Category National Feature

by Lillian Nakamura Maguire  As a 13 year old school girl – A-­bomb struck  Children cried for their mothers and begged for mercy  Rags hung from skeletons  zombie-­like figures drifted past her  thirsty, wandering souls, lost forever  A peace activist…

by Lillian Nakamura MaguireChair, Constitution & Resolutions Committee The National Council of the National Association of Japanese Canadians met in Victoria and approved over 100 changes to the Bylaws of the NAJC. The majority of the changes included clarification of…

I recently saw Brenda Kamino in the play, Moderato Cantabile, at this year’s 25th anniversary SummerWorks festival. What a (pleasure) it was to see a Nikkei actor in a role that’s usually given to an actor of European heritage. Brenda…

When parents are lost, they tend to fall into myth; that is, you as their child idealize them. So it was I wanted to believe that I inherited my mother’s laugh, her welcoming nature, her popularity. From my father, I…

The Japanese Canadian Association of Yukon (JCAY) is a well-established non-profit organization of some 80 members (as of September, 2015) that plays a significant role both in the lives of the members and in the wider community of Whitehorse, Yukon.…

Hitoko Okada started out in the fashion industry working for a milliner in her hometown of Vancouver when she was just 17 and has been involved in theatre costume production since she was 19. She holds a Fashion Design Diploma…

When I re-read Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath in my thirties, I found his writing so moving I nearly gave up all hope of being a writer. The descriptions and images in just the first few pages made the hairs on…

What happened to the party’s “solemn commitment and undertaking to Canadians of every origin that such violations will never again in this country be countenanced or repeated”? Covered with its own symbolic neqab, I suppose.

Requiemby Frances ItaniHarperCollins Publishers Ltd.2011 Why do non-Japanese Canadians feel compelled to write fiction about Japanese Canadians? Such an abrupt question is usually asked behind closed doors in our community, but because we have our own writers, we have our…

I found it was best to approach Shintani’s piece, “Google Volterra,” slowly, as it’s installed in a dimly lit corner and should be viewed in a state of calmness.