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Tashme Poetry Society Haiku Gathering, July 8, 1945, Tashme, BC. NNM 2017.18.1.1.2

Haiku in Tashme

The legacy of Sukeo “Sam” Sameshima BC Redress: Japanese Canadian Legacy Initiatives Powell Street Festival presents: Paueru Dialogues #7 “On Mental Health and Art” Eastsideから見える日本と世界第37回オリンピック終了とCOVID19感染者急増者急増

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A Journal of Japanese Canadian Community, History & Culture www.jccabulletin-geppo.ca SSN 1182-0225 v.63 No.09 September 2021 Circulation: 4,100 Canada Post Agreement Number 400-50782 G V J C CA

The Bulletin/Geppo is published monthly by the Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association (GVJCCA). Managing Editor John Endo Greenaway john@bigwavedesign.net

Haiku in Tashme: The legacy of Sukeo “Sam” Sameshima 2 Paueru Gai Dialogues 9 Paueru Gai Dialogues Reflections 10

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Powell Street Festival Update 12 Landscapes of Injustice 14 BC Redress Update 16 JCCA Donations / Editorial 24 ©

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Tashme Poetry Society Haiku Gathering, July 8, 1945, Tashme, BC. NNM 2017.18.1.1.2

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September 9月 2021 1

Haiku in Tashme: The legacy of Sukeo “Sam” Sameshima Mr. Sukeo Sameshima and the Tashme Poetry Society Welcoming Master Housei, Tashme, BC. This photograph consists of Mr. Sukeo Sameshima and the Tashme Poetry Society on January 30, 1944. Posing for the photograph is one woman (second from the right) and eight men in formal wear standing in front of a wooden structure. Identified from left to right are: Mr. Sameshima, unidentified, Mr. Takeda (haiku teacher), Denbei Kobayashi, unidentified, unidentified, Mr. Tomihiro, Mrs. Nakamoto, and Roy Sumi. The kanji at the bottom of the photograph reads, “Snail Poetry Society Welcomes Master Housei Commemorate Photograph.” Nikkei National Museum 2017.18.1.1.1

The following story is the winner of the 2020 Anne and Philip Yandle Best Article Award. It appeared in the Spring 2020 edition of British Columbia History magazine. COVER PHOTO Mr. Sukeo Sameshima and the Tashme Poetry Society Haiku Gathering; Tashme, BC. This photograph consists of Mr. Sukeo Sameshima and the Tashme Poetry Society on July 8, 1945. There are six men standing in the back along with Mr. Sameshima on the left-hand side and fourth from the left is Mr. Takeda the teacher; and another six men are seated at a table with numerous books and papers including Roy Sumi seated second from the left. There are two large poetry posters on the wall in the background. The right-hand side of the top poster is titled “Poetry Subject” in kanji. The kanji on the top-right corner of the photograph reads “Tashme Haiku Gathering Commemorate Photograph: Showa Year 20, July 8.” On the verso is a handwritten annotation in Japanese in black ink. Nikkei National Museum 2017.18.1.1.2.

It took almost three hours to drive to Sunshine Valley from Fort Langley. It is about 22 kilometres past Hope on the Crowsnest Highway. Our destination was the Sunshine Valley Tashme Museum, a relatively new institution dedicated to the memory of life in the Tashme internment camp. Tashme was the largest internment camp in British Columbia for Japanese Canadians. The camp, built on the site of what was previously a working farm, was in operation between October 1942 and August 1946. At its peak, over 2,600 people were incarcerated there. A large percentage of the Nikkei adults and children had previously lived in Vancouver and smaller communities along the coast, and they were accustomed to urban living and modern amenities such as indoor plumbing, heating, cars, and stores. In Tashme, the majority lived in 347 uninsulated tar paper shacks. Each shack was occupied by a family of at least five people. Smaller families either shared a shack or were housed in an “apartment” building. Barracks housed young, single women

INFORMATION WANTED Please see page 13 to help identify the people in the above photo and the cover photo, along with a request for more haiku written by Japanese Canadians.

By Jacqueline Pearce and Jean-Pierre Antonio

2 月報 The Bulletin

and a large barn housed single men. In addition, there was separate housing for the non-Japanese supervisors from the BC Security Commission and for the RCMP officers and teachers, many of the latter sent by churches. No prison walls were needed to keep people inside the camp, since the isolated location, rugged landscape, and the hostile social climate of the province were considered enough of a deterrent to thoughts of escape. Over the years since the camp closed, few people passing by on the adjacent highway were aware of the site’s internment history. Today however, there is a newly erected Provincial historical marker on Alpine Boulevard, just off the highway, which provides basic information about Tashme and the people who were confined there. Visitors who pull off the highway and step inside the Tashme museum at 14781 Alpine Boulevard will find an opportunity to look through a window into the past and gain a deeper understanding of the harsh realities of the internees’ lives. On the day we visited, brilliant sunshine was reflecting off a metre of newly-fallen snow, and the entire valley looked deceptively like an idyllic winter postcard. However, after a couple of hours touring the museum and the grounds and listening to the curator, Ryan Ellan, we were left with no illusions about this picturesque place. The museum provides plenty of detailed information about the site’s internment camp years through archival photos, maps, personal artifacts, and the interior of a painstakingly recreated shack that accurately shows visitors what the cramped kitchen and tiny bedrooms were like. Kitchen utensils and personal items look as if they have been set aside for a moment and will be picked up again when the family returns. Through these tangible details, visitors can begin to understand the dramatically reduced circumstances that the internees endured. At the time of our visit, the cold of winter penetrating the thin walls helped evoke another layer of the internees’ experience.

Michiko Kihira is the chief translator. Jean-Pierre Antonio is an assistant translator. Jacqueline Pearce of Burnaby is a grant recipient of the 2019 BCHF Centennial Legacy Fund in the amount of $4,300 for her Japanese Canadian internment camp haiku translation project. The goal of this project is to translate at least 300 of over 600 haiku poems contained in two unpublished documents written in Tashme internment camp as well as to translate a small selection of haiku from other camps. There are few published records of haiku written in internment camps, and the project aims to compile the scattered information and examples into a single collection, so that this very unique part of Canadian literature and history can gain wider recognition. inspiring. The massive ceiling struts, visible from the second-floor loft space, suggest the interior of a cathedral. The comparison, however, relates only to the sense of open space. Standing there for a brief 15 minutes, the icy chill penetrated our layers of winter clothing. There is no insulation in the building, and during the years the internees slept there, sleeping cubicles were separated only by thin curtains. At one end of the barn there was a wood burning stove for cooking, but it could not possibly have provided enough heat to warm up the vast space. We had to wonder: What did the internees think about their day-to-day life in Tashme? How did they feel about the deprivations, or about having previous routines and relationships suddenly taken away? How did they manage the hardships? There is not a great deal of first-hand information available today to let us know the internal thoughts and feelings of those who lived in the camp. Many of the adult internees have passed on, and those who were children in the camps are now entering their 80s and 90s, and the decades have taken away many of the sharper details of their memories. Perhaps, however, some of the emotional insights can be found in the rediscovered haiku poetry of Tashme. Few examples of personal writing remain from the internment camps. Most were lost, destroyed or discarded over time. This makes the collection of materials recently donated by the Sameshima family to the archives of the Nikkei National Museum at the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre in Burnaby, particularly unique and significant. In the collection there are two remarkable volumes called Yamabiko (Mountain Echo) and Reiko (Spiritual Light).

They contain over 600 haiku composed by members of the Tashme Haiku Club during the years of internment. Their existence today is In addition to the museum, visitors can also see the due to the care of one of the club members, Sukeo “Sam” Sameshima. outside of a cabin used for Tashme primary school He kept the two mimeographed volumes safe for over 70 years as he classes, a long, barracks-style building used to moved from home to home after internment, before finally settling in house unmarried women, the remains of two silos Coaldale, Alberta. It says a great deal about his love of haiku and his and the massive barn that was used to house single determination to not let the life he led in Tashme be forgotten. men. All of these buildings are original and in need of restoration after so many years of neglect. Even Haiku is a short form of poetry that has been popular in Japan for so, the barn, despite its current condition, is awe- several hundred years. In fact, the word haiku is both singular and

September 9月 2021 3

plural. It was brought to Canada by Japanese immigrants in the early 20th century. Traditionally, haiku tends to use natural imagery to express ideas and emotions associated with a particular moment of experience. Many of the haiku in Reiko and Yamabiko draw from the natural setting of the camp, including the gentle agricultural valley and the rugged mountains surrounding it. The internees also used imagery from their own lives, recording both their industrious and their leisure activities. The portrait of life in Tashme that emerges is complex. Their work conveys the beauty of the environment they lived in, but the natural imagery they incorporated also speaks clearly of pain, worry, and loneliness. For example, the following haiku from Reiko was written by one of the second-generation1 poets, who went by the pen name Kiyoshi. No pronoun is given in the first section, but one might assume the poet is talking about himself, walking alone and perhaps feeling the weight of being cut off from his previous activities and friends, yet, at the same time, beauty is found in the autumn leaves that form a path underfoot.

カチカチとハンマーの音冬の朝

crack-crack hammer’s sound winter morning crack crack the sound of a hammer winter morning 寝ね足らぬ目にストーブを抱きけり Ayako

walking alone/a solitary person walks/goes footsteps sound lonely

eyes to/on stove huddle round feeling sleepy our eyes on the stove as we huddle around it 晝の鐘いてつく路をかける児等

正茶/

noon bell frozen road running children/child noon bell

fallen leaves path

children running

walking by myself

the lonely sound of footsteps

on a path of fallen leaves

on the frozen road 降りしきる雪の奥から犬吠えり

The following eight haiku, also written by second-generation poets, convey a keen sensory awareness of the environment and reflect some of the day to day activities of camp life (the poet’s pen name is given on the right). ほやほやと霞につつまれ冬の川

綾子/

lack of sleep/sleepy

Shocha or Seicha 一人行けば足音淋し落葉道きよし/Kiyoshi

美津子/Mitsuko

雪男/Yukio

きよゑ/Kiyoé

falling heavily far off snow

dog barking

heavy snowfall in the distance a dog barking

rising/lifting mist covered winter river

cover of mist

rising off

the winter river

クリスマスカード手に手に子等の笑みかよ子/Kayoko

Christmas card/cards holding in his/her hand

children’s smiles

Christmas cards in every hand children’s smiles

4 月報 The Bulletin

They chose three kanji that can be read with almost the same sounds as the three parts of the name, “ta-shi-mi.” Ta means “many/ plenty.” Shi means “strong resolution/will.” Mi means “beauty.” They could have chosen other kanji characters that can be read with the same sounds, but in selecting these particular kanji, the haiku club imbued the name, Tashme, with new meaning. 年惜む失業の身家にあり

肇/Hajime

lament/regret the year’s end still unemployed

sitting at home

regretting the year’s end I sit at home still unemployed 床の母かかへて見せる雪の街正茶/Socha or Seicha

Mother in bed help sit up/hold up in arms

can see snowy town

bed-ridden mother I hold her up to see the snowy town Sameshima’s own haiku show a great sensitivity to the beauty and power of the natural environment surrounding the internment camp, which seems to both reflect and inform his inner state of being. In the following example from Yamabiko, he notices the simple beauty of the pattern of frost that has formed on a discarded bicycle. The haiku describes a direct moment of observation, but at the same time, the image of a bicycle, thoughtlessly dropped and left behind, might also be read as a reflection of Sameshima’s feelings as a Canadian internee, tossed aside and forgotten by his country. Since we cannot confirm with Sameshima himself, we cannot know for sure if this metaphorical meaning was intended. 霜の花自転車無惨に放られあり

frost flower bicycle thoughtlessly thrown away / left behind frost flowers a forgotten bicycle left behind

Who was Sam Sameshima? Sukeo “Sam” Sameshima, was born November 23, 1915, in New Westminster. He was the second of six children born to Saichi and Kumi Sameshima. According to the Sameshima family, Saichi most likely came to Canada in 1907, and Kumi arrived in 1913. Saichi repaired shoes and established a business in New Westminster, then later in Nanaimo. By 1920, with four children, the family returned to Japan for the children’s schooling. In 1931, at age sixteen, Sukeo returned to BC. He apprenticed in New Westminster as a shoe repairman, then returned to Japan again briefly. When he came back to BC, he settled in Port Alberni to open his own shoe repair shop. In a 2002 interview published in Frogpond, the journal of the Haiku Society of America, Sukeo states that it was in Port Alberni that he was introduced to writing haiku. He joined a local haiku club called Kamome (Seagull) in 1940. After Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941, and BC’s 100-mile exclusion zone was created in 1942, Sukeo was sent to Hastings Park in Vancouver to await his internment destination. From there he was sent to Tashme, where he set up another shoe repair shop and also helped to establish Tashibi, the Tashme Haiku Club. It was towards the end of internment that the two haiku volumes, Reiko and Yamabiko, were compiled. In Tashme, Sukeo married Kazue “Kay” Shimozawa, who gave birth to their first child during their incarceration in the camp. When the Pacific War of the Second World War ended, the internees were released from Tashme, but were not allowed to return to the coast. Sukeo and his young family moved to a Canadian Air Force base in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. He had a temporary job there, helping other Nikkei as they travelled across Canada to new homes outside of BC. In 1948, he moved his family to Alberta to be closer to his wife’s relatives, and he opened a shoe repair shop in Coaldale, Alberta in 1949. He worked there until his retirement in 1992. Apart from a ten-year period after the war, Sukeo continued writing haiku until his death on October 5, 2017, a month short of his 102nd birthday. As well as the publication of ten of Sukeo’s haiku in Frogpond, seven of his translated haiku were published in Paper Doors: An Anthology of Japanese Canadian Poetry in 1981, and two translated poems appeared in Haïku: Anthologie Canadienne/ Canadian Anthology in 1985. His haiku were also included in Japanese-language publications. Thanks to his love of haiku, the two Tashme collections he helped create and safeguard, Reiko and Yamabiko, still exist today.

September 9月 2021 5

夏の朝口笛の子に出会ひけり

Translating Haiku While haiku are very short and simple, they can be difficult to translate. The Japanese is often intentionally ambiguous, with no pronouns included and no clear indication of whether a subject or object is singular or plural. Each haiku can be interpreted in several different ways. In addition, a single kanji (Japanese character) may have more than one meaning, and some kanji used in the 1940s and earlier are no longer in use today. Sometimes, metaphors and references have been lost to time, or do not translate well. In other cases, the original poem’s rhythm and sound-play can be difficult to convey in English. Keeping these considerations in mind, we have created a rough direct English translation of each Tashme haiku, followed by a more polished English haiku version (for the sake of brevity, we have not included all of the polished versions here). With the English haiku, we have attempted to keep as close to the Japanese as possible, providing an interpretation that we feel makes sense given what we know about the context in which the poems were written. While the Japanese poems tend to be written in a pattern of 5-7-5 on, or sound units, we have not attempted to translate these into 5-7-5 English syllables. To do so would impose too many extra words on the poems. We have tried to retain the brevity, focused imagery and mood of the original poems.

In the following haiku (also from Yamabiko), we get a picture of Sameshima walking through the forest, surrounded by trees, their tops rising into the blue sky. His eyes, too, are drawn upward, and there is a sense of his spirit lifted as well. 早春の梢々が青空へ

early spring treetops treetops to the blue sky early spring so many treetops rising to the blue sky The following are further examples of Sameshima’s haiku from Yamabiko, with the kanji and direct translation provided. For brevity, we haven’t provided the polished English haiku, but have instead left the interpretation up to the reader. 耕馬帰る夕日抱きし並木道

plough horse returns setting sun embraced tree-lined road

6 月報 The Bulletin

summer morning whistling children meet / met 理髪師の日向に佇てり長閑なる

barber in the sunlight standing tranquil / peaceful is 腕時計はづし涼しき夕風に

wristwatch take off cool evening wind 秋の燈に眼鏡のケースそと置かる

autumn lamp-light glasses case gently put down 冬の灯に帽子二三がかかりあり

winter lamplight hats two or three are hung The following haiku of Sameshima’s are from Reiko: 春天へ警報黒く吊られたる

spring sky in warning/alarm bell black is hung 春水の溢るるバケツ持上ぐる

spring water overflowing bucket lift/lift up 馬ぴんと耳を立てたり雪解の陽

horse straight up ears stand snow-melting sunshine 猫の髭衣裁つ鋏置かれけり

cat’s love fabric/garment scissors put down

つばめ大きく舞ひ朝のビル高き

swallow big looping in the morning building high/tall 路地出でてチューリップの陽のありにけり

lane/alley exit tulip/s in the sunshine there is/are 朝空へ鯉幟なる風がある

morning sky to carp banner full wind blows/enough wind2 荷車の子等積んで駈く秋の晴

hand cart/wagon full of children/loaded with pulled autumn clear day 雪の朝牧師の瞳に触れ合ひぬ

snowy morning priest’s eyes (glance) (my eyes) meet/met 凍つる夜の夜光時計を見さだめぬ

freezing night dimly lit clock checking the time 冬の灯の棚の古本見つめゐる

winter lamp light old books on shelf gazing at 小さき家雪の朝日の煙上ぐる

small house/houses sunrise in snow smoke rises バンの雪栗毛の馬が踏み出づる

snow on the carriage/van chestnut (coloured) horse steps out into the snow ひしひしと路地を通りぬ星冴ゆる

shuffling through the alley stars shine bright look up

In his book, Within the Barbed Wire Fence, renowned Nikkei poet Takeo Ujo Nakano talks about his experience interned in Camp Angler in Ontario. This camp was designed to house German prisoners of war captured in Europe, but was pressed into use as a camp for Japanese Canadians deemed a danger to the state. Nakao noted that “Because of the tedium of camp life, [the haiku club] quickly attracted members.”3 Haiku clubs (as well as other clubs and activities organized in the camps) broke the monotony of camp life. In his online article on the recently created Tashme Historical Project website, independent scholar Eiji Okawa suggests that for the haiku club members, writing haiku was more than a hobby, or leisure activity to fill the days’ empty hours. He says, “It gave them the avenue to express their emotions and visualize their heart and soul during the dreadful internment years.”4 He goes on to say that writing haiku, “facilitated cultural adaptation to the environment of Tashme.”5 Reading even a sample of the Tashme haiku, we can find support for his points. For example, after the tragic drowning of a child in one of the two rivers flowing past the camp, writing haiku may have offered a cathartic experience for a poet known by the pen-name, Koson (Lonely Village). The first haiku below refers to the tower at the edge of camp, which held an emergency bell, or siren. There is the sense of both the sound and the people’s panic rising. 非常警報人沸きたたせ夏天へ

emergency bell people upset/panic/disturbed to the summer sky people panicking the emergency bell rises to the summer sky いたいけな死肢硬直青草冷ゆる

sweet/adorable corpse grown stiff green grass becomes cold a sweet child limbs stiffening the green grass chills 夏天へ命奪へる水音鋭き

to the summer sky life robbed/stolens sharp sound of water a life is taken into the summer sky the sharp sound of water

September 9月 2021 7

In these three haiku, the expression is restrained. The situation and the poet’s emotions are not explicitly stated. Yet, there is an implied sense of sudden deep and painful emotion, which the poet is perhaps coming to terms with through the act of writing.

