. The war was not a holy war for the glory of Japan or the liberation of eastern people, but more like a war of aggression. Japan was governed by an emperor, but then democracy was introduced, so many value systems and ideas were changed 180 degrees. So that was a kind of the beginning of my interest in history. But at the same time, I thought that, even though this is what happened in Japan and Asia, if I were to specialize in that area, then my point of view would be limited and fairly narrow. So I wanted to study about European history. Of course it was well known that Hitler and Mussolini were allies. So my curiosity was about Japan and Germany. For example, how did they become allies of Japan? That was something I was really interested in. So I ended up studying 1920s, 1930s German history, and after I graduated university, I managed to go to study in Germany and I became familiar with German research and people’s feeling about the war. I was always meeting people there and it was very, very interesting as well.

Your interest in history was piqued by the Japan’s losing the war. Do you think that was a shock to the population as a whole?
It is hard to say. For those who lived in Japan, the end of the war was a kind of relief, even though materially it was still very tough. And I think a lot of people around that time felt that big changes were coming. And then of course a lot of people came back from overseas, soldiers and civilians, from the former colonies and so on. I think probably one tenth of Japan’s population was living outside the country, and when the war ended they gradually came back. So those people had also a hard time. Japan was very impoverished country, so to get back to normal life was pretty tough.

When you went to Germany, what was that like?
Well, lots of German people had some familiarity with the Japanese because of the long-time relationship and wartime alliance, so there was no bad feelings at all towards Japanese. But in Europe at that time, their exposure to Oriental people was very, very limited. So people were curious about people from outside, Oriental people. So that wasn’t too bad. I never had, you know any kind of discrimination. However, I did feel that it was a place we could stay only temporarily as guests. But for visiting it was fine. And Diane and I got married there.

Did you come to Canada, to Vancouver, because Diane was from here?
Partly, yes, but one of the reasons we came here is that we have three girls, as you know—our fourth child was a boy, but he was still small—and the oldest girl was just finishing elementary school, reaching the age of Japanese middle school, and at that time there were not many mixed-race children in Japan. So especially for girls, future acceptance, or a future career was quite unsure. Japan was a more sexist country at that time, and mixed kids were not really accepted, but more looked at with curiosity, and integrating into the society could have been difficult, or so we thought. And Diane had been living in Japan for over ten years, so she also felt it would be good to have a change. She didn’t want to go back to Montreal where she came from. For one thing, she felt it was too cold in winter time, and French-English issues were always present, we’re talking about 1960. So it was not a very favourable environment. So we thought that, well, Vancouver is halfway in between, and also I had visited Vancouver beforehand, and I thought it was a pretty good place to be, even though I didn’t know very much about it.

You talk about the mixed race issue in Japan. Did you and Diane run into problems while living there?
No. That is again an interesting thing. We lived in the same neighbourhood where I grew up, and my children went to the same school that I went. So we were long time residents of that area. The neighbourhood shop keepers, usually they stay for a long time, they knew who I was, and who Diane was. So they didn’t treat us as strangers. And Diane was pretty good at speaking Japanese, so she sat on the PTA and things like that. So she was doing everything, you know, that housewives are supposed to do. So I think they accepted us without too much problem.

