Charles "Chuck" Hachiro Tasaka, interviewed by Carolyn Nakagawa, 16 March 2018

This is Carolyn Nakagawa. It's March 16, 2018. I'm here with Chuck Tasaka at the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre in Burnaby. And we're here to record Chuck's oral history for the Landscapes of Injustice project. So Chuck, I'll just ask you to start off by telling me some stories that you remember. Can you start with maybe your childhood and go from there?

Where I was born and all that?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah? The internment happened in Greenwood—April 26, on the Sunday, 1942. And I don't know if my parents were on that first train because usually the Catholic Nikkei came on that first train. But as a result, Greenwood became the first internment site. I don't call it camp because it wasn't really a camp, it was more like a site, a location. And they were all housed and whatnot. My mother was Buddhist, and not Catholic, but her cousin Mr. Buntaro Nakatsu was Christian, or Catholic. So, while they were in Steveston, my mother wanted to you know go to a safe place or be with her friends and relatives, so she asked Mr. Nakatsu, her cousin, said, “Can I go? Or how do I ask the sisters how to get on that train to Greenwood?” So, if I can say it Japanese, so Buntaro said, “Give me chance to ittara daijoubu.”

✱

Mr. Buntarosaid, “If you give me a chance, it will be okay/ it will work out!”

So anyway, my mom goes to Sister Eugenia and says, “Give me chance!” Both laugh. In translation it was “Please give me a chance” or “Give me an opportunity to go to Greenwood.” So Sister Eugenia says, “Okay you're going to be on the next train to Greenwood.” So that's how we were entered, or you know, my parents. There were three, two I think, no three daughters then. And Yoko was about seven, and Lurana was five, and Monica was two. But the other two, the eldest, Kaz and Itsuko, they were in Japan with grandmother, the maternal grandmother side. So that's because during the Depression, my grandmother Kikuye was a widow because her husband died in the fishing accident in Stevenson. So this is 1913. So what happened was Yakichi, my grandfather, my maternal grandfather said, “Oh you guys go first and I'll catch up to you in Japan.” And while he was doing his last, finishing off the fishing season, he drowned. So my grandmother Kikuye became a widow, and my mother was the only child. And, you know, the stigma that you face in Japan when you're a single parent, and so it was tough. You know, no income. I mean usually the men were the breadwinners. So she was lucky that her husband Yakichi gave her enough money to survive. And my grandmother had a garden to work on, so had some food, but mainly they went to the beaches to pick hijiki or whatever, all these different seaweed, and kombu, and that's how they survived, really. They were peasants, really. So they weren't there to, you know, make money or have a lot of the fisherman had to rely on the fishing season, and if they couldn't catch fish they would starve. And that's the precarious type of life that they lived. So not only that but you had typhoon, you had earthquake, and all that. So anyway, that's sort of the background, and coming back to Greenwood, we were placed in Number 1 building, which was the Pacific Hotel. And apparently there were about 200 people in that building, and if you have seen—if you've visited Greenwood—and you've seen that building, it's almost hard to imagine that you could squeeze two hundred people in there. But there were carpenters and plumbers ahead of time, they were there ahead of time to make and keep the cubicles even smaller so that one family could have just the one cubicle, and then you had to provide for about 200 people. So anyway, life was tough there. Because you had to share the kitchen with the stove and you had to have a schedule. At that time there were a lot of young mothers, because the father's were all, and older brothers, were sent to the road camp. So it was basically mothers, and children, and maybe grandparents. So it was pretty tough—kids crying, no privacy, you have three young children, and so they decided to move to a house. Fortunately my dad had good business with being a barber in Steveston, so he had money. So that's why he was able to, like a self-supporting family, he was able to find a house. But they had to share with two other families, so again, no privacy. And no freedom, no independence. So my dad decided to move to Midway, BC. So that's where I was born in 1945.

Oh in Midway?

Midway, yeah.

I see.

And one claim to fame is that I was born behind a beer parlour. Laughs. So Midway Hotel was right here, and our house was behind the hotel. And apparently there was a pool table in the living room of that house that my father rented. So that was, for him, he didn't have a car. He couldn't drive. So he either had to take a bus or train to Greenwood to cut hair. And it was quite an inconvenience so he decided—I think 1946, I was a year old—so we moved back to Greenwood. Now some people say maybe my dad wasn't allowed to work in Greenwood because there was already a barber in Greenwood, but that's just hear-say. That's why I'm saying it. But anyway, by 1946 my dad was able to go back to Greenwood and continue his barber business. So that's what happened. And again, when he moved to Greenwood he was able to buy a house. Now again, I'm not sure about this because you weren't supposed, Nikkei or Japanese Canadian couldn't buy—own anything right, at the time during the war.

So you're not sure if he actually bought it?

So this is '46, so yeah he may have had a chance—an opportunity to buy. But I thought it was 1949 that you know you had the freedom to do whatever you wanted. But I guess Greenwood was an exception, too. Because they accepted us, they're the ones that wanted the Japanese Canadians to come to Greenwood, right? So anyways, he bought a house there and I was a year old. And by '49/'50, my father built another house right behind the barber shop on the main street. So that was our permanent home, we grew up there and went to Greenwood School. And my dad built a little barber shop beside the pool hall that he had. Again, that's another story there too, because you know at that time you can't own any businesses, right, before '49. So anyway, that's a part that I don't want to dwell on it because I don't really know the logic.

But you don't know the legality or how he actually did that?

Yeah, how he was able to—

But he seems to have, for all intents and purposes, owned those businesses and buildings? As far as you can tell?