Enomoto, haiku poet and translator, for her review of selected translations. We are also grateful to Sam (Sukeo) and Kay (Kazue) Sameshima for their donation of documents and photographs to the Nikkei archives and for the interview we conducted with Sam via correspondence and the help of his wife Kay, shortly before his death.

Within the simple imagery of haiku, the poets were able to give voice to deep emotions they might not otherwise have been able to share. The haiku club used language to quietly reclaim a small, but significant, agency in their lives, presumably unobserved by camp authorities. As with other circumstances of internment, the name of the camp, Tashme, was imposed on the Nikkei. The name was created by the BC Security Commission as a kind of anagram, combining the first two letters of the names of three commissioners — Austin T. Taylor (TA), a prominent Vancouver businessman, John Shirras (SH) of the BC Provincial Police and Frederick John Mead (ME) of the RCMP.

Sources Yamabiko, Tashme Haiku Club, 1945, Kazue and Sukeo Sameshima fonds 2017.18.2.2.1, Nikkei National Museum Archives, Burnaby

The members of the haiku club, however, reinvented the name Tashme, using Japanese characters. They chose three kanji that can be read with almost the same sounds as the three parts of the name, “tashi-mi.” Ta means “many/plenty.” Shi means “strong resolution/will.” Mi means “beauty.” They could have chosen other kanji characters that can be read with the same sounds, but in selecting these particular kanji, the haiku club imbued the name, Tashme, with new meaning. For them, the camp name no longer referred to three BC Security commissioners; instead, it expressed the haiku club’s goal of creating plenty of beauty through their own resolution and will.

Reiko, Tashme Haiku Club, 1946, Kazue and Sukeo Sameshima fonds 2017.18.2.2.2, Nikkei National Museum Archives, Burnaby “Notes from the Prairie: an interview with and haiku by Sukeo Sameshima” by Bruce Ross in Frogpond: The Journal of the Haiku Society of America 25:2, 2002, pp. 53–56 Paper Doors: Anthology of Japanese-Canadian Poetry, Gerry Osamu Shikatani and David Aylward, eds., Coach House Press, Toronto, 1981 Haïku: Anthologie Canadienne / Canadian Anthology edited by Dorothy Howard and André Duhaime, Editions Asticou, Hull, Quebec, 1985 Second generation (Nisei) refers to Japanese-Canadians born in Canada to parents who immigrated to Canada from Japan. The generation born in Japan is the first generation (Issei). A carp banner is a koi fish-shaped cloth or paper banner (or wind sock) that is hung to celebrate Boys’ Day (now called Children’s Day) in May. 2.

Ujō Nakano and Leatrice M. Willson Chan, Within the Barbed Wire Fence: a Japanese Man’s Account of his Internment in Canada (Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, 2012), 70. 3.

Eiji Okawa, “Tashme Poetry Club,” Tashme 1942–1946 Historical Project, http://tashme.ca, assessed April 10, 2019. Quoted with permission. 4.

Eiji Okawa, “Tashme Poetry Club”.

Jacqueline Pearce is an award-winning haiku poet and children’s book This re-imagined Tashme can be seen very clearly author based in Burnaby. Jacquie has degrees in English Literature on the covers of the haiku collections, Yamabiko and Environmental Studies and an interest in local history. Her first and Reiko, in the lower left-hand corner in a gourd- novel for children focused on the friendship between two girls of Sikh shaped cartouche. Its creation was a subtle act and Japanese heritage in the Vancouver Island community of Paldi of autonomy, an indication that through writing, during the Second World War. the Nikkei internees would at least see this new Born in Jamaica, Jean-Pierre Antonio came to BC as a child. He grew environment in the way that they chose to see it up in Duncan and graduated from Cowichan Senior High School. He — a way that allowed them to maintain a burning graduated from UBC with a BFA before taking an MFA at York and a ember of their cultural and human identity. This BEd at the University of Toronto. He is currently teaching English at ember is also kept alive through their haiku. These Suzuka University in Japan. two collections, Yamabiko and Reiko, are invaluable documents that record the internal lives and the For single issues of British Columbia History magazine or to subscribe, visit www.bchistory.ca/subscribe extraordinary endurance of the internees. The authors would like to thank archivist Linda Kawamoto Reid and collections manager Lisa Kiyomi Uyeda at Nikkei Place for their help and patience during our visits to the Nikkei National Museum archives, Ryan Ellan, curator/owner of the Tashme Museum, for his guided tour of the museum and site, and Rachel

8 月報 The Bulletin

September 26, 3pm to 4pm PDT Haiku from the Tashme Japanese Canadian Internment Camp Presented by Word Vancouver, Word Vancouver, Historic Joy Kogawa House, Tashme Museum, Vancouver Japanese Language School Details: page 29

The Paueru Gai Dialogues #7 On Mental Health and Art Saturday, September 18, 2021 1PM PST / 4PM EST

Free online Zoom event Registration Required bit.ly/PGDno7

Sue Arai

Art as activism and relational connection to place have been threads throughout the Paueru Gai Dialogues, a pandemic series creating space for sticky issues and River Blondin Burt

community building. Among other questions generated, participants have asked how youth are feeling about themselves; and what tools we might have to address intergenerational trauma and dayto-day discrimination. In this session, guest host Sue Arai and panelists River Blondin Burt, Leanne Toshiko Simpson, and Jotika Chaudhary Samant share insight into healing intergenerational trauma through art. Participants will be invited into breakout groups to share their perspectives with one another. To wrap up the event, everyone will reconvene to offer ques-

Sue Arai is a queer, Sansei generation Japanese Canadian residing in southern Ontario and engaging in change through the practices of psychotherapy, disability advocacy, and research. River Blondin Burt is a Dene-Scottish-Scandinavian artist and entrepreneur. Their work is grounded in an exploration of healing through co-creation with the earth. River believes that the radical act of being deeply in-relation “with” our other-than-human relations is active so-

Leanne Toshiko Simpson

tions and debrief together.

cial rebellion, and a pathway for transformative personal, and collective healing. Leanne Toshiko Simpson is a mixed race Yonsei writer and mental health educator from Scarborough. She is a doctoral student in Social Justice Education at the University of Toronto with a debut novel coming out with HarperCollins in 2023. Jotika Chaudhary Samant is a Queer Glitter Femme. Her ancestral lands are Fiji & India. She identifies as a racialized settler. She is an Expressive Arts Therapist passionate about supporting BIPoC to (re)connect into their bodies & nervous system through arts creation. She is chronically ill and an interdisciplinary artist who uses visual art & songpoetry to ground herself and cope with trauma, heartache and oppression.

Jotika Chaudhary Samant

September 9月 2021 9

The Paueru Gai Dialogues – reflections The Paueru Gai Dialogues – take six The sixth session of the online Paueru Gai Dialogues Nicole Yakashiro is a yonsei PhD student in History at UBC where she was held on Saturday, June 26, 2021. researches farming and property-ownership among non-Indigenous Reconsidering Land, History and Belonging was fa- people of colour as they relate to settler colonialism in BC. cilitated by guest host Sho, with panelists Nicole Yakashiro, Awe:ri, and Paulette Moreno, Tkl Un’ Yeik. Sho’s creative practice is grounded in a diasporic shimanchu (islander) consciousness. He is committed to cultivating space to tell difficult and complicated stories in hopes of dismantling the separation and stagnation that inform the world he was born into.

Awe:ri is an acclaimed Spoken Word Artist, Arts Educator, Musician, Land Defender, Water Protector, Public Speaker, Performance Artist, Curator, Futurist Writer & Digital Artist. Paulette Moreno, Tkl Un’ Yeik is a woman of Tlingit Grandmothers. She is the granddaughter of Japanese and Hispanic Grandfathers. Paulette lives in Alaska and has been sharing her compelling personal experience of how we can collectively challenge our perception of inner war and find soulful peacefulness.

Reconsidering Land, History and Belonging “How can we fight against the dominant frameworks of capitalism and settler colonialism to conjure different futures?” This the question that the panelists and participants wrestled with at June’s Paueru Gai Dialogues session. As a mixed-race Japanese Canadian raised for the bulk of my life on the west coast of British Columbia, the next question, “how can we acknowledge the complexity and complicity in our own lives and within Japanese Canadian communities and beyond”, resonates more and more in these fraught days. Given that the session took place shortly after the discovery of children’s graves on the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, highlighting the horrors perpetuated against indigenous peoples since contact, it is a question that has no easy answers, but instead conjures more and more questions – something that this session sought to bring forth from the hearts and minds of the participants. Guest host Sho began the session with a powerful presentation that put our history as Japanese Canadian in a broader context of colonialism and nation-building that necessarily dispossessed the original occupants of these lands. As he say, “it is important to ask collectively how we came to acquire this land and property that we were dispossessed from and how did we come to believe it was rightfully ours to own in the first place. When we talk about our history of settlement on this continent in relationship to the white man, we might say we are so proud that our ancestors came to this continent as hardworking fishers and stoic farmers in the face of brilliant white hatred, but if we look to indigenous communities, the story might change.” In closing, and in introducing the three panelists, Sho spoke of the need for deep listening and reflection and “reaching back into the stories we tell about our own family histories and communities and think about what it means to consider indigenous peoples and laws, not just as a land acknowledgment but that as a part of the very fiber of our being our histories, present and futures.” Nicole Yakashiro’s presentation in many ways echoed Sho’s. She spoke of unearthing her own family’s history through her work as a researcher for the Landscapes of Injustice, and how she came to see the need to broaden the conversation beyond the story of dispossession, saying, “it is too often lacking and this lacking both narrows our ability to understand our history and our relations in this place. It also forecloses opportunities to find the type of belonging that I think, without being too presumptuous, that a lot of us are still searching for.” Awe:ri was up next, speaking of the need to remember our connections not only to one another, but to the earth, and the responsibility that knowledge brings with it. In her moving presentation, she shared a powerful quote from Robin Wall Kimmerer, taken from her book Braiding Sweetgrass: “Each of us comes from people who were once indigenous. We can reclaim our membership in the cultures of gratitude that form our old relationships with the living earth.” Paulette Moreno, Tkl Un’ Yeik, was the final panelist. As a woman of Tlingit, Japanese and Hispanic descent, she carries within her many intertwined histories and stories. In sharing photographers of her family she, like the previous presenters, called into question ownership and the sense of power-over that ownership entails. She also echoed their call for love, in her case speaking directly to her mother: “Mama, nobody had the right to make you feel less because of your Japanese heritage. Nobody had the right amongst all who’s gathered here with us today on these indigenous lands to say anything to you that would not match the glory of the mountains and the sea and the berries and all of the beautiful medicine that this indigenous land provides.” There

by John Endo Greenaway

10 月報 The Bulletin

was a generosity in Paulette’s approach that served as a complelling model for those of us assembled online. Following the four presentations, we moved to breakout rooms, in some ways the heart and soul of these dialogues, where facilitators help us come up with questions on top of questions, the dō ka na, the “what if?” In moving from passive listerners to full participants and questioners, we are compelled to reach down into ourselves and find the questions that are important to us, and to share them, in the hope of finding new questions. It is not always easy, and sometimes feels impossible, but ultimately it is rewarding if we are able to open ourselves up.

Paueru Gai Dialogues – questions that arise • How might we find our touchstone for the purpose of grounding?

• how do we bring everyone along while respecting their needs and pace of healing and sense of identity?

• How do we find our way back to our inner selves?

• What barriers exist that prevent people from expressing themselves freely?

• How do we find our sovereignty in a capitalist society? • How do we find the courage to be sovereign in a capitalist society? • How does capitalism and colonialism effect and influence the art that we make? • Whose voices are erased from this art? • How do we educate people who are ignorant of indigenous cultures? And how do we create greater acceptance and understanding? How would you feel if people question your position in a country? • If you were coming from a place that is reflective of your own inner voice and inner teaching, would you feel like you belong in your community or space you occupy?

• Why do we think we have the need to acquire things and have possessions? • How do we navigate shame or guilt because we are complicit in this process of ownership, property and possession?

どうかな

• When we’re thinking about giving and receiving, how do we go beyond thinking about this exchange as transactional?

• How do we navigate the insecurities of guilt and shame when we confront the reality of property and colonization? • How can we turn the feelings of guilt and shame into actions that can help our communities heal? • In various cultures and communities around the world, wealth being understood as what you are able to give away, rather than to hang on to. What might be those most valuable things that you might want to give away and how might we introduce structures to begin to understand our wealth and abundance? • What do we define as wealth?

WHAT

• How to receive a gift without the weight of obligation? • If we gave everything away, could we still breathe? • How do we take care of ourselves as we navigate the difficult parts of our histories and process or face our whole histories, blessings and burdens, in a way that the kindness, goodness, connection can emerge or come from it? • What is the capacity of art for understanding and processing our historical relationships especially the unseen and unrecognized while acknowledging silences, absences, and losses?

• How do we change our concept of wealth? • If we have received wisdom from ancestors and recognize it as being priceless, why does wealth have to be tangible? • What activities can we practice to shift our understanding of wealth to centre our internal light and energy?

• Within our colonial and capitalist society, where can we find pockets of exemption guided by alternative understandings of wealth? • What are the ways we begin to understand the justice of reparations in Canada, with regard to Indigenous people? • How has redress limited our understandings of justice? • Before we can forage beautiful solidarities, what material changes need to take place? • How can traditional wisdom lead our understanding of wealth?

Paueru Gai Dialogues #6, Reconsidering Land, History and Belonging, can we watched on demand on the PSF YouTube channel here: https://bit.ly/PGDno6w

September 9月 2021 11

update Update from Powell Street Festival Society Hunkering down this autumn season? We encourage you to check out the commissioned and community videos, workshops and podcasts created for the 45th Powell Street Festival this summer. Find our YouTube festival playlist here: bit.ly/3yApoRn Mark your calendar The Paueru Gai Dialogues, an online pandemic series creating space for sticky issues and community building, will take place on September 18, October 16 and November 20. The guided tour of the 360 Riot Walk, scheduled for September 11, is sold out. Explore the self-directed tour and learn more about Vancouver’s 1907 Anti-Asian riots at www.360riotwalk.ca. Job Posting for Director of Operations In our 45th year and eager to support a growth phase, we are pleased to announce a restructuring that will create two new positions from the existing Executive Director role: Director of Operations and Director of Programs. Together, these two positions will lead Powell Street Festival Society as we continue to support Japanese Canadian arts and culture and the neighbourhood that we call home, Paueru-gai (Powell Street). Emiko Morita, the executive director since 2015, who has led the Society through this period of unprecedented growth, will fill the Director of Programs position and continue to oversee the Society’s programming, projects and community engagement. The Director of Operations will oversee the operations of the organization, pursue funding and fundraising opportunities and ensure the financial health of the Society. The position will remain open until filled. For details, visit powellstreetfestival.com/get-involved/jobs

e PaY N i L n O

mEnTs NoW AcCePt

G V J C CA

Ed!!

The Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association and The Bulletin are now able to accept membership fees, donations, and other payments via eTransfer. Safe, secure, and so, so simple to use, eTransfers are a great way to make payments without the use of paper cheques and stamps.

STEP one: visit jccabulletin-geppo.ca/membership and ﬁll out the form STEP TWO: send your etransfer payment to gvjcca@gmail.com with a security question of your choice STEP THREE: send a separate email to gvjcca@gmail.com indicating the answer to the security question

12 月報 The Bulletin

40th Festival

Oct 01 — Oct 11

Information & Haiku Wanted

Wife of a Spy KIYOSHI KUROSAWA JAPAN

An espionage drama in the league of Hitchcock’s Notorious, a romance as glorious as David Lean’s epics, and a metafilmic charade touting cinema as savior of modern civilization. In WWII, a Japanese industrialist discovers a shocking secret in the labs of Manchuria. To turn the tide of war, his wife must outwit a ruthless secret police chief who adores her. This film explores the existential horror of humans with a conscience in a morally compromised society under fascist tyranny.

Ayukawa - The Weight of Life

Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko

TU NEILL, JIM SPEERS NEW ZEALAND/UK/JAPAN

WATANABE AYUMU JAPAN

At once tranquil and bracing, Tu Neill and Jim Speers’ film is a portrait of a seaside town and its vanishing way of life. Though it is now slowly emptying, Ayukawa was once a thriving coastal community, its success based on the practice of whaling. Neill and Speers favour curiosity over judgment in their approach to the subject; their work is inquisitive, challenging, and profoundly humane. It may not change your mind, but it will certainly expand your horizons.

From the director of Children of the Sea (VIFF 2019) comes another visual wonder with a gossamer whiff of magic realism. Unlike the esoteric Children, this is a kid-friendly comedy that sizzles with the most appetizing Japanese cuisine that animation can render. Nikuko (‘Meat-girl’) is a plus-sized single mother who adores food, Japanese wordplay, and shifty men, and never loses her joie de vivre. When she and daughter Kikuko settle in an idyllic fishing village, they’re almost undone by a buried secret.