You arrived in Vancouver in 1975. Did you become involved in the Vancouver Nikkei community right away?
No, I think it took a few years. At the beginning I had hardly any contacts. But in 1977, the Japanese Canadian Centennial—that was an interesting year—it was then that a bunch of us formed the Japanese Immigrants Association—Take san (Yamashiro) and Yuko (Shibata), Michiko (Sakata) and Peter Kubotani who later became the president of the Greater Vancouver JCCA. So that was the beginning of my involvement. And one of the first projects I was involved with was producing a list of immigrants and also a kind of directory. I think that was some kind of prototype for the Vancouver Japanese Business Directory. At that time, you know, there was nothing like that. So it was a challenge, but at the same time I learned very quickly what kind of services were available, and who the immigrants were, and so on. So that was a very good learning experience. And then about a year later, I got a job at MOSAIC, the immigrant services association. And at that time I thought that to help other immigrants, other people, I should know the resources in the community, especially people, and organizations. So I got involved with the JCCA first and Tonari Gumi soon after that. I made arrangements with MOSAIC and Tonari Gumi that I could work one or two days a week from Tonari Gumi. So since then, I have had a connection with the Nikkei community. My work place, MOSAIC was very good as well, because besides me, there were no other Japanese, and most were also immigrants, but from different countries, like China, Vietnam, Latin American, and so on. So to be with them was also quite interesting. Immigrants from other areas are quite different, and especially refugees, they have different kinds of problems. So that was a good learning experience.

At MOSAIC did everyone have their own specialty according to their language? Did you only focus on Japanese speaking immigrants?
Yeah that was basically the way it was, but in my case, occasionally I was able to use my German. Not many German people came in to ask for us to help, because German people seem to pick up English quite quickly. So they don’t seem to have many problems.

In the time I’ve known you, you’ve been quite heavily involved in the human rights end of the community. What was it that sparked that passion in you?
(laughs) I don’t know if it’s a passion or not, but around 1983, Redress became a community issue. I was on the board of the JCCA, and I recall that at that time Redress was being discussed because the National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC) was sending out messages that it was going to work on it as an human rights issue. But the JCCA Board, the Japanese Canadian leaders, were quite cautious or conservative, and there was a lot of resistance to work on Redress. And I thought, right from the very beginning, I thought that this was very interesting, and a good idea to work on it. And an elder in the community warned me that there could be some kind of backlash, so you should be very careful, and I thought, well, that can’t be the case, because Japanese Canadians have a right to correct the past wrongs. Since I was not even indirectly affected by the wartime measures, my interest was a lot more general, how the community process worked among Japanese Canadians, or more generally speaking, how the democratic process could work.

So your interest in human rights came out of your involvement with the redress movement?
In 1988, when Redress was settled, I thought, and a few other people—my friends—thought that the energy generated from the redress movement had to be focussed into human rights activities. And that was the NAJC’s direction as well around that time also. A human rights committee was formed, both in the NAJC and locally too. So that was the beginning of human rights work. I was interested in Redress issues which were not resolved in 1988, with other people. One thing is that even the Chinese head tax was already an issue we were talking about, and then soon after that there were issues regarding Japanese government not dealing with past responsibility like the comfort women issue.

I think it came up in the mid the 1990s . . . just around that time that became one of the issues people became interested in. And Japanese immigrants, we were watching how the Japanese government was trying to deal with these issues. And along those same lines, in 1996/97, we were involved in the history text book issue in Japan. What happened is, Saburo Ienaga, a Japanese professor in Japan, had a lawsuit against the Japanese government. The Japanese government was screening, de facto censoring, text book drafts. Each school district or school board has a choice of choosing out of available text books, that is how the Japanese system works, and Professor Ienaga wrote one from a critical point of view regarding Japan’s past, and that was rejected by the Ministry. So he was unhappy, and eventually he sued the government. And that lawsuit lasted about 30 years. That final one came up in 1997. So about a year beforehand, we started campaigning to support that professor’s lawsuit.

Around 1996, Randy Enomoto was NAJC President and he was proposing that the Japanese and Chinese communities should get together to discuss common problems, common issues. We were looking for common issues that could be discussed together. For example, seniors care for ethnic elders could be one of the issues, that kind of thing. So at that time I became interested in the text book issue, Japanese responsibility for the war, especially regarding Asian people. I thought that unless we brought up those issues, discussed with the Chinese people, our dialogue would be useless. So I said that to Randy and he said, okay, let’s deal with it. So that was the beginning of the textbook campaign. And then I contacted the Japanese support group and got information. So eventually we started a signature-collecting campaign, and we collected quite a few signatures. 11,000 signatures were collected and the Japanese support group was surprised, they never expected that many signatures could be obtained outside of Japan. Most signatures were collected by Chinese Canadians. So we have always had some kind of connection with Japanese peace movement, human rights movement. And that’s still going on.