Not in name, though. Because apparently this Mr. Joe McDonald was the one who paid for the building I guess. And that's how my dad had to sort of reimburse or make payments to him. So I think that's how he got around maybe being able to own a building, is to, you know, under the table. Laughs. So that's just hear-say again, too. But anyway, so that's how we got started. And we grew up where I'm sure you’ve heard of it where Mayor McArthur was the one who accepted the Japanese Canadians in '42, because he wasn't mayor in '41, so of course from a town or city of 3,000 dwindled to 200 because the copper price dropped so drastically so that people just moved out. It was slowly becoming a ghost town. So I think when he became a mayor in 1941, the first mandate is “I want to resurrect the town or revive the town.” And this was a good opportunity to bring in the Japanese Canadians. So he put an add in the paper saying, he wrote it rather awkwardly, but he says, “We will not refuse to accept the Japanese Canadians.” That's because he needed the vote from the community. So when Father Benedict Quigley, he went above and beyond the call of duty to go to Nelson, BC to meet with Bishop Martin Johnson. And Bishop Johnson said, “Oh, the mayor in Greenwood will accept the Japanese Canadians.” And Father Benedict collaborated and worked with Mayor McArthur to bring the Japanese Canadians. But it took about three town meetings before there was an unanimous vote. Now the reason is the townsfolk said, “The Sisters and Friars must be 100% responsible for the welfare of the newcomers.” And when the Sisters and Friars said yes, or Father Benedict said yes, then vote was unanimous. Only two still said no. And so that was unanimous, and that's the reason why the Japanese Canadians came to Greenwood. So that's the scenario. And then of course, a lot of the buildings were empty and the only complaints we basically heard was leaky roofs. I mean other places like Lemon Creek or Popoff, they had to live in a tent. And during the coldest winter. So Greenwood had a lot of infrastructure, already, I mean, can you imagine that they had a flush toilet in one of those hotel buildings? So they just, the carpenters had to build cubicles to make sure that each family had a suite. But I say a lot of dust, they had to clean, the mother's had to clean then the daughter's had to clean the floors and all the debris that was on there. And after a while, after a few years, it was like an apartment. Curtains were on and it was neat. You couldn't see any dirt, and the windows were all put up and the roofs were okay. So that's how the infrastructure, luckily was there with the churches and the schools. And of course the Greenwood Public School couldn't accept almost 400 students, new students, because they didn't have the teachers, didn't have enough rooms. So they accepted some. And this was where the Franciscan Sisters came in, stepped in. They provided school for us. So some 375 students were able to attend Sacred Hearts School. But again, lack of space and whatnot. So half the students went in the morning, the other half went in the afternoon. So that's how they started. And Sister Mario provided commercial class at 4 o'clock after school. And they lived in a convent, so we had catechism classes and whatnot. So the Sister's provided a lot of activities for us: there was choir, glee club, warblers club I’d never heard of, and we had tumbling, there was just lots of activities. Christmas concerts. And Mayor McArthur said, “Well why don't you participate in our Labour Day parade?” And the Sisters got gung-ho, and started decorating floats and that. Every year they won first prize. So that's the start of our life in Greenwood. And then of course I went from Kindergarten to grade three at Sacred Hearts School. 1954, the school closed down. And so we were transferred to the Greenwood public school, but they didn't have enough room. So myself, being in grade four, we had to use the old hospital for a classroom. And some of the Kindergarten, I think they had to use another building, Number Ten Building. But anyways, we were able to squeeze in and somehow get the education in the public school. But the problem was that we had difficulty with the English language, and it seemed like Japanese was like our first language, but the Steveston dialect so it wasn't really the standard Japanese. And then entering public school, it was all in English, so it was very difficult for us, we all, most of us struggled, to even get past grade ten. By the time I was in high school, things got better. A lot of my friends were going to university, or had the plans to go to university. So that's how much it’s changed from say 1945/1950 to 1963 when we graduated. So that was our life in Greenwood.

Do you have any specific memories from that time growing up inGreenwood

I have so many. Both laugh. See, we had seasons. We had snow—summer was hot. Springtime, you know the snow was melting. So, in my book the Hanatare Bozu (English title Runny-nosed Brats of Greenwood), I wrote about the things that we did each season. So let's start with spring. The snow was melting, right. And in March, the snow was still fairly heavy, so we would build dams, but the water, the melting snow, would be going underneath the snow. So we would build dams and things like that. And I don't want to go into detail, because I wrote that in my book. But that's something that we did. We built dams along the way. And then once the snow was completely melted, then we didn't have paved roads, so streets, so It was all sand, it was like a dirt road, but because it was still wet, moist, it was a perfect place to play marbles, too. And that was just so many young kids, we're all in the same, you know, similar ages. We just played day and night. We just went home for lunch and dinner, that's it. So that was spring. And by that time the snow melted and then by May, well we were all fishing. So we had Boundary Creek, and we fished all along and down the creek. So that was spring. And then summertime—well of course softball season and we would play softball behind the woodshed. And then if not, when the weather got warmer and more daylight, then we started playing the basic game like Kick The Can and Hide and Seek, blah blah blah. But we played a lot of unique games that I don't think a lot of people know. For example, katana-kiri some people call it chanbara but that's like a sword fight. Now, you can just imagine kids nowadays trying to do that and there would be so many parents complaining about the danger of that, but none of us got hurt. So we came from a sawmill time, right? So every one of us had a pocket knife. We were armed at that time Laughs. with a pocket knife and we would whittle away. And we would make swords. And then with the cardboard? We'd find cardboards and then we'd put that for our guard for a sword. And the tip was not pointed, so we made sure it was flat. And so, unlike the samurai, we didn't strike or I should say, more like french, we fought more like the Europeans.

Fencing?

Fencing. It was more like fencing. Carolyn laughs. Except in order to make your kill, it was like a samurai. You had to slap the person below the armpit to the waist. So if you could hit that person below the shoulders, then you made your kill, right. And so we had two teams. So ten kids or so would be here, and then the other ten would hide behind the woodshed or in the woodshed. And then by that time there would be a major battle. And then the last man standing, that team won. So that's called katana-kiri. And so Bang-Bang was another one that again we all carried toy pistols Laughs. back in those days. And those who couldn't afford pistols, I remember them carving, making the toy pistol out of wood. Okay again, very similar. And this is played more around dusk, because it got darker. So it's harder to identify the person. So one team will hide behind the woodshed, and so they have the advantage, right, so then you have to flush out your enemies. One other team had to flush out the enemy. And so, if I spotted you, I’d say “Bang, Carolyn, I got you!” And if I said it first, you're dead, so I'm the winner and you'd have to go sit to the other side. But we had strategies, so we said, “Okay, now I'll borrow your coat, and I'll borrow your hat” and everything. So I get “Bang Carolyn” and Carolyn will say, “No, it's not! It's not me, it's not Carolyn, or it's not so and so.” And then that person could shoot you.

Because if you said the wrong name—

Because this guys says a different person—

If you said the wrong name, it didn't count?

Yeah, yeah.

Oh.

Yeah so if you misidentified your opponent, then you got shot and you were dead. So that's a game, another type of sport we played. And Daily Shamble, I think people have never heard of this Daily Shamble, and it was played with a sponge-ball. And you have one base, And so the pitcher is like a catcher. He throws the ball up in the air and the batter has to hit it with the fist. Now, the throw to home is ... you have the runner going to first has to beat the throw to home. So if he made it to first base, and the ball to home came late, then you're safe. But, it's like cricket, too, so you go back and forth, right. You don't have the three bases. So we played Daily Shamble. But then I found out later on, because of lack of English language, actually I heard it was Danish Handball. Laughs. So, with our lack of English language, that's what happened. So that's another one: Danish Handball. Now we played another game, and this is where girls could be involved. Danish Handball too, you know, girls were involved with that because it wasn't hard, not physical. And Jean Tori too, we thought “Geez, what kind of game is this? It must be a Japanese game.” So Jean Tori, I think it's called Post-to-Post, I think if you can remember that. See you had a post, and one team hides or whatever, goes off. And the defending team will have to go and tag the opposition. So if you got tagged, you had to go to the post. And then you made a chain, like you grabbed each other's hand to make a long chain so that your player can save you, rescue you, you see. So that's what we did. So that was called Jean Tori. But I thought—We had a girl named Jean in the town, and tori means “to take,” right? So take Jean, “oh this must be a sport where you have to take a girl” right. Laughs. So anyway, we found out later it's like an Italian game called Gintore or something like that. So I don't know whether they learned these games in Powell Street or Steveston, I don't know that. So there was another game too called Peggi. Now, Peggi is not a Japanese word because you use two pegs, one long peg and one short peg. So anyway this was very popular, I mean, as soon as we'd go to the backyard to play Peggi, so it was a little bit complicated game to explain but basically what you did was you flipped a short peg to your opponent out in the field. And if they caught it, you're out. But if they didn't, they had to throw the peg back to the home. And you'd have to place your long peg across the hole, and then if the small peg hits the long pole, then you're out. But if it didn't then you'd get another. second chance. The second change is you had two pegs in your one hand, you threw the small peg up in the air and you whacked it. Okay, so if you whacked it over far, then they had to throw it back. But if they were not accurate, the little peg could be way over there. So then you counted—

