Category You Say

Nisei : Summer Jobs

“What? I have to travel 400 km to work all summer? I will call family services!” No, no, that didn’t come out of the mouth of a Nisei. They followed their parents’ orders. The Child’s Labour Code was not discussed…

Greenwood was the first ‘internment centre’ and Tashme was the last. In-between, there were Lemon Creek, Popoff, Bay Farm, New Denver, Rosebery, Sandon and Kaslo. Self-supporting camps were East Lillooet, Minto Mine, Bridge River and McGillivray Falls. Other self-supporting camps…

I don’t have a PhD in linguistics but I hope that a budding linguist major will get interested in this topic. In Hawaii, the first boat load of Japanese immigrants came to this island as sugar cane labourers in 1868.…

“The day the music died,” from the song American Pie by Don McLean, referred to February 3, 1959, the days Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper perished in the ill-fated plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa. Those who…

Dion and the Belmonts made the doo wop song famous with Teenagers in Love. We could call this segment ‘Nisei-gers in Love’. Was this the clash of the old world Issei tradition versus the new world Canadian way? When the…

How can you tell a Nisei by looking at the food they eat? Have you heard of Cumberland chow mein, denbazuke, or karinto? In the case of Japanese Hawaiians, you have heard of and most likely have eaten Spam sushi.…

Issei, Nisei, I Say, You Say The Bulletin is pleased to introduce a new column by Nanaimo-based historian, researcher and author Chuck Tasaka. Having grown up in Greenwood, Chuck has a special interest in the area, as well as a…