Did you feel there was an obligation on the part of Japanese because they had achieved redress that they then turn their focus to helping other minority groups?
Yes, well, I think simply stated, when Redress was achieved, especially at the last stage, many other people, including ethnic groups, First Nation people, some rights activists and so on, helped us, right? And so it was natural, I thought, to help them. That’s the feeling I had. And some other Japanese Canadians must have felt the same way.

So in terms of what you said earlier about, you know, connecting with the Chinese community, there are still some bad feelings on the part of the Chinese community towards the Japanese because of what happened during the war. Did you feel that getting involved in these issues, like the comfort women campaign and textbook campaign, was that a way, do you think, of bringing the communities together?
Yes. I think it’s a reconciliation process. I think at least we show some understanding, and working on the issue, together, would be helpful, I think, for the understanding between our two communities. But that’s again, my feeling. But it’s not always easy, because lots of Japanese people feel uneasy with old issues, because they’re connected to criticism of Japan’s past. So some people, even though they’re otherwise fairly open minded, they just refuse to get involved in, for example, the comfort women issue.

Why do you think that is? Do you think it’s something to do with the Japanese psyche, or is it the way they were brought up, or . . .?
I think probably many Japanese people weren’t exposed to the issues of nationalism, or their idea of what it means to be Japanese and what Japan is, because after all, Japan is an insular country, even though nowadays people are going abroad, and there’s foreign information coming in. But still, a lot of people believe that Japan is a homogenous country, and they have their own unique history . . . that kind of belief is engrained in their minds, I think. So it’s just not so easy to be critical of Japan’s past. But I think we are not bashing Japan. Looking at the past from a critical viewpoint is not meant to criticize Japan itself. It’s not anti-Japanese. But without dealing with the past properly, you can’t really establish your international standing. That’s the feeling I have, and many, many progressive people have the same viewpoint. That’s why in Japan they have a movement as well to support those people, not only comfort women, but there were many people used as forced labour in Japan during the war, and compensation for those people is still an unresolved issue.

It seems to me that Germany, after the war, had a much different response to what it did during the war. Germany, from my limited understanding, seemed to take a real hard look at itself and its actions during the war and seemed to take steps to try and make redress for their actions. Japan seems to have had a different response.
Yes, I think so. Of course the situation in Germany is very complicated, but as you mention, political leadership in Germany was quite open to trying to overcome the past wrongs, and to overcome that kind of burden by for example apologizing to Jewish people and neighbouring countries, and make arrangement for compensation and so on. I didn’t really study how that difference came about, but one thing I noticed was that in Germany, they are trying to identify themselves as different from Nazi Germany, Hitler’s regime. To be a leader in post-war Germany, they have to claim that they weren’t Nazi supporters or they are totally different from the Nazis. In the Japanese case, that kind of distance or divorce from the recent past has never been so clear-cut. For example, Prime Minster Kiishi, who was Prime Minister around 1960, was one of the minsters in the Tojo cabinet when the Asia Pacific War started, so the elite somehow survived. He could have been charged as a war criminal. So that kind of distinction from the past or divorce from the past has never been so clear in Japan. That’s to do with the uniqueness of the Japanese feeling of national identity, I think.

There’s been some strong resistance from the community to some of the work that you’ve done, especially around Japan’s responsibility for the comfort women and those particular issues. I used the word passion before, because you seemed very determined in the face of, I think, non-support within the community to keep pursuing these issues, so I’m just curious why.
Well, of course I know that some people have some objections, but I don’t expect everybody to agree. I do what I need to, what I think is proper, and yes, the comfort women issue is really a tough one because the Japanese government including embassies is involved in campaigning to promote government position, but its position is quite different from international understanding. What can you do? You know, people don’t like it, but still I don’t need to shut up.

