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 …
Teresa Chizu Kurisu lived a normal Powell Street life as a child. She attended Strathcona Elementary School in East Vancouver and went to Japanese Language School soon after with her Japanese Canadian friends. Teresa’s parents were Catholic so she took in church activities with her parents. This was a time …
Itadakimasu. What’s that? I never heard of it when I was growing up in postwar Canada. Japanese Language School didn’t exist in Greenwood. The only word similar to that was “Itai!” or “Itai-na!” when your older brother or sister was shoving you aside to get the best seat at the …
In this day of hi-tech computer with iPhone, iPad, Galaxy, and so forth, whatever happened to the old fashion nicknames? Nowadays, you hear of famous athletes with nicknames like Burnsie, Burr, Marky, JJ, JR, or AJ. Quite vanilla, I think. There should be more “wasabi” injected into the present day …
When the saints go marching in, oh when the saints go marching in…. oh when the Nisei-nts go marching in…… There was Christian influence in Japan when missionaries had travelled there in the 1800s. Even before that Jesuit priests from Portugal were present. Tokugawa government tried to put a stop …
What was to be a simple, casual get-together to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Japanese Canadian Internment, a Nikkei “Woodstock-like Love-in” occurred at St. Joseph the Worker School in Richmond on April 29th!
Manzo Nagano is credited for being the first Japanese settler in Canada in 1877, though he was not the first to come to B.C. Japanese sailors were rescued from a shipwrecked whaling boat as early as 1834. In Ann-Lee and Gordon Switzer’s books Gateway to Promise and Sakura in Stone, …
Did you know that there was a very small settlement of Japanese Canadians at the McLean Mill in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island in the early thirties?
Journal feed
