Letter to the Editor
I read in the December ’07 Bulletin that the redevelopment of Oppenheimer Park will commemorate the Japanese Canadian history of that park. It seems appropriate that this will be done since the Nikkei community is strongly tied to this place and once knew it as Powell Grounds. I hope we will be able to see the final plans for this commemoration since it will be a major imprint on the Nikkei community.
Not only at Oppenheimer Park, but all the internment camps in Canada should have some kind of monument, however modest, placed at those locations. In the States, except for two camps, we have a monument at each of the camps; and it will only be a matter of time before we have some kind of monument at the two that don’t have one since our government has declared all of the camps national historic monuments and each camp will receive federal funding to restore, landscape and commemorate them. So the Canadian government should also provide some kind of similar funding if only to have some kind plaque or marker at the site to indicate that internment camps existed there. Or maybe the internees of each of the camps can raise the money for such a marker or plaque.
On the subject of internment camps, the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles is planning a conference in Denver, Colorado on July 3-6, 2008 commemorating the twentieth anniversary of our redress bill and will examine the World War II experience and its connections to historical and contemporary issues dealing with democracy and civil rights. There will be a whole slew of panels and workshops that will deal with such subjects as: finding your roots, a question of identity, preserving your family history, looking like the enemy, how children’s writers make books relevant to Japanese American youngsters, resistance to government orders, health care concerns of Japanese American elderly, hapa identity, how to conduct oral history, the Japanese American experience in the Southwestern and Mountain states, the preservation of the last three remaining Japantowns, etc. Those are just a few of the subjects that will be covered.
Since the programs are still tentative, I’m thinking of suggesting to the Japanese American National Museum to include a panel of Japanese Canadians to tell about their experiences during World War II. Perhaps there could be one panelist who went to the interior settlements; another who went to a self-supporting site; another who went to a sugar beet farm in the prairies; another who went to a road camp; one who went to Angler; and an expatriate to Japan. Japanese Americans don’t know too much about the Japanese Canadian experience, so this would be a good opportunity for you to educate us. It would be nice if some representatives from the National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre could be at the conference.
Aside from the panels and workshops, there will be banquets, luncheons, speeches and a pilgrimage to the Amache internment camp in Colorado. Headquarters will be the Hyatt Regency Denver. Mr. Yoshin Tamaki of K. Iwata Travel Service, Ltd. at 774 Thurlow St. in Vancouver is listed in the conference brochure as the representative for making arrangements in Canada. He should have the brochures and the information regarding this conference.
Ed Suguro
Seattle, WA
USA
Congratulations!
Your online edition is great–easy to read and to navigate–and accessible to thousands more readers.
I would suggest that your “To the editor” should have the letter-writer’s by-line instead of yours. (No doubt this was a start-up glitch, and would have been corrected
by the next issue, but thought I’d mention it anyway.)
Again, congratulations–good job!
Thanks Lois – appreciate the comments!
john
How complacent we have become in this fast paced lives of ours! It is hard to imagine a brief 60 years ago, we still did not have the franchise in Canada and already 20 years has gone by since Redress. I wonder if there are plans in the works for a conference on this side of the border as well.
Also congratualtions are in order for 50 years of keeping the community informed. Sometimes I wonder if the Bulletin is not the only thing that keeps this community of ours together.
Hello from the Japanese American National Museum!
We really appreciate your mention of the upcoming conference and also your suggestions for topics.
Since the printing of the registration packet, we have finalized the bulk of the sessions, including one on July 4 about Japanese Canadians. I’m pasting the description below, but please know that we’re gradually modifying our website so that it updates like these will be available there, too.
Please keep up the good work that you’re doing on this website!
–Allyson
Perceived Threats: Being Persons of Japanese Ancestry in the Territory of Hawaii and Canada During World War II
Professor Greg Robinson of the University of Quebec, Montreal examines the paradoxical impact of martial law rule in the Territory of Hawaii during World War II on the freedom and status of Americans of Japanese ancestry. Similarly, Professor Norman Okihiro of Mount St. Vincent University, Halifax examines the removal of Canadian Japanese from western Canada to interior locales in Canada. These two less well known cases of the World War II treatment of persons of Japanese ancestry, as compared to the plight of mainland Japanese Americans, should spark audience discussion and questions regarding these events, and how the dangers that overt and latent biases and prejudices against persons perceived as threats works to the detriment of the rights and freedoms of all of us.