BOX OFFICE

ONLINE NOW viff.org

The writers of Haiku in Tashme: The legacy of Sukeo “Sam” Sameshima, Jacqueline Pearce, Jean-Pierre Antonio and Michiko Kihira, are asking for help identifying the people pictured in the above photos. They also hope to discover more 20th century haiku written by Canadian Nikkei to continue our translation and research. Ultimately, we want to publish as many examples of Canadian Nikkei haiku as possible because we believe this is an important branch of literature in Canada that should become more widely known. If readers of this article know of haiku that were written by their family members during the 20th century (pre-war, during internment or post-war) and would like to share the haiku with us, or can help identify the people in the photographs, we would be very grateful. Thank you Jacqueline Pearce: jacquiep@telus.com Jean-Pierre Antonio: jpinjp@yahoo.com

IN-PERSON - Sept.16 at VIFF CENTRE 1181 Seymour Street at Davie Mon-Sun 12pm -7pm

September 9月 2021 13

www.landscapesofinjustice.com

PAST WRONGS, FUTURE CHOICES: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE by Jordan Stanger-Ross Canada was far from alone in its mistreatment of Nikkei civilians in the 1940s. Rather, people of Japanese descent were uprooted, interned, dispossessed and displaced in allied countries across the Americas and the Pacific. The specifics varied significantly by locale. Brazil, with the largest Nikkei population (190,000), forced only 4,000 civilians from their homes, but the rest suffered draconian regulations: the Japanese language was banned, assets seized, and community leaders removed from positions of authority. An estimated 80 percent of Japanese Mexicans were uprooted and dispossessed. The Nikkei in Peru were the targets of racism, mass deportation, and theft. Australia was a regional internment hub, with its civilians of Japanese descent interned among people displaced from the future Indonesia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, and nearby islands; almost all were deported to Japan after the war. It is widely known that over 115,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated in the continental United States. How does our understanding of the internment of Japanese Canadians change, if we think about it from a global perspective? Nikkei museums and organizations across the globe have been building a network for the last several years, including Landscapes of Injustice partners, the Nikkei National Museum and the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre. Following their lead, our collective took the plunge last winter to propose a project that would draw together a global history of the violations of Nikkei civilians in the 1940s. The Canadian story is one of the best known in the world; Landscapes of Injustice now joins efforts to tell it alongside the histories of other Nikkei communities. From this wider perspective, new questions arise. For example, how can we explain that virtually all civilians of Japanese origin were deported from Australia, as compared with a quarter of prewar Japanese Canadians, and less than 1 percent in the United States? Answering this question, and others, we hope to gain insight into connected but different expressions of racism during wartime, as well as how and why various forms of legal and constitutional protection failed at a time of crisis.

14 月報 The Bulletin

This new project, Past Wrongs, Future Choices, is still in embryonic form. Who knows if it will get funded? But even if it does not, a remarkable network, including scholars and institutions in Australia, Brazil, Japan, Canada, and the United States, has already come together around the idea. Our conversations have been exciting and illuminating. We’re proud to be able to host, later this month, a presentation by members of Nikki Australia. Their story has been too-little connected with our own. Whatever the outcome of the proposed project, we hope that the global history of Nikkei internments will be an area of discussion in the years to come. Present challenges of migration, racism, and security are global in scale; so too is the history necessary for understanding of how we came to this point and how we can forge new paths forward. Also of interest to those following our project: Landscapes of Injustice: A Reﬂection on the Dispossession of Japanese Canadians Jordan Stanger-Ross Vancouver Historical Society Thursday, September 23, 2021 7:00pm Contact presidentvhs@gmail.com in order to get the Zoom log-on. www.vancouver-historical-society.ca/events.html

Vancouver Buddhist Temple 220 Jackson Avenue, Vancouver, BC Telephone: 604-253-7033 www.vancouverbuddhisttemple.com Rev. Tatsuya Aoki, minister

Sun, September 12, 10:00AM Shotsuki Memorial & Fall Ohigan Saturday Dharma Service on Zoom starts at 10am (Approximately 30 minutes: Meditation, Sutra Chanting, Dharma Talk) *You can find signup form at temple website to receive Zoom link

Temple updates are found on our website

www.landscapesofinjustice.com

IDENTITY AND INTERNMENT: THE JAPANESE-AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE Just hours after the declaration of war in December 1941, Japanese in Australia were swiftly arrested. The Nikkei community had shrunk to only 1100 people at the outbreak of war, and the majority (almost 98%) were interned in remote camps around Australia. There, they joined more than 3,000 other Japanese civilians who’d been arrested in Allied-controlled countries such as the Dutch East Indies and New Caledonia, and sent to Australia to be interned. Despite being grouped together as “enemy aliens,” the Japanese internees in Australia were extremely diverse and many did not speak the same language. From February 1946, the majority were repatriated to Japan, many against their will. Join us for a fascinating look at this history and how it compares to the Japanese Canadian story. Dr. Yuriko Nagata, Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Queensland and an authority on the Japanese diaspora in Australia will introduce the Nikkei Australia collective and outline the history of Japanese in Australia, focusing on their wartime treatment. Award-winning writer Dr. Christine Piper will discuss her research on the experience of Australian-born Japanese who were interned, which informed her novel After Darkness. Rejected by their country and at odds with the nationalistic Japanese leaders at camp, these Australian-born Japanese were caught between two cultures and welcomed by neither.

Manufacturers of Soy Sauce and Soy Bean Paste • Since 1939 • AMANO FOODS LIMITED

5520 No. 6 Road Richmond BC CANADA V6V 1Z1 (604)303-9977 f(604)303-9973

Fourth-generation Nikkei Australian Andrew Hasegawa is the great-grandson of Setsutaro Hasegawa, who immigrated to Australia in the late-19th century. Andrew will explore the identity of five generations of the Hasegawa family, starting with his great-grandfather and finishing with his daughter. The talk will encompass the pre-war, war and post-war environment and how his family responded. Wednesday, September 22, 2021 4:00pm-5:30pm Paciﬁc Daylight Time Visit bit.ly/JpnAu to register through Zoom. Free and open to the public Presented by the University of Victoria Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives, Landscapes of Injustice/Past Wrongs, Future Choices in association with Nikkei Australia.

Registered 入歯専門技巧士

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778.885.3886 I

September 9月 2021 15

BC Redress

Japanese Canadian Legacy Initiatives

BC REDRESS UPDATE – SEPTEMBER 2021 by Susanne Tabata, NAJC BC Redress Project Director Dear community members, Your BC Redress project team is making progress towards a BC Redress package that serves our community. We do this work acknowledging with respect the ongoing struggle of Indigenous Peoples throughout Canada. We stand with the survivors and families of all children who were in residential schools. We need to heed the Calls to Action from the Truth & Reconciliation Commission.

Towards BC Redress

Building on the 2012 Apology led by former MLA Naomi Yamamoto, our community’s work in 2019, which many of you participated in, set the stage for the steps that have followed. A huge amount of work was led by Steering Committee Chair Maryka Omatsu, with support from co-chair Art Miki, Judy Hanazawa, Lynn Deutscher Kobayashi, Les Kojima, Eiko Eby and NAJC Executive Director Kevin Okabe. The 2019 community consultations, and submission of Recommendations for Redressing Historical Wrongs, was followed by a new committee which began setting a framework for relations with the BC government: Art Miki, Maryka Omatsu, Paul Kariya, Lorene Oikawa, Eiko Eby, Les Kojima, Angus McAllister, Carmel Tanaka, and Susanne Tabata. In early 2020 we began looking at approaches to BC Government discussions, and conducted organizational consultations and further refinement of BC redress requests, culminating in an analysis which gives substantial weight to support Seniors Health and Wellness (Tabata/Noble, 2020). That group consisted of Art Miki, Maryka Omatsu, Paul Kariya, Lorene Oikawa, Eiko Eby, Les Kojima and Susanne Tabata. A submission of a preliminary list of BC Redress requests was presented to BC Premier John Horgan in July 2020 by Susanne Tabata, Lorene Oikawa and Paul Kariya, followed by an independent analysis conducted by the Institute of Fiscal Studies in Democracy (IFSD), submitted in November 2020, to buttress the case for supporting seniors health and wellness, including intergenerational wellness.

16 月報 The Bulletin

BC Redress

Japanese Canadian Legacy Initiatives

The Year to Date

2021 has seen concrete progress on BC Redress, both in our ability to support our community’s elders who experienced the Internment era, as well as in our discussions with the BC Government toward a comprehensive BC Redress package. We have created a BC Redress website at www.bcredress. ca, and we invite you to visit for more information.

Presenting the BC Redress Pillars

Following a March 2021 meeting with the Hon. David Eby, BC Attorney General and Ministerial lead on the BC Redress file, and Parliamentary Secretary for Anti-Racism Initiatives Rachna Singh, the BC Government committed to a framework that aligns with the July 2020 set of requests to the Premier’s office, including an agenda of monthly meetings to discuss each pillar. We are now working within that framework, and in these discussions the NAJC is represented by Susanne Tabata, Lorene Oikawa, and Paul Kariya.

On the Japanese Canadian side, the BC Redress process has been led by Susanne Tabata, BC Redress Project Director, and with BC Redress Negotiations Committee representation from NAJC President Lorene Oikawa, and advisor Paul Kariya. Each meeting has consisted of a series of community presentations on one the six pillars above, and we are deeply grateful to all of the community members who have put such time and care into their presentations. On the BC Government side, the BC Redress process has been led by Rachna Singh, Parliamentary Secretary, Anti-Racism Initiatives. Relevant BC Government Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries and Ministerial staff have been in attendance, and the BC Government response to date has been positive, collaborative and serious.

As an initial gesture of goodwill, and of commitment to caring for the health and wellness of Japanese Canadian seniors, the BC Government made an initial $2m funding commitment in May 2021 to what has become the Japanese Canadian Survivors Health and Wellness Fund. The Fund is administered by the Nikkei Seniors Health Care and Housing Society, and is being led by Ms. Eiko Eby, with support from Ruth Coles, Cathy Makihara, Linda Kawamoto Reid and Susanne Tabata. Many of you have contributed to the work of the Fund in identifying unmet health and wellness needs of our approximately 6,600 living survivors (Ohki, 2021), and for that we are grateful. To date, the Fund has identified and contacted nearly 100 Japanese Canadian organizations and community groups, as well as many individual survivors. We estimate that the organizations, community groups and individual survivors contacted by the Fund collectively represent approximately 1719 survivors. Applications for funding opened on September 1st, 2021, and will be open for two months until October 31st, 2021. The Japanese Canadian Survivors Health and Wellness Fund has created a website at www. jcwellness.org, and we encourage you to visit for more information.

Our BC Redress Negotiations Committee continues to meet with the BC Government in the pursuit of a package that meets our community’s needs. As of September 1, 2021, formal meetings have now been held on all of the pillars identified by the community–Monument, Anti-racism & Acknowledgement, Education, Health & Wellness, Heritage, and Community & Culture.

Monument

We are working toward the creation of a monument to acknowledge, remember and honour our families uprooted and displaced during the Internment era. We have requested the BC Government establish a large scale monument with a Japanese landscape design, in a place of importance to the BC Government. This would provide a site for pilgrimage and reflection, and an ability for survivors and family members to touch, in large format, the names of the approximately 22,000 Japanese Canadians who experienced the Internment era. We have asked the BC Government to fund the required research to create a complete list of names. Correspondence with the BC Government has narrowed site options to a potential site in Victoria between Southgate Street and Academy Close, south of the formal grounds of St. Ann’s Academy. Discussions are ongoing as to the feasibility of this site.

Education

The BC Redress Education meeting took place on June 11, 2021. Susanne Tabata co-chaired the meeting, attended by Lorene Oikawa, Paul Kariya, Art Miki, Masako Fukawa, and Mike Perry Wittingham. For the BC Government, Parliamentary Secretary Singh was joined by Hon. Jennifer Whiteside, Minister of Education, and Hon. Anne Kang, Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Training, along with staff and officials. We have asked for mandatory inclusion of BC’s Japanese Canadian

September 9月 2021 17

BC Redress

Japanese Canadian Legacy Initiatives

history in the BC curriculum, along with funding to ensure BC’s teachers have the available resources, support, and knowledge to effectively teach BC’s history of the internment, dispossession and forced uprooting of Japanese Canadians, such that teachers may equip new generations of BC students with the knowledge to ensure this history is never again repeated. At the invitation of the NAJC, the University of Victoria has also proposed the creation of an Art Miki Forum for Social Justice.

Anti-Racism & Acknowledgement

The BC Redress Anti-Racism meeting took place on June 11, 2021. Co-chaired by Susanne Tabata, the meeting was attended by Lorene Oikawa, Paul Kariya and Judy Hanazawa, along with Art Miki, Masako Fukawa, and Mike Perry Wittingham who remained on the call following the earlier Education meeting. As a conclusion to the 2012 Apology, we have asked for a comprehensive and meaningful acknowledgement of the BC Government’s lead role in the uprooting, internment, and dispossession of Japanese-Canadians from 1942-1949. We have also requested the creation of an independent, permanent and suffi ciently-resourced anti-racism institution, whether housed at OHRC or included as a standalone element of the new BC Anti-Racism Act.

ga, Nikkei Seniors; Keiko Funahashi, Tonari Gumi; Dr. Karen Kobayashi, UVIC; and Eiko Eby, Survivor Health and Wellness Fund. For the BC Government, Parliamentary Secretary Singh was joined by Hon. Adrian Dix, Minister of Health, and Hon. Sheila Malcolmson, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, and Mable Elmore, Parliamentary Secretary for Seniors’ Services and Long-Term Care, along with staff and officials. Our community made a strong moral case for addressing Health and Wellness as a pillar of BC Redress, alongside a credible, competent plan for addressing these unmet needs. We requested funding for the creation of a Nikkei Village at Nikkei Seniors Health Care and Housing Society, consisting of a new complex care facility ($36 million), integrated affordable housing and childcare ($15 million), and a Helping Hands Centre for outreach, respite care, and health and wellness programming for Japanese Canadian seniors ($3.7 million). We have also requested a community-led Survivors Health and Wellness Fund, valued at $5 million/year over 10 years ($50 million total), providing $4.5 million/year for survivor health and wellness funding, and $500,000/year for intergenerational wellness. The Fund would have a mandate to meet the health and wellness needs of Japanese Canadian survivors Canada-wide, including direct funding support for health needs (accessibility aids, home care, etc.), and community programming (outreach, health system navigation, social, meals, etc.). It would also focus on the wellness needs of their descendents, including funding for intergenerational storytelling and wellness programming– an essential legacy of BC Redress for current and future generations.

Heritage

On September 2, 2021, and after burning the midnight oil, the final two pillars for BC Redress were presented to the BC Government in The health and wellness needs of our surviving two back-to-back meetings: first Heritage, then Community & Culture. elders are real and urgent. Further, given the delib- This full-time, behind-the-scenes effort has been aided by input and erate dismantling of Japanese Canadian culture and feedback from around BC on the Heritage pillar, and from BC and identity, and the ensuing first-hand and intergener- beyond on the Community & Culture pillar. ational trauma, it is also essential that BC Redress The community was represented at the Heritage meeting by Howard create support for intergenerational wellness to Shimokura, Tashme Museum; Laura Saimoto, Heritage Sites; Mayor include healing spaces, storytelling, gatherings to Leonard Casley, Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre (NIMC), New ‘break the silence’, where community members can Denver; Mary Kimoto, Ucluelet; and Karah Goshinmon Foster, Nikkei come together to reclaim our culture and connect National Museum and Cultural Centre (NNMCC). For the BC Governwith one another to rebuild a stronger Japanese ment, Parliamentary Secretary Singh was accompanied by Ministers Canadian community. Hon. Katrine Conroy, Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and The BC Redress meeting on Survivors Health and Rural Development, Hon. Anne Kang, Advanced Education Skills and Wellness took place on July 23, 2021, was co-chaired Training, and Hon. Melanie Mark, Tourism Arts and Culture, along with by Susanne Tabata, and attended by Lorene Oikawa; key government staff and officials. Paul Kariya; Ruth Coles, Cathy Makihara and Jay Hira-

Health and Wellness

18 月報 The Bulletin

BC Redress

Japanese Canadian Legacy Initiatives

Co-chair Susanne Tabata summarized the Heritage pillar, including making our request to the government for $14.5 million in BC Redress Heritage funding. This would consist of the creation of a $10 million Japanese Canadian Historic Sites Fund to support heritage work across BC, and especially in underserved communities, $3.5 million for NNMCC, including the creation of digital portal and archives to improve heritage access for all Japanese Canadians, and $1 million in funding to NIMC to support urgently required maintenance and restoration.

Community & Culture

Many of you have helped to bring us to where we are today, and we are grateful for your contributions. We still have work to do, and we are honoured for the opportunity to do this work on behalf of our entire Japanese Canadian community. Thank you for trust and your support. Sincerely, Susanne Tabata, on behalf of the BC Redress Project team

Following the Heritage meeting, the Community and Culture meeting BC Redress Negotiations Committee: Susanne included presentations by Lynn Deutscher Kobayashi, VP, NAJC & Tabata, Lorene Oikawa, Paul Kariya; with Art Miki & President, Toronto NAJC; Kelvin Higo, Steveston; Ramses Miki-Hanson, Maryka Omatsu as Honorary Co-Chairs Young Leaders, NAJC; and Dr. Kirsten McAllister, SFU. For more information check out: bcredress.ca Co-chair Susanne Tabata then summarized the Community pillar, consisting of a request for $20 million to create an independent Japanese Canadian Community Fund that would support programming, infrastructure, scholarships, training, arts, and the creation of community spaces.

Conclusion

This series of presentations, government responses, and refinement of our BC Redress pillars has been building toward the creation of a comprehensive BC Redress package. We now begin the process of bundling these six BC Redress pillars together, and meeting with the BC government to plan next steps. To date, all Ministers in attendance, as well as the Premier himself, have expressed their support for the Japanese Canadian community, and for the BC Redress process. Our intent is to deliver the full BC Redress package to the BC Government in Fall 2021, and to conclude any negotiations in time for our BC Redress package to be included and announced in the next BC Budget in Spring 2022.

Susanne Tabata is the BC Redress Project Director for the National Association of Japanese Canadians and this is a fulltime volunteer commitment. She is taking the lead in community relations, developing, refining & writing the six BC Redress pillars of: seniors’ health & wellness; anti-racism; commemoration; education; heritage preservation; community & culture. Susanne is working across community-based organizations, stakeholders who implement programs and services, ad-hoc groups, and the BC government. She is helping steer the Nikkei Seniors Health Care & Housing Society $2 million JC Survivors Health and Wellness Fund. She is a full-time caregiver for her 95 year old Steveston-born nisei father, Susumu Tabata.

