Yoshiko Hasegawa, interviewed by Kyla Fitzgerald, 17 October 2015

Alright so today is October 17th, Saturday. And my name is Kyla Fitzgerald and I am here with the Landscapes of Injustice project. And today I am interviewing Yoshiko Hasegawa at her house here in Steveston, Richmond, BC. So thank you for sitting down with me. Yoshiko laughs. It's been nice to finally get to sit down with you and hear your story. I think to start, would you mind telling us a little bit about your childhood, what you remember of your early days?

Where would you like me to start?

Wherever, when you were born, where you were born.

Oh, I was born in Vancouver. My parents operated a Japanese restaurant called Yoshino, Y-O-S-H-I-N-O. The address was 362 Alexander. I don’t know how long they operated that but they sold that business. We moved to East Vancouver. On Pender Street I think we rented a house and my dad opened up a fish shop on South Granville, thinking that it would be a good corner because there was a streetcar stop in front. After a while he realized that the ladies do not like taking fish home on the streetcar. Laughs.

Oh, interesting.

So, that was abandoned after a while and then he opened up a fish and chips store on Powell Street on the north side. He had the Japanese carpenters build a booth. They were built for Japanese-sized bodies. Laughs. So they were of no use because most of the customers would be longshoremen and those big Caucasian customers. All the people he could serve was the ones that could sit at the counter in the front and the back was all in booths, of no use. Background noise. He realized that there was no back door to the restaurant so he had to haul the garbage through the front door of the shop which was a big mistake. So that was a failure, too. Both laughs. Anyway, he had many adventures. He helped Mr. Tabata in the salt herring business on Galiano Island. I can’t remember what else he did but, anyway, he had an accident while he was there. Apparently the ships used to come right into where they were processing the fish, directly from Japan. I don’t know what kind of boat it was but they were loading that by hand and he fell with one of the boxes on his chest. So he was in poor health for a long time which resulted in him getting, eventually, turning into TB. Because my dad was sick, my mother had to find work. She worked as a waitress for the Japanese restaurant but that was not satisfactory in raising a family. So, she went to work in a cannery on Gore Avenue and because she wasn’t able to communicate with the Chinese supervisors she was being cheated out of punching the tickets.

Those were given to their favorite girls Laughs.. And then, instead of the center cut of the fish she was given the ends. So she would have trouble filling the cans with all these little bits and pieces Laughs.. That’s how things were when they did it by hand. So, anyway, I guess that season finished and she didn’t know what to do. She asked my father, who was in the hospital, what to do and he suggested that she hire somebody and open up a Japanese restaurant. She would go to him every day to work out the menu for that day and she had a chef, I guess, and help. In that way, she was able to run the business and kept us Laughs. sheltered and fed, and then the internment started. But, anyway, as I was growing up many of my friends would go berry picking in the summer but my father wouldn’t let me go. So I ended up having to go to the sisters over at Dunlevy because there were quite a few children being looked after there. The parents were working in an area where there was no schooling. So there were many Japanese children actually living there all year. So if I went there, there were always friends to play with so I was there most of the time during the summer. That’s about it for my childhood, I guess.

Yoshiko, you are of what generation in your family?

Nisei, is second generation.

So can I ask where your parents were from in Japan?

My father is from Ehime-ken. What is it? What’s the name of the place? My mother is from Hiroshima. Would it be Iyomishima. I don’t know. Yeah, my mother is from Hiroshima and my father is from Ehime-ken.

Did your parents come over together or did they meet. . .

No, my father was here, hired to work at this restaurant, Yoshino.

I see.

It was quite a big restaurant. It took up the whole length of the, half a length of the street, I guess.

Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s big.

From Alexander to the laneway. It was quite a big restaurant. They would have big banquets there and concerts. I remember peeking around the corner, watching it.

Really? Oh, cool.

Yeah, he had performers from Japan. I remember those people dressed in those, whatever it’s called, white . . .

Oh, yeah, the Kabuki Theatre. Is it similar to it?

Yeah, I guess so. Not the theatre so much but . . .

Oh, the shamisen.

Shamisen, yeah. Those are the ones I watched, anyway. What else is there? Where are we now?

Oh, um, so your parents did not come over together you said?

Yes, my father went back to find a wife. When he first went back people were just very eager to marry him.

Really?

Yeah, he had all kinds of offers.

Eligible bachelor then. Laughs.

All of a sudden it stopped. He couldn’t figure out what it was and then rumor had gotten around that if you marry and go to Canada, they’re going to sell you. So it just stopped. Anyway, I guess he was ready to give up but one of his friends said, “No, there’s another girl I want you to meet.” So he went to meet this person and didn’t know she’s much too young. My mother still had that fold on her kimono.

Right. Okay, so quite young.

Yeah. “No, I can’t take her to Canada.” So he just refused. So he was going to come back and he was about to take a train back to where he was staying and my mother happened to be there at the station. So he asked her, “What are you doing here?” She says, “I’m going back home to my mother” because she was adopted into her sister’s family because they had no family. So she said, “I’m going back to my mother.” “Well,” my dad says, “Well, in that case I’ll marry you.” Both laugh. That’s how they met. So that was his proposal. Both laugh. Isn’t that funny?

Oh, it’s good. Laughs.

But, anyway, they had a happy marriage. So, where do we go from there?

Can you tell me what your home life was like a little bit?

Well, it was very stressful with my father being sick and, at a very young age, I had to start helping out my mother running errands. I would walk from Japan Town to Powell Street to pay the rent, up to the telephone company to pay the telephone bill, and back to BC Electric to pay the electric bill, and do all the shopping, and various things. On the weekends I would help clean up the place.

How old were you when this started?

I would say, about, thirteen or fourteen I guess.

You were talking about how you paid the bills and the rent and things like that. Were you the only one in your family, at the time, who could speak English?

Oh, no.

You took on added responsibility?

Eldest, took on . . .

You were the eldest.

My brother was a year younger, but because of the family situation in Japan he was sent over there to look after the family that my mother was adopted to. So he spent during the war years there and, this was Hiroshima, he was there when the bomb fell.

Wow.

Fortunately, he was called up, that day, by the military. So he didn’t go to work that day. I said, “How come you survived?” He said, “All the glasses of the houses around, they all broke,” but where he lived the window didn’t break.

Really?

So he survived. After everything settled, he ran to where he used to work and they were asking for help because there were people there with no skin on. He went through that horror.

Oh, god.

He said, “We had to eat the fish that was floating in the water.” My niece, Emi Morita, was doing research on his life. She is more knowledgeable of what he went through because she would really dig it out of him. She has a way of getting things out of a person. Laughs. So she would know more about his life than I would because my father didn’t want to hear about it at all. He just didn’t want to hear about the horrors. He passed away just three years ago. I went to Toronto to see him just before he passed away. I said to him “What do you think about the tsunami that just happened in Japan?” He says, “That is God’s will. That’s natural, whereas the atomic bomb is not.” So he made a difference there for himself which I never associated one with the other but that was his answer to me. Now, where are we on this?

Okay, so you had siblings. How many. . . You were the eldest, and then how many other siblings did you have?

I have two sisters and two brothers. My younger brother, Sandy, was born in Greenwood. Mary Jane Tako, she was also born in Greenwood.

