by Lorene Oikawa, JCHPICS vice president
The rain was pouring as I made my way to the Livestock Barns at Hastings Park on October 21. I ducked in and met other members of the Japanese Canadian Hastings Park Interpretive Centre Society (JCHPICS), Vancouver Heritage Foundation (VHF), and PNE. We were there to prepare to meet teachers who were spending their Pro D Day on a walking tour with guides from Nikkei National Museum (NNM) and VHF and then a session with JCHPICS.
We wanted to convey what it was like for the approximately 8,000 Japanese Canadians primarily from outside of the Metro Vancouver who were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to Hastings Park before being sent away to internment/incarceration camps and other places to be exiled from the west coast of British Columbia along with the rest of the 22,000 Japanese Canadians. Babies to seniors. This is important Canadian history not just Japanese Canadian stories.
JCHPICS president Dan Tokawa spoke about the “goal of JCHPICS to tell our truths.” The JC community worked to get signage at Hastings Park and the next phase is to build an interpretive centre in the Livestock Barn. He also shared that his aunt Haruno Tokawa was only 23 years old when she passed away from TB on December 8, 1942. Many people died in the dusty and unsanitary conditions of Hastings Park.
We shared the voices of survivors. Connie Kadota shared a quote by Mary Ohara who said when she got the mumps, she was secluded in an underground storage room. “There were lots of smaller kids there, and I had to babysit and comfort them, even though I was sick too.”
JCHPICS secretary Wendy Matsubuchi provided a quote from Kaz Takahashi who said, “It occurred to me as a child that there was a fence, and I wasn’t allowed to go past it. It was a moment of sadness.”
Ron Nishimura read a quote from Shoichi Matsushita who saw a young mother crying. “They had taken her kids from her… It was like she was all alone in the world.”
I shared a quote from my mother, Mae (nee Doi) Oikawa who was a girl when she was interned/incarcerated. She described the horrible food and how my grandmother would get her to eat. “My mom used to go to a small store nearby. She used to buy us an orange and a doughnut… for breakfast. We never got sick so I guess the vitamins in the orange helped.” Being a part of the JCHPICS is very personal for me. My mom told me we must never forgot what happened and we must record the names of all who were at Hastings Park.
We were grateful for Mary Kitagawa who shared her story as a child watching the police take her father and thinking they would never see him again. She told us how she felt being forced from her beautiful, clean home on Saltspring Island to the horrible stench of the Livestock Barn. “As soon as we entered the barn, we could smell the urine and feces. It hit our nostrils. It just filled our lungs.”
The teachers also appreciated the stories of survivors such as Mary’s. They commented that they learned a lot and hoped to use it in their classes. Some spoke to JCHPICS members about more resources and offered feedback. Some took part in a mini tour offered by Dan Tokawa and saw photos of how the barn looked in 1942.
For the Interpretive Centre, JCHPICS will share stories, images, and artifacts or reproductions so that people have a better understanding of what happened to Japanese Canadians in Hastings Park in 1942. We also want to share the names of all 8,000 who were there. We will also respectfully acknowledge the ancestral, traditional, unceded territories of First Peoples (especially Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh) who have been the stewards of the lands and waters since time immemorial. For more information and/or to provide feedback on the planning of the Interpretive Centre, go to http://hastingspark1942.ca/centre
Japanese Canadian Hastings Park Interpretive Centre Society Update
A. Notice of Annual General Meeting
Sunday, December 4, 2022, 2pm – 4pm
Matsu Room, Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre
6688 Southoaks Crescent, Burnaby, BC
Agenda
1. Adopt rules of order
2. Accept voting members and quorum for meeting
3. Approve agenda
4. Receive Treasurer’s financial report, unaudited.
5. Receive other report(s): President’s report, Survey results, design progress, etc.
6. Appoint an auditor if any
7. New business
8. Terminate meeting
B. Community Outreach, July – October 2022
1. Society Directors met community and answered JCHPICS queries at:
a. Surrey Fusion Festival b. Powell St. Festival
2. About 900 JCHPICS postcards were distributed at festivals and JC events by Lorene Oikawa. Postcards were posted at the Hastings community library recently.
3. Dan Tokawa met Jessica Quan, Vancouver Heritage Foundation, and separately with Bill Yuen, Heritage Vancouver Society, to explore subjects of mutual interest.
4. Lisa Uyeda provided introductions to important archivists:
a. Gabrielle Nishiguchi at Library and Archives Canada. Gabrielle is very interested in the Hastings Park centre project and provided several good suggestions for displays.
b. Kira Baker and colleague Jana from the City of Vancouver Archives. They are working on improving the metadata descriptions of photos at Hastings Park and other camps.
c. Both contacts need follow-up.
5. Janell Yan, PNE Assist. Mgr. Sales & Marketing, took Jessica Quon, Sarah Carlson, Carolyn Nakagawa, and Dan Tokawa through the Livestock building on Aug. 16, to evaluate the site for a potential pro-D day event in October.
The boiler room basement doors in S.W. corner of the building were open so we entered and finally were able to verify that the room matched the 1942 Children’s Quarantine Ward description by Mary Ohara in oral history records – a significant discovery!
6. Lorene invited Dan Tokawa to a farewell luncheon, August 26, for Mr. Takashi Hatori, Consul General of Japan, Assistant Consul General Ms. Masayo Tada, and also incoming Consul General Ms. Kayo Imamura. The menu prepared by chef Emi Takeuchi was five-star, a rare treat.
7. Vivian Nishi, a film industry art director, provided a sketch of a display set, September 9, and other ideas for serious consideration which hopefully we can consider in earnest soon. Yoshie Bancroft provided another film artist contact, Coral Payne at Doberman Pictures.
8. Another resource contact was made at the NNMCC Survivors Luncheon, September 22, with Masako Fukawa, co-author of the book Righting Canada’s Wrongs.
9. Dan Tokawa and Laura Saimoto participated separately in a video commemorating the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s 30th anniversary gala, September 29.
10. A proof of concept, provincial pro-D event was held October 21, at Hastings Park, with over 60 teachers from the GVRD and Prince George, plus volunteers. This was a public relations success for the PNE, VHF, NNMCC, and JCHPICS who jointly funded the full day event. Jessica Quan, VHF, led this successful venture. For the JCHPICS, valuable feedback and design ideas were obtained so it was well worth the effort.
11. Lorene Oikawa and Dan Tokawa joined a zoom meeting October 29 by the Ucluelet History and Area Historical Society (UAHS), facilitated by Paul Kariya, BC Redress Negotiations Committee. The event was a multi-ethnic story telling event about the 1942 forced removal from the community and the format was worth remembering for implementing elsewhere.
12. Statistical info from book sales of Vancouver Rashomon: Redress Stories not available yet but anticipated funds raised to seed the JCHPICS are about $1,000 since book came out in July ‘22.
C. Design
1. As mentioned the above outreach yielded many resource contacts and ideas that require follow-up and consideration in order to flesh out the design and budget of the interpretive centre, which hopefully can progress in earnest starting the next quarter.
See you at the AGM!
