Norm Masaji Ibuki

Masaji

O escritor Norm Masaji Ibuki mora em Oakville, na província de Ontário no Canadá. Ele vem escrevendo com assiduidade sobre a comunidade nikkei canadense desde o início dos anos 90. Ele escreveu uma série de artigos (1995-2004) para o jornal Nikkei Voice de Toronto, nos quais discutiu suas experiências de vida no Sendai, Japão. Atualmente, Norm trabalha como professor de ensino elementar e continua a escrever para diversas publicações.

Atualizado em dezembro de 2009

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Vancouver’s Tonari Gumi: Keeping Jun’s Magnificent Dream Alive - Part 4

Por Norm Masaji Ibuki
12 Jul 2022

Read Part 3 >> How might the future needs of the JC community be different from what they are today e.g., a Nisei senior versus a Yonsei senior? Ijusha? This is an interesting set of questions. While we are not yet discussing how we deal with Yonsei seniors, we are definitely discussing what the future holds for Sansei seniors. In order to usefully discuss these issues, it’s important to differentiate some of the characteristics of these different generations: Nisei: almost all are of full Japanese ancestry, most are fluent in English and consider it their first language, but…

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Vancouver’s Tonari Gumi: Keeping Jun’s Magnificent Dream Alive - Part 3

Por Norm Masaji Ibuki
5 Jul 2022

Read Part 2 >> Who uses Tonari Gumi (TG)? What kind of services do you provide? The most frequent and loyal users of TG are Japanese-speaking seniors aged 75-plus. Although we do have some activities and programs that target English-speaking seniors, such as a Japanese conversation class and our craft club, most of our programs cater to Japanese speakers. In 2019, prior to the pandemic we started our Nikkei Social Club on Saturday afternoons where mostly English-speaking Nisei and Sansei would gather for Japanese food and activities such as “gaji” card games and English …

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Vancouver’s Tonari Gumi: Keeping Jun’s Magnificent Dream Alive - Part 2

Por Norm Masaji Ibuki
28 Jun 2022

Read Part 1 >> What are some of the challenges of operating Tonari Gumi (TG) during a pandemic? From 2010 to 2015, I worked full-time as the executive director of the Japanese Community Volunteers Association, or Tonari Gumi, as it is popularly called in Japanese. Tonari Gumi had always had a positive image in the Japanese Canadian community ever since it started as a small group of young volunteers wanting to help poor and isolated Japanese Canadian seniors in the Downtown East side of Vancouver in 1974. The original founder was a young Sansei from Ontario who had come to study in V…

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Vancouver’s Tonari Gumi: Keeping Jun’s Magnificent Dream Alive - Part 1

Por Norm Masaji Ibuki
21 Jun 2022

When I asked Takeo Yamashiro, a founding member of Vancouver’s Tonari Gumi community help group, about why young Nisei and Shin-Issei in the 1970s decided to help needy Issei, he shared the following experience: “Let me share with you a couple of encounters which totally blew my mind at the beginning of my involvement in the JC community: One day, I visited an old rundown rooming house in a back lane of Gastown (Vancouver). An old Issei man was lying in bed and mumbling. Through the visitation, I discovered he was not on a federal guaranteed income supplement program. …

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Kyoko Norma Nozaki Sensei: “A Minority of Minorities” - Part 2

Por Norm Masaji Ibuki
13 Mai 2022

Read Part 1 >> I am curious about what prompted you as a third year high school student to return to the US on your own? What was the reaction of your parents? Where did you go? Where did you study? Despite the tragedies my father had faced, he strongly believed that the USA had the best education system in the world and encouraged me to study in the country. In order to prepare for the goal, I was sent to a junior - senior mission school in Fukuoka, where English language (not content courses) was taught by American missionaries and went to the American Center for extra language le…