Well, it feels like you’ve always followed your own conscience.
Yes. And, there’s a joke, because I was working with the Chinese people on these issues, and then I told Diane, I lost a lot of Japanese friends, and Diane said, but the Chinese have a much bigger population . . . (laughs)

You’ve written a book on the “deportation” of Japanese Canadians. Was that published?
In Japanese, yes. And now, we’re working on the English translation. The manuscript is almost finished and we’re now working on finding a publisher, we’re not sure. I thought that it should be translated professionally, so I asked some nissei professional translator to translate it. Actually we worked on it together, you know, almost line by line, and so the English version became quite different from a straight translation of the Japanese version, but anyways, so far we have not found a publisher. So I don’t know when it will be published.

I understand this book came out of your experience working for the Redress implementation program when you were travelling to Japan to seek out people that had been repatriated, is that right?
What happened was that after the Redress settlement, major centres had a Redress Implementation office, and I was appointed as the coordinator for western Canada of the Redress Imprementation Program, which was mostly BC, and among coordinators I was the only one who was comfortable communicating in Japanese. We knew that in Japan there were people who were eligible for redress, so I started corresponding with Japanese Canadians there, and I recommended to the Government Redress office that we do something. So that developed into a delegation, an NAJC and government delegation, visiting Japan for ten days or so, about eleven months after the Redress settlement. Before, during, and after the visit I contacted quite a few people by correspondence and in person who went to Japan in 1946 and stayed. There was another group, who went to Japan in 1946, but after several years came back to Canada. Actually probably more than half of them came back. I already knew several interesting people, like Irene Tsuyuki and Mary Seki. So there were the two very distinct groups. And I thought that to compare their experiences would be quite interesting as well.

For those people who had left in 1946 and remained in Japan, did the Redress settlement mean anything to them, or were they so far removed by that point that it was meaningless?
Well, I think they were very pleased. Someone told me that the amount of money they got was not much from Japanese point of view because at that time the Japanese economy was very prosperous. But the recognition for past injustice and the fact that the Canadian government sent people to look for them and apologize, they appreciated it very much. Until then, a lot of people had an unsettled feeling about their war time experience and “deportation.” But one of them said that for him, finally the war was over. So that kind of relief or healing happened during that visit. So you couldn’t really say that they were not interested in it, because for them it’s very unusual, a rare thing, that the Canadian government was sending a delegation to meet them. So without much effort or publicity, I’m sure that most people there knew that we were coming to visit.

Most of these people would have been kids when they were “repatriated”?
Mostly they were in their teens. Some of them did not like to go to Japan as a foreign land, but they were too young to live in Canada independently so that they had to go along with their parents and siblings.

You yourself immigrated to Canada with your family from Japan. You were involved with creating the immigrant association but then there’s this whole other side of the community, the sansei and the nisei here—the Canadian born Nikkei. Did you feel comfortable in that environment or did it some time to get used to?
Well, when I joined the JCCA board in 1978 or so, I thought that most people were very different and strange, hard to understand, so it took about two years, more or less, to follow what they were saying and so on. At that time the board was issei, nisei, sansei, that’s three generations. I wondered about the sansei, well, I didn’t find so much difficulty understanding them, even though they were quite different from Japanese of the same generation, very Canadianized . . .

It’s interesting to me that there were people like you and Takeo and Michiko, the new immigrants, and then there were people like Naomi Shikaze, Ken Shikaze, Rick Shiomi,. There was a culture gap, but there also seemed to be an alliance between the two groups.
Yes. I think the main thing was that even though our backgrounds were quite different, it was nice and good to work together on the same things, like Tonari Gumi or the Powell Street Festival. Even though we were different, we were not so different that we couldn’t work together on the same cause. Another good example is the JCCA Human Rights Committee. Over a decade and a half members of the committee always consist of nisei, sansei and postwar immigrants. Difference in our experience and expertise becomes a complementary factor for learning from each other rather than a source of friction.

