Norm Masaji Ibuki
@MasajiWriter Norm Masaji Ibuki lives in Oakville, Ontario. He has written extensively about the Canadian Nikkei community since the early 1990s. He wrote a monthly series of articles (1995-2004) for the Nikkei Voice newspaper (Toronto) which chronicled his experiences while in Sendai, Japan. Norm now teaches elementary school and continues to write for various publications.
Updated August 2014
Stories from This Author
Canadian Nikkei: Oakville Sansei Dr. Erik Nabeta - Part 2
Aug. 1, 2018 • Norm Masaji Ibuki
Read Part 1 >> Have you ever been to Japan? What attracts you to it? Any contact with family there? Yes, Tokyo. It was only four days, and I need to return. One of my favourite cities I’ve ever visited. Can’t wait to go back. I have a couple of Japanese friends that have said I need to visit Kyoto as well. I love Japanese culture for the respect they all carry. The city works so well because of this. …
Canadian Nikkei: Oakville Sansei Dr. Erik Nabeta - Part 1
July 31, 2018 • Norm Masaji Ibuki
As a public school teacher, I’m keenly aware of the breakneck speed at which culture is evolving and how, correspondingly, ideas of “Nikkeiness” are changing too. Who needs grandpa anymore when discussions and information are just a Google search away? For me these days the discourse about identity has shifted from the binary hafu to something a lot more diverse. Nowadays, it isn’t unusual for me to meet students at my mostly Punjabi/Hindi school, who tell me that they have …
In Canada, May is Asian Heritage Month: Banzai!
May 18, 2018 • Norm Masaji Ibuki
I recently arrived back home after an intense four days in Victoria, BC where I attended as a member of the Landscapes of Injustice Community Council. While there I had a rare opportunity to talk and immerse myself in an environment where I was with other Japanese Canadians (JCs), history students, and scholars whose efforts were being made towards helping to preserve important historical documents that relate to the dispossession of JCs of their property, business, and farms during WW2 …
Equitably Speaking ... Lethbridge Nisei Rev. George Takashima - Part 2
May 10, 2018 • Norm Masaji Ibuki
Read Part 1 >> How did you become an educator? After graduating from high school, I spent the first year of a five-year Chartered Accountancy program working in a CA firm. After one year, I decided this was not for me even though I excelled in mathematics. My girlfriend at that time was going to enroll at London Normal School (later known as Teachers’ College) so she said why don’t I join her? Tuition was free because there was such …
Equitably Speaking ... Lethbridge Nisei Rev. George Takashima - Part 1
May 9, 2018 • Norm Masaji Ibuki
With May being Asian Heritage Month, I am wondering how our Nikkei voices will in fact be heard? As a dedicated CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) radio listener and teacher who takes pride in celebrating all of the cultures that make up Canada’s highly celebrated multicultural society, I am curious somewhat about how our Asian stories of how we helped to build this country are going to be heard? Admittedly, there is a long lineup of marginalized voices who historically have …
Toronto Nisei "Mush" Arima - Part 2
March 27, 2018 • Norm Masaji Ibuki
Read Part 1 >> What do you remember about life in the camps e.g., eating? Toilet? Baths? School? Your mother passed away there. Was she also buried there? I experienced my first train ride from Vancouver (Hasting Park) to Slocan City, a four-day trip. Quite exciting for me – for mother and sisters, tiring and exhausting with only sandwiches to eat. We arrived in Slocan City in the fall of 1942. There were no living quarters available. Some families whose …
Toronto Nisei "Mush" Arima - Part 1
March 26, 2018 • Norm Masaji Ibuki
As the 75th anniversary of the internment came and went last year, I have promised myself to get more of the stories of the Nisei recorded in 2018 while I can. As serendipity would have it, I met Nisei Masayoshi “Mush” (Allan) Arima, 86, at a 75th internment anniversary luncheon at the Momiji retirement home in Toronto last fall. He was hanging out, reading some of the displays and I started up a casual conversation asking about where he was …
Unfurling The Symbolism of Canadian Artist Warren Hoyano - Part 2
Jan. 3, 2018 • Norm Masaji Ibuki
Read Part 1 >> Can you talk a bit about your own artistic process? Referring to a few pieces in the JCCC show, can you please talk about your own creation process? Can you please go into some detail about what the pieces mean to you too? I like to look for commonplace objects and symbols to work with. Almost everything has possibilities and it is up to me as an artist to see them. Through a process of experimentation, …
Unfurling The Symbolism of Canadian Artist Warren Hoyano - Part 1
Jan. 2, 2018 • Norm Masaji Ibuki
“I am using flags as a metaphor for the fears, beliefs, aspirations, and behaviors which arise in societies under extreme stress, whether real or imagined. This anxiety could be caused by threat of war or terrorist strike, the effects of climate change, or the possibility of attack from infectious diseases, as examples. The flag symbol can embody pride and hope for the future, as in the case of a young person or a refugee but also, exclusionary forms of nationalism …
The 75th Anniversary of Internment - 16 Voices... A Time for Atonement - Part 2
Dec. 15, 2017 • Norm Masaji Ibuki
Read Part 1 >> “Many people still do not know the full story about the internment of Japanese Canadians. My maternal grandparents, like other families who never returned to the west coast, remained in the tiny village of Slocan, and never returned to Cumberland (Vancouver Island) where the family had settled in the 1800s. Everything they owned was taken by the government. My father had to look after his mother (his father died during internment) and younger siblings so he …