September 9月 2021 19

BC Redress

Japanese Canadian Legacy Initiatives

Chuck Tasaka: Looking for our Seniors in the Kootenays When the BC government gave a $2M Fund to the Nikkei Seniors Health Care and Housing Society as an initial fund for survivors who were impacted by BC Government actions 1942-1949, it became a big project for the Steering Committee to first hire a project manager, and than mobilize a small fund across a survivor population which spans the country. Those details are on jcwellness.org. Finding the underserved seniors has been a focus of the project office and we want to get more individuals involved in looking for seniors. Thank you to Chuck Tasaka who began his search for seniors when he got the call. We are lucky to have Chuck, whose aim is to comb the BC Kootenays and find each and every living surviving senior. This is how we want the community to get engaged.

20 月報 The Bulletin

How did you get involved with this project? I was asked to be the contact person for Greenwood from Linda Kawamoto-Reid who was assisting Eiko Eby. Since I have a summer home here in Greenwood, I accepted. I was asked to locate all the JCs in Greenwood. Who have you met in the Kootenays? Describe where they are and how do they live? Are these Japanese Canadians who never left once they were relocated? I tried to contact Nancy (Asahina) Yamamura, but she wasn’t home. The next day, I saw Matsuko Irene

Terada working in front of her house. I stopped and asked if they could write down all the survivors in town. She and Nancy got together and gave me the list. They had post-1949 list too. Good thing Greenwood still has a phone book. Then I added a much younger Nikkei living in Greenwood. I counted in total 31. Adding Midway which is our “kissing cousin” (not an official Internment site), they have seven Nikkei. I thought why not get all the Boundary Nikkei so I was so surprised to find out that a lone Nikkei lives in Bridesville. She might be the fi rst! Her husband Gus Bourgh was a classmate of

BC Redress

Japanese Canadian Legacy Initiatives

mine in the early 60s, but I didn’t know he married a lady from Vernon. Her name is Marie (Ouchi) Bourgh. She has lived in Bridesville for over 50 years! Then she told me she knew my second cousin Dan Nakatsu in Westbridge. On Facebook, I found out that Bert Uchiyama also lives in Westbridge! He was from Vancouver. I knew Ken Hamanishi and Seiji/Sachi Matsuo in Grand Forks. Ken is formerly from Greenwood. He’s 83 and lives with his wife Cec, and they still golf regularly. Ken curls and plays hockey. He brought some furniture to my place and my neighbour was shocked when he saw Ken jumped off his pick-up! LOL! Then, a lone Christina Lake Nikkei passed away, Nobuko Hamagami, I found out her daughter Fran Farnworth moved back to Christina Lake. Yes, with a little legwork and word of mouth, I think we have all of the JCs listed unless someone moved in recently. We are not in the Kootenay District, but Boundary District. Sadly, we lost five Nikkei this year. Most are aging but small town people look after each other. Hakujin neighbours across the street look out for Aiko Terashita after she lost her husband recently. Another recent Nikkei who moved from Ontario cuts the large lawn with a rider mower of a 90-year old JC neighbour. A bachelor all his life, he lives in a two-story house! Doug Teramoto also drives him out of town for shopping. In Midway an 87-year old Nikkei (came from Mio, Japan to marry a nisei) has a Nikkei friend mowing her lawn and a hakujin friend takes her shopping and gets her mail. Sakae Yoshida still lives in her house. Her name came up four times to be accepted in a local Seniors Home, but she declined. I think most want to eat Japanese food. I know she misses her friends who spoke Japanese, but they’re gone. I go visit her to speak Japanese with her. One Greenwood elderly man moved to Kelowna to be in a home. I think there is a JC senior home there? Another elderly is waiting to move in with his son in Kelowna. As you can see, they look out for each other. There is another 90-year old who came from Ontario, he moved to Greenwood 20 years ago. He still drives to Grand Forks to shop! He lives alone and inde-

BC Redress

Japanese Canadian Legacy Initiatives

pendent. Neighbours keep an eye. And, the healthiest JC is 93 years old (John Ikari) and he still goes fishing at Jewel Lake regularly with his wooden boat that he built! Amazing!

like Nikkei Home or Sakura-so. There are some Japanese speakers who married nisei longing for Japanese food and to be able to see Japanese events. However, they came postwar, so they may not be considered survivors.

What do you feel their needs are? What do you think we can do for seniors in the remote areas of BC? I think as they keep aging, getting Japanese food may be a challenge. They used to drive to Kelowna Costco or Korean Store. Another is the hospital is not nearby. If they require an ambulance it cost $80 to Grand Forks Hospital, $150 to Trail and $250 to Kelowna. In a remote area, doctors are not readily available. I think that is the biggest challenge. To see a specialist, Kelowna might be the closest. It’s over a two-hour drive.

Why do you do this work? I reconnected with Greenwood when I wrote two books on Greenwood. I felt that Greenwood was under-represented. All I heard about Internment history was New Denver, Slocan, Kaslo and E. Lillooet. Greenwood was just an asterisk. What made me stay was when I started the Nikkei Legacy Park project. Every time I drove past Greenwood, there wasn’t any sign or landmark that signified Greenwood as the first Internment location. There was Ohairi Park that I didn’t know exSince Greenwood accepted the isted until I was informed. It was JCs, it became the first Internment a picnic park. Since I told the City site. It was not a “camp” because Council that I would maintain the it was not segregated. After the park when they told me they had war, the city wrote a protest let- no money for maintenance. Thus, ter to keep their ‘new friends’ I bought a summer home to keep in Greenwood. Thus, JCs were my promise. The Greenwood Munot pressured to relocate again seum supports my project. as in “Go East of the Rockies or When I was told that there is a to Japan”. Around 700-800 JCs ‘Japanese park’, Ohairi Park, I was made their homes after the war. disappointed after seeing Kohan JCs were even allowed to operate Garden in New Denver, Friendship their businesses. Barber, plumber, Japanese Garden in Hope, Momiji dry cleaner, shoe repair, cafes, at Hastings Park prior. I decided doctor, etc. during the war. The to upgrade the park because the locals welcomed more amenities. infrastructure existed. The open What we can do for JCs in these gazebo had potential. I wanted remote areas? Maybe more com- to make a JC or Nikkei Park, not munication? For example, have the Japanese Garden. With my KoolJCCA Bulletin available for every- Aid budget, I thankfully receive one. Accessibility? Senior homes a generous grant from NAJC to continued on page 22

September 9月 2021 21

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Japanese Canadian Legacy Initiatives

kick-start the improvement and I covered the rest of the expense.Flooring and half-wall was added. Then I wanted to start a family plaque project so that former Greenwood people would return as in ohaka mairi. I now have over 100 plaques. I also wanted it to be inclusive with hakujin families included. Therefore, the plaques are not Internment families only. It costs $200 to get the plaque made. From there, I initially wanted to plant sakura trees, but it was too risky due to the cold weather and poor soil at the park. It was once a swamp therefore the ground is full of large stones and gravel. As a result, I changed to graphic Sakura Blossom Memorial plaque of their loved ones who passed away. That is a $1,000 donation. My major project was to erect a WWI JC Memorial monument for the 12 war vets who were sent to Greenwood. Three were military medal recipients – Masumi Mitsui, Yasuo Takashima and Kiyoji Iizuka. The last two stayed in Greenwood after the war as well Y. Kuroda, T. Nitsui and T. Kitagawa. Mr. Kuroda is the only one buried in the Greenwood Cemetery. Others were N. Okawa, H, Isomura, I. Uegama, Y. Fukaye, K. Shimizu and T. Kuroda (briefly). A polished granite plaque is to be attached to the large boulder as well as the interpretive panel. I have the three Vancouver Asahi players who were sent to Greenwood. Jim and Joe Fukui were part of the 1938 three championship victories. Both lived in Greenwood after the war. Ken Kutsukake lived briefly in Greenwood before joining Naggy Nishihara in Kaslo. Again, the NAJC has been so supportive of my project with their grant. Dr. Bob Miyagishima donated to have the “We Lived Together” panel made. Greenwood set an example of how the community showed acceptance, integration and harmony. Many private donors and local Greenwood service groups have donated to keep the local Internment history alive. The Isomura/Imai families donated the lantern and the taller lantern was donated by Stephen and Dianne Tasaka. The memorial bench was donated by Stephen and Dianne as well as JR Dale Management. Local groups donated the Nikkei Legacy Park illuminated sign. Private donors bought family and Sakura Blossom plaques.

22 月報 The Bulletin

What is your personal connection to this story? I was born in Midway, just 13km west of Greenwood in 1945, not in a hospital, but behind a beer parlour! The midwife was Mrs. Yoshikawa. My parents moved back to Greenwood in 1946. There, I attended kindergarten to grade three at Sacred Heart School run by the Franciscan Sisters who operated a Japanese Catholic Mission on Powell Street and in Steveston in 1926 and 1931 respectively. When SHS closed down due to dwindling enrolment in 1954, I attended Greenwood Elementary-High School and graduated in 1963. The teaching profession was not my calling but it happened. I taught intermediate grades for 33 years in the Ladysmith-Nanaimo District from 1968-2002.

I continued coaching (Jump Rope For Heart Demonstration Skipping team) after my retirement until 2010. From then on, I focused on Japanese Canadian history. I read voraciously. Any book I can get a hold of, I read. That’s when I decided to write a book about our childhood games that were so unique titled Hanatare Bozu, Runny-nosed Brats of Greenwood. For some reason, I wanted the second book to be a family history of those who lived in Greenwood. I wanted to be inclusive therefore I added the pioneer families. That way, there is a connection with how Greenwood integration worked.

BC Redress

Japanese Canadian Legacy Initiatives

UPDATE FROM THE JC SURVIVORS HEALTH AND WELLNESS FUND Japanese Canadian Survivors Health and Wellness Fund Now Open The Japanese Canadian Survivors Health & Wellness Fund is pleased to announce that online applications are now open on our website jcwellness.org. The final date for submitting applications is October 31, 2021 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. For self-guided applications, go to the website and locate the upper tab “Apply” and select the category in which you are applying. We have drafted mock applications on the website. We will be announcing a series of upcoming Zoom sessions to assist you with completing your application.

Selection Committee

Nikkei Seniors is pleased to announce that Art Miki and Susan Matsumoto have been added to the Japanese Canadian Survivors Health and Wellness Fund Grants Selection Committee of Ruth Coles, Cathy Makihara and Eiko Eby. Both Art Miki and Susan Matsumoto are well-respected community members with extensive national experience in their professional work, and in community service. This committee will review and approve the grant applications.

Finding Our Survivors

We have continued to contact survivors, community organizations and small groups to inform them of the Fund. To date, we estimate collectively the contacts represent approximately 3600 of the 6600 JC survivors. Thank you to those of you who are spreading the word and please keep the contacts coming.

Get Involved

We are asking you to get involved by helping us locate survivors. If you have not already been identified or contacted, please feel free to reach out to the Project Office below. And please help to spread the word about the Fund. If you are able to provide information of a survivor, please ensure you have their consent to pass their contact information along.

BC Redress

This fund is a direct result of the BC Redress negotiations with the provincial government. The BC Ministry of Health provided the initial fund for our survivors. By getting involved with helping to locate seniors in your community, you will be paving the way for more supports for JC Survivors Health and Wellness. The Seniors Health and Wellness is 1 of 6 pillars of BC Redress. Check out bcredress.ca for more information.

Japanese Canadian Survivors Health & Wellness Fund Eiko Eby, Project Manager Email: eikoeby@nikkeishc.com 250-797-6300 Website: jcwellness.org

jcwellness.org | bcredress.ca

September 9月 2021 23

G V J C CA

GVJ C C A

JCCA Donations The Greater Vancouver JCCA and The Bulletin gratefully acknowledge generous donations received during August, 2021. If we have missed your name, please contact us and we will correct it in the next issue. Yasuko Dolsen, Chase BC Mary Frattin, New Westminster BC Vickie Fukui, Vancouver BC Mary Higo, Port Coquitlam BC Peggy & David MacLeod, Victoria BC Akiko Minato, Vancouver BC Kay Mukaida, Hope BC Lilian & Carl Nakamura Maguire, Whitehorse YT Dennis Nakano, Vancouver BC Irene & Chris Nemeth, North Vancouver BC Yoko Nishimura, Burnaby BC Takako Nukina, Burnaby BC Linda Reid, Vancouver BC Vivian Rygnestad, Richmond BC Joseph Sheu, Burnaby BC Michiko & Shige Saito Kelowna BC Kathy Shimizu, Vancouver BC Norman Shuto, Burnaby BC Toshiko Tabata, Vernon BC Norman & Marion Takeuchi, Ottawa ON Shin & Michiyo Tsuchida, North Vancouver BC Marvin & Joyce Umemura, Surrey BC Nachiko & Tad Yokota, North Vancouver BC Tair J. Uyeyama, Burnaby BC Stanley & Darryn Yokota, Scarborough ON In Memory of Frances Miyashita. From Margaret Eto, Port Moody BC In Memory of Robert Alan Kato. From Nancy Kato, New Westminster BC

Goobye Jean

JOHN ENDO GREENAWAY

john@bigwavedesign.net Editorial

CONTACT

Managing Editor john@bigwavedesign.net Japanese Editors editor.geppo@gmail.com Advertising Manager annejew@telus.net JCCA CONTACT: Tel: 604.777.5222 (message only) E-mail: gvjcca@gmail.com gvjcca.org

24 月報 The Bulletin

Jean Kamimura with George Takei at Vancouver Japanese Language School 2019. Photo by John Endo Greenaway.

I can’t say that I knew Jean Kamimura well, and it wasn’t until recent years that I even got to know her a little, mostly through working on several projects together. She knew my mother well, though, and there was mutual respect between the two nisei women. In my experience, Jean was at once humble and fierce, a potent combination to my mind. She never called attention to herself, and shied away from the spotlight, yet she fought hard for what she believed in. A true gentle warrior. It was with deep sadness that I heard that Jean had passed away on August 8 at the age of 87. She will be missed by all of us who knew her, for her spirit and her advocacy for what was right. When I heard she had passed I remembered this photo that I took a couple of years ago, one of my favourites from the day.

JAPANESE JCC C A N AGDV I A NA CITIZENS’ ASSOCIATION

Presidents Message

Dear GVJCCA Members, It is the 26th of August and finally, it is raining. I hope you are doing well. With the colder temperature today really feels like summer is over. We had our Annual General Meeting on August 14, 2021. Unfortunately the zoom programming for the AGM was not working as my laptop computer was unable to properly engage the video part of the zoom. I extend my sincere apology to those who tried to connect to our Annual General Meeting by zoom. There will be changes to the GVJCCA Board for the 2021-2022 Term. A few of us are resigning, knowing this is the right time to conclude our work as board members. The first meeting of the new board will be the third week of September. We have a new and youthful board member, Peter Wallace, whose

community spirit and enthusiasm really gives the GVJCCA Board much positive energy. Welcome aboard Peter – we truly appreciate that you have joined the board! By the October Bulletin, there will be further information about departing and ongoing board members but for now I am writing to let the Membership know that I will be resigning as a GVJCCA Board Director and as GVJCCA President upon the September 2021 Board Meeting. At that meeting the new executive, including the president, will be elected by the GVJCCA Board. I have truly appreciated being the GVJCCA President for the last two terms. There is much to do in fulfilling the role, yet it has been so enriching because it connected me to the community and it provided a platform for me to reach out to other communities and bodies like the BC government. I was able to address issues which are important to the constitutional purposes of our organization. Since COVID, as you know, a priority concern has been anti-Asian racism and off course, we took steps to stand in solidarity with indigenous continued on page 26

membership up to date? check mailing label on back cover for expiry date! eTransfers now accepted for payment! Visit /jccabulletin-geppo.ca/membership. Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association

G V J C CA

September 9月 2021 25

JCCA continued communities upon the ongoing discovery of the unmarked graves of residential school children. I think racism has taken a front and centre place in the consciousness of our society now, and it is so important for all communities like ours, who have been harmed by racism throughout our histories, to keep working together, to make sure necessary changes in society happen so that we can overcome racism’s lasting harm. Also, next year 2022, is the 80th anniversary of the Internment, so additional focus now is upon the well-being of our survivor seniors. The GVJCCA has a majority of senior members. We are hoping there will be opportunities through 2022 to highlight their contributions and show our appreciation for all they have done for their families and communities. Thank you so much for all you have done throughout the decades, to sustain your families and the Japanese Canadian community. It is wonderful that a national holiday has been established which marks September 30 as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Having this special day supports all of us to stand with our Indigenous brothers and sisters and to be better human beings. It gives us the space to acknowledge the genocide, inequality and injustices and to commit to overcoming and ending these wrongs. Marking this day contributes to making a better world for our future generations. Thank you to the GVJCCA Board who have worked together to keep the GVJCCA going during my presidency. Thank you to our admin support Mitsuyo Okamoto, the Bulletin-Geppo – John Endo Greenaway, Kaori Kasai and Kazuho Yamamoto, Anne Jew and Michael Tora Speier. Most of all thank you to the Membership who have faithfully supported the GVJCCA. I will always wish you all the very best.

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26 月報 The Bulletin

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NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF JAPANESE CANADIANS

NAJC.CA

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

by Lorene Oikawa My Japanese maple trees are starting to change from their summer green to golden orange, a sign of autumn approaching. September usually brings cooler weather and the change in seasons is not always appreciated. For those who have been experiencing the worst of the extreme weather, heatwaves and wildfires, fall’s anticipated cooler temperatures and rains will be a welcome relief especially in British Columbia.

our health-care system, because health professionals and beds that are tied up with COVID-19 patients means less space and time for those with other medical issues. Please return to wearing masks, maintain distancing, keep washing your hands, and listen to health officials.