How many lengths of long pegs?

—the long peg, how many legs each length. So if you counted, you got ten points to the hole. And then the third stage was you put the small peg into the hole, like that, and then you bang it on from top down. And then the little peg would spin, fly up in the air. So you could hit one, twice, three times or even eight times. But I've never seen anyone hit eight. But two to three, no problem. So what happened was if you hit it only once, then you measure with the long stick. So if the little pig landed there, then you measure—

Measure the length of the long stick from the whole?

—with the long stick to the whole. But if you hit it twice, then you measure with the short peg.

Oh, so you get more points.

So you get more points. And then if you hit it three times, then you measure with your fist, like this.

Oh, so you'd get more points.

So it goes on and on. And then the other one was like this.

Like walking your fingers.

Yeah, walking your fingers—

Across the distance and then just—

And then about six times you use—

You can just wiggle your fingertip? Laughs.

And then eighth time, you pluck a hair. Carolyn laughs. But game over.

That never happened.

Once you—if you hit it at eight times, with a hair, I mean you could go millions. So that's game over. So those are the kinds of games we played. So we never had structured games, we all made up our own games. And it didn't cost us a cent, right. Didn't need any equipment except maybe one glove, and a ball, and maybe a bat. And one sponge-ball for Daily Shambles. So these are the games that we played. So that's why I think our schoolwork suffered, but we had so much fun. And then, around late May, the older kids—not me, I was still too young—but the older kids would get boulders from inside the creek and they would dam the creek so that the water level would go up. Then we could swim, we could dive. And that was our swimming hole, behind—So second bridge, first bridge, you know depending – First Bridge was really good because it was much wider, so the older kids loved it because they could swim across the creek and there was more of a challenge. But for us, the little kids, we liked Second Bridge because it wasn't quite as far. So no one taught us how to swim, but we learned how to swim because the older kids would say, “Okay now you start with torpedo.” And you just kept, you tried to go to the other side of the creek doing the torpedo.

With your arms above your head?

Yeah like this. And that was the basic way to learn—And you know the creek is running down. So Laughs. for little kids like us, we didn't swim across, we swam at an angle. Because the current would wash us down farther. And then later on they'd say “Okay, next step is dog paddle.” So we had to learn to swim with dog paddle. So one you could do the over hand, then you were a good swimmer. So again, that's what we did, you know. We build our own diving board and whatnot. So that was spring/summer. And then in the winter, well the creeks froze up or the pond froze up. So we skated and we played hockey. Yeah. So, things like that. Climbing the mountains. That was another, because no one had watches back then. But we had a town clock, a post office clock. And we would run from that clock and we would be able to time it so that we'd climb up to the top of the mountain. Whoever climbed the fasted, we had bragging rights, then: “We climbed to the top of Jubilee Mountain the fastest.” So again, we were in top shape. We could run up those hills no problem. Yeah, and during 1942, again, the school, Sacred Hearts School was just above the hill from the post office. and the nuns never had watches. So the nuns said, “Oh so and so, say, Tosh can you poke your head out the door or the window and see what time it is.” “Oh, it's recess. It's 10:30” or whatever. Both laugh. And the sisters relied on the children to say when it was lunchtime and the recess. But, if she asked the wrong person, the recess could be much earlier, you know what I mean? And things like that. But it never happened because you know, most of us were Catholics so we had to obey, right? We had to follow Thou Shalt Not Lie, you know. So I think in that way the child who went out to look at the clock was able to tell the right time.

And then wintertime, too. At recess, we skied. Because it was snow right beside our school, and we had a hill. The road that goes to Phoenix. So we all skied, and we used kindling wood. We would just use cedar kindling wood, and then we would use candle wax and wax it underneath. And we'd just come down. Again, we never had any say bought things. Even sleigh riding we made our own bobsleds, so the evening, after school in the evening, that was another fun activity that we'd do because the bobsled would go really fast. And so I kind of chuckle when I see these kids going down these little slopes in Vancouver, and here we would walk about a mile up the road and we would come barrelling down, down the road. And there was one sharp corner and we called it the Raspberry Bend. Because apparently I guess wild raspberries grew around that corner. So we all had to learn I guess by trial and error, and so we'd go up too far, if you go up too far by the bend, then you can't make the corner because you're going too fast. So we'd all end up in the snowbank by the Raspberry Bend. So we decided not to go that far. So you had to learn how to gauge your speed. So we would come down a little bit more. And then slow enough, we would say bend. And we would have to lean. And we would lean enough that we would make that sharp hairpin, and then we'd go right down to town. And there was one story where they were going so fast, they couldn't stop downtown. You're supposed to stop at the post office because the next block down was the main—it was Highway 3, you know, the main street was Highway 3. So there'd be cars and logging trucks going by. Well this one guy, one group, they were on a sleigh. And he couldn't stop, so he had to go straight across that Highway 3. And there was a logging truck coming up. And fortunately the road was so icy that the logging truck was going fairly slowly. Well he went underneath the trailer, and he survived. So no one got hurt, really hurt badly, no one died of any accident. And we were all carrying pocket knife, we were playing katana-kiri with swords, and you name it. We were you know skiing, sleigh riding, and going across the main highway. Laughs. And this is where life was much simpler. And for some reason we knew safety—we knew danger and safety—so we didn't take those unnecessary chances to get hurt. And the older kids would tell us “no, don't do that” or “that's too dangerous.” So we all learned that way. And at our young age even, we all had BB-guns and .22 rifles. And a lot of the families were hunters. So this is like in the 50s now, right. Almost every house had a rifle under the bed or in the corner of the bedroom. No murder, no one got killed. You know, things like that. Again, we learned safety. As soon as we came home from hunting, we would take all the barrels and stock out. And we would get a string with toilet paper tie it, and we would clean the inside of the barrel. Okay? And then we would double check the clip to make sure there were no bullets in there. So we knew what to do. So every time you placed your gun in the corner of your bedroom, the bolt was unlocked, it wasn't engaged. So those are the things we learned. And we have bullets in the drawers, just you know. Okay, so that's all we did. Carolyn laughs. And there are many more we could talk about.

