a journal of japanese canadian community, history + culture
a journal of japanese canadian community, history + culture
This expulsion of Canadian residents of Japanese ancestry was a continuation and extension of the policy of removal and incarceration of Japanese Canadians which started right after the beginning of the Pacific phase of the Second World War in December 1941.
The ringing of the bronze temple bell on New Year’s eve is a time of reflection on the past. The sound of the bell slowly fades away until it is only a memory. This fading sound is called yo-in. It…
Male-form dances are active and fun, and you can actually portray female characters within them. In Kuruwa hakkei (Eight Views of the Pleasure Quarter), the main character is a man who goes to the Pleasure Quarter.
Half World took over eight years to write so when I had finally completed it I was very much ready to move on. But my editor gently asked me if there could be another Half World book and after a little time had passed I knew that there could.
Following the success of my book, Hanatare Bozu, I would like to make my next project a book called Greenwood-Midway: My Home, My Furusato.
by Kenji Maeda As a second-generation Japanese Canadian, I admit I sometimes feel guilty that I don’t know more about the history of the internment camps during WWII where so many people of Japanese decent experienced life in a way…
Given the lengths that previously-disenfranchised groups of people in Canada have gone through to get the right to vote, you’d think more people would cherish the right to have a say in who runs their city, their province and their country.
In 2007 filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns heard from a friend of his, who was a cancer survivor, about a young SFU student who was looking for a bone marrow donor. What complicated things was the man’s race. Part Chinese…
I was interviewed the other day and among the questions were two that spoke to the issue of identity. The questions struck me as rather odd but at the same time gave me pause for thought. The first was, “You…
Tuesday, October 27 Kay and Emma went to a meeting about the teaching jobs after breakfast, so I was on my own. I took a long walk along the main road until there were no more houses. The only traffic…
Addressing Injustice: UBC’s Response to the Internment of Japanese Canadian Students – Then and Now by Vivian Rygnestad “70 years ago, 76 Japanese Canadian students who were attending UBC were forcibly removed and exiled from the BC coast. They…
My quest to get special honorary degrees for the 1942 Japanese Canadian students attending UBC happened by accident. As I was surfing the net one day, I came upon an article about the University of Washington granting honorary degrees to…