The NAJC Annual General Meeting will be an online event which will take place on September 17, 2021. This will be our second AGM that is online. We will be conducting the business of the organization including sharing information about our initiatives such as BC Redress and the Anglican Healing Fund. We will be announcing the recipient of the NAJC BC has seen a record number of wildfires this year. Dr. Gordon Hirabayashi Human Rights Award. The AGM also provides an In June, the entire village of Lytton was destroyed. opportunity for member organizations to talk about what’s happening in Halfway through the wildfire season in July there were their communities and their group’s priorities. Delegates will be able to about 1,230 fires, double the average for a 10-year participate and stay safe by remaining in their communities. period. By August, the total rose to 1,536 wildfires, Next year, we will be commemorating the 75th anniversary of the NAJC 860,801 hectares of area was burned, nearly 4,000 and the 80th anniversary of internment. We will be looking to share more properties had been evacuated, 14,285 properties on stories of our communities through our different communication channels alert, 3,573 firefighters are battling the blazes with the including online sessions. help of 541 out-of-province firefighters. Make sure you are getting updates and news by signing up at http://najc. When you hear the numbers, it seems unreal until you ca/subscribe/ for NAJC e-news. Also, please continue to connect with make the connections with family and friends who live NAJC member organizations and support local events. The list of member in affected areas. It became very real for me when I organizations is on the NAJC website najc.ca/member-organizations found out that a colleague who moved from Surrey NAJC online programming is also on our website najc.ca/online-programs/ to Vernon was evacuated and her new house was where you can find new sessions and archived recordings. Recordings are destroyed in a fire. also available on the National Association Japanese Canadians YouTube Every year extreme weather is getting worse because channel. bit.ly/3bTpbA1 of climate change. Urban areas are also affected by Thank you to Sarah Matsushita, Sue Doi, and Yukari Peerless, members heatwaves and smoky air from the wildfires. Some of the Endowment Fund Committee. The committee had a difficult task member organizations have a volunteer phone system to review the applications from so many talented individuals and groups to check in on seniors. I think that is an excellent idea. from across Canada. Communications have gone out to the applicants, and Not all seniors have family that can check on their we will be posting the list of who received funding on the NAJC website. wellbeing and to see that they are properly hydrating and eating. Let’s take care of each other. We need more This month we will be commemorating three dates. September 6 is Labour Day and the value of workers, especially Indigenous, Black, Asian and caring and kindness in the world. people of colour, has not always been recognized in historical accounts. Last month, we seemed to be returning to pre-COVID-19 Take this opportunity to share the stories of JC workers. September 22 is normalcy. People were travelling, families were starting the anniversary of the signing of the historic Redress agreement in 1988. to meet up, and we were having some small outdoor September 30 is the new federal statutory holiday, National Day for Truth gatherings. Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. and Reconciliation. NAJC urges people to learn about Indigenous history Theresa Tam, then confirmed that we are in a fourth including the legacy of residential schools and the Calls to Action from wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Delta variant the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. (which may be as contagious as chickenpox) is causing a surge in the number of infections. Although almost The province of British Columbia is recognizing September 30. BC’s public all of the infected are those who are not vaccinated, sector employers will be honouring this day so some public services we are hearing about some breakthrough infections may be operating at reduced levels, most schools, post-secondary institutions, some health sector workplaces and Crown corporations will where vaccinated people have been infected. be closed. Check if your province/territory is recognizing this day and if Being vaccinated is still better protection than not not, encourage them to accept this call to action. being vaccinated and helps reduce the severity of the infection. We need more people to get vaccinated to The NAJC National Executive Board wishes you a safe and successful stop the spread and further mutations of the virus which transition to fall. puts us all at risk. We also need to reduce the impact on

September 9月 2021 27

Exhibit TAIKEN: Japanese Canadians Since 1877 Nikkei Centre Visitors to the upper level of Nikkei Centre have the chance to engage in the fascinating history of Japanese Canadians. Learn about the first arrivals in 1877, the hardships of the early pioneers, the struggles of the war years, and the need to rebuild homes and businesses in the 1950s. Listen to the voices of many generations tell their story!

Nikkei national museum & cultural centre

All Nikkei Centre Events at 6688 Southoaks Crescent, Burnaby, BC phone: 604.777.7000 info@nikkeiplace.org I www.nikkeiplace.org

Program to Strengthen Livelihood and Business Foundations for Japanese Nationals Overseas and People of Japanese Descent (Nikkei) The application period has been extended to (Thursday) September 30, 2021.

Nikkei

This program will provide support to Japanese nationals overseas and national museum Nikkei whose livelihoods have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Measures will be taken to prevent the spread of infection and to support the creation of environments conducive to business in Japanese expatriate and Nikkei communities through overseas Japanese associations, Japan Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Nikkei groups etc.

Nikkei

Applications are open to organizations and groups overseas wishing to implement relevant projects.

centre Incultural order to ensure that Japanese nationals overseas etc. will widely benefit

from their projects, applicant organizations and groups are strongly encouraged to roll out their plans in advance to a wide range of potential beneficiaries through their public relations efforts and to make sure that these projects do not exclude non-members. For details and to apply, visit https://bit.ly/38LIHwj First Friday of each month 7:30pm – 10pm First Friday Forum Tonari Gumi, 42 West 8th Avenue Music, diverse genres and cultures. Standards, jazz, pop, classical, folk, world music. Poetry and other readings. Enjoy an evening of music, discussion, friendship. Admission by donation, net proceeds go towards the Aoki Legacy Endowment Fund, UBC.

2nd & 4th Sundays to October, 10am to 2pm Nikkei Garden Farmers' Market 16 - 20 vendors will be selling Japanese food, Japanese/Japanese-inspired items, and fresh vegetables & plants in the garden at Nikkei Centre. The gallery and museum shop will be open during the market. Check for updates: centre.nikkeiplace.org/events/nikkei-farmers-market

The First Friday Forum will be on hiatus until Tonari Gumi re-opens. We look forward to seeing you all again! Tonari Gumi Facility Limited Re-opening The facility is open for Library use and to provide Community Services by appointment. Please call Tonari Gumi, 604.687.2172 to make an appointment. Open from Monday to Thursday 10am to 2pm For VCH guidelines and opening details, please go to our website www.tonarigumi.ca

28 月報 The Bulletin

September 4 – 26, 2021 Flamenco Rosario presents Vancouver International Flamenco Festival Featuring Montreal’s La Otra Orilla Vancouver venues including Waterfront Theatre Picnic Pavilion Stage on Granville Island, Vancouver Public Library The 2021 Festival will feature live & live-streamed performances, with both ticketed and free events. We are excited to present our all-Canadian lineup of artists and companies and audiences can expect innovative and dynamic programs that the VIFF always promises to deliver. Our revered international artists will be missed this year, but we look forward to their return in 2022. Tickets and info: www.vancouverflamencofestival.org

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Host: Isabella Mori Readers: Laura Saimoto, Julie Tamiko Manning, Jacquie Pearce, Isabella Mori This reading offers a window into a little-known community of poets in the midst of a dark time in Canadian history. You will hear selected poems by Sueko “Sam” Sameshima and Torao Takeda, written while they were incarcerated in the Tashme Japanese Canadian internment camp near Hope, BC during WWII. Beginning with a short introduction to internment camps, their haiku groups, and the process of translating from Japanese to English, each poem will be read in the original Japanese, followed by an English translation. The translations were undertaken as part of a haiku history and translation project by Michiko Kihira, Jacquie Pearce and Jean-Pierre Antonio. Details and tickets: trellis.org/haiku

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September 9月 2021 29

TorontoNAJC www.torontonajc.ca

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE by Lynn Deutscher Kobayashi President, Greater Toronto Chapter NAJC It is wonderful to see all the reunions taking place in Toronto which has been called the most locked-down city in the world. We remain vigilant but I feel proud of how the majority of our 7-million-plus citizens have acted responsibly in the face of pandemic restrictions. Let’s hope for a long and beautiful fall season.

attendees. Attendees will include Mayor John Tory, Chris Glover MPP for Trinity-Spadina, Board members, representatives from the Woodlands Cultural Centre, Toronto NAJC Elders Council, Toronto Buddhist Church.

The theme of our annual celebration of the anniversary of Redress is REDRESS & RECONCILIATION. We The event will be livestreamed will hold an in-person event, limited twenty-five from the site of the Japanese Canadian Centennial Temple Bell at Ontario Place at 12:30pm on Wednesday, September 22. To see the livestream check www. facebook.com/torontonajc or www. torontonajc.ca

in Brantford Ontario. The senbazuru was created by participants of the Seniors Active Living Centre at Momiji to show support for Residential School survivors, their families, and communities.

The plans to revitalize Ontario Place have finally been revealed. These plans were made without community consultation and do not include the Temple Bell. A number of groups like the Future of Ontario Place have been pressing for more true community input. The Future of Ontario Place group asserts Attendees will include Mayor that the consultations that are John Tory, guests from the City now being discussed are purely Indigenous Affairs office, Chris for the purpose of validating the Glover MPP (Trinity-Spadina), Board plans created without community members, a representative from the input. Please email templebell@ Woodlands Cultural Centre, Toronto torontonajc.ca if you would like to NAJC Elders Council and Toronto join the Toronto NAJC Friends of the Temple Bell committee. Buddhist Church. T h e c e r e m o n y w i l l i n c l u d e JC WELLNESS FUND a presentation of a senbazuru The Toronto NAJC Elders Council (1000 origami crane mobile) to the has been hard at work helping Woodland Cultural Centre (WCC). to find “survivors”* as defined by The Woodland Cultural Centre is the JC Wellness Fund. Please on the grounds of the Mohawk read the updates from the Fund Institute Indian Residential School and the NAJC in this issue of The

30 月報 The Bulletin

TorontoNAJC www.torontonajc.ca

Bulletin. The Toronto NAJC will apply for funding for a reconnecting event and has been in close touch with many Toronto organizations including Momiji and the JCCC to explore partnership opportunities. Good luck to all the Toronto groups energized by the prospect of funding to help strengthen their organizations. And thanks to the hard-working NAJC team working towards additional funding in the form of an equitable BC Redress settlement to strengthen JC organizations across Canada.

NIPPONIA HOME REMEMBERED 1958 – 2000 With nationwide activity surrounding the JC Wellness Grants it’s noteworthy that Nipponia Home was the first Japanese Canadian Seniors home in Canada. It opened in Beamsville, Ontario in 1958. Issei Founder Yasutaro Yamaga personally donated $25,000 which along with $27,000 from 853 Japanese Canadian donors and partnerships with the Lincoln community and the province of Ontario, enabled the establishment of the home. Other Issei founding members were Toyonori Namba, Takashi Komiyama, Tomiyo Uyehara and Takaichi Umezuki CM, the long-time editor of the New Canadian.

As the BC Redress campaign evolves, the actions of the Toronto NAJC will reflect the views of not just our Board, or the official Toronto NAJC membership but the Japanese Canadian community at large in the GTA. In 2016 60% of Japanese Canadians lived outside of British Columbia. The statistical estimate of survivors* lists the top five cities with survivors in Canada as Vancouver (1,919), Toronto (1,803), Calgary (238), Hamilton (224) and Lethbridge (222). An apology and Redress by the BC Government must be more than a token gesture to Eastern Canada. It must reverberate equitably across Canada. If you would like to learn more about BC Redress and the decision-making process or air your views on the issues, we invite you to email communications@torontonajc.ca

The grounds of Nipponia Home were renowned for their gardens, reflective of traditional Japanese landscaping practices. Both Japanese and Canadian meals were served daily, making it an early model for culturally appropriate care. In 1993 the Japanese Redress Foundation contributed a grant of $350,000 for renovations. When the home closed, funds were then directed to other Ontario seniors’ facilities and programming. The closing of the home was traumatic for many. Brenda Kamino’s new play End of the Day speaks to this. Relocation stress syndrome is defined as a “nursing diagnosis characterized by symptoms such as anxiety, confusion, hopelessness, and loneliness. It usually occurs in older adults shortly after moving from a private residence to a nursing home or assisted-living facility.”

In Camino’s play, relocation syndrome is a theme repeated throughout the play which is based on her grandmother’s life. Her character in this solo *A living person of Japanese descent who was performance grapples with the news the home is closing. She remembers directly impacted (uprooted and displaced) by the BC in the shadows of her dementia being “relocated” to Hastings Park, then Government actions between 1942 and April 1, 1949 to an internment camp and finally feeling settled at Nipponia Home only and is living in Canada. This includes impacted seniors to learn she will again be “relocated.” who were not displaced but were living in BC and seniors whose families left BC but were born during this period of time.

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September 9月 2021 31

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF JAPANESE CANADIANS Developing People and Communities by Lynn Deutscher Kobayashi Chair NAJC Human Rights Committee

NAJC.CA

HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE

We are honoured to have on our committee, Justice Maryka Omatsu. In 1992, Maryka Omatsu was the first East Asian woman appointed a judge in Canada. She was a member of the NAJC’s negotiation team that won Redress in 1988. Maryka received awards for her book, Bittersweet Passage (1992) that documented that history and for her video, Swimming Upstream, that set out the JC case for Redress from BC (2018).

The first year of my tenure as Chair has been one of bringing more voices to the table and effectively building capacity. The committee has tripled in size, and we now have members and volunteers from every province from Quebec to BC and the Yukon. I She is on the NAJC’s Executive Board. Most recently Maryka has been am grateful for the support of the former Chair, Keiko appointed to the Canadian Race Relations Foundation’s Advisory Council Miki, who encouraged me and passed along important (2018) and the NAJC’s BC Redress Advisory Team (2018). She has been information to make my job easier. awarded: the Order of Ontario (2015) and a Doctor of Laws, Ryerson It’s been a pleasure to work with Connor Hasegawa, University (2018). Montreal; Pauline Kajura, Hamilton; Jennifer Matsunaga, Judy Hanazawa (Vancouver) was born in 1947 in Merritt, Ottawa; Kei Ebata, Winnipeg; April Sora, Saskatchewan; BC where her family moved after being interned in Kevin Higa, Edmonton; Judy Hanazawa and Maryka Bridge River, a so-called self-supporting camp. She Omatsu, Vancouver, and Fumi Torigai, Yukon. Our grew up in Eastside Vancouver where the Powell Street expert volunteers for webinars were Kim Uyede-Kai, prewar JC community thrived, and later graduated from Toronto and Mariko Kage, Lillooet, BC. UBC with a BA in Art History. Upon marriage to her music Year two begins on Friday, September 17 with the teacher husband, she lived and worked as a rural social AGM and the presentation of the NAJC Dr. Gordon worker in Northern BC, and the Fraser Valley. She has a son and daughter Hirabayashi Human Rights Award at 8pm Eastern Time. and is grand mom to granddaughter and grandson too. After receiving Lynn Deutscher Kobayashi federal Redress payment Judy earned a Master of Social Work from UBC (Toronto) is a sansei community in 1990 and focused on Indigenous Child and Family Service program l e a d e r, p a s s i o n a t e a b o u t development working with the Squamish Nation. volunteerism and the enriching relationships that develop while working towards meaningful causes. She is guided by the desire to “turn good intentions into results”. She is NAJC VP and President of the Toronto NAJC. Her activism includes chairing Parent Councils for 12 years to address the needs of underrepresented Asian students whose parents were refugees and immigrants, leading a team sponsoring Syrian refugees, founding a gala fundraiser for AIDS-orphans in Ethiopia and serving on fundraising committees of Fred Victor, a leader in addressing homelessness. She has been a distance runner for 40 years, running 23 marathons including Boston placing third in her age group. She lays claim to getting the Ethiopians in Toronto running, having organized their participation in the local marathon fundraiser.

Judy’s social justice, antiracism and human rights education evolved mainly from working with the Nation for over 25 years and witnessing the challenges to self-determination. In 1990 Judy also began her volunteer work within the Japanese Canadian community. Judy feels inspired by the human rights knowledge, commitment and activism indicated by today’s NAJC Human Rights Committee and is happy to note the progress in NAJC human rights programming and national community awareness from 30 years ago. Connor Hasegawa (Montreal) is a second-year law student at McGill University and currently serves as the co-president of the McGill Asian Law Students’ Association. He is also a partner at Futurelab, a Windsorbased consulting firm; in this role, he advises clients in both the public and private sectors, across a wide range of industries, on a variety of issues related to strategy and innovation.

Connor completed a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours with Thesis) at the Odette School of Business at the University of Windsor and conducted research on leadership and organizational behaviour within innovative teams throughout the course of his degree. He has developed and taught She met her husband Pat Deutscher in 1985 in a several courses in Excel and participated in substantial Excel-related running club. Their son Steven was with Lynn in the course redesign at the Odette School of Business. House of Commons on September 22, 1988, for the Kevin Higa CPA, CA (Edmonton) is the Chief Financial Officer of Peavey historic Redress Agreement. As was her mother, sister Industries LP since the fall of 2016. Peavey Industries is the largest farm and father who was then President of the Toronto and ranch retailer in Canada operating 92 corporate stores and 120 dealer NAJC. locations with over 2,400 employees under the banners Peavey Mart, Ace Hardware Canada and Main Street Hardware.

32 月報 The Bulletin

Currently, Kevin is a member of the a BSc from McGill University and also lends music performance to her Edmonton Japanese Community activism. Associations, Committee Advocating Jennifer Matsunaga (Ottawa) is an Assistant Professor for Racial Equality (CARE) and the in the School of Social Work at the University of Ottawa, National Association of Japanese unceded Algonquin Territory. She is a sansei whose Canadians, Human Rights Committee. father, grandparents and great-grandparents were He has been actively involved with dispossessed, uprooted and sent to Tashme. Passionate the University of Alberta, serving as about her family’s and community’s history and its an executive member of the Alumni Council, and has ongoing effects, Jennifer engages in social justice work held executive positions with the Business Alumni primarily through her role as an educator, researcher, Association and member of the School of Retailing and writer. Her research and writing examine reparations Advisory Board. for historical injustices and reflect on themes of truth telling, assimilation, Kevin is an avid runner and triathlete competing in more and colonization. than 40+ marathons and Ironman triathlons throughout She is currently developing a project to produce a cross-community Canada and the world. documentary podcast that will feature Japanese Canadian, First Nations, Mariko Kage (Lilooet, BC) is one of our hardest working volunteers and sits on the current NAJC Dr. Gordon Hirabayashi Human Rights Award Committee. She is a bicultural and bilingual immigrant from Japan, worked as an interpreter and a dance artist, taught aikido for over 25 years, and volunteered for the Greater Vancouver JCCA and its Human Rights Committee from 1997-2002. As a mother of seven children and a mobilizer, she worked to facilitate cultural programs and services for Indigenous youth over the last 20 years. In 2012 she co-founded the Miyazaki House Society in Lilooet and spearheaded the local JC Internment Memorial Project in 2017 to honour the internment camp sites in the Lillooet region. Recently, it was Mariko's joy and honour to coordinate the publishing of her father, Tatsuo Kage's new book: "Migration, Displacement, and Redress: A Japanese Canadian Perspective". This year, she assisted in launching the Ijyusha Outreach Project with NAJC's HRC and is pursuing her MA in Intercultural and International Communications, at Royal Roads University.

and Inuit voices around various themes. She also organizes and facilitates sharing sessions with Japanese Canadian community members who wish to share and connect with others who found records on their family members in the new Landscapes of Injustice database and who might find this experience to be emotional. Jennifer is a proud member of the NAJC’s Human Rights Committee, believing in keeping the Spirit of Redress alive. April Sora (Saskatoon) was born and raised in Scarborough, Toronto and presently resides on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis in Saskatoon. Her career has been spent working and volunteering in the immgrant and refugee sector; first as an ESL instructor in Toronto and then in her various roles with the federal government. She now works for the City of Saskatoon as the Immigration, Diversity and Inclusion Consultant. April is committed to the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action and was drawn to the NAJC Human Rights Committee priority of supporting this work and standing beside the Indigenous peoples of Canada in their ongoing fight for land and human rights. As a sansei April is proud of her Japanese Canadian history and the legacy of the resilience and strength of her ancestors in particular her parents, Shirley (Handa) and Shigeki Sora. This is the background that informs her work and her life. On the fun side, every Monday and Friday night you can find April practicing taiko with the Saskatoon performance group, Living Sky Taiko.