Great.

Yeah, yeah.

How long did you live in Greenwood for?

Since graduation. So I graduated in '63, eh. Like I lost a year because I was born in Midway. In '46, I came back. So we'll say about sixteen, seventeen years. Yeah I went through kindergarten to high school.

And then where did you go?

Then I went to university.

Out at UBC, or?

Ah, yeah. Laughs. It's another joke there, too, because one of my niece's friends said, “How come you didn't go to Simon Fraser?” I said, “Ah, Simon Fraser wasn't built.” Both laugh. So again, I had no intention of going to university. That's why I was hesitant. Like, a lot of my friends went, and I was hesitant. So first year I went to grade thirteen at King Edward.

In Vancouver?

Adult school, yeah.

In Vancouver?

In Vancouver.

Okay.

And I though, well that will kill time. And maybe then I'll be able to decide. I was just going to go downtown and work in an office or something like that, I had no intention. But again, I kind of believe in fate. So at the time, my older sister was dating a physical education student, right? And here I am not knowing what to do. He said, “Well why don't you enter physical education? And I'll give you a ride to university.” And I said, “Oh yeah, that might be an idea.” Laughs. So that's what I did. I entered physical education department. Then I thought, well geez that means I have to teach. I said, “I could barely speak English, how could I teach?” So anyway, I just went through with it—I entered education but majored in phys-ed and geography. And I thought, gee, like I say, I wasn't very proud then but now I can say it. I failed English 100 like six times because even the summertime I had to write the test and I failed. I mean that's how bad it was for me, I couldn't comprehend English as well. And so by the third year or so, I had to take speech therapy to make sure that I could speak clearly to become a teacher, right? So I remember going to a speech therapy. And at that time when I went out to teach, or practice teaching, my first one. The supervisor said, “I think you better find another profession.” And at that time, I was devastated. But I figured that's the truth. I mean, in hindsight I don't blame him because I would have said the same thing, you know? Because I was not really—I was too shy to begin with. I could barely speak English. So of course, how could I be a teacher, you know? But what happened was when I was practice teaching in Langley, the kids were so good. I mean I was so nervous that everything was a blur, I don't even remember what I said or what I taught. But they were so nice. Even one of the students even brought a horse. This is Langley back in the rural days, right. One girl brought a horse and wanted to give me a ride on the horse. I said, “I'm scared of getting on the horse.” Laughs. And I had my suit on, right, at the time. But I really enjoyed it. So I thought, well I'll go through with it. I'll just go through and by the fourth year maybe they'll give me an F so I won't be teacher. So my final yeah I went through with it and then I looked at my report card. It had P on it for my practice teaching. So I passed. Thus, I became a teacher. And again, I don't know if it's destiny or fate, but I wasn't supposed to be. I mean, if you knew me back then, I mean everyone agreed that I would never have made a teacher. Even my auntie said, “Ah geez, those kids will eat you alive” you know and “Why are you going into teaching?” And all my friends laughed. “You went into teaching?” and things like that. So all these kinds of things happened and like I say, even now, “If I would have listened to everyone, I would have never achieved anything.” So that's the way I look at it. You have to follow your own dream. You know, you have to follow your own conscious. That's the way I looked at it all the time. So I taught for 33 years, taught for one year in Japan. Laughs. You know, again, if I didn't become a teacher I wouldn't be here today. I mean, how would I be researching and doing all these things? Because if I had just burned out I don't think I would have been that interested in any of the other things, you know. And especially the academic side. I would have never – again, writing those two books, too, right? Here, I'm not a writer? I can't write.

But I knew one thing: my conscious said that I have to document all these games that we played or else it would be lost. No one would know that we played this kind of game. So I said, “I don't care. I'm just going to write about all these games and explain how we played this so that the younger generation could probably just pick it up and play it and so on.” So I started writing about these games and then guess what? The more I wrote, the more it became like an autobiography. You know, like all the games that we played. So that happened. So now we're doing a childhood experience, so you talk about your childhood experience. And after that, I may as well talk about school experience. You know like, one thing led to another and it became a book, generally speaking, about—it's not a personal autobiography but more of a Nikkei children's biography of what we did. Some of the yancha things I can't mention Laughs. but you know all the things that we did, I thought okay I'll just jot it down. So my sister's and them said, “Why don't you only print ten?” And I said, “Ten?” I said, “Just my family – I could sell ten books.” “Well what about twenty-five?” “Well if I had my friends and family, I'm sure I can get more than that.” But in order to cut down on the cost of the publishing—because it was self-published—I said “I'm going to print 300. I don't care. As long as I come out even, I'm good.” So that's what I did. I printed 300 and it sold out. And then, they said, “Well why don't you print again?” I said, “No I don't want to risk my money if it doesn't sell.” Then the next 200 I printed sold out, too. So I don't have any books on Hanatare Bozu, that's all gone. So again, if I would have listened to other people, I would have never written, right? I would have never done what I've done. So again, that's what's been happening to me: things I was not supposed to do, I did. Both laugh. I mean I marvel at you guys and all the younger people with there command of English, the creative writing, I mean my niece's too, even. They write beautiful poems. I say, “No way in heck I would be able to do that.” Yeah, so, anyways, that's what happened.

When you talk about your difficulties with English, was that because you were mainly speaking Japanese growing up in Greenwood?

What happened was many of the Steveston families came to Greenwood. So it was like Steveston being transplanted. So of course, they were more Japanese speakers, because again out of the 2500 people living in Steveston, 2000 were Japanese Canadians. So with the majority, the issei basically spoke Japanese—no English. Even now, some of those issei can't speak English well, you know? Okay so, they came to Greenwood. The Powell Street kids, the ones who went to Strathcona, they spoke English. So this is what's so unusual about that situation because the ones who went to Strathcona, the ones who attended Templeton and Grandview and all that, well they were able to graduate from high school no problem. So 1945, every student was Japanese Canadian. But as the years went by, by 1953, there were only two, I mean only two graduates. Not the whole. And both were Japanese Canadians.

This is from which school?

This is Greenwood High School. The public school.

Oh, I see.

So again, you can see that trend where the kids who went to Strathcona, they graduated. So they were nine at that time. But by 1953, there were only two. Many of the children who came from the Steveston families, they struggled, again like I told you, they struggled in English. So they were lucky by the time they were grade ten they turned sixteen, they said “Okay, we're going to work in the saw mill.” Or logging. That kind of jobs were available. So really you didn't need education. There were about five sawmills there. So as soon as they say, “hey”—Like I say, we were having so much fun that education wasn't that important to us. Our parents said “Work hard. Be honest and work hard.” Like you say, some of the parents focused on education and of course one family had four or five boys graduate from engineering. So we had, like you say, that mixture of families. But the blue collar families, like mostly from Steveston, they just said “Hey, work hard. You can do whatever you want but work hard.” So we didn't see the light above and say, “You have to go to university, you have to graduate.” But with us, we thought that those who did go to university were geniuses. Like we thought, we're too dumb, we can't speak English, you know, we can't do anything. That's how our attitude was. We weren't smart enough to go to university.