Okay, you were the eldest which means you had a lot of responsibilities and you helped out.

Mhm.

You said that your home life was quite stressful but with regards to the culture of the home was it quite Japanese heavy or was it a combination of Canadian culture?

I would say my father was. . . No, we had both. Like, food-wise, we had both.

Both.

Mhm, because he had trained as a chef. His father died when he was really young. There were five of them. He had an elder sister. So my grandmother had sent him to Osaka to train as a chef when he was only about eight or nine, I think.

Wow.

So he spent all his life there. He, just, was allowed to go home once a year and he was given fifty yen or whatever for the year. If he didn’t behave, he didn’t get that. Laughs. Like he was like a child. Their son there, but he was training so he was fully trained as a top chef for wherever it was he trained. I never did find out the name of the place. So he grew up without a real family either.

So did he transfer those skills within the home as well before he was ill? Did he do most of the cooking or was it your mother or was it you who took over the cooking?

Uh, whoever was working. We had that and he just supervised but he never taught me. I would be chopping, I would be filling, I would be washing, and all of the little things, but he never taught me because he said, “I don’t want you to have to do this and if I teach you, you’re going to do it.” So he never taught me. I know the procedure of how everything is done and how it should be done right so you don’t poison anybody, you know. Laughs.

That’s important, yeah. Laughs.

Yes, you could easily make a person sick if you’re not careful.

Yeah.

Especially if you’re doing a big banquet for 300 or more.

Right.

Yeah, so, no. He says, “I’m not teaching you” but he did teach once in New Westminster at a Buddhist church and then he saw the result of what he had taught these women. He said it didn’t look like anything that he had taught them to do. He said so he’s made up his mind. He’s never going to teach older women how to cook because they change it. Laughs. So when the opportunity arose. . . He was a Catholic but the Buddhist church had a Japanese school there as well. I don’t know if you knew that.

No.

They were attracted by a lot of the students because they were learning how to write with the fude. What do you call that?

With the brush or whatever?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

But, anyway, they asked him to open up a class there. He says, “Yes, I will teach the young people how to do it, because when you teach a young person, they do it exactly the way they’re told.”

Interesting.

Yeah, so he was teaching them. Some of my girlfriends were attending and they were quite proud of themselves because you start by sharpening knives and doing the basics first.

I see. It’s pretty important to have those basics. They help out a lot, you know, when you start having to cook by yourself and things like that.

If you don’t know how to use a knife it’s just awful.

It’s all downhill from there, right? If you don’t know how to use the tool itself, yeah. I know sometimes, I now, you know, living on my own for a while now, the importance. . . I really understand the importance and value of having nice knives because it makes a huge difference with how you cook and prepare all sorts of things.

Any kitchen tools, you shouldn’t go for cheap. Buy the best you can afford because they’ll last you a lifetime.

Yeah, I know. You know, if you take care of them right you can have knives for decades.

I’m still using the one that I bought when I got married.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, that’s cool.

You know how it works. You know what you can do with it.

Yeah. Oh, that’s neat. What about your schooling. Where did you attend school?

Um, kindergarten was at St. Paul’s, the Catholic church. At the time, there were one at the Anglican Church, the United Church, and the Buddhist Church. There were four and my mother checked them all out and she felt that the Catholic church was the closest to her own religion. So that was where she sent me. After that, it was Strathcona and then, being Japanese, she didn’t want girls to be too well educated. Shouldn’t be, it’ll be just problems. I had a big fight with her to go to high school. Laughs.

Oh, you had to fight to go to high school.

I had to fight to go to high school.

Wow, and who won that battle?

I did. Both laugh.

Oh, you did. Both laugh.

You get .

Yeah. Laughs.

My husband really laughed when I said that.

Oh, that’s funny.

Oh, yes, we had a lot of battles. I guess I was too Canadian.

Too Canadian.

I knew how to stand up for myself even against my parents.

Why did your mother not want you to attend high school.

That was all it was. You’d create a problem for your mother-in-law.

Oh, for the future then?

Yeah, for the future.

I see.

You’re supposed to be obedient to your mother-in-law when you get married, right?

Right.

You remember. Laughs. Oh, god.

I think I fall more on your side then. Laughs. So your mother was thinking quite far ahead then?

Oh, yes.

About where you would be and who you would marry.

But she never pushed me because I didn’t marry until I was thirty-three. I was engaged once. He was a very nice fellow, very outgoing, ambitious, a perfect husband but he took me home to meet his family and they were farmers in the Okanagan, from way back. After staying there for a few days I realized that I will be living with them. That was going to be my home and that I would be taking over a lot of the responsibility of all the farm workers during the summer because she was showing me where all the dishes and everything, they had a separate dining area in one part of the house for all of the people to come and eat. His father said, “I can’t wait to have you make my breakfast.” Laughs.

Is that the straw that broke the camel’s back?

That did it because he had his own business and he had a dance band, which was very popular, and he was very politically active. I was a Catholic and he was a Protestant. It was four things against him. Laughs. So one day I had to tell him, “No, I just cannot do it. I can’t see it. It’s not fair to your mother.”

How old were you when that first engagement happened?

I guess that would be in my early twenties, I think.

Wow. So could you tell me what Powell Street was like when you were growing up before the war? You drew this amazing map, but for those who don’t know what it was like at the time, what do you remember?

What do I remember? We were kids and we knew who the bad kids were.

Did you?

Yeah, rumors fly. It’s a little town, you know?

Oh, so it was like a little community.

Even if you don’t know the person, you know they get a reputation.

I see.

When I was in grade seven or eight, I think, the song Margie was popular. Instead of Margaret they were calling me Marge. Every time the boys used to see me they used to sing that song, which would drive me up the wall. Even the small little boys were singing. Laughs. Anyway, it was good. I had my very close friends who are still very close friends with me.

Really?

Yeah. I skated a lot. I skated everywhere. I used to wear a pair of roller skates.

You used to roller skate to get around?

Oh, yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, I’ve never heard that before.

Yeah, when my dad was at VGH I would skate all the way. No, take the streetcar there because I was taking his dinner.

I see.

And skate home. That way I could buy a chocolate bar. So I knew all around the Yale town and all that because I used to skate up and down those streets.

Wow. What were your friends like? Did you have a mixture of Canadian and Japanese Canadian friends?

No, they were all Niseis like myself.

Did they do similar things to you or did they have. . .

Pardon?

Did they do similar things that you did or. . .

No, they were very. . . No, they weren’t like me. If we went to the beach they didn’t swim.

But you were out in the. . .

I would dog paddle but they didn’t do that. No, they were. . . I don’t know. I don’t know why they didn’t do all those things that I did. They did get on skates but there’s a street north of Alexander Street and there’s an American can company right along the railway tracks. So the street, there’s one whole block and another block. In those days they didn’t work in the evening so there was no traffic there. So we could just go from one corner to two blocks on skates. So that’s where we all used to meet at as teenagers.

Oh. So I just want to follow up on something that you said. You said that you were too Canadian when you were talking to your mother about going to high school. So would you say that you self-identified more as Canadian?

I would say so because when the war broke out in Europe they made an outfit for the air force. What would you call the women in the air force? Anyway, it was the same color, with a little hat. I made my mother buy it for me and I wore it.

Really?