Pauline Kajiura (Hamilton) works toward social justice, equity, Fumi Torigai (Whitehorse YK) was born, raised, and and inclusion in her community educated in Japan. He immigrated to Canada in 1969 and workplaces. As a partner of and earned a Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Intersecting, she provides anti-racism Education at the University of Western Ontario. Fumi has and anti-oppression education taught music for 29 years. He is the Founder and was the and training. Currently, Pauline is President of JCAY (Japanese Canadian Association of Manager, Community Initiatives at the Yukon) for 9 years. Currently Fumi is the Vice president City of Hamilton. She has worked as Executive Director of JCAY. of Information Hamilton and Financial Coordinator of SACHA, (Sexual Assault Centre of Hamilton and Area). Fumi recently organized and presented two sessions of the NAJC HRC series “Ijusha Zadankai”. He also translated the book “Picture Brides” by Pauline is a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Miyoko Kudo, published by Nikkei National Museum. Jubilee Medal. She has served on numerous boards and committees with such organizations as the Fumi has had a strong interest in social and human rights issues since his Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion, YWCA Hamilton, high school years. As the president of JCAY, he has assisted a number Immigrants Working Centre, the National Association of JCAY members dealing with immigration and/or labour issues and is of Japanese Canadians, and the City of Hamilton’s convinced that those new immigrants need the service of a knowledgeable Committee Against Racism. Pauline is a sansei, holds and bilingual volunteer who is willing to lend them support. continued on page 37

September 9月 2021 33

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF JAPANESE CANADIANS

NAJC.CA

TERRY WATADA

THE BONFIRE PART THREE by Terry Watada Terry Watada is on hiatus. The following short Employees at Soga’s Department Store called him story first appeared in Grain: the journal of to tell him they received the same letter. There was nothing anyone could do. They, without husbands eclectic writing, Vol. 48 No 2, Winter 2021. and older sons, were all to be scattered to ghost One morning in late February, Nobu received towns and internment camps throughout British notice that he and family were to be “evacuated” Columbia. He could hear the trembling in their out of Vancouver. Relocated to “camps” in the voices as they talked. Interior. All families living outside of Vancouver photo: Tane Akamatsu were to be detained in a segregated building He imagined the Junk Man driving up to every house called The Pool, a part of Hastings Park, before to haul out a treasure trove of possessions. He contemplated on it a long time. Eventually, he came assigned to a camp. For the “safety” of all Japanese Canadians. to a way forward. There was only one thing left to do. He took the letter to Butch who was working on his garden in front. That evening, Nobu in a white collared shirt, sleeves “Looks like you gotta get out,” he said. rolled up, black trousers with suspenders and “Why so?” slippers, no socks, began moving the household furniture out of the house and onto the lawn. “Don’t know exactly. I guess they don’t trust you.” Dining room table and chairs, chesterfield, armchairs, kitchen table and chairs, chests of drawers, radio, “I guess that don’t count no more,” Butch concluded. beds, and other small pieces of furniture. Within an Nobu and family had twenty-four hours to pack up 150 pounds of hour, he amassed quite a pile. In due course, he had possessions while giving up their cameras, car, and radios. emptied the house except for the possessions – “Look, if it helps, I’ll look after your place until you come back,” Butch clothes, kitchen utensils, some furniture, linens, and a small food supply – to be loaded into the car and said. taken away the next day. Nobu looked at his friend’s kind face. There were tears in both of their eyes. “No, it be all right. No worry,” he said and bowed. I cannot…I He exhaled heavy clouds of breath into the frosty air as he examined his handiwork. It reached into cannot… he thought. the night sky. The last bits of it he either climbed a Nobu walked out of Butch’s yard and approached the Junk Man. “Who ladder to place on top or he threw objects as high as are you? What you want? You government-ka?” he could. Stuff did tumble down the sides, but they The man was startled but recovered quickly. “No, I’m just a Junk Man.” landed comfortably nearby. “They” again. “But I am Canadian. I have vote.”

“Why you here?” “I’m just waiting.” “Waiting? What for?” “For you to leave.”

He leaned back and saw a sliver of light, the crescent moon hung just above the summit. Nobu bowed to it as he placed one last thing among the debris – his war medals and Sergeant’s stripes.

He retrieved old copies of the Tairiku Nippo and Nobu could say nothing as the Junk Man got back in his truck and The New Canadian from the house, tore pages out turned the ignition. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said from his rolled of each edition. He crumpled them into paper balls and crammed them into crevices at the bottom of down window. “Late.” He smiled a devil’s grin. the pile. After, he soaked them and furniture with Nobu stood alone in the road as the truck rolled away. He knelt to gasoline. the ground and felt the crush of “they” bearing down on him. Like the fraction of a pale moon in the evening light above, pieces of him broke Hideko and the children came out onto the veranda off and fell to the ground. They disintegrated and blew away like dust to watch. His wife had objected and called it a waste. in a heavy wind. continued on page 37

34 月報 The Bulletin

TONARI GUMI CORNER

Japanese Community Volunteers Association

#101-42 West 8th Avenue | Vancouver BC | V5Y 1M7 | 604.687.2172 | www.tonarigumi.ca

Remembering Jean Kamimura Tonari Gumi community was sad to receive that news that our member Jean Kamimura-san passed away on August 8th. We’d like to express our sincere condolences to her family. Here’s a tribute to Jean from TG volunteer Kikko Tasaka. “Jean had been a long-time supporter of Tonari Gumi and we remember her with many happy memories. A few years ago, we did a bus trip to Tashme to commemorate the people that were there from 1942 during the internment of Japanese Canadians from the West Coast. Jean was also in Tashme, which was one of the largest camps. She took the care to stay in touch with a few people who were in Tashme over the years. The trip was a memorable event for those who joined, but it was also a bit sad to remember the past. Jean, thank you for your kindness throughout the years. May you rest in peace until we meet again!” Social gatherings for internment survivors The Province of BC has provided $2 million as part of its commitment to honour seniors who lived through the traumatic uprooting and displacement of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. For details on the Japanese Canadian Survivors Wellness & Health Fund, visit jcwellness.org. Tonari Gumi will be applying for the funding to organize gatherings for survivors in 2022. We envision it to be similar to our popular events, TG in the Afternoon and Nikkei Social where people gather, share Japanese food, do some activities together, and have a good time. If you or someone you know has experienced the internment and is interested, please contact Tonari Gumi executive director Keiko Funahashi (ed@tonarigumi.ca, 604-687-2172 ext. 201) to receive updates and invitations.

Tonari Gumi’s New Services With generous funding from the United Way, Tonari Gumi has expanded its services to help seniors live independently in their homes longer. Online Grocery Shopping Support We assist seniors with ordering groceries online. We also cover websites that sell Japanese groceries. This is helpful when going out shopping has become difficult due to injury or illness, and driving is no longer an option.

Remote Telephone Interpretation for Medical Appointments (Paid) Access Japanese-English translators over the phone for medical appointments. This service may also be used at medical examinations or the pharmacy. Medical Appointment Transportation (Paid) We provide transportation to and from medical appointments. This service assists those with no family or friends nearby, who are uncomfortable taking public transportation due to health conditions. The above services are for seniors age 55+. They may need an assessment before receiving a service. For more information or if you continued on page 37 The Japanese Community Volunteers Association, “Tonari Gumi,” gratefully acknowledges and thanks the following people for their generous donations received from July 21 to August 23, 2021. Although we try our best, we may miss your name. Please contact us and we will make a correction in the next issue. Monetary Donations Masayoshi Mineta, Masako Williams, Tae Helgeth, Atsumi Hashimoto (for TG GC), Masako St. James, Za Daikon, Northbridge Care – matching for employee donation for Peter Uyeyama Monetary Donations (Canada Helps) Anonymous - Monthly In memory of Jean Shizuko Kamimura Kaori Yano In memory of my mom & dad , Tomi & Nobuo Nishimura Shawn Nishimura In memory of Fusae Sameshima Chizuko-Jean Wakahara In memory of Tad Kawase Yuki & Yuji Asai In memory of George Ogawa Clara Ogawa Norris In Kind Donations Kenji Nagai, Patricia Miyagawa, Katsuko Alberts, Tad Kawase, Shimabukuro, April Shimizu, Ken Shinozaki, Yasuhiko Nakata, Yoshiko Nakano, New Eden Foundation, Mikurube Family, Rina Lal, Toshie Aoki, Vancouver Food Runners, Anonymous (5) MONTHLY GIVING Monetary Donations Seiya Kuwabara (Floral), Sakiko Yoshida (Floral) Monetary Donations (Canada Helps) Mitsuko Mizuguchi (Floral), Yumi Nakase, Tamotsu Nagata, Satomi Yamashita (Floral), David Iwaasa (Gold), Tsutae Suzuki (Floral), Emiko Morita (Floral), Anonymous (Silver) ** MIAHF Charity Golf Tournament ** Monetary Donations: Golf Tournament Sponsorship SUKI’s (Tsukiko Takagi), JET Golf Club, Tom Tasaka, WEST COAST GARDENERS CO-OP OF BC, Jourdain Family (Les Jourdain), CASCADIA PROJECT SERVICES Ltd. (Allan Power), Nelson Beaton, FUJIYA, GIANT OCTOPUS RESTAURANT Ltd., TD Wealth (Tim Collins/ Nicholas Mackay), Dan & Colleen Nomura, CANADIAN FISHING COMPANY, Saeko Tsuda, Satoshi Nakahori, Kami Insurance In Kind Donations Miku Restaurant, Queen Elizabeth Lions Club, Lorene Oikawa, Canadian Tire (Ross Saito, Ian Miki, Seaborn (Chris Nakahori), Meadow Gardens Golf Club (Katsuko Shioiri), Ken Yada, Henry Wakabayashi (IN MEMORY OF TAD KAWASE and GEORGE OGAWA WHO RECENTLY PASSED AWAY), CANADIAN FISHING COMPANY (Dan Nomura), GVJCCA (Cary Sakiyama)

September 9月 2021 35

OUR EDIBLE ROOTS

The Japanese Canadian Kitchen Garden

September Field Report

by Makiko Suzuki

Early this spring a friend of mine told me about a plot of land that a few friends got permission to plow and use for gardening last summer. He enthusiastically invited me to join them this year when he heard I had moved to Langley. And thus farmer Sharon began to emerge…I even learned to operate a tractor and helped plow a field designated for a special corn growing service project! Water colour painting of tractor I used compliments of my daughter Vicki. As soon as I had my garden space yawning before me my first huge thought was to contact Makiko and let her know we had some land to use maybe for shiso plants or whatever we could plant to help support TG seniors! So excited! As I was away early May when I first found out about it, I was not able to plant until about a week after May long weekend. My first visible crop was radishes that flourished quickly. It has been amazing watching beans, lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, squashes and pumpkin sprout up and take form. Our little group of faithful TGGC members joined me to plant sugar beets, more squashes, tomatoes, onions, shiso etc. Sandwiches and watermelon enjoyed after our labours gave us choice social time and an opportunity to swap expertise, plans and friendship.

Tonari Gumi Garden Club maintains eight test gardens. Crops are shared amongst members and sold at the Nikkei Garden Farmers Market with proceeds directed towards seniors programs at Tonari Gumi. Sharon Hara arranged TGGC use of the latest addition – a field in Aldergrove. We can’t say enough about Sharon’s dedication to watering, weeding, and maintaining TGGC plantings in this garden. Better still, her comments: Well, looks like the TGGC has wielded a pretty powerful impact in my life! I think I have grown from sprout to seedling stage! Suddenly I feel like a farmer as I hoe between our rows of vegetables on my lengthy patch of ground assigned to me.

Lessons learned: • Rain is a rare blessing during hot summer streaks • Bunnies like soya beans sprouting up • Bunnies love eating 1/2 a cabbage each, in one sitting • Being alone in a garden with friendly robins is heaven on earth • Crows are like teens showing off their bravado as they try to stay longer than their mates in front of the chomping wheels of a tractor before nonchalantly hoping safely out of reach • Don’t lay down when turkey vultures are circling overhead • Lambs quarter is not a weed but a delicious and nutritional edible green plant • After labours comes the rewards IT IS HARVEST TIME!” At recent markets Sharon’s wonderful beets, swiss chard, lambs quarter and collards were a favourite! Meanwhile in North Burnaby, Larry Okada’s front yard hosts the ‘hottest’ test plot of TGGC. The beds face south and river rocks in front act as a heat sink. Various hot weather vegetables including eggplant, tomatoes, kabocha and Japanese watermelon are features. During 2020 TGGC experimented raising deep purple Japanese sweet potatoes. Tubers were planted in large pots and placed within Larry’s garden. A small, delicious crop followed. This year a new garden bed was built and has been dedicated to growing sweet potatoes. The bed

36 月報 The Bulletin

currently has an abundance of vigorous and healthy greens.

Watada continued

A bonus – according to Prevention Mottainai, she declared. He ignored her objection Magazine – sweet potato vines are a even as she lowered her head and shook it back and superfood! The magazine further states: forth. Pat and Mike observed wide-eyed and openmouthed in anticipation. The vines of sweet potatoes (especially the deep purple varieties), are known As his family looked on, Nobu struck a match and as camote tops (or kamote tops) in touched the ends of paper. It was slow to ignite Spanish-speaking countries. Popular in at first, but ignite it did. He proceeded with more other parts of the world, they are edible matches. The gasoline caught fire easily and flames and delicious… slowly climbed up the stack of wood, fabric, and The journal HortScience found the paper, until the entire pile became a bonfire. leaves have 3 times more vitamin B6, 5 times more vitamin C, and almost 10 times more riboflavin than actual sweet potatoes. Nutritionally, this White smoke curled into the air above, disguising makes the greens similar to spinach, but sweet potato leaves have less the moon until silver light could only peak through. oxalic acid, which gives some greens like spinach and chard a sharper Nobu gazed deeply into the conflagration. The face taste. of the Junk Man emerged. It was angry, its eyes fierce, Best used like spinach, sauté them, add to smoothies, and even braise its mouth twisted into a sardonic grin. The children in coconut milk. The simplest way is to sauté them with garlic and olive cried out and retreated into the house. Perhaps they oil just until they’re wilted perhaps add a couple drops of fish sauce, too. had seen the face as well. Nobu couldn’t tell. You can’t go wrong there. But then the face turned black as if burning. It soon During the August market several shoppers drilled Larry on the details curled and crumbled into ash and cinders. The of growing these vines. One buyer mentioned that these purple potato embers flew into the clouds above. vines were so much better than the white sweet potato vines being And Nobu began to laugh as the heat of flames offered at T&T! massaged his face. Louder and louder until he Upcoming markets The test gardens of TGGC experiment with techniques of growing guffawed and cackled in the wake of the inferno. Japanese vegetables. Focus this season is upon raising super nutritious And he continued until the pile collapsed onto itself. Japanese greens for sharing within our community. The September market Soon nothing remained but smouldering ash and will feature kabocha, Aldergrove corn, dried foraged Chilliwack Mountain ruined debris. He fell silent. warabi, and deep purple sweet potato greens! The sliver of the moon returned. On the veranda, Kudos to all TGGC volunteers whom generously assisted last month! Nobu and Hideko placed arms around each other’s TGGC participates at Nikkei Garden Farmers Market on the fourth Sunday shoulders. They turned to go inside. At the door, he of each month. The next market day is Sunday, September 26th. The final lowered his arm, pulled her arm, and pressed it to 2021 market is in October. Please drop by and see what surprises are her side. Only then did they enter the house, Hideko offered at the TGGC table! following Nobu.