So what made you stay in school to finish grade twelve?

Yeah that's again, like I say, things that shouldn't have happened, happened. Again, I don't know if it's fate or not. So what I was saying, the ones that went to Powell Street and Strathcona, they spoke English. By the time we grew up in Greenwood, many of us were born in Greenwood. So we spoke Japanese, with a dialect, right? And we had trouble speaking English. So we couldn't speak English well, we couldn't speak Japanese well. So actually, we were people without a language. So this is where we struggled. But as long as you lived in Greenwood, no problem. You could speak Japanese to your friends, right. And they’ve lived their life. You could communicate with their parents and grandparents. See whereas your era, or your age group, it would be hard. Like would you be able to speak Japanese to your great-grandparents or grandparents, you know? That's where we lost that language. So in hindsight, I'm so glad that I was still able to speak Japanese because I could communicate with my parents, my grandparents. And then I have two languages. So all I needed to do was refine it. So I went to Japan in 1979 to study Japanese. Conversational Japanese. And when I came back I felt more confident, I said “Oh now I know how to speak Japanese.” So again, that was that kind of city. So in high school, our class was apparently the best as far as academic. So by that time, I guess things were easier for our parents, so they could afford to, you know, havekids going to school and not have to go out to work at sixteen and work in the sawmill. So we were able to go through regular high school. We played basketball, sports, student council and whatnot. But I, again, in grade twelve I fluked in one of the math tests. I got 80%. So that gave me the lowest, minimum average. C+. And in those days, C+ average was eligible for university, post-secondary. So anyway, I got 65% average just because I fluked that math test. Throughout my school I was getting 55% or something in math and then all of a sudden, boom, I got 80%. So I still said, “No I'm not capable of going to university.” Even with that minimum average. Whereas all my friends were all getting 88% average and whatnot, 90%. So if you go back to what I said, I said I wasn't going to go to university. But again circumstances, fate, something happened that my sister was going out with a phys-ed student, and I ended up in education. See? So sometimes it's meant to be, I don't know.

Laughs. When you went to Vancouver to go grade thirteen, did you go with your parents? Like did the whole family go?

Okay, that's another story, too. Like my older brother—I'm one of the younger ones, I'm the eighth one in the family, so a lot of the older kids have been working. They went to Vancouver to work. And they were renting basement suites. And when my parents visited them in the summer, they said, “Ah, you can't live like this. There's cobwebs”—you know the cobwebs—“and this dark, dingy basement suite.” Back in those days. And my parents decided that we should buy a house. So again, the timing was right. My uncle, my dad's brother, was thinking of selling his house. So we bought the house.

In Vancouver?

In Vancouver. Kitsilano. Laughs. For twelve thousand dollars. Both laugh. Can't buy a car, can't buy a used car for that now. So that's why we had a communal home, you might say. So all the brothers and sisters could stay at that.

So your parents bought it for you and your siblings? And they stayed in Greenwood?

For the siblings, yep.

Wow.

They just paid the down payment and then my sisters were responsible for the mortgage. So we, my sisters took in boarders. So they helped pay for the mortgage, yeah. And we had—A lot of other Greenwood people were so, they were so insecure. They don't know anyone here, and they want to come here to work. So it was a comforting feeling that they could board with us and be, you know, we were friends. I mean they could come in and it was like I say, it was like a communal home. Brothers and sisters with friends.

Was it all of your siblings? All eight of you?

Well mainly it was two or three sisters, but they were going into nursing. And one was working downtown, the Geisha Garden, you know. My other sisters, too, they were working. That was one of the rare Japanese restaurants, back in those days. Both my brothers were carpenters, and so I just went there to look for a job not knowing that I’d end up going to university, but I did. Yeah, so, our parents like I say gave us that support that we didn't have to struggle looking for rent, you know, rental places. We had a house. So that was another advantage.

Was that sort of setup common in those days? Like were other families doing similar things or was your family...?

No, most of the families I think rented. In the 60s, early 60s. I know like our second cousins they rented a suite down by Vine and Fourth. And then there were others who lived up in the East End. A lot of the people, I don't know whether they bought the place but they had houses on the Fraser area. And eventually I know that they bought the place. So I mean, like you say, houses were cheap back then, right? So that's what happened. So again, with all the siblings pulling the money together, they were able to buy a house.

Did you have a strong sense of like Japanese Canadian community around Kitsilano and that area in that time?

See, my sisters, my older sisters age, what happened was the Franciscan Sisters on Cordova, down there they still had the church. And they thought these Japanese Canadians coming from internment camp, they needed a social club. A social place. So Sister Antoinette started the Sister Maria Stella club. Not Sister Mary Stella, but for some reason they put it Sister Maria Stella Club and so that's where all the nisei's hung out.

And where was this?

The nisei's hung out.

But where—

That's right in East End/Powell Street. Like Cordova/Dunlevy. That's where the convent was, right? And the Church? So they had the Sister Maria Stella Club. And that was one of the social functions that, they eventually had bowling leagues, right. Steveston was, again, a different story, but the Powell Street Vancouver, they had to restart their lives. And again, with so many nisei's coming in, you've heard about the Nisei baseball team? That Nisei baseball team they started?

In Vancouver after the war?

Yep. After the war.

No, I haven't.

In the 50s? There's a book, a magazine about the Vancouver Nisei Club. Or Nisei Baseball Team. Dr. Bob Miyagishima played, Eddie Hayashi and a few of these others, Mo Ishikawa I think. But okay, so those are the guys who were still young and they joined the Metro or one of those men's league in town. So that was another form of activity that they started. And I remember my sisters always telling about Saturday dance. See back in those days they had a place called Danceland, or whatever. There are all these places on Saturdays that you could go and dance, right? And I don't know, was it the bowling league that had a dance every Saturday? They would have a dance function? And so at those days, the girls they would sit on one side of the wall Laughs. and then the men would sit or stand on the other side of the wall. And when the music start, and this is back in those days you know when women lib wasn’t around or gender equality, so the men had to ask the ladies for a dance. So the guys would just check the surroundings, and say—

The lineup of women sitting down?

