Category Story Archive

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Lives and Trials of Kanao Inouye or Kamloops Kid: the Reluctant War Criminal

Whether by choice or coercion, Inouye became an interrogator of Canadian POWs held in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong. There, it cannot be disputed, Inouye earned a reputation for being violent and unpredictable. In some cases, he beat prisoners so severely that a few of them died as a result.

Akemashite omedetoo gozaimasu to all our readers, and may we all have a fruitful 2014. Let’s begin the new year by examining the “way we are,” i.e. we Japanese Canadians, Japanese Americans and long-time resident Japanese. What are we really like?…

Started as a knitwear company by their parents in 1978, Granted Clothing is now run by siblings Brian and Amy Hirano. Their beautifully designed, 100% wool chunky-knit sweaters are locally knitted by hand and sold internationally. Each sweater takes 10 to 15 hours to make and features branded wooden zipper pulls made of salvaged yew wood from Lasqueti Island.

She told me of her grief and pain when her husband died. His ghostly voice she claimed gave her comfort and strength in facing the challenges of the funeral arrangements.

“The racialization of Japanese Canadians as an enemy ‘race’ served to normalize the identity of a Canadian citizen as white. The web of power authorized through the War Measures Act enabled the making of white bourgeois subjects ...

The Young Leaders Conference sparked from a youth meeting and digital storytelling workshop that happened at last year’s National Association of Japanese Canadian (NAJC) Annual General Meeting in Kamloops, BC.

As a child growing up in Regina, I remember my parents often welcomed newcomers from Japan to our home. My mother would miraculously prepare a tasty Japanese dinner from the “surprise” packages hidden away in her kitchen.

Terry Watada is a poet, novelist, playwright, musician, recording artist, historian, activist, and teacher. Long-interested in the history of Japanese Canadians, he has explored the various facets of the community through his art, often tapping into little-known or talked-about stories…

In the mid-1970s into the 1990s, photographer Yosh Inouye ran a successful studio in the middle of a thriving Toronto advertising scene where his specialty was table-top photography. This native of Gifu, Japan, first arrived in Toronto in 1968, with training from Tama Art School (1960-1962) and Kuwazawa Design School (1962-1964) under his belt. His first Canadian job was as a photographer’s assistant ...

The fusion of Euripedes’ Greek tragedy Medea and the language, costumes and aesthetics of Japanese Noh drama may at first seem incongruous and unlikely.