NAJC Human Rights continued

Tonari Gumi continued

With an unprecedented six nominees this year our job was a challenging one. We thank Mariko Kage, Matt Miwa and the National Executive Board for the part they played in selecting the award winner. The nominees were Keykashan Basu (Green Hope Foundation), Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association, Shin Imai, the Noor Cultural Centre, Ron Shimizu and the Woodland Cultural Centre. We can hardly wait to tell you a little about all these worthy candidates and announce the name of the candidate whose human rights advocacy should be known to all in our community and the community at large.

have questions, contact our Community Services team: 604.687.2172 ext. 102 / services@tonarigumi.ca Help bring Japanese bentos to seniors: Delivery volunteers needed TG is currently in need of Meals-on-Wheels volunteers who can help deliver bentos to homes in Vancouver. We prepare bento lunch boxes in the TG kitchen on Tuesdays, and delivery is arranged for seniors who are unable to go out or cannot cook. Inquiries/volunteer registration: 604.687.2172 ext. 106 / programs@tonarigumi.ca (Rie)

September 9月 2021 37

CALL FOR SOPRANO The Winds are a nine-member chamber choir with a repertoire of Broadway shows, classical, folk, and popular songs sung in English, French, Italian, Latin or Japanese as composed. Rehearsals are Monday afternoons with concerts during daytimes at community and seniors centres. Interested sopranos please contact Akira Nagai 604.322.2871 (Japanese/English) Kenneth Takeuchi 604.732.6714 (English only)

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Curtis (Haruo) Yoshida Notary Public Wills | Powers of Attorney Representation Agreements Real Estate Transfers (Purchase/Sale/Title Change)

Our services are available in both English and Japanese

Mortgages | Affidavits | Notarization Phone: 604.569.0512 Email: curtis@notarydowntown.ca 212 - 938 Howe Street Vancouver, BC V6Z 1N9

38 月報 The Bulletin

6409 Arbroath Street, Burnaby, BC Tel: 604.438.3212 Fax: 604.433.9481

Milestones DEMCHESON, June Harumi (née Chiba) June was born 1947 and passed away July 2021. As a long time teacher of English and Japanese at Queen Elizabeth Secondary in Surrey, over the 30 years there she taught several generations of Surrey students, earning the respect of not only her students but her colleagues. After retiring she volunteered at Bard on the Beach, Vancouver Writers Fest and as a shopper for Burnaby seniors. She was one of the Bonsor running group that participated in the Sun Run many times. Her passion was travelling with her husband Roy, they travelled to many parts of the world for new experiences and adventures. A small family funeral was held on August 17, 2021. A Celebration of Life will be held at a later date due to COVID-19 and the wildfires presently in the Okanagan. Many thanks to the caring staff at the Kelowna Hospice House. Condolences may be sent to the family by visiting www.springfieldfuneralhome.com.

thought was nice. By 1948, the Shimozawas had saved enough money to buy a house in East Kildonan, with a proper bathroom with tub and running hot water. Kimie, unable to continue teaching, worked as a housemaid and then sewing piecework for fine leather gloves at the Perfectfit Glove Company. All this time, Kimie had been writing to their first daughter, Atsuko, who had been left as a five year-old in Japan -- they thought temporarily -- before the War. Kimie packed parcels and sent money to Atsuko, while relentlessly seeking permission for her to join her family. In 1954, Atsuko was finally permitted to enter Canada as an immigrant. She was 22. In 1959, at age 19, Carol joined Canadian Pacific Air Lines as a cabin attendant and moved to Vancouver. She travelled the world and visited Atsuko in Tokyo, who told her she was too modern and westernized to make a good wife to a Japanese man. In 1962, a friend who knew she was interested in art offered to introduce Carol to a fledgling painter. In August, 1964, Carol married artist Robert Genn in a friend’s garden and they flew to Amsterdam, where they bought a Volkswagen Westfalia. With his handful of beans — an advance for future paintings from his dealer in Vancouver — Robert bought Carol a bathtub and strapped it to the roof of the van.

GENN, Carol Noriko March 30, 1940 - July 31, 2021. Carol passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by the love of her family, on July 31, 2021, after a brief recurrence of breast cancer. Carol Noriko was born in Ocean Falls, B.C. to Kohei Shimozawa, a cannery and mill worker and foundryman, and Kimie Mizuno, a schoolteacher, both of Odawara, Japan. When Canada declared war on Japan after the bombing of Pearl Harbour, one year-old Carol, her parents and infant brother, David Tetsuo were forced to leave Ocean Falls and sent to the farming town of Letelier, Manitoba, where Kohei worked in the sugar beet fields, threshing grain, digging and moving outhouses and digging and planting gardens. In the winter, he cut ice from the Red River and transported it by horse-drawn sleigh. They fetched water from a nearby pond and strained it through a cloth before boiling it to drink. It was in Letelier where, in 1943, Carol’s Over the next 50 years, Carol and Robert lived above the Nicomeckl River Estuary in South Surrey, B.C. While little sister, Betty Fumiko was born. Robert painted, Carol devoted herself to nurturing When the war ended in 1945, Kohei found work at Dominion Wheel and their three children: David, James and Sara, while also Foundry in Winnipeg and, after much resistance, found a suite in a four- cultivating her own passions of reading, music, flower suite tenement house in the north end, with one shared toilet and sink arranging, travelling, gardening, caring for her parents and no running hot water. When Noriko, Tetsuo and Fumiko joined the and fostering friendships with her lifelong tennis Japanese United Church, they were invited to choose their own names and golf buddies. Carol was a believer in personal for baptism. And so, Noriko chose “Carol,” after a girl in school who she responsibility, integrity, in bucking up, in planning, and in dreaming. She was always thinking of others. She didn’t take short cuts. Hers was a style of lowkey, steadfast constancy; of intimate understanding and witnessing, and tough but magic realism. Carol was an artist maker, and made four. With her grace, practicality, elegance and wisdom, she left us all Family Lawyer enriched with the immeasurable gifts of her intelligence An experienced member of the Hamilton and devotion. Carol is predeceased by her husband, Fabbro Lawyers team, Donna provides Robert, of 50 years, and survived by her three children, legal guidance in all areas of family law Dave (Tamara), James and Sara (Peter) and three including separation, divorce, property grandchildren, Beckett, Zoë and Poppy, their dogs division, and parenting issues. Stanley and Penelope and cats Broccoli and Brussel Contact Donna for a consultation today. Sprout, as well as her three siblings, their families and all her extraordinary friends. “The temple bell stops. But 604 687 1133 the sound keeps coming out of the flowers” (Matsuo donna@hamiltonfabbro.com Basho) In accordance with public health protocols, a celebration of life will be streamed from Victory Memorial Park in Surrey, B.C. on Thursday, August www.hamiltonfabbro.com 26 at 3 o’clock. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Down Syndrome Research Foundation www.dsrf.org

Donna Yuko Yamazaki

September 9月 2021 39

Nikkei Place Monthly Update Nikkei National &o Cultural Centre Ni kke i PMuseum l a ce D n atio ns

Honouring, Preserving, and Sharing Japanese Culture and Japanese Canadian History and Heritage for a Better Canada centre.nikkeiplace.org | 604.777.7000 | info@nikkeiplace.org | Support NNMCC: Donate by phone, mail or online WHAT’S ONSITE 館内にて開催 Reception | Gallery | Museum Shop: Tuesday - Saturday, 10:00am - 5:00pm Sunday* & Monday Closed Nikkei Bookstore 日系ブックストア: Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, 11:00am - 3pm

新入荷：アマビエのエナメルピン（オンライン販売）、日本の風景パズル、和風ラッピング用紙、豪華金箔調おりがみ、折り方説明書付き折り紙セット。再入荷：ゆりえほよほんのギフトカード、椿オイル。館内のミュージアムショップとオンラインショップとの間で在庫の調整をしています。お探しのものが見つからない場合にはご連絡ください。jcnm@nikkeiplace.org | 604.777.7000 ext.109

CURRENT EXHIBITS 展示 NIKKEI GARDEN FARMERS’ MARKET | 2ND & 4TH SUNDAYS* UNTIL OCTOBER | 10AM TO 2PM The Nikkei National Museum is pleased to Iron Willed: 12 - 16 vendors will be selling Japanese food and fresh host this travelling exhibit from Ingenium Women in STEM vegetables. Our gallery and museum shop will be open during – Canada’s Museums of Science and the market. Check for updates: Innovation. It celebrates women in the On until Oct. 2 centre.nikkeiplace.org/events/nikkei-farmers-market/ Hours: Tue-Sat, fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and features 10am-5pm 日系ファーマーズマーケット inspiring individuals such as Irene Uchida, $5 admission, 6月から10月の第2＆第4日曜日｜午前10時から午後2時 Donna Strickland, and Jocelyn Bell Burnell. members and 1 6から2 0のベンダーさんが集まり、日本の食べ物や、日本 students free See Iron Willed: Women in STEM this らしいクラフト、日本の野菜や植物などをお買い求めいた month before its gone on Oct. 2! だけます。マーケット開催中はギャラリーとミュージアムショップもオープン。詳細は随時ウェブサイトをご覧ください。 PERMANENT 2F Kadota Landing EXHIBITS – Treasures from the Collection MUSEUM SHOP ミュージアムショップ – Taiken: Japanese Canadians Since 1877 https://nnmcc.square.site/ 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles of MEMBERSHIPS 会員 Japanese scenes are available in the museum shop. A relaxing way to pass The Nikkei Centre is always welcoming new members. the time, the puzzles feature several Your membership helps to maintain our facility, and enhance intricate and vibrant art pieces by exhibits, events, education and cultural programs. renowned Japanese artists. Available Membership Benefits Include: scenes include Mount Fuji in the • Free admission to the museum Springtime, Cherry Blossom Season • Discounts at the museum shop and for certain events in Old Tokyo, and A Japanese Garden and programs in Summertime. If you need help locating an item, please • Attendance to the NNMCC Annual General Meeting contact: jcnm@nikkeiplace.org | 604.777.7000 ext. 109 Visit: https://centre.nikkeiplace.org/support-us/membership/ NIKKEI IMAGES 日系イメージ Nikkei Images is a publication that focuses on the history of Nikkei in Canada. Included here is an excerpt from Volume 23, Issue No.1, Nikkei Images. Continue reading and find past issues on our website: https://centre.nikkeiplace.org/ research/nikkei-images/

Japanese Charcoal Pit Kilns in the Gulf Islands: History, Archaeology, Anthropology by Stephen Nemtin “...in the 1870s, Japanese people started migrating to the Gulf Islands off the southwest coast of British Columbia, Canada. Many of these immigrants came from Wakayama prefecture, which was noted for its kilns and famous bincho-tan white and regular black charcoal. The Japanese brought their charcoal-making technology to the Gulf Islands. [There are] 13 large charcoal kilns on the Gulf Islands, five on Galiano, four on Mayne, two on Salt Spring, and two on Saturna, and there are unconfirmed rumours of them on Pender and Prevost Islands. All of these charcoal kilns were dug into a slope and then lined with stones with mud-clay mortar; a dome was made with sticks, sand, or clay before firing.”

NIKKEI CENTRE is located at 6688 Southoaks Crescent • Burnaby, BC | centre.nikkeiplace.org | Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram

40 月報 The Bulletin

Nikkei Place Monthly Update Nikkei Seniors Health Care & Housing Society YOU INSPIRE US! reboot. These staff take the place of the volunteers who have not been permitted to work due to COVID restrictions. Volunteers have been a vital part of our programs and, as restrictions lift, our hope is for their return. In the meantime, the coordinators are maintaining contact with volunteers and seniors. This re-opening is what we have all been waiting for. For the seniors, new activities in familiar surroundings. “Let’s Go!” is our motto. For the 2022 fiscal year, the planned outreach programs will happen as a result of your donation. Some of the funded activities are: dementia-friendly full-day programs; socialization programs; physical and brain exercise; tech connections for those who are unable to participate in person; plus film and documentary Thank you to all donors who answered the “Tech Tub Reboot” call for production and volunteer training and orientation. action. Thank you all: you have been an inspiration. Kansha You inspire us and we thank you very much for assisting our organization shimasu. to help seniors. “Inspire Action” raised over $200,000, exceeding our $100,000 goal. Yes, you helped exceed the goal! Your donation is at work now and will be put to work for our 2022 programs. • Tub The Arjo Parker Series tub is now on order and expected to arrive in October. The renovation in the spa room begins September. Once it is completed, the residents will enjoy the experience of a warm soak while the staff can feel assured with all the safety features. • Tech Nikkei Seniors is putting the ‘tech project’ to test. We recently upgraded our Internet WIFI connections; and purchased eight Echo devices for the residents’suites and to-go pocket WIFI-hot spots as needed. The Outreach Coordinator is now running programs – brain exercise, physical exercise, eating and chatting together, creating a link for a doctor to call in, and initiating a new kind of in-suite family visit. Once tested and the kinks resolved, we will offer more devices to residents. The long term goal is to start making this available to the seniors living at home. Our goal is to support “Better at Home.” • Reboot Iki Iki/Lively Lively (dementia friendly) and Kui Do Raku (Eat, Chat, Relax) have not started onsite (due to health restrictions) but they are in the rebooted and testing phase for an immediate start as soon as we get the ‘OK’ from the Fraser Health Authority. Part-time staff have been hired in the development, implementation, and sustainability of the

September 9月 2021 41

Nikkei Place Monthly Update Nikkei PlacePla Foundation Donations Nikkei c e D o nat io ns

NIKKEI PLACE is comprised of three organizations: Nikkei Place Foundation, Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre, and Nikkei Seniors Health Care and Housing Society. Please visit www.nikkeiplace.org — our organizations are making updates on our websites and social media channels in reponse to the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic. We are still accepting donations, but encourage you to give online at www.nikkeiplacefoundation.org to avoid any delays with receiving your tax receipt. For inquiries, please contact gifts@nikkeiplacefoundation.org.

Thank You for Supporting Nikkei Place! Gifts from July 29, 2021 — August 31, 2021 inclusive

DONATIONS Anonymous Sarah Coffin LEAFS Ambassador Sam Yamamoto Builder Fred & Linda Yada Copper Louise Akuzawa & Ron Kruschen Bronze Leon Judah Blackmore Foundation Burgundy Hiroshi & Takako Iura Edward Kaminishi Red Shinichi & Rumiko Sueyoshi

NNMCC INSPIRATION FUNDRAISER Louise Akuzawa & Ron Kruschen Anonymous Shinichi & Rumiko Sueyoshi Rickey & Margaret Yada Fred & Linda Yada Cheryl Suzuki Debra Suzuki HONOURS & TRIBUTES In Honour of Margaret Mori & Geri Prior Anonymous In Memory of Junichi Chiba Yaeko & Derek Kikuchi In Memory of Kaz Takahashi Morning Tai Chi and Dance at The Roundhouse

Orange Alan & Wakako Morris Cheryl Suzuki Debra Suzuki

In Memory of Frances Miyashita Joe & Kathy Mukuyama

Green Mona Izumi

In Memory of Michiyo (Mickie) Uyeda Rona Tanaka

INSPIRE ACTION CAMPAIGN Leon Judah Blackmore Foundation MINI MATSURI Takako Iura Alan & Wakako Morris Kaori (Mick) & Mariko Namiki Fred & Linda Yada Sam Yamamoto

In Memory of Bob Horii Joyce M. Nakamoto

In Memory of Craig Masaru Umemura Jack & Tami Tasaka In Memory of Masako Yada & Miki Tanaka Rickey & Margaret Yada MONTHLY GIVING Anonymous (3)

Carina Abe Ian & Debbie Burgess Brian & Marcia Carr Patricia H. Chan Michael & Ruth Coles Grant Dustin Masami Hanashiro Junichi & Atsumi Hashimoto Tad & Mitsuko Hosoi Shaun Inouye Kenneth & Bernadine Isomura Mary F. Kawamoto Satoko Kobayashi Katsuko (Kitty) Kodama Greciana Langamon Tommy Li Stewart Kawaguchi Ted Kawamoto Catherine Makihara Masako & Ken Moriyama Anne Motozono Roberta H. Nasu Takeshi & Mizuho Ogasawara Chris Oikawa Hanako Oye Linda Kawamoto Reid Jim & Norma Sawada Audrey Shimozawa Barbara Shishido Charlotte Takasaki Sharlene A. Tabata Joyce C. Takeshita Darlene Tanaka & Trevor Jones Grace Tanaka Ginzo & Harue Udagawa Hisako Wada Fred & Linda Yada Chris, Jan Yamamoto & Family Norine K. Yamamoto

www.nikkeiplacefoundation.org

42 月報 The Bulletin

Sam Yamamoto Tatsuo & Mariko Yamamoto Gwendolyn Yip & Santa Ono HERITAGE ESTATE GIVING CIRCLE Yoshiharu Hashimoto George & Elaine Homma Betty Issenman Sato Kobayashi Cathy Makihara Robert & Jane Nimi Carrie Okano Linda Kawamoto Reid Richard & Gail Shinde Norman Shuto Haruko Takamori Sian Tasaka Fred & Linda Yada Sam Yamamoto We thank and honour the legacy gifts made by our supporters following their passing: Estate of Tamiko Corbett Estate of Mitsuo Hayashi Estate of Nancy Machiko Cameron We apologize for any errors or omissions on this list. Please contact us if you have any concerns: gifts@nikkeiplacefoundation.org

Nikkei Place Monthly Update 日系シニアズヘルスケア・住宅協会 You inspire us! 皆様のご協力に感謝いたします執筆者：キャシー槇原（NSHCHS事務局長）ルース・コール（NSHCHS 理事長）日本語訳：坪井なほ子 “Inspire Action-Tub Tech Reboot”募金にご協力くださった全ての皆様に感謝いたします。

2022年度は、皆様からのご寄付のおかげで、現在計画中のアウトリーチ・プログラムがいよいよスタートする予定です。資金提供を受け催行されるアクティビティーの一部として、認知症改善のための終日プログラム、社交プログラム、身体と脳のエクササイズ、直接参加できない方々とのデバイスを用いた交流、さらに、映画やドキュメンタリーの制作、ボランティアの訓練やオリエンテーションなども行う予定です。ご協力くださった皆様、どうもありがとうございます。感謝の気持ちを込めてお礼に代えさせていただきます。

皆様のおかげで、シニアのための支援組織、日系シニアズ・ヘルスケア住宅協会では、この“Inspire action”により、目標額の10万ドルを超える 20万ドルを調達することができたことに心より感謝申し上げます。そうです。皆様のご協力のおかげで目標を超えることができました。皆様からの募金を2022年度のプログラムに有効活用するために現在計画が進行中です。 •

Tub –•医療介護用の特殊機能が完備されたArjo Parker シリーズのバスタブを発注済で、10月に到着する予定です。スパルームの改装は9月から始まり、完成後には、スタッフが完備された安全機能を安心して操作しながら、入居者の方々に温かいお風呂での入浴を存分に楽しんでいただくことができます。

•

Tech – 当協会では、テック・プロジェクトの試行中です。最近、インターネットのWifi接続をアップグレードしました。入居者の必要に応じて、スイート内での利用が可能な他、持ち歩きできるポケット Wifiのホットスポット用にEchoデバイスも8台購入しました。アウトリーチ・コーディネーターは現在、脳の運動、身体運動、食事をしながらのおしゃべり、医師が電話連絡を取るための連絡網の作成、新しい形での家族のスイート訪問の開始などのプログラムに取り組んでいます。試行終了後に不具合が解消されれば、より多くのデバイスを入居者に提供する予定です。長期的な目標としては、これを自宅で暮らす高齢者が利用可能になり、「Better at Home」をサポートすることです。

•

Reboot（再起動）- 認知症改善のための「イキイキ・プログラム」と、食事をしながらお喋りを楽しみリラックスする「食い道楽プログラム」は (健康上の制約のため) 現在はまだ再開されていませんが、フレーザー保健局からの了承が得られ次第、直ちに再開し、試行段階に入ります。すでにパートタイムのスタッフを採用して、再起動のための開発、実施、存続に向けて動いており、COVID19による制限のために働くことを許可されていないボランティアの代わりを担っています。