Yeah. So, there you are. I guess, my girlfriend was learning how to play the koto but she wouldn’t go and play in the concert because that meant she had to wear a kimono and she refused to wear a kimono. I don’t know.

Did you do any of those activities, too? Did you practice the koto or. . .

No, I did a couple of years of piano but that didn’t last. I’m not very good at practicing.

Me too. Violin one year, switched off to flute, that was it. I wasn’t very successful. Not very musically inclined.

I wanted to learn to dance because I liked dancing and my father said, “Nope, if you’re any good at all it means working at night.” So that was off.

So you spent the evenings working at the restaurant then?

Not so much.

Not so much, hm.

No, we had to be back at our home by nine o’clock. There’s a nine o’clock gun at Sunny Park that booms at nine o’clock. Time to go home.

Time to go home?

Yeah.

Wow. What was your home like? Where did you and your family live? Was it a house, an apartment?

No, it was a rooming house. We had two rooms. One was a kitchen-living room and the bedroom, and a shared bathroom with two other single men there. All old people. I think one was a veteran, Mr. Naeko. I think he was a veteran. He would just sit there all day looking out the window, not much to see there. ███████ He says, “I tried to commit suicide and they put me in jail.” He must’ve been in an institution. So I don’t know what happened to him. The other, Mr. Taiko, was a fisherman. He would be off to Prince Rupert in the summer. So that’s where our home was.

So did you own that or were you renting?

No, we were renting it.

Renting?

Yeah, it was a . . . I don’t know what the original building would have been because the main floor had families. They were two room units, common water source, and toilet. Of course, we went to the bathhouse, ofuro. There’s a lot of ofuros. I love it.

Me, too. I went to a couple when I was back in Japan.

Oh, I wouldn’t miss it if I were there.

No? Laughs. It was pretty nice because you don’t have anything like that here in Canada, right?

Not anymore. We did have. I’ve got them all marked on there.

Oh, do you? Oh, good. I’ll check those out. I made sure to go to two.

But the one that I went to in Nepal and Japan was really wonderful.

Yeah, they’re almost like these little spas and boutiques now right?

Spas.

Yeah.

They even had one section for the handicapped.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Oh, that’s nice. Do you have any, like as you were growing up, did you have any items or toys that really stick out to you in your childhood? Any particular items that you were really fond of?

No, I don’t think so but when we were kids we would play house. We would make little dresses for our dolls, by hand, you know, sew it by hand. I guess there was a blouse that my mother didn’t wear for a while. Laughs. I remember it was a soft wool-coloured one.

Was it?

I thought it was pretty. Laughs.

And so what happened to that blouse?

You know what happened to it. My mother, because she wanted me to learn English, really started getting magazines for me, early, Good Housekeeping Magazine. So I got that every month. She wanted me to learn how to speak properly so she bought a radio for me. In those days, she got a secondhand one, of course. Maybe third hand, who knows, but it was one of those cabinet, but it had a lid with all the tubes. Well, you should never buy a radio with access to the innards. Laughs.

Oh, I see.

So I mixed the tubes around and it wouldn’t work. Laughs. So it would go back to the repair shop and get it repaired and still do it again. Laughs.

Oh, that’s funny.

She didn’t know that I was the problem.

It just sounds like you were more curious in some ways. Laughs.

So she bought another one with the little dial where the numbers were. The access was from the back and I never got into that one.

A little bit more kid proof in some ways. That’s funny. Now, Yoshiko, do you mind me asking what year you were born?

1925.

1925, so you were in your teens when Pearl Harbor happened?

Yes.

Do you remember that day in particular, Pearl Harbor?

Yes.

What do you remember?

I don’t know what time it was that it happened. It was a shock and I didn’t know what was going to happen if I went to school, the reaction I would get. The reaction from the class was worse when I went back to say goodbye to them. They were really upset that I was leaving but, anyway, when the war ended I was in Grand Forks working at the time. I didn’t know whether it was joy or sadness. It was just a mixed feeling.

Do you remember how the neighborhood reacted to Pearl Harbor? Do you remember talking to others about it?

Uh, no, because the neighbors were all Japanese. I think they were all upset.

Were they?

Yeah, that this happened and there’s nothing you can do. I mean, something has happened. Yeah.

So when the uprooting happened. . .

Pardon?

When the uprooting happened, when you were forced to leave, what did your family do?

We had time to prepare.

Did you?

Because we were in Vancouver.

Right.

It’s not like the people on the west coast and because I was at the church all the time, Father Benedict was a pastor there, he said, “There is nothing wrong with the Japanese people. I am not going to see them, the families, split up” because they were taking them away. So he went through the interior to find a place to take the. . . His intention was to take his own congregation and he was responsible for the Catholics in Steveston as well, they were the same order. So he was looking for a place to take us all as a group and he went to all the ghost towns and he ended up in Greenwood. I think I’ve got it written there.

He met Mr. McArthur. Ted McArthur was mayor there. At that time, the city was in financial crisis because the city clerk had falsified the accounts and stolen the money. He went to jail for that. I think he went. . . Mr. McArthur said he spent five years in jail. I think that’s what he said, but anyway he and Father Benedict got together and Mr. McArthur thought it was a good opportunity to fill up all the empty buildings and that would bring the people there. So that’s how come, and then the commission got the idea of using all these ghost towns like Kaslo and Sandon. Was that the only two? Oh, and New Denver. That’s how come we were relocated and they wanted my father, they called up my father to go to the road camp. He wasn’t strong enough to go and even lift a shovel. So I had to make arrangements to see the doctors that had operated on him. They took a whole lung out, you see. He had TB in the lung.

Yeah. That’s an intense operation.

Dr. Miyazaki, who had evacuated to Lillooet, was a good friend. He said, “Ka-chan, you’re going to die anyway. So, why don’t you try this new procedure that’s available at BGH. It’s on a trial basis.” So he made himself, my dad made himself a new suit to get buried in and on the day he was to go to the hospital he hired a taxi and we met around Stanley Park and said goodbye to him. So, where was I after coming back?

Father Benedict was looking for places for you.

Oh, yes. So I contacted the doctors that had operated on him, and the commission, and whoever else I needed to contact to get him off that list. So he was able to go with us.

So the whole family went to Greenwood then?

Yeah. That would be when I was only, what, fifteen or sixteen.

You talked about how your parents prepared beforehand, so what other preparations had they done prior to leaving?

Well, we sold what furnishing we could sell, like the chesterfields and the pianos and whatever. We were allowed a trunk each and a suitcase and a canvas bag, I think, each. So we went to buy a trunk for each of us and the biggest suitcase you can find. Everybody had that. It was a big paper suitcase. Anyway, we bought that and then we bought the biggest canvas bag that you could find. Laughs. So my dad, being in the food business, said, “We don’t know where we’re going so we have to take rice, and sugar, and salt.” The bottom of the trunks, one had rice in it, the other had sugar in it, and the other one had salt in it.

Wow.

So everybody had to help, when we got to Greenwood, hauling our trunks.

My God, it’s real heavy. Laughs.

I wonder why Morita’s trunks are so heavy. Laughs. Oh, dear.

Would you say, though, that the rice, the sugar, and the salt helped when you were going?

Yes.

Despite the labour to bring it over it was well worth it. Laughs.

