Hastings Park Update

Hastings Park Committee Meeting Report
By Judy Hanazawa

The Hastings Park Project Committee met on May 14, 2012 to review project developments and next steps.

Plaque relocation costs
We received an estimate from JB Newall Granite Works indicating the relocation of the Internment and Momiji Garden plaques would be close to 4000 dollars. The committee will contact the GVJCCA as well as the Hastings Park Project Steering Committee to seek funding for the plaque relocations. The committee concluded fundraising would be more successful if the plaque relocation project would become a joint project with the building signage project.

Reviewing developmental phases of our project

Developmental phases of our Hastings Park project are:
1.    Plaque relocation and outside interpretive signage for all 4 remaining detention buildings
2.    Development of Livestock Building indoor interpretive centre coordinating with building’s renovation in 2013-2014
3.    Community consultation and participation in Momiji Garden area improvements projected for after 2014
Proceeding with developing external Interpretive sign for the Livestock Building

The Hastings Park Redevelopment Project has committed to fund our external interpretive sign for the Livestock Building. We now have the Redevelopment Project’s sign template and can proceed to create the text and design for our Livestock building interpretive sign. We can apply costs for developing this sign to project costs for other detention building signage.

Developing Text for the 125th Anniversary Vancouver Heritage Foundation Plaque for the Livestock Building
During this meeting we also met with Jessica Quan from the Vancouver Heritage Foundation who requested our participation in developing the text for a plaque identifying the Livestock Building as a designated heritage site. The plaque would describe the building’s historic role in 1942 as a detention centre for Japanese Canadian women and children.

The committee has developed the following draft and urgently requests community feedback on this text:
Livestock Building
From 1942 to 1949, racialized and labeled enemy aliens, 22,000 Japanese Canadians living along the West Coast were uprooted, interned, then forced to settle east of the Rockies or exiled to Japan. In this livestock building at various times between March to April, 1942, more than 8000 innocent women and young children were detained under deplorable conditions while able male family members were sent to work camps.

Please send feedback to jhanazawa@shaw.ca