Stuff contributed by Masaji

A Book Review: “Finding Japan: Early Canadian Encounters with Asia”

Norm Masaji Ibuki

When it comes to learning more about Japan and, in particular, our JC [Japanese Canadian] connection to it, it is sometimes more from a “gaijin” outsider’s point of view that we gain the deepest insight.

Francisco Miyasaka On Being a Cuban Nisei - Part 3 of 3

Norm Masaji Ibuki

Read Part 2 >> Working at the Cuban Embassy in Tokyo At the beginning of the revolution in 1959, he recalls, “I had already finished high school, I went to Havana University to study commercial sciences in mid-1959 and left in May 1961 in my second year. I spoke some Japanese so …

Francisco Miyasaka On Being a Cuban Nisei - Part 2 of 3

Norm Masaji Ibuki

Read Part 1 >> All Issei to a maximum security prison “After Pearl Harbor, the newspapers from the U.S. wrote about how the Japanese were ‘cruel people’. Here, I never felt any discrimination or disrespect from classmates or neighbours,” he points out, “What was being said in the media and the propaganda …

Francisco Miyasaka On Being a Cuban Nisei - Part 1 of 3

Norm Masaji Ibuki

“I’ve never felt myself to be a member of a minority in Cuba. We’re Cubans!”    —Nisei Francisco MiyasakaAlthough Cuban Nikkei represent a small group, about 1,200 in a country of 11 million, I was immediately intrigued when I got news from Gerry Hewson that a “Cuban Japanese” friend of her …

Book Review -- Righting Canada’s Wrongs series: Japanese Canadian Internment in the Second World War

Norm Masaji Ibuki

“September 22, 1988 is a day that I will remember fondly as it was the culmination of efforts by many Japanese Canadians who sought justice for the wartime violations from the Federal Government.”              —Former National Association of Japanese Canadians president         …

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About

*Sansei *Born in Toronto *Grandparents are from Shiga and Kumamoto kens* Families were interned in Kaslo, Bayfarm and on a Manitoba beet farm * Lived in Sendai, Japan from 1994 to 2004 * Teacher in Brampton, ON * Aikidoka * Writer for the Nikkei Voice for close to 20 years * Writer of "Canadian Nikkei series" which aims at preserving Canadian Nikkei stories. Future of the community? It depends on how successful we are in engaging our youth. The University of Victoria's (BC) Landscapes of Injustice project is a good one.... gambatte kudasai!

Nikkei interests

  • community history
  • family stories
  • festival/matsuri
  • Japanese/Nikkei food
  • Japantowns
  • taiko
  • aikido

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