When we were back here dad thought, “We don’t know where we’re going so we’re going to make food, enough to last us for three days.” He packed food for us to take on the train but we didn’t know. We’d never been on a train before and the heater is on the side of the train. Guess where the food was.

Oh, no. So the food. . .

It was well fermented by the time we figured. . .

Do you remember what your father made for that three day trip?

I have no idea. It would be something that would last.

Right. I remember when we spoke the first time in June, you had also mentioned that you broke a lot of the dishes at the restaurant.

Yes. At the restaurant, yeah.

Why did you. . . Whose idea was it to break the dishes?

My parents because you couldn’t sell it. It was all Japanese China. Oh, and the lacquered tray. You couldn’t break it so I had to burn it. We just had a small stove in the kitchen. I had to break it all up and burn it in there. The new sets of china that was never used, we packed it in a. . . I guess it would have been tea boxes. The people that had the Tairuku Nipo, the Continental Times, he was a friend of my dad. So he said, “Ka-chan, just bring it over to his place and we’ll store it for you.” So he stored it there but they were stolen. You know the big sushi platters and whatever?

Yeah.

Yeah, all those were gone. But, anyway, I broke a lot of dishes, china and those little dishes.

Do you remember what you put in your suitcase or what your family brought besides the rice, salt, and sugar?

Um, my suitcase, I think I had my high school annual and the photo albums we had. My mother put our money. . . They had clay little things that you could put together, the seven drawers.

Oh, yes.

It was hollow. So she rolled up all the money into little rolls and she put it together. The Japanese doll, we had one with a straw inside. You know, where the body is. So she took out all of the straw and put the money in. She told me never to let this one go.

So you carried one of the dolls with you?

Yeah, I was responsible to make sure that doll was always there. If something happens, she said, “Make sure you hold onto this.” When we got to Greenwood they’d said, “Well, anybody that can support themselves, you know, you can support yourself with your own money.” Of course, we didn’t have much but we still had a little bit. So we broke one of the drawers and lived on that for a while. Laughs. After all the drawers were gone and it was just the doll left and everybody else was being fed by the commission. My mother thought, “We should have done that!” Laughs. So anyway, one day the Bambini’s, they’re old timers in Greenwood, they had a farm in Anaconda, that’s outside the city limits, they came around selling live chicken. I guess it was, maybe, the end of summer. So in this particular house it had a chicken coup, a shed, and an outdoor toilet. So instead of killing the chickens we kept them and that started the chicken business for my father, producing eggs, getting the chickens from, I think it was Cloverdale or somewhere. Anyway, they’re all in there, I think.

When you left to go to Greenwood, how did you feel about the whole situation of having to leave? Do you remember how you felt about that?

I don’t think I had any feelings. All I remember is it was very uncomfortable because it was an overnight trip and we had to sit up all the way. There wasn’t even room to stretch your leg. No, I don’t recall how I felt. I just remember the nice cold water that they had on the train to drink. That’s all I remember of discomfort because it was just one of those seats with the woven cover.

Oh, I see.

Do you know what I mean? Have you seen them?

Yeah.

Yeah that was the seats. No, I can’t really remember.

Did your parents ever talk about how they felt about leaving Vancouver?

No.

No?

It was something. . . I think the Japanese are very obedient to officials. Shikata ga nai is what the saying is, isn’t it?

Mhm.

There’s no revolt or anything. The Japanese that were married to Caucasians didn’t have to go. There was Dr. Kusahara and Dr. Namura and. . . We could not understand that.

Were these women who were married to Caucasian men or men who were married to Caucasian women?

Um, Japanese men that were married to Caucasian women.

Were able to stay.

Mhm. Anybody that was married to a Caucasian. I don’t know them all but they didn’t have to go.

Was there anyone who was not Japanese Canadian who helped you prepare or spoke against what was happening? You had mentioned Father Benedict as somebody who was trying to help you with the transition.

After we came back and when we came back we used to go back to the church to meet one another. The church said they didn’t want us to be banded together again.

Oh, really?

They wanted us to all go to our own individual parishes because they didn’t want the same problem that we had. So that was broken up so we don’t get a chance to meet anybody now. I very seldom see another Japanese, or Nisei, or whatever unless I go to one of the events.

Right, that’s interesting.

In fact, Father Benedict was in an institution because they interrogated him.

Oh, really?

Yeah. “Why are you doing this?” because he was really trying to help us.

Oh, I see.

So he finally said. . . He told us this. “I told him that. . . I didn’t know what to say so I told him I’m Japanese.” So they locked him up. It was Father. . . Oh, the Archbishop Duke that finally got him out of there and he had to promise never to be in contact with the Japanese again.

Really? Wow.

So he was sent way up north to an Indian reserve, First Nations reserve.

Wow.

He looked at us at the gathering that I had at the house and he says, “I wasn’t crazy.” All that time he thought he was crazy because they made him think that he was crazy. It’s sad. I think that’s the saddest of anything that happened in my. . .

It sounds like he was really devoted.

Oh, he was very devoted. He spoke Japanese. He learned how to write Japanese on his own. He could just tell you why “tree” is written this way and why this is. He went into all that detail. Now, none of us know that. How the words are formed but he knew all that. I don’t know where he studied that but he did it all on his own. Sister Mary Stella, she spoke Japanese. She was an Anglican but she wanted to work with the Japanese. She spoke Japanese. I guess she studied on her own, too. So in order to help the Japanese she became a sister. She was the only one of the nuns that could go all on her own. The nuns had to go in pairs in those days.

Do you want to take a break?

It’s okay. It’s up to you.

Oh, no. It’s up to you. We can keep going or. . .

Um, if you want. . . Oh, it’s not quite ready yet.

Yeah, we’ll stop, maybe, in a few minutes and then start over again. How about. . . Now let’s talk about Greenwood a little bit. You said your family or your father started getting into the chicken business, with eggs, what did your mother do at the time?

Just helped him.

So it was a group effort?

Mom and I had to do most of it.

Yeah.

Yeah, the labour part, mom and I had to do it. When we first arrived in Greenwood we were put into one of the buildings, but dad couldn’t sleep on a straw mat on a bunk bed. You know, it’s just a bunk bed and a little table, a little larger than this, two stools. That was our accommodation once we moved in. It wasn’t even the size of this area here. The bunk bed, table by the window, and two bar stools. Two of us would sit on the bed. It was a common kitchen. So he stayed at the hotel because he couldn’t sleep on that bed. So they found a house for us way out in the outskirts of town. It was a log house. In those days the farmers just let their animals out. There was no fencing or anything. So the next morning you’d see a cow looking through the window.

Oh, god. Good morning. Laughs.

The third day, we were getting bites. We couldn’t figure out what so we put water in a tin can and put it on the legs of the beds. We didn’t know what was biting us so we went through the house and it was an old bed where it was living there before. They don’t die.

So were they bed bugs?

Bed bugs, in the bed headboard. So we burnt that. We moved out of there and they moved us into another house that’s empty. Same thing again, about the third day. So we thought, “Oh, we brought it over from the other house.” Then we started looking for where they’re coming from so we tore off all the wallpaper, about five layers of wallpaper. We couldn’t find it. We finally found it on the railing of the steps going upstairs, v-joints, and they were in there. So we showed it to the doctor. He said, “You can’t live there.” Some people are not bothered by them, you know? But they like me. Laughs.

