Kenji Tokawa
Kenji Tokawa is a grandson. He is also a mixed-race yonsei writer, artist and arts-educator based in Toronto, Wendat-Haudenosaunee-Anishinaabeg Territory. He's been around organizing and making art in the queer, Asian, and trans communities in Toronto for the past five years. This article was the last in a series of posts on Old School Rad Nikkei-ness for Asian Heritage Month, and the 70th anniversary of Japanese Canadian displacement. He hopes he hasn't missed the boat on Radical Nikkei organizing, so if you know of any in your area, please get in touch with him!
Updated June 2012
Stories from This Author
Future Festival: Mayu Takasaki Brings Us The Powell Street Festival
June 11, 2012 • Kenji Tokawa
It was only supposed to be a one shot deal. Now it is Vancouver’s longest running ethnic festival. And it is at the epicentre of Nikkei exile in Canada. Vancouver’s late Japantown—Powell Street. Originally staged for the Japanese Canadian centennial in 1977, the Powell Street Festival has become a household name for Vancouver Nikkei. One of the people involved in the hard work from early on is someone that you can still find these days rushing around on festival day: …
