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It is not fair to say what I experienced in Japan is the same as what new Canadian immigrants must feel. We have a much stronger immigrant culture, one with a goal of emphasizing multiculturalism and embracing newcomers. Even those of us who were born in Canada still claim ties to the nations of our ancestors, as Neil Bissoondath points out. Anyone who can trace their lineage will call themselves half-Swedish or one-quarter French. Only those who trace their ancestry back to the earliest settlers will, at a loss, despairingly say, “I’m just Canadian.”

It’s said that in ancient Japan, the size of a village was determined by how far away one could hear the village drum. It’s an evocative image that resonates even today, when the very concept of village and community is…

Growing up in Port Moody BC in the early eighties, Joji Kumagai wasn't particularly interested in his Japanese heritage. The son of Tatsuya and Akiko Kumagai, he saw himself as a typical Canadian kid—playing sports and hanging with his friends. After graduating from Port Moody Senior Secondary School he attended Simon Fraser University, where he majored in ecology with a minor in toxicology. In the summer of 2001 Kumagai travelled to Japan where he was able to get to know many relatives for first time, including his maternal grandmother, to whom he grew attached.

When Jeff Chiba Stearns began creating animated films, he started out small and worked his way upwards. Kip and Kyle, his first film, weighs in at a mere 47 seconds. For all of its brevity, though, it contains the essence…

Soda Kazuhiro usually works without a theme in mind when he shoots, finding his premise only later in the editing room. Hence, he almost rejected a commission from a Korean film festival to shoot a short film about peace and coexistence. Fortunately, he accepted the challenge, and what emerged was not a short but an intriguing and delicate feature. Peace was named after the brand of cigarettes smoked by 91-year-old Hashimoto Shiro, a gentleman who dresses in suit and tie even while dying of lung cancer. He receives compassionate care at home from welfare workers (the director’s in-laws), whose pay is so meager that they’re basically working as volunteers. After work, the director’s father-in-law cares for his five cats and one “thief cat” who steals the others’ food and encroaches on their territory. As the stranger cat gains acceptance among the cat community, war is averted and conflict neatly resolved. The matter of resolving human conflict is more complicated, and Kazuhiro’s enduring images leave a haunting resonance and many questions.

Interviews by Barbara Stowe Making Peace: Soda Kazuhiro, director of Peace, elucidates his theme. At a Q and A at the Pacific Cinemateque following a screening of “Peace” the night before this interview, Soda Kazuhiro explained that this documentary was…

On October 4, 2010 representatives of several community organizations met at Tonari Gumi to discuss  steps to ensure there would be appropriate representation of our community’s historical relationship with Hastings Park in the Plan to redevelop Hastings Park and the…