I’ve heard though, from other people, they’re quite a nuisance. Especially when they get bad.

Yeah. So we had to move from there and then there was a couple just moving to Rock Creek from Greenwood so we said, “Well, guaranteed there’s no bedbugs there because they are still living there.” So we got that house. It was nice. We had a real nice neighbor, Mr. Price. The first day he comes over with all kinds of greens.

Wow.

So he was really nice. That was really a surprise, to have a nice neighbor.

Was Mr. Price a farmer?

No, he was a retired seaman.

Oh, I see.

Yeah, his wife had rheumatoid arthritis so she was always sitting up and then he would have to take her to bed. She would be sitting up in bed. So he was really good to us, too. So we started digging to make a garden. We didn’t have all the tools. Laughs. We would go over to borrow his. Of course, his tools are always old so we ended up buying new tools for him every time we broke his shovel. Laughs. Anyway, we got our own too but it was funny that we replaced all his tools. Laughs.

So you started gardening as well then?

Oh, yes. And with the chicken. The chicken that we had bought from Bambini’s, she wanted to sit so mom went up the hill there and found a nice place for the chicken to be comfortable, made a bed for her. So we had chicks. Laughs. That started it.

Is that how you spent most of your time in Greenwood then, farming and working with the eggs?

Yeah, the chicken. My father started making oboro, that’s put in the sushi. The red thing.

Yeah.

He had spent his whole lifetime perfecting it.

Really?

Yeah. You can’t buy it now. Nobody has it.

So he was working on. . .

On it and he perfected it and he didn’t give that recipe to anybody but I spent hours stirring the thing.

Really?

Yeah. I remember making it in Vancouver. He had a special pan made for that. Yeah, we started canning it. Canning the oboro that was the only way we could start selling it across Canada.

Across Canada?

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

And he made komoboku and satsuma-age and sent it all across Canada without freezing it.

What?

Yeah.

So quite a, you know. . . Would you say it was a successful business?

I would say so, yeah, because we were the only ones doing it. Then we started selling to Slocan from Greenwood because there was a Japanese population there, not a big one. Then when we moved to Vancouver we were selling in Seattle, too. I can’t remember the name of the shop.

Now were you attending school at the same time or were you out of school permanently?

Yeah, I went to school for two years I guess because the sisters set up a school right away for us because we couldn’t go to the public school. So the fire hall was available. So the sisters set up kindergarten and all the elementary grades. Because a lot of us had attended a commercial high school, they ended up starting a commercial high school there. So I finished my school there which was really good, really good grounding. What else?

Do you remember the other families and people in Greenwood at the time? Did you encounter a lot of other Japanese Canadian families? Did you make any friends at that time?

Well, the girls at. . . We were all friends, very close friends because some of them had been in the same school before.

Oh, I see. Do you know what other families were doing to support themselves? It sounded like you guys had created quite a niche. . . Your father had created a niche business for himself. Do you know what other families were doing at the time in Greenwood?

Um, basically, they were in forestry, sawmill, was in midway. What was their name? He’s from . .. I think he was from Grand Forks. He started making boxes for the Okanagan fruit in Greenwood. He started a little mill. I believe because he couldn’t start his own business under his own name I think he had Randy Sadner, who’s in Christina Lake, back him up. He had a successful business there in Greenwood. People in Christina Lake also did the same thing using Randy for, I guess it was a sawmill or whatever. What else is there?

Did you correspond with anybody outside of the camp or did your family correspond with anybody?

Oh, that was the highlight for us when the train came in.

Oh, really?

Yes.

How so?

The, uh. . .

Oh, thanks.

We would look for mail. We were writing like crazy to everybody that we knew.

Really?

Yeah. At first the commission was just calling out names but then later the post office, um, I guess they must have paid for the boxes. Even then we would all rush to the post office when the train came in.

Oh, I see. Oh, thanks. Maybe we’ll stop the tape here for now and then that way we can relax a little bit. Tape paused then resumed after a break. Okay, so we were talking about writing letters to others.

Oh, yes.

Who would you write letters to?

All my girlfriends.

Okay.

And boyfriends, and some boys that I don’t even know. Kyla laugh. I would say, “Sorry, I don’t know you” and I’d send it back.

Oh, you’d receive letters from boys you didn’t know. Laughs.

Yeah, or my girlfriends’ brothers.

Oh, that’s funny. Laughs.

And it was so exciting when it’s blacked out, censored. They’re all censored.

Really?

Yeah.

Did you have the pen or cut out portions of the letters?

No, it’s a black pen.

Oh, okay. Were you able to ever read?

No.

Oh. Yeah.

Well, what would kids’ letters contain?

Yeah but they were still censored.

But they were read.

Oh, god.

I guess they must have had fun reading some of them.

No, kidding, right? Could you imagine if that was your job, was just to read this children’s letters and, yeah. Good point though, what would you have to censor?

So that was an exciting time during the day to see the train come in with your mail.

Now, what else was. . . For the rest of Greenwood, how long did you stay there?

I left Greenwood in ’52.

So you were there for, oh, quite a. . .

I was in Grand Forks for two, three years.

Why did you decide to move to Grand Forks?

Well, the job came open and my dad didn’t want me to go out east. So, at least Grand Forks is not too far. So I went to work there.

What did you do in Grand Forks?

I worked in the laundry. Laughs.

Yeah, tell. . .

And helped set up the trays in the kitchen.

Yeah, I mean we talked about it briefly about the laundry duties before. So, what would you do? You were talking about how you had to hang dry everything.

Oh, yes and then bring it in and put it through the ironer. Yeah, and had a certain way of folding everything.

Did you?

Yeah.

The Laundromat, was it like a town Laundromat that everyone brought their stuff at?

No, it’s a big wooden tumbler. It was really big. The width would be about the size, the width of that stand for the television.

Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s really large. How long did you work there?

Two or three years, I guess. I can’t remember. Another job came open in a grocery store in Greenwood so I jumped at that. Oh, the reason why I went to Grand Forks is when Sandon closed up. They closed the hospital there.

I see.

The nurse there trained the girls as nurse’s aides. So the nurse and the girls came from that hospital to Grand Forks Hospital. It was a private hospital. Dr. Kingston owned it.

Okay.

So, I guess the opening came and my parents heard about it. So I got the job and I worked there. It was a nice community, Grand Forks.

Was it?

Yeah. The United Church had a Japanese minister there so there was a group there that had things, you know, activities going on. Then I came back to Greenwood and worked in a grocery store and then one of my girlfriends worked at city hall and she was pregnant so she told me to apply for that job, so I got in. I did quite well there. The mayor said, “Margaret, I want you to learn everything about the city, how to run the city office so that you can go anywhere and apply to any municipality and fit in and know what you’re doing.” So it was a good experience. It was just myself and the city clerk.

Wow. Did you end up working in. . . Did you stay in that line of work for the rest of your life?

No, I came out to Vancouver in ’52 and went to the employment office. At that time, there weren’t that many openings for Niseis. There was one girl working at the unemployment office. How many was there? I think there was two. Yeah, there were two working at the income tax office on Thurlow Street. Thurlow and Georgia, I think it was. So they told me to go there, to the income tax office, and I went upstairs and wrote a test. They gave me. . . It was income tax time, so they gave me a three month temporary job there. I think it was $150 a month. Oh, I was getting $100 at the city office in Greenwood.