Yeah, who you wanted to dance with, you know. And then as soon as the music started, this is what my sisters would tell me, the swarm of boys would come. Both laugh. And they would start picking whoever they wanted to dance with. So again, the unfortunate part is there were some girls who never got to dance, you know that evening. So again it's not politically correct, but they were called wallflowers? Have you heard of that? Yeah. So that was kind of the downside of these dance activities. So if you were good looking and pretty and you were sociable—all the guys would go after those ones. But mind you, you know, that's where I think a lot of people, couples, got married. Got to know the girls and yeah. And then the kika nisei, the ones who came from Japan, well again they couldn't speak English very well. So some of the nisei girls were Laughs., you know, at times they were like the wallflowers, too, because none of the girls wanted to dance with them, too. So those parts, you know. So some of the boys, the kika nisei boys said, “Well how do you ask a girl to dance?” So you say, “May I have this dance?” Like this, or something like that.

Putting out your hand?

“May I have the dance with you?” Or something like that. But one kika nisei boy I guess forgot a few phrases or something. He said, “Can I dance?” Both laugh. Or something like that. Laughs. And one of the girls said, “Well yeah sure go ahead!” Both laugh. So again, these types of teenage angst or whatever. Young people. But. Eventually, like I say they all somehow got together, got married and had families, and whatnot. Yeah. So those were the activities that happened in the 50s.

And then you came down in the 60s though, right? You came down in the 60s?

Yeah, I came in '63.

Yeah. Do you have a sense of these sort-of post-war nisei activities in Vancouver, was it a lot of people—was it centered around the Greenwood sect that your family was from? Or was it kind of from all over that people had come back?

Yeah, you know it's a funny thing because, well I don't know if I could call it a clique-ish, but you know the Greenwood people hung out with the Greenwood and the New Denver people I think they had their own activities, whatnot.

So this Maria Stella Club and the dances, that was more Greenwood people?

Yeah, that, but also brought non-Catholics, too. Because they want to check out the girls. Laughs. You know, so that's who some of them, non-Catholics, came to that club. And then again, like you say, with the dances, I mean, the prefectures didn't matter or the camps didn't matter. You all mixed. But it was sort of hard because the Greenwood, again, they were lacking the English language and whatnot, whereas the Powell Street kids who came from Powell Street or New Denver, they were more fluent in English. So they had the advantage. Things like that, yeah. So most of the Greenwood people, when they started curling. Because we all curl. We even had high school curling clubs and curling teams. So those who came to Vancouver, when they curl? Most of them were Greenwood people. Yeah. And you know, Johnny Onizuka, I think Lisa knows him. Yuki was his name. So he learned how to play hockey in Greenwood, but he left Greenwood after the war. And in Toronto he started the Japanese, or the Nisei, hockey league. So things like that. You know, what they learned they contributed in other places. So Reverend Edward Yoshida too, he was in Grand Forks, you know self-supporting. But he was a pin setter, in the bowling. Grand Forks had a bowling alley. I mean Greenwood was too small, we lived without bowling Laughs.. So, Grand Forks had bowling. So he was a pin setter. So again, when he moved to Toronto, what did he start? A church bowling league. Carolyn laughs. You see that? So all that contribution from the internment camps, somehow it transferred to the cities where they went.

And did you do a lot of these social activities once you were in Vancouver?

You know, I can't remember a Nisei club. I can't remember if there was a Nikkei community or whatnot. But at university, we had a nisei club. So that's where we socialized. We went skiing, we had dances, we had parties, and you know, especially the house parties and stuff like that. So the nisei club was really a good focal point for us to get to know the other kids. But as far as having a Nisei or a Nikkei community, I don't remember. Until about 1977, the 100th year where they had the Powell Street festival and whatnot. And I remember those first Powell Street festivals. But other than that I don't remember. Unless you were in Buddhist club, right? Or Buddhist church. But we played softball. It was call, hmm, what was that name of that club now? Young YBA, wasn't it? Young Buddhist Association?

Yeah.

I think they had a softball league, and that's where we, you know, played. So that was a Nikkei activity.

Did you also socialize with non-Japanese Canadians?

At university, I was mixed, yeah. I was able to socialize. Because I was in the education, and basically I was one of the rare few Nikkei students in there. So I remember, yeah, socializing with some of the Caucasian kids there.

Was that something that felt comfortable to do?

Yeah because in Greenwood we basically integrated well. What happened was, when we were going to Sacred Heart School, well 99% were Nikkei kids. The odd Catholic hakujin would be attending school. So once we learned, once our English got better, then we of course we started to socialize with the hakujin kids in school. But like I say, the integration was really good. And again, this is another strange thing too, is that the nisei's from Powell Street— well they could speak English. So in '42 they had no trouble integrating with the hakujin kids in Greenwood. So, if you see a lot of my photos, those photos that I have, they're all hanging around together. And yet, with us, we stuck more to the Nikkei because we couldn't speak the English language well. So as young children, we stuck together.

This is the Steveston families, still?

Yeah, we stuck together more.

Oh, that's interesting.

Until we got into Greenwood high school. Then we started to integrate better. So again, it's so strange that you know, 1942-45, the kids who went to Powell Street, they could speak, they could graduate, they could talk to you know hakujin kids. And here, we're born in Greenwood learning only Japanese, we struggled. Yeah we struggled to, you know. So again, like you say, a lot of the games we played, I don't remember a lot of hakujin kids playing with us at that, you know, young. As soon as we got older, we started playing baseball and basketball and whatnot. Yeah we integrated.

When you were going to grade thirteen and then university, were you working at that time?

No. I decided, well when I was so uncertain, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I did part-time job at a florist shop or something like that. But other than that, no. I was a student. But we all worked in the summer, see. So we had to pay for our tuition and everything with our money we made in the summer.

What jobs did you do in the summer?

Well, um, after high school my first job was working in the railway gang in Rosebery and Silverton. So that was my first job. So I kind of knew of New Denver and that area, but I didn't really know that that was an internment camp. But that's where I worked. So that's straight out of grade twelve. I couldn't find a job in the sawmill. So while I was waiting, my friend was working for this merchant building, which the foreman was Buck Higashi, Aya Higashi's husband, you see. So that's how I got in. So I worked that summer. So Buck would take us one week to Kaslo, and we stayed over night on the weekend. And that's where I met Aya. But the last time I saw her, she was in her 93 or something? She doesn't quite remember, because Buck was more the type, he was the one that took care of us and took us to Ainsworth Hot Springs and all that. And she was, I think still probably busy teaching. But I remember that. So that was the railway. And then after that in second year, we were able to work in the sawmill. See in the railway we were making about $1.62 an hour, and then the sawmill was much better, $1.85 an hour. Laughs. And if you worked graveyard or something, you'd make a little bit more.

So you'd go back up to the interior to work in the summers? From the city?

Yeah, I'd return home in Greenwood and that's where we'd work. Because my parents still lived in Greenwood, after the war. So again, we worked in the sawmill and the tuition was about $300? And we were making $300 a month. So we could pay for our tuition and books, no problem. Yeah, and then we still had enough money for socializing, you know, going to theatre and movies and all that. Some weeks if we went to two movies, we couldn't go to the movie next weekend. You know, our budget was to the point where if we saw one movie a week, the budget was on. But if we saw two movies that one weekend, then next weekend we couldn't go. And we wore the same clothes, we only had about three shirts and a couple of cardigans, and that was it. Yeah, we survived. We didn't have to dress up to go to university. Carolyn laughs. So of course, we never joined any frats, Laughs. except the nisei club.