Now of course there’s a whole new generation of immigrants coming from Japan. There seems to be this real divide between the Canadian born and the Japanese born. People sometimes talk about that, about how to bring them together. Are you involved at all with the new immigrants, the ones who came post-Redress?
Not too many. The face of Japanese immigrants has changed quite a bit. Until the 1980s , it was typically young working male immigrants with skills who came, but in the 1980s, not many people came. I was working at MOSAIC and I was wondering if they would get more immigrants coming. And then around that time I noticed that there was a half-forgotten provision for retired immigrants in the Immigration Regulations. I found that if you were intending to retire in Canada, you could immigrate very easily. So, I wrote that information in a Japanese publication. It was for a semi-government immigration agency, so it had a small circulation among Japanese. But one of the major newspapers picked it up and they mentioned it in a column. So that sparked an interest among Japanese, and the agency got a few hundred phone calls of inquiry. That was just around the time that the Japanese cost of living was very high and overseas, in the Philippines or Spain people could live cheaper when they retired. So because of that article, interest among retirees was generated, and until around 1990, I don’t know how many came, but in Vancouver, at least a few hundred people came. I lost contact but they still maintain their own group. And that was until 1990 when the government finally realized that it probably wasn’t a very useful immigration policy, so they struck it out.

And going back to your question about newer immigrants, after the 1990s, from around that time on, young women sponsored by non Japanese men began arriving. It seems to me that is the majority of immigrants these days. I am no longer in immigrant services so I don’t know what kind of problems or needs they have, but in the 1990s, there were group activities, and they met four to six times a year, they dealt with various topics relating to intermarriage. Then I think some people who were active in the organization moved away so that group finished. But recently there are some people who are interested in reviving it, so actually in December we are going to have a first meeting regarding intermarriage. Japanese intermarriage could include different categories, like Canadian-born sansei with non-Japanese partners, etc., but to begin with we want to focus on Japanese women, Japanese speaking women, who are isolated and need a place to meet and discuss their own problems. And I think one of the issues which will soon arise is how to deal with divorce or separation. Because once you are married, having children or common assets, there are all sorts of procedures that you have to deal with.

Do you still feel Japanese or do you feel Canadian?
Yes, that’s a good question. I . . . it is hard to say. Just yesterday I thought you might ask that question. And I was wondering . . . who are your friends? What kind of newspaper are you reading? You know, that kind of thing gives you an identity. So I . . . now I am a stateless! (laughs) Neither Japanese nor Canadian. I enjoy visiting Japan, but at the same time I don’t think I can live there permanently. Canada, well, I think, I don’t mind living here, more quietly, maybe not too much involved in the community. I left MOSAIC over 15 years ago, but it seems that I am always too busy and there are lots of things I want to do, not important things, but like repairing furniture or painting the house, those type of things, always those kind of things are neglected. So I really want to retire. I recall you interviewed Mits Hayashi and he was talking about having a second retirement. (laughs)

You have been involved in the Nikkei community for many years. How would you sum up the experience?
Well, I think that overall, getting to know and working with Japanese Canadians has been a learning experience, but has also been very beneficial for me. Most of them have been very kind and understanding. Because for example I heard that some immigrant person was talking about Redress, and Japanese Canadians gave him a difficult time saying, oh, you had nothing to do with it. But I never had that kind of thing said to me, even though I was deeply involved. That type of attitude was never shown by anybody, so that was very good. And I did help them quite a bit, in a way. Like, you know, communication with issei was important. Take-san and myself, we helped get the issei involved.

Finally, I understand that you once played the role of Ultraman, the Japanese TV character.
(laughs) Oh yeah, when our kids were still small, they were attending the Gladstone Japanese Language School and the parents were supposed to do something to entertain kids, so I think I became Ultraman with mask and costume, homemade. Take-San got to be Superman. So I got to play Ultraman.