$100 a month?

Yeah.

Wow.

You know, the bank came once a week there. So I had all the banking and the money handling for the West Kootenay Power, all the other things that go with it. Anyway, I passed the test and was able to get a steno-2 position. So I worked for. . . What happened was, three months temporary job was opening at twelve o’clock on the last day of April, I guess, wasn’t it?

Yes.

They seal all the mail. Some people drop it through the door. They seal all the mail and then on the first they start opening it and putting it all together in a certain way. So there’s a whole bunch of us doing that. I was there for three months for that and then they asked me to stay another three months. So I was assigned to three collectors. In the meantime, they asked me to go through the dead-file with the Japanese people because I guess they didn’t know how to find them because they didn’t know the surname and the first name.

Oh, right.

So, they had me sort out the file there so I guess a lot of people got a call. Laughs. Then they wanted me to do the Chinese and I said, “I can’t do the Chinese.” So the three months I was typing all these collectors, debtors, and I’d be taking notes from the collectors and it goes on and on and on, one after another, so I’m almost asleep. When I know that I can’t stay awake I would excuse myself and go for a drink of water. Laughs. Those are funny things. After the. . . I went through the corporate files, too, because they were in a mess. I straightened them out. So they called me in to ask if I’m willing to go on the permanent staff. So I asked what that involved. So he said, “Well, the pay is $125 a month.” I said, “In order to go on the permanent staff I have to go from $150 to $125?” “Well,” he said, “It’s a privilege to be asked to go on the permanent staff because you’re on permanently your position becomes obsolete, you get another position.” I said, “No, I’m not taking it.” “That $25 is not even going to buy me another pair of shoes to come to work,” I told him. So I said, “I’m leaving.” I left and I went upstairs to take another test and passed that again. So this time I had a chance to go to Shaughnessy Hospital or the meteorological office at the airport. Oak Street is kind of hard to go from Kitsilano to Oak. Working at the airport, it sounded more exciting so I took that job and I worked there until I got married. I went as a steno, and then they asked me if I want to work as a tele-typist. So they trained me for that. That’s where I worked.

You said that you moved back to Vancouver, eventually, after being away for, it sounds like about, approximately ten years. Why did you and your family decide to go back to Vancouver?

Well, we always thought that living in Greenwood was just a temporary thing. It never was home. You know what I mean? Home was Vancouver to us, for me, anyway. I’m sure my dad says, “Why should we spend our one life that we have where we’re not happy?” Because it’s cold in the winter.

Was it?

Really cold, yeah. Yeah, the first year it was thirty-below.

Oh, god.

We just had wet wood to burn. It was really cold. The water pipes would freeze. Just think of going outside to the bathroom. Laughs.

To the outhouse. Oh, dear.

Anyway, so Greenwood, we were there but it was never home. So, yeah, my dad figured well. Oh, and when everybody was signing up to go to Japan they offered us the fare to Japan plus $200 each spending money. My dad called me back from Grand Forks, I was in Grand Forks at the time, and said, “Sign this.” I said, “What is it?” “We’re going to Japan.” I said, “I’m not going.” He says, “Never mind, we’re going. Sign here.” I said, “No, I’m not going.” It was a big battle.

So your parents originally wanted to go to Japan.

Yes.

Oh, wow.

Well, so, I said, “No, I’m not going.” They were arguing with me and couldn’t understand why I was going against their wishes. Then my younger sister said, “Well, if sister’s not going I’m not going either.” So that fixed it. Laughs.

Siblings start to band together, right?

Oh, yeah. Laughs. In the meantime, when things got better and I heard that my brother could come back to Canada, I applied for him to come back.

How was the transition to going from being in Greenwood and Grand Forks to coming back home? Was it a difficult transition or was it rather easy?

No, I went to Pitman School of Commerce, I guess it was called. I took a little refresher course to bring up my shorthand. In those days, when you were learning shorthand you had to be able to be fast enough to be a court clerk. That was the aim, that you’re supposed to be able to type at a certain speed. I’m not that good but I was able to get a job as a steno.

What about finding a place to stay when you guys came back?

Having a little business like raising chickens for eggs and making oboro and kamaboko and stuff, and yokan. We used to make those little boxes by hand. My dad used to buy the ends of the lumber from the sawmill and then he bought a little table saw and he could make little boxes and we would nail it together. He made the three yokan. We sent that across the country, too. My dad said, “In a place like Greenwood, if you want to save X amount of money it’s quite easy because there’s nowhere else to spend it other than your life, what you spend for your daily expenses.” So we had enough to pay it all on the house. It’s still there, Eighth and Collingwood.

Really?

Yeah my sister lives there.

Oh, does she?

Yeah.

Wow.

It was only $16,000. The monthly payment was $60 a month.

Oh, my god. Wow.

We still have it. Can you imagine what that’s worth right now? It’s in Kitsilano.

Yeah, a highly coveted area. So your sister’s still at that house then?

She’s still there, yeah.

Wow.

She’s thinking of moving and selling the house but there’s too many memories. I think it’s hard for her to get rid of everything.

Right. When you were away in Greenwood, what did you miss most about Vancouver and your home?

The smell of the ocean, the call of the seagulls. The seagulls was just home. Right now I hate them because they’re all over the place. Laughs. They put droppings on my car. Yeah, that was it. The smell of the ocean and the seagulls is what I missed most because we had a store in Burnaby, Jim and I, for thirteen years. It was supposed to be three years. We started looking through the interior for another business. I thought “God, I’m going to miss those seagulls again.” Laughs. We ended up not buying it so that was fine.

So the ocean and the seagulls.

Yeah.

Yeah, I find walking through Steveston though, those seagulls add a nice ambiance to the whole neighborhood. Laughs. I did another interview with a gentleman and I did some stuff outside with him. So we went outside by the water and then when I listen to the tape back when I was at home, the first thing you can hear are the seagulls in the back just going nonstop. I kind of like it.

I know, sometimes we’re talking on the phone to our family in Connecticut and we have the window open and we usually call after we finish dinner, just before they go to bed, with the windows open and at the summertime the seagulls are cawing outside. So he tells us, I guess some of his friends were there, he says, “What’s that?” We tell him we have a seaside home. Laughs.

Yeah, they’re loud. Very loud. That’s funny.

At least they don’t attack you like crows do.

That’s true. Yeah, crows can get quite aggressive. That’s funny. So you worked up until, you said, you met your husband. So how did you meet your husband and. . .

I met my husband way back in Greenwood when I was working at the grocery store.

Oh, okay.

And he’s ten years older.

Okay.

I guess it was on Sunday. I was coming back from church and I was walking through town and my boss, Mr. Weatherly, called me into the store. He said, “There’s a gentleman here selling Japanese products.” He asked me if I would take time to come in to speak to him. So I went in and I met Jim. Of course, he’s ten years older and I’m just a young twenty year old. I thought, “Oh, well.” I just thought he was a married man or whatever, you know. I gave him the orders. It was for ochawan made in the states. He had other products. He had started a little business within a Chinese store in Toronto for the Japanese people. He started bringing in all these things in from the states. He went across to all the ghost towns and whatever. I happened to meet him there. The next day I get a letter from him from Grand Forks. He didn’t communicate with me but he was already out of town and he wrote to me. All our connection was through the business. My dad got him to order content.

