Chuck Tasaka

How this ‘mystery album’ fell onto my lap is, in Japanese, fushigi or in English, ‘surreal.’ To top it off, this album belonged to a young lady in Greenwood, my former hometown!

My cousin Yvonne phoned me to say that she received this photo album from her former colleague at Capilano University. They were both art instructors. The lady’s partner who was also an artist, passed away and she was cleaning out his accumulated collection. The partner apparently collected old photo albums. He may have bought this album since it had a sticker marked $35. Was it at a ...

Anna (Fujimura) Higashi grew up in Woodfibre, B.C. Her grandfather Isaburo Fujimura and son Taichiro, seventeen years of age, came to Canada in the early 1900s. Isaburo was a caretaker of a community bath on Powell Street (Japantown). Taichiro worked for a railroad company that took him to the province of Ontario. Once finished, he returned to Vancouver, but soon after Taichiro left for Powell River to work at the pulp and paper mill. Later, he found work at Woodfibre mill where he stayed much longer.

Taichiro returned to Japan and got married to Tome Hasegawa. He returned to ...

The Nisei—the group who suffered the most during the World War II incarceration of Japanese Canadians and Americans—is now heading into the twilight of their lives. They survived and succeeded because of their resilience, perseverance, and determination. Now, they can enjoy the fruits of their labor as they proudly look back and reminisce about that period in time when they had to overcome great adversity.

I was a very young Sansei growing up in Greenwood, British Columbia, where I had the best view in town. The Issei, most of whom were lonely bachelors, would come to my father ...

In the summer of 2016, I was in the midst of planning a major fundraising event to help finance the Nikkei Legacy Park project in Greenwood, BC. The family plaques for those who lived through the internment were paid for by donors. Sakura trees and Japanese lanterns were also donated by families. However, I needed funds for the World War I monument to honor the 12 Japanese Canadian veterans who came to Greenwood. Three were military medal recipients: Masami Mitsui, Yasuo Takashima, and Kiyoji Iizuka. There were three interpretive panels to be made and a large park sign on the ...

Ray Torao Iwasaki was born in Ganges, B.C. in 1933 and he lived an idyllic life on Salt Spring Island in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia. His father Torazo came to Vancouver in 1907. His mother, Fuku, from Shizuoka arrived on the Empress of Vancouver in 1918 to marry Torazo. Ray was surrounded by four sisters, Hideko (1920), Mitsuko (1922), Setsuko (1926), and Tsuruko (1931). The Iwasakis lived on Sunset Drive in a five-room house on a 640-acre spread.

Ray’s father was a marine engineer on a Japanese whaling ship in the 1900’s. His occupation took ...