When you were growing up, were you aware about what internment was? Like why your family lived in the interior?

After the war?

Yeah.

Yeah because Greenwood protested that they shouldn't, they wanted the Japanese Canadians to stay in Greenwood.

And is that something that you were aware of when you were a kid?

No.

Do you remember when you figured this history out? When did you figure out that this had happened?

Just recently. Both laugh. When I retired from coaching in 2010, I started researching and learning more. I knew very little about the mining history of Greenwood, I knew very little about the internment history of Greenwood. I had to do a lot of research from 2010 and that's how I got to know more. But like I said, even that letter, I didn't know the Greenwood Board of Trade and the City of Greenwood wrote a letter, a protest, stating that the Japanese Canadians in Greenwood should stay. And if you saw that in the museum where the letter sits and compared it to the expulsion of the Acadians, you know. I think when you think about the support that we got from the town of Greenwood, that made a lot of difference because we weren't pressured to either go east of the Rockies or go to Japan. I mean my mom wanted to go to Japan because her mom was there and the two children stuck in Japan.

The oldest children?

Yeah the two eldest ones. But my dad said, “No. Definitely no.” Because why go to a war torn country that's got no food, nothing. So 20-30 years later, my mom said that was the best decision dad ever made. Laughs. So things like that. At that time of crisis, you have to make quick decisions. So what if we had gone to Japan? You know, where would we be, you know? Would we be kika nisei, would we be coming back to Canada? It's hard to say. So again then, the course of history is so just by making that one decision could just change the whole course of history, you know, personal history.

When you were growing up, did your parents talk to you about when they lived on the coast?

Yes, they did. You know, my dad was fishing at first and then became a barber because that was an easier job. But they didn't really go into details about what happened during internment or before the internment, but as a child I could hear them, you know, like a hot stove lid, I could see these adults talking. But I had no concept or perception of what they were talking about. I didn't even know I was in an internment camp, you know I didn't know I was living in an internment camp, you see? Because it was normal. We had about 80-87% of the people were Japanese Canadian, and I had friends all over. I mean we didn't even have to say, we didn't have a phone so we didn't even phone everyone to say, “Let's play baseball.” No, we just automatically we went to that spot and they were there. So we had no problem having twenty kids playing softball or whatever games we played. So after we eat, we would go automatically to the woodshed. They're all there? Okay let's play katana-kiri, let's play Bang-Bang. You know, like that. Like I say, I would never trade my childhood with anyone in Greenwood. So again, under the circumstances about internment and the trauma that our parents probably faced, they never talked about it. Because I think in one way, they don't want to put negative thoughts into the children because then they would have a different attitude or perception of what's happening. So I guess it was up to us to decide and find out what the internment was like. So coming from me, I didn't experience any traumas of the internment. Whereas a nisei, if you talk to a 90 year old or late 80 nisei, they would have a different perception of the internment. But by interviewing people, the elders, I know that some people still have that hurt because when you're asked to leave the trolley, “You, Jap, get off the trolley,” you know, I mean that's devastating to a nineteen-year-old girl. Being asked to get off the train, off the trolley. And things like that. But we never faced that, see. So again each person will have different opinions, different experiences, of the internment. So when I was doing the Greenwood tour, the bus tour, a few years ago, this man I didn't get his name but he says, “Chuck, you know, you guys really had a good time. But we didn't.” He says, “We didn't.” So I don't know where, which internment camp he came from, but obviously his experience was not good. Whereas our experiences were very good because of course the mayor was the one that made sure we were taken care of, and then the church groups came in—made sure we were taken care of. So we had that support, you know. And for some reason a lot of the caucasian people in town were I think they, I don't know if I could use the word embrace, but we integrated very well. Like, this one lady, she said, “After a year or so, we didn't lock our doors anymore.” Because they found out that the Japanese Canadians were very honest, hard working, things like that. So I guess in that way we had to prove ourselves too, and that's what we did. So I thank our parents, each group, for being great role models. They were law abiding citizens, they were hard working, they were honest. So you very seldom saw crime, right? How many Japanese Canadians do you see in prison? And things like that. So that way, I am very proud of what the older generation did for us, yeah. So...

I know you mentioned that story about your mom saying, “Give me chance to go to Greenwood.” But I'm wondering if you have stories from other members of your family, like your older siblings who experienced that uprooting? And stuff for them?

Yeah, I really don't know—unless you hear their story, but that's one story that my oldest brother told me. So that's how I knew. I mean, I didn't know that. “Yeah, mom and dad were kind of Buddhist, how come they ended up going to Greenwood?” You know, and I heard that funny story. That's what happens. I think people were desperate at that time and had to make quick decisions. “Oh, where should we go?” “Work and winter wear.” You know, “Where are you going?” And I'm sure that kind of conversation was on, and then they said, “Oh yeah they're going to Greenwood because the Catholics are going to take them.” “Oh geez, maybe we should go there because our friends are going there, too. Let's go!” “Now how do we ask the Sisters, you know we're Buddhist? How do we ask the Sisters?” I think a lot of that kind of dialogue and that conversation was going on. What should we take, you know? “Okay we have to take a suitcase full of something, so what should we take?” So those are the things. So of course my dad probably took clippers and scissors and whatnot, because that was his profession.

He was already a barber before he left?

Yeah, he was a barber in Steveston. So he had his barber shop built in 1938, but he was a barber even before that because he was apprenticing with Mr. Hirai, right? So, things like that. Yeah.

But it's not something that you talk about a lot with your siblings? They didn't share a lot of their experience of this?

Yeah, we, like you say, we didn't talk too much. Some of my older brothers and sisters would hear stories about the internment, and you'd just get glimpses of it. You'd just get snippets of it. So you don't really comprehend anything, and that's what it was. It wasn't until like 2010 that I started reading voraciously and all these internment books, you know. Like Muriel Kitagawa’s book and well Redress was a little bit later but Toyo Takata's book. And I just started reading every Nikkei book that I could find. And then I found out a little bit more about the Greenwood history because Mr. Morita wrote that book and he wrote a few things about how they came to Greenwood under the organization of the Catholic Church, right?

Is that the Powell Street Monogatari?

