Kelly Fleck

TORONTO — Sisters Emmie and Lisa Tsumura have been using art to share messages of gratitude and love in Toronto and Ajax during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Emmie, an artist working in illustration and graphic design, has been creating giant pigeons and placing them around Toronto. These works of art carry messages of thanks to essential workers, especially those in often thankless jobs, such as grocery store workers, sanitation workers, delivery drivers and migrant farm workers.

Lisa, a kindergarten teacher in Ajax, created a learning garden accompanied by one of Emmie’s giant pigeons outside her classroom. The garden is a tangible ...

At 13 years old, Setsuko Thurlow, the youngest of seven children, organized her school paper and liked to read books recommended by her older brother, play the organ with her mother and learn English with her father. But her entire life changed in a blinding bluish white flash on Aug. 6, 1945.

A hibakusha, Thurlow survived the nuclear bombing of her home, Hiroshima. She has dedicated the last 70 years of her life to advocating for the abolition of nuclear weapons. A leading figure with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize alongside ...

TORONTO — On Nisei Masako Okawara‘s birthday, she looked out the window to see her two granddaughters and their families in the parking lot of her North Scarborough condo next to a sign reading, “Happy 100th Birthday!”

The rest of the day was filled with phone calls, flower deliveries, and a zoom video conference call with friends and family singing Happy Birthday, while she blew out the candle on an ice cream treat. Her five grandchildren made virtual flowers, since Okawara loves flowers, as one of the original members of the Toronto Ikenobo Ikebana Society.

It was not the way ...

TORONTO — Mariko Kawano’s apiary, Heiwa Honey, is a project three generations in the making, and combines her Japanese heritage with her passion for beekeeping.

Heiwa means peace and harmony in Japanese and is the philosophy Kawano brings to her beekeeping.

While showing her apiary on the rooftop of the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, she pauses to help a bee stuck on its back. Gently, she guides the bee back to the opening of the hive, where it flies in and continues on its way.

“Even just one bee, it’s a living, breathing thing that, to me, is still ...

Growing up, Sarah Kuhn rarely saw characters that looked like her, now she changing that.

Author Sarah Kuhn is creating stories with Asian American girls as the heroes of their own stories, either as literal superheroes or regular girls forging their own paths.

Growing up as a Hapa, Japanese American, Kuhn rarely saw characters that looked like her in the stories she loved, sci-fi/fantasies or romantic comedies. Even more rare were stories where Asian girls and women were the heroes of their own stories, and not just characters to be desired, or tragic figures that help the hero learn ...