当協会のプログラムには、ボランティアの皆さんのご協力がとても大切なため、制限の解除が進むにつれ、皆さんが戻ってきてくださることを期待しています。それまでの期間、コーディネーター達はボランティアや高齢者の皆さんと連絡を取り続けています。両プログラムの再開を私たち全員が待ち望んでおり、シニアの皆さんが馴染みのある環境で新しいアクティビティーをスタートできるように、「Let’s Go!」をモットーに取り組んでいます。

September 2021 43 September 9月 9月 2021 43

隣組

隣組会員で日系コミュニティに多大な貢献をされた上村・ジーン・倭子さんが８月８日に永眠されました。ここに慎んで哀悼の意を表し、ご冥福をお祈り申し上げます。以下に隣組ボランティアのキッコ・タサカさんからの追悼メッセージを掲載します。

「長年隣組を支援してくれたジーンさんと私たちはたくさんの思い出を分かち合いました。そのひとつが数年前、戦時中1942年からタシュメで収容されていた人たちを思い、みんなで行ったバスツアーです。一番大きな収容所のひとつだったタシュメにジーンさんもいて、その後タシュメ出身の人たち何人かと連絡を取り続けていました。当時のことを思い出すのは少し悲しく、あの日参加した人たちにとって思い出深い旅となりました。ジーンさん、いつも変わらない優しさをありがとう。また会う日まで、安らかにおやすみください。」

隣組へのご寄付ありがとうございました。（2021 年 7 月 20 日〜 2021 年 8 月 23 日順不同、敬称略）お名前の誤り等があった場合は来月号の紙面にて訂正させて頂きますので、ご連絡ください。

寄付金峯田正義、ウィリアムス雅子、ヘルゲッツ妙、橋本あつみ (for TG GC)、セントジェームス方子、 Za Daikon、Northbridge Care - matching for employee donation for Peter Uyeyama 寄付金 (Canada Helps) 匿名希望カミムラ・ジーン・シズコ追悼記念ヤノ・カオリわが両親、西村トミ＆ノブオ追悼記念西村ショーン

日系人のための集まり

サメシマ・フサエ追悼記念ワカハラ・チズコ・ジーン

BC州政府は強制収容を含む戦時中の措置に対して、存命のシニアに敬意を表し＄200万を提供しました。この基金について詳しくはjcwellness.orgをご覧ください。

カワセ・タッド追悼記念アサイ・ユキ＆ユウジ

隣組は収容所を経験した方たちが集まる機会を設けるために、この基金が提供する助成金に応募します。以前ご好評いただいたイベント「TGアフタヌーン」や「日系ソーシャル」のように、日本食を食べたりアクティビティをして、みんなで楽しい時間を過ごすプログラムを企画しています。ご自身や周りで収容所を経験した方でご興味があれば、隣組事務局長船橋敬子（ed@tonarigumi.ca、604-687-2172 内線201）までご連絡ください。ご案内を送らせていただきます。

小川ジョージ追悼記念小川ノリス・クララ

隣組の新しいサービス隣組ではユナイテッドウェイから受けた助成金で、シニア向けの自立生活支援サービスを開始しました

ネットショッピング・サポートケガや病気などで外出が一時的に難しくなった、車を運転しなくなったなどの理由で、買い物が困難になった時のために、食料品をネットで注文する方法を知っておくと便利です。テクノロジーが苦手な方にもわかりやすく説明します。日本食料品専門のネットスーパーもご紹介しています。

リモート電話医療通訳（有料) 電話でつながる医療通訳サービス。電話での遠隔通訳サービスなので、短時間のドクターとの予約などでも気軽に依頼いただけます。検査や薬局に行く際にも利用可能。

医療送迎（有料）医療関連の予約への送迎サービス。家族・友人のサポートが身近にない、または健康上バス、スカイトレイン、タクシーでは不安という方を対象とした医療送迎サービスです。対象５５歳以上。ご本人または家族との面談過程が必要となるサービスもあります。お問合せは隣組コミュニティ・サービス担当までご連絡ください。電話：604-687-2172 内線102 メール：services@tonarigumi.ca

外出が困難な方にお弁当を配達ボランティア募集

物品長井憲治、ミヤガワ・パトリシア、アルバーツ・カツコ、カワセ・タッド、しまぶくろ、清水エイプリル、篠崎敬二、ナカタ・ヤスヒコ、ナカノ・ヨシコ、New Eden Foundation、三廻部一家、ラル・リナ、青木年恵、Vancouver Food Runners、匿名希望 (5) ** MONTHLY GIVING ** 寄付金桑原誠也 ( 花 )、吉田咲子 ( 花 ) 寄付金 (Canada Helps) 水口光子 ( 花 ) 、タカセ・ユミ、ナガタ・タモツ、山下里美 ( 花 )、岩浅デービッド ( 金 )、鈴木傳 ( 花 )、モリタ・エミコ ( 花 )、匿名希望 ( 銀 ) ** MIAHF チャリティゴルフトーナメント ** 寄付金ゴルフトーナメントスポンサー SUKI’ s ( タカギ・ツキコ )、JET Golf Club、田坂トム、バンクーバー日系ガーデナーズ協会、ジョーダン一家 ( ジョーダン・レス )、CASCADIA PROJECT SERVICES Ltd. ( パワー・アラン )、ビートン・ネルソン、FUJIYA、AGIANT OCTOPUS RESTAURANT Ltd.、TD Wealth ( コリン・トム / マッケイ・ニコラス ) 、ノムラ・ダン & コリーン、 CANADIAN FISHING COMPANY、津田佐江子、中堀サトシ、Kami Insurance

物品、サービスご寄付 Miku Restaurant、Queen Elizabeth Lions Club、現在バンクーバーでお弁当配達ボランティアを募集しています。毎週火曜日、隣組キッチンで準オイカワ・ロレーン、Canadian Tire ( サイトウ・備したお弁当を提供するこのサービスは、外出や調理が困難なシニアの方を対象に配達を行っロス )、ミキ・イアン、Seaborn ( 中堀忠一 )、ています。日本の家庭の味を届ける配達ボランティアにご興味がある方はぜひご連絡ください。 Meadow Gardens Golf Club ( 塩入勝子 )、ヤダ・ケン、若林ヘンリー ( カワセ・タッド、小川ジョーお問合せ・ボランティア登録：電話604-687-2172内線106、メールprograms@tonarigumi.ca（リエ）ジ追悼記念 )、CANADIAN FISHING COMPANY ( ノ 44 月報 The Bulletin ムラ・ダン )、GVJCCA ( サキヤマ・ケリー )

《滄海一粟》航海日誌

元日系ボイス編集者田中裕介

先住民の「真実と和解」（3）リドレスの後にくるべき行動 2015年以来、カナダでは「真実と和解」計画が実行に移されてきた。だが、今年5月以来、各地で植民地主義の残滓としての先住民に対する種々の残虐な差別政策や行為が取りざたされている。先住民の子どもたちを収容し、彼らから固有の言語や文化を奪ってキリスト教化する寄宿制学校制度は、1829年から1997年まで少なくとも139校がカナダ各地にあった。その建物の周辺には墓標もなく遺体が埋められ放置された一角がある。この問題をどうするのか、毎日のようにメディアで取り上げられてきた。翻って、日系ボイス（1989年11月号）に、ジョイ・コガワがエイブ・カバヤマにインタビューした記事の和訳が掲載されていた。読み返すと、カナダが今も抱える先住民問題を既に見通していたことに驚かされる。下にその概要を転載する。エイブ・カバヤマは一世・樺山純牧師の子息で、学生時代からSCM（学生基督教徒運動）を通じて先住民問題と関わってきた活動家の化学者だ。余談になるが、エイブから家系図を英訳してくれないかと頼まれたことがある。薩摩の樺山家は資久を祖として13世紀から代々続く武士の家系である。

●カバヤマ・インタビュージョイ：NAJCの先住民問題作業部会の会長となった経緯は？エイブ：私は長く公民権(civil rights)問題に関わってきたが、リンカーンも言っているように「私は奴隷になりたくないから、奴隷は持たない」と思う。抑圧するのも、されるのも好まない。一方、何もしなければ、私は抑圧者の側になってしまう。善人の無気力が公民権にとっては大きな問題なのだ。ジョイ：先住民は今も抑圧されているのだろうか。エイブ：彼らはカナダにおいて差別と退廃、長く権利を侵害されてきた哀しい歴史を持っている。刑務所を見ると、先住民は収容者のたった2％だが、地域を限定すると50％以上になるところもある。それは彼らが凶暴で犯罪的だというわけではない。私たちが彼らに自分たちの社会を作り上げる自由や誇りを与えていないのだ。私たちカナダ人は彼らの持っていた全てのものを奪っておきながら、これからはわれわれの温情で面倒をみてやろうと言ったのだ。その上、彼らが死滅すればいいとか、欧州人のようになり、やがて吸収されることを願った時期もあった。でも、結局はどちらにもならなかった。ここで一番心に重くのしかかってくることは、本当は私たちの方が彼らから学ばなければならないのに、温情主義などという傲慢な姿勢に終始したことだ。ジョイ：例えば、何を学ぶべきか？エイブ：焦眉の急は、限りあるこの惑星の上で植物や他の生物とどう一緒に生存していくかを学ぶべきだ。キリスト教神学が言う人間が地球を支配するという考えではうまく行かないだろうと思う。先住民の考え方は、言って見れば、神道の概念に大変近い。全てのものに何らかの意図（Animus）があって、私たちはそれを尊び、環境とともに生きていかなければならないというものだ。ジョイ：日系人はあなたのいう社会的良心を持っているだろうか。エイブ：イエスと言えるといいが、実際にはノーだろう。これは私が二世グループとは長く関わっていない理由でもある。1950年代に、私はNew Canadian紙に差別について書いたことがある。1950年代、60年代、私は他の二世の中で公民権に関心を寄せる人を見たことがない。 NV：無関心なのは何故だと思うか。エイブ：活動家というのは、いうならば珍種の動物だと思う。ジョイ：馬力をかけるにはどうすべきか。エイブ：物は持てば持つほど更に責任が増すと認識すること。「各々の能力に応じて提供された物を、各々の必要に応じて供給する」というが、私

が支持する社会主義の信条だ。私たちは特別に恵まれている存在であることを知らなければならない。私はこの社会に感謝している。なぜならば、能力に恵まれて、さらに応援してくれる家族と友人にも恵まれているからだ。ジョイ：1グループとして私たちにも可能性はあるだろうか。エイブ：もちろんだ。教育、専門職、ビジネスの分野での業績がそれを物語っている。しかし、専門分野を越えて、よりよい社会、市民の権利の分野に貢献することを知らない。ジョイ：何故だろう。エイブ：勇気や熱意、率先力とかが不足しているからだ。ジョイ：数の割には、日系人にも傑出した人が多くいると思うが。エイブ：とんでもない。傑出した共同体という意味ではユダヤ人のコミュニティがそれだろう。1950年代、合衆国全体の高卒率が12％に対して、日系米人のそれが22％だというのを読んで嬉しかったが、ユダヤ人は 45％だった。いつでも社会的な問題にはバナイ・ブリス（B’nai B’rithユダヤ教組織）が100％関与している。そういう歴史を我々は持っていない。ジョイ：そのアンバランスを正そうということか。エイブ：その熱意は持っているつもりだが、一人の力ではなし得ない。NAJCのリドレス運動が成功裏に片付き、次なる関心事へその勢いを向けようという事で私が選ばれた。口でいうのは易しいが、より多くの人が今まで以上の情熱を向けてほしい。少なくても幾らかの人々が少しでも関わってほしいと思う。ジョイ：興味を熱意に転化させるにはどうすべきか。エイブ：手始めにわれわれの活動に参加し、ネイティブの人々と互いに影響し合うことを始めてほしい。ジョイ：それは大きな反響を呼ぶだろうか。エイブ：スティブン・ルイスは、カナダの先住民に対する処遇の歴史は国家の名誉に関わる汚点だといっている。私たちは南アフリカのアパルトヘイトに偉そうに説教できる身ではない。ここに我々自身の問題としてあるのだ。ジョイ：地球の生態についてはどうか。エイブ：先住民が直面する大問題の一つが、交渉権（treaty right）で、例えば、テマガミがある。地方自治体は、本来は先住民に属している土地全体の伐採権を木材会社に与えてしまった。政府曰く、法廷で戦おうと、だが、その間も彼らの土地の破壊は続いた。ラブラドールのインヌーの場合、そこに9000年住み続けてきて、まだなんの交渉にもサインしていないが、連邦政府はここにNATO諸国、つまりドイツ、オランダ、ベルギーを誰も住んでいない土地だといって招聘し、低空での飛行訓練を敢行している。これによりインヌーなどはいないという建前が成立する。さらに、ルビコンでは民主的に選ばれたリーダーを連邦政府が切り捨てている。50年間保留地にするといって待たされた挙句、反故にされ、ルビコンの人々は道路封鎖で抗議したが、政府は、公式承認を小さな分派グループに与えたのだ。これはひどすぎる。ジョイ：確かにひどい。エイブ：まさに恐るべしだ。合衆国での公民権の立法がセルマ、バーミンガム、ワシントンまでの行進なしで成立したとは思えない。私たちは彼ら先住民と共に立つ用意があるかどうか自問すべきだ。ジョイ：あなた自身はどうか。エイブ：もち論、私は彼らと共に行くが、なぜ断言するかというと、私はずっとCORE（Congress of Radical Equality）のバッファロー支部副会長をしており、HOME（Housing Opportunities Made Equal）やCNVA（Congress for Non-Violent Action）と共に行動してきたからだ。日系人も行動を共にしてほしいと思う。 1991年＜大地の霊の祭り＞最終日の早朝、アイヌ式の儀式カムイノミ（神への感謝の祈り）をニプタニ（二風谷）のアイヌリーダー萱野茂（後の参院議員）が妻・玲子（隣）、姪・ルミ子さんと実演してくれた。一座の左端にDr. Abe Kabayama. （photo:yosh Inoue）

*題字の「滄海一粟」（そうかいのいちぞく）とは大海原に浮かぶ一粒の粟のこと。

September 9月 2021 45

Eastsideから見える日本と世界第37回オリンピック終了とCOVID19感染者急増 ■徐々に進みつつある日本のワクチン接種日本では徐々に新型コロナウィルスのワクチン接種が進んでいます。8 月19日時点で、日本全国で1回目のワクチンを接種した人は51.3%、2回目のワクチン接種が完了した人は39.7%です（日本経済新聞データサイトより）。65歳以上では85.4%の人が2回目のワクチン接種を終えています。一方で、自治体ごとに接種のスピードには差があります。各自治体から住民に接種券（ワクチン接種を受けるためのクーポン券）が郵送され、そこに書いてある番号、コードを用いて住民が接種予約をするのですが、人口規模の大きい自治体ほどこの接種券が届くのが遅くなっています。接種券の発送が完了していない自治体も少なくなく、どこの自治体に住んでいるのか、によってワクチン接種の時期が大きく異なる状況が生じてしまっています。

■オリンピック開催期間中に感染者が急増 7月下旬から始まった東京2020オリンピックは8月8日夜に閉幕しました。7月12日に東京都に対して発出された緊急事態宣言は8月2日に埼玉県、千葉県、神奈川県、大阪府にも拡大され、8月20日には他の7府県も対象に含められました（沖縄県の緊急事態宣言は5月から）。いずれの都府県でも期限が9月12日までに延長されました。さらに、16の道県にまん延防止等重点措置が9月12日まで発出されています。この緊急事態宣言の期間中、全国的に感染者数は増加を続け、特にオリンピックの拠点となった東京都では一日の感染者数が5千人を上回る日が連日続いています。オリンピック開催と感染者急増の関係は現時点では明確にはわかりませんが、無観客であっても会場の周辺や沿道に大勢のファンが集まって声援を送るなどはあり、これらの行為が感染拡大につながっていないか心配です。

なお、発表されている感染者数はPCR検査を受けて陽性と判明した人の人数ですが、感染者数の増加で濃厚接触者（感染可能期間内に感染者と接触のあった同居家族や介護者など）へのPCR検査が追いつかなくなっています。日本政府のコロナ分科会会長も「報告されているよりも実態の感染者は多い」（8月18日の内閣委員会）と延べ、感染者が正確に把握できていないとしています。

■医療逼迫と飲食業界への打撃こうした感染者急増の中で問題となっているのが医療現場の逼迫です。感染者数の多い自治体では、もしも感染しても入院することができない、という状況です。東京都では8月18日時点で感染者の入院率が9.5%でした（7月20日は25.2%）。感染しても極めて入院しにくいのです。現在、症状が軽症である多くの感染者は自宅での療養を余儀なくされています。そうした中、8月に千葉県で、感染した妊婦が入院を断られ自宅で早産で出産したが、医療処置が間に合わず子どもが亡くなってしまうという痛ましい出来事がありました。また、飲食業会、特に酒を提供する店には1年以上に渡って打撃が続いています。現在、緊急事態宣言およびまん延防止等重点措置の対象地域では飲食店に対して酒類提供停止と午後８時までの営業時間短縮が要請されています。緊急事態宣言等の期間が延長され、店を開けても利益にならないため休業する店も増えています。現在の日本では、感染症対策と経済活動を両立することが実質的に困難な状況が依然として続いています。

山本薫子（やまもと・かほるこ）首都大学東京都市環境学部准教授（2008年〜）。UBC社会学部客員准教授（2018年5月〜12月）。専門は都市社会学、地域社会学。著書に、『横浜・寿町と外国人－グローバル化する大都市インナーエリア』福村出版（2008年）、『原発震災と避難－原子力政策の転換は可能か（シリーズ被災地から未来を考える (1)）』有斐閣（2017年）など。

46 月報 The Bulletin

オリンピック開催のため立ち入り制限が行われた横浜スタジアム（2021 年 7 月撮影）

40th Festival

Oct 01 — Oct 11

*コミュニティーコーナーへの投稿はeditor.geppo@gmail.comで受付しております。10月号の投稿締め切り日は9月21日ですスペースの都合上、全ての投稿を掲載できるとは限りません。また、出版日が変更になる場合もございますので予めご理解願います。

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Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko

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Bulletin/Geppo September 2021

Articles inside

JCCA President’s Message 25 NAJC President’s Message

Paueru Gai Dialogues 9 Paueru Gai Dialogues Refl ections

Haiku in Tashme: The legacy of Sukeo “Sam” Sameshima