So after I left the store we were still ordering from him. And what happened? In the meantime I got engaged to somebody else and then broke that up. Laughs. We had no contact. After I came back to Vancouver, I don’t know how he found out I was there, but I had a call from him. So we went out on a date. We went to the theatre and had strawberry shortcake and coffee, I think. He brought me home and that was it. I didn’t see him for years and years. Then all of a sudden I get another call, in ’58 I guess it was. So he says, “This is Jim.” I said, “Jim? Jim who?” I said, “There’s lots of Jims” Laughs. I gave him a real bad time.

I like that answer. “Jim who?” Both laughs. That’s great.

Anyway, he came to pick me up and he didn’t come in the house. He waited in the car expecting me to just get in and go with him. I said, “No, you’re coming in the house to meet my parents before we go out.” He wouldn’t move. I said, “Okay, if you don’t meet. . .” I said, “Anybody that takes me out, and my parents are home, they come in to meet them before I go out.” So he had a choice. So he had to come in. We went to a movie, I think. Then he brought me home. Then right away he asked me to marry him. I said yes. By that time I was ready to settle down anyway. He said, “If I’d have known that you were going to say yes, I would have asked you the last time.”

Aw.

I said, “If you asked me that time I would have said no.”

Laughs. Aw.

So we had a happy marriage for fifty-three years.

You stayed in Vancouver the whole time?

We had our business in Burnaby after we got married.

Yeah, what was this business that you two. . .

A grocery business.

Oh, grocery business. Wow.

It’s where Lloyd Mall is right now.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. They wanted our property, too, but we didn’t sell. They just dug around us. The kids were playing down below when they were digging and. . . Pause I wonder where it’s gone.

What were you looking for?

You know the old soapstone grinder?

Yeah. You have one of those?

Part of it.

Oh, part of it.

I don’t know where it’s gone.

Oh.

The kids brought it up from down below. There must’ve been a settlement there before.

Oh, I see. So you. . .

They went down, about, fifty feet.

Oh, god.

Yup. Directed toward someone else in the room. Do you know where that stone went to? That grinding stone? It used to be there but it’s not there.

Background noise. Response too faint.

You brought it up.

I can't remember that.

So this is what you found- the kids found then?

Yeah.

Oh, it’s almost like a pestle and mortar.

It is.

Yeah.

Part of it.

Oh, neat.

That’s the top of it.

Yeah. Oh, cool. So you owned this business for thirteen years?

Yeah.

Wow. After that what did you and your husband do?

He was looking for another business. He wanted to operate a mobile home park. So we were looking for property all over. We nearly went to Cranbrook. We went to. . . The watery they were using for that property belonged to the property above them. The construction company owns the property. The builder of the mobile home park owns the property above. So if they decided not to give us that water you would have been stuck there. So on the last day we just backed out of that deal. After that he got into building prefab houses. So he was traveling to Japan to help them set up the business. Of course, this was just the beginning of things so the company fell apart. I can’t remember what he was doing, more or less something to do with Japan. He really didn’t get into much after that.

Okay. Can we talk about your husband a little bit and his experience with the war and his status as a UBC student and his fish boat?

That would be available from, I don’t know what his first name was, Yoshizawa. Do you know him?

Sounds familiar.

He did the video or film on him.

Wasn’t that Kenji Yoshizawa? I don’t know.

No, he had a Spanish name because he’s not supposed to be Yoshizawa but because he didn’t know his father’s side of the family and Mr. Yoshizawa, the grandfather, was so close to him he changed his name to Yoshizawa, legally.

Oh, I see.

He says, “I’m more Yoshizawa than anything else.” So he just changed it.

So your. . .

But if you want to know something about him I’m willing to talk about it.

Yeah. So he was interned as well? Was he?

Yes. He was. . . When they had the Japanese at Hastings Park, he worked there for a while as a teacher. After that he went to Kaslo and he taught there, too. After that he had an opportunity to go out east as a house boy. For somebody that’s never done anything to do with this. . . Laughs. After all, he was the eldest son. Laughs.

I see.

But I guess he helped his dad a lot and he said, after a few weeks he came to a mutual understanding with the owner, with the lady. He said, “This is not working so he left the job.” Laughs.

Oh, dear.

He had a cousin in Toronto, Shia Ozawa, who had grown up with Jim’s family because her parents and some of her siblings had died in an earthquake. They were. . . The father was an Anglican, I don’t know whether it’s a minister or something to do with the church, but something in the Anglican church.

Okay.

So I think the Anglican church helped him and, I guess, contacted the Hasegawa’s. So she came over here and she was supported by Jim’s family. So he moved to Toronto and lived with them. He tried to get back into school. He wanted to go into dentistry and was not able to get in because the first choice was the military and then it was the women. So he thought, well, why waste time? He just gave up going to school. Of course, his mother was very upset. She told me that she wept. She went into the shed and wept for three days. She was so upset that he had given up. But, anyway, that’s all I know, I guess.

So Jim was a student at the University of British Columbia when he was forced to leave?

Mhm. He was also in the UNTD, the military.

Oh, okay.

Okay. He said he was called in and told to remove his shoes discreetly. That was it. He had no use for Japan because he was attending osede when they were called in. Foreign students were all called in and said, “If you want to go back home, you have to go back now. Otherwise you won’t be able to.” So he came back on the last ship. Then he went to UBC and this happened again. He used to tell me, “I don’t know who I really am. I’m not Japanese. I’m not Canadian.” That’s how he ended his life. He never knew where he really belonged. That’s sad, sad situation because I know what I am. I know I’m Canadian. I’m nowhere near Japanese. Some of my friends are more Japanese than I am.

But for him he never found his sense of self.

Well, would you after what happened?

No. It’s extremely difficult.

And losing everything. They had property in Queens’s borough because his father had a ship building business, not ship, boat. He had switched to building pleasure boats instead of fish boats because half the time he never got paid from the fishermen. If the season was bad you didn’t get any money.

Oh, god. Right.

That’s what he said. He said, “My father was the only Japanese builder that could read the blueprint.” So he was able to take on the jobs.

So they lost property as well as the boats that they had?

Yeah, Jim had a boat. His father had built him a boat. Jim lost that, too.

Now, is this the boat that is now sitting in the Sydney Harbor?

No, that was built for. . . Oh, what’s his name? I should bring you the picture of the boat.

Yeah, I’d love to see it. Yoshiko goes to find the picture. That’s a beautiful boat. Yoshiko steps away to grab more photos. Just for the interview, Yoshiko is grabbing photos of her husband’s old boats.

I’d taken some of the pictures out and never put them back in because I was doing a collage.

Oh, okay. Oh, my god. Look at these photos.

This was the two boat houses that they owned.

Wow.

Those are the pictures.

Oh, my god. These photographs are beautiful.

I’m sorry I took them apart. That was his car, I guess.

Oh. Wow.

I was going to put them all together for you but. . .

Oh, these are lovely photos though.

This is his cousin, Roger.

Okay.

Roger Obata.

Oh, yeah.

He graduated at UBC as an engineer, couldn’t get a job here. So his mother took him to Japan to see if he could find work there and he said that it was worse in Japan than it was here.

Was it?

Yeah, because he wasn’t Japanese. You see?

Mhm.

So he went out east. So he was already out in Montreal when the evacuation started.

I see. Did you and your husband ever talk about the evacuation and what happened?

No.

No.

Um, it’s not something that we talk about. This is David Shozaki. He was also at UBC and also in the military.

Wow.

This is Paul.

Oh, god, cute little outfit.

Well, I used to make them.

Did you?

Yeah, that one for Marie.

Oh, god.

This is his dad’s funeral in Lillooet.

Mhm. When the honorary degrees came out in 2012, how did you feel about that ceremony?

Well, I was very sad.

Yeah.

Because of the fact that I knew how Jim felt about his nationality and everything. He didn’t want to have anything to do with it because he was slighted to begin with. He wasn’t going to go. So I told Marie, I said, “Never mind. I’ll just tell him we’re going for a nice drive.” and change his clothes, get him in the car, and just bring him.

Laughs. Surprise him, yeah.

And put him in a wheelchair.

Right. So he wasn’t really interested in attending?

He was determined not to go but once he’d get there. . . He had slight dementia, so once you’re there he’ll be okay. He’ll be okay once he sees his friends there.

Right.

So I told Marie, “Never mind. I’ll bring him.” Laughs. She was so determined that he show up. So I said I’ll bring him but he passed away just before that.

Right, wow.

I think if he had been there I think he would have been okay.

Mhm. Would you say that the internment and the uprooting affected your husband quite a bit?

Yes.

Yeah.

Because of all the prior things that’s happened.

Right.

More so having to end his education and so he had to change his course. It was very upsetting for his mother because she tried so hard.

Right, and then you were mentioning before that. . .

Pardon?

When you mentioned before that he had decided not to continue his studies, that was really difficult for him.

When we were married I said, “If you want to go back to school I’m willing to go to work and see you through.” He said, “No, it’s too late.”

Because by this time he was ten years older than you so he was in his early forties.

Mhm.

I see.

Yes, I was thirty-three and he was forty-three.

Mhm.

So, what else?

I’ve got a few wrap up questions to finish up the interview. You know, talking about how the war affected your husband, would you say that the internment and the uprooting had an effect on your life?

Um, yes, yes, definitely. My whole lifestyle would be different if we were still living in Japan Town because our job opportunities were really limited. Going to a commercial high school and learning all these things and knowing that you’re not going to have an opportunity to use it. . . Can you imagine you not being able to use what you’ve learned because of restrictions? You know, the barriers are all there all the time. Not only was I one of the early ones to work for the federal government, my friend Peter Neemy graduated in pharmacy and he was able to get his internship or whatever it’s called because Mr. George Shaw I think his name was, he had the Powell Street drugstore on Powell Street and Dunlevy on the corner there. His customers were always Japanese so he was able to get in there to get his internship. So he was the first pharmacist to work in BC. Later he was able to work for Cunningham’s. After that, he started his own business right here in Steveston on Seafair, Number One and Francis, he opened up a pharmacy there. I believe he had two others in Richmond. Of course, now he’s retired but he was the first one. I know of architects that have graduated that couldn’t work as an architect because they couldn’t article anywhere but Conny Inouye, one of my girlfriends’ friend, he was working for Dominion Bridge, when they were building the Granville Street Bridge, as a labourer. I guess they found out that he’s an engineer so he was able to get in there. I imagine he would be the first one. So a lot of the people, that’s five years younger than myself, I think, they were the ones that broke through. One of my girlfriends’ daughter was the first one to work as a hairdresser at Woodward’s. They tried her out and she worked out. After that they started hiring Japanese. One of my girlfriends was working for Woodward’s, just looking after the Japanese customers that came in that couldn’t speak English. She got in there. The Chinese girl that went to school with me in Strathcona, she was the first Chinese to work for Eaton’s in the department. So those are the years when things started to change.

Did the war have an effect on your other siblings as well? I know your brother was significantly affected.

Oh, my sister went to Mr. Oriko who was principal at the high school in Greenwood. He changed my sister’s education by allowing her, in grade eleven, to take grade eleven and part of grade twelve courses. In grade twelve she took up part of twelve and thirteen. In that way she had enough credits to get into normal school which was a teacher training school in Victoria. So she was able to get in as a teacher in classes there and all she had to do was make up the credit to be fully qualified. It happened that Mr. Oriko, who was principal in Greenwood, happened to be a principal at one of the high schools in Richmond and my sister had applied for a job in Richmond, I guess, and they referred to Mr. Oriko to see if he knew her. Of course, he vouched for her. So she would be, I think, the first Nisei to teach in a public school.

Wow.

Yup.

When you. . .

So things were quite different in those days.

Yeah.

Because even if you had a degree in teaching, you weren’t able to teach in a public school.

Right. What about the Japanese Canadian community? With what you noticed when you came back, how had the community changed after everything that had happened?

Well, the only way. . . Everybody was scattered, so the only way you can get into contact with one another is attending different churches, I think.

So churches were used as an avenue to reconnect?

I think so, yeah. We had connected at our church but the archbishop didn’t want us to be connected, that we should blend into the area that we’re in.

Mhm. Even today, do you have any feelings about the current Japanese Canadian community? Is it still quite blended now?

Oh, yes, yes. I think the majority of them are blended. Yes, they are. Like yourself.

Mhm. What about sharing your memories with your family? Were you and your husband quite open about your past experiences with your children?

No, I don’t think they know other than the fact that I made that for Yoshiko.

Right.

Even then I don’t think they will read it.

Right, so it wasn’t a topic that you had talked about openly?

No. So they’re quite agreeable that I do this so that they would have it, too.

Yeah, they’re quite happy to hear that you are doing the interview.

Because it’s not something you talk about.

No. It’s not common to just sit down and go through your life story.

No, they’re not interested. Laughs.

Although Rob seems really interested in capturing your story.

He seems to be, yes.

Your other sons and daughters are?

Marie is married to Henry whose parents immigrated to Canada from Yugoslavia. So they’ve been through the war.

Quite a bit, yeah.

Especially the mother. I think she’s been in a camp.

Oh, wow.

But she doesn’t talk about it. It’s one of those things you don’t talk about.

Mhm.

So they tend to be more, I would say, well, I guess. . . I don’t know. I can’t say which way they’re going but they’re Canadians. Yup.

Mhm. Now, just to wrap things up, when you reflect on your life now and everything that happened, especially the war and the internment and the uprooting, how do you feel about that when you reflect on it

Well, the internment, during my internment I learned a lot.

Did you?

I think that has made me who I am today and because I’ve had to help my parents so much, in every way, I think it’s made me a stronger person and, I don’t know, I’m not bragging but it sounds like it, doesn’t it?

No, no, not at all.

I’ve learned to stand up for myself. Let’s put it that way, yeah.

Yeah.

No, I think the whole of my life has made me who I am.

Yeah, and for those who will be listening to this tape because, as you know, your interview along with many others will be housed in an archive for future Canadians to listen to about what happened. Do you have a message for future Canadians or for your grandchildren about what happened, in the future? Do you have anything to share?

Um, well, all you can do is do the best you can under the circumstances, right? What else can I say?

No, thank you. That was great.

Yeah.

Thank you.