Yeah, Monogatari. And so he wrote—He knew all the sisters and the friars, he even knew Father Benedict really well. And then when I interviewed Mitsi Suzaki or Fugeta, she also, her parents were really close to the friars and the sisters, so I heard a lot of stories from them, too. About the Catholic Church. And Father Benedict like I say, he wasn't given the credit that he deserved because he loved his parishioners so much that he even learned to speak the Wakayama dialect. And so he was very comfortable speaking Japanese in Steveston. So, like I say, he was the one that was instrumental in bringing the Japanese Canadians to Greenwood, but—this is again hearsay—apparently the headquarters of the friars, New York, in Graymoor, New York, he was apparently called back during that time that he was bringing the Japanese Canadians to Greenwood. And from hearsay, from Mr. Morita and all these stories, he refused many times. Some said he refused twelve times. Again, that's not fact but that's what I heard that he kept refusing. He wouldn't go back. So in the book, in Mr. Morita's book, he asked father, “Father, why are you leaving us?” And Father said, “Well I have done my duty, I must go.” So the pressure was really strong, then. Father Benedict had to return. And then again the gossip, or the hearsay, that the headquarters are saying, “Why are you helping the enemies? Our sons and fathers are getting killed by the enemy” like Japanese “so why are you helping?” So that's one of the stories, the gossip or hearsay, that I heard. That's what was the intent. So Father finally returned to Graymoor and the story goes that he quit the order, right. He left the order. and ended up with a diocesan priest, I guess. I'm not really sure what that means, but he became a diocesan priest and he ended up in Little Fort, north of Kamloops. And he, I imagine he worked with the First Nations group there. So no one knew where he was and Paul Miki who was studying to be a priest knew Father, they went to school together in New York. But Father Miki, or Paul Miki, just before he became ordained he quit the order. So he never became a priest. He ended up in Toronto or whatever. So Father Benedict ended up not as a Franciscan Friar, ended up as a priest, a diocesan priest in Little Fort. And then in 1977 he called me, like he had cancer. So when he was dying, Mytssu Sasaki Fugeta

✱

Also referring to Mitsi.

phoned him and said, “Father I want to come and see you.” And Father Benedict said, “No don't come and see me in this kind of state that I'm in.” So Mytssu Also referring to Mitsi didn't go, but she said that's one thing that she regretted, which was not going to see Father quickly. So when he died, the funeral, it was jam-packed with the Nikkei people at his funeral. So that's another story about Father.

When did he die?

So that's why Father Benedict, to me, should be the patron saint of the Japanese Nikkei Community, you know. Because he did so much, so much for the—I mean without him I don't think we'd have gone to Greenwood, see? So that's another story.

When did he die?

1977.

'77, right. And was he in—

In Kamloops.

In Kamloops? Okay.

Yeah, and Maryka Omatsu, she said her cousin I think used to see Father coming down from Little Fort to get medicine. And I think Mr. Kobayashi was a pharmacist, so he wouldn't charge him for the medicine. And he would take it out. Those you know, little stories like that I've heard, yeah.

I'm curious—You've mentioned a number of these sort of allies to the Japanese Canadians in Greenwood like Father Benedict and Joe McDonald. Were these people that you knew, growing up in Greenwood? Did you know them personally?

Well I didn't know because I was too young.

Right.

The older kids, older people, knew Father Benedict. Because they knew him from Steveston and Powell Street. So the ones who are now gone, I mean they knew. Mytssu Also referring to Mitsi, she's still alive, but she was a young girl and she knew Father and all the sisters as well. But no, personally myself, I didn't know. But Joe McDonald I knew him because he used to come play poker at our dads, at our house, you know. Laughs.

Yeah? What was he like as a person?

I don't know, he was a businessman,, you know, that's all I know. They were all adults, right?

Just this guy in a suit. Laughs.

Yeah, he was more better dressed than a lot of the people who worked in the sawmill.

But he'd play poker with your dad?

Hmm?

But he'd come to your house to play poker with your dad?

Yeah, like a lot of the McDonalds, they knew dad. And so yeah another younger brother I think, I can't remember the first name, not Jeff, but one of the younger ones also came and played poker. Laughs.

Would you interact with like the kids of those families in school? Would you be interacting with the kids of those families in school a lot?

No because they lived in Penticton. Like the McDonalds lived in Penticton.

Oh.

So he was a businessman. He just owned a lot of buildings. Like he had the autocourt, which were – a lot of the elder Japanese Canadians were staying there. So he had the Greenwood Autocourt. So that's where the connection was, yeah. I mean I knew his son, you know, because he would come during the summer to play. So things like that.

Did you get a sense of what that business relationship was like with your father? With Joe McDonald?

Yeah I mean, nothing out of the ordinary. Laughs. It was, you know, straight business. But it seemed like they knew each other.

Right, they were also social together.

Yeah, they were able to socialize.

So you said your parents were Buddhist and then they went to Greenwood with the Catholics. Did they or did other members of your family end up becoming Catholic after that?

The staunch Buddhists, I don't think they wanted—Well it encouraged them to become Catholic. Because I know some of my friends don't have Catholic names, or Christian names. They'll still go by their Japanese names. Whereas my sisters, the ones who are older—like they're in their eighties now—because they were young going to the Catholic Sacred Heart School and they were encouraged to be baptized. There was, I don't know if I want to say glory, but there was something about—you know spiritual—about being baptized and all that. So both my sisters were crying to mom, “Please let us become Catholic.” So mom said, “Ah, okay, go ahead. You guys, if you're' that adamant, yeah go ahead and become Catholic.” That's what happened. So after that, at our age, everything was a natural transition. “Oh, we're going to Catholic Sacred Heart School?” We become Catholic. And we wanted English names you know, that kind of thing. And that's what happened. So my sister, a little bit younger, Monica, she's the one who gave us the Christian names. And she looked at the calendar and “Oh yeah, Anthony? What about that?” So my friends all, “Okay, I'll take Anthony.” “Vincent? St. Vincent?” “Okay.” And you know, Dr. Yoshida, the—

My cousin.

Oh! Both laugh. He said, “Okay I'll take Vincent.”

Oh. Laughs.

And then my sister said, “There's St. Charles.” “Okay, I'll take St. Charles.” That's how Laughs. but no one called me Charles at all. But that was Charlie in Greenwood. Charles I guess just doesn't fit. But I said, “Okay, I'll take that name.”

So by the time that you came around, this was kind of a matter of course that you would be baptized and be Catholic?

Yeah it was just almost automatic. Unless the parents said, “No, don't become Catholic.” So couple of my friends didn't have Christian names, like your cousin Shuji, you know. Shuji never had a Christian name and Seishi Shinde, Seishi older siblings were baptized but for some reason he wasn't. So, you know, things like that.

But your parents still considered themselves Buddhist?

Oh yeah, my mom was just I mean you go to Steveston, Steveston Buddhist you know, I mean the nokotsu, and all those, the ashes and everything, it's all there. In Steveston. And she even donated a bench, there, too, so you know. She was always Buddhist, no matter what. But she never discouraged us from being Christian, you know. “Just be what you want.” And you know, so we're talking about it, “What kind of religion do they do on, which religion would you choose, blah blah blah.” Right? We're talking. And then somebody asked my dad, “Papa what religion?” he goes, “Any religion's good.” So we all laughed because ah here he's sitting on the fence kind of thing, but when I thought about it, he's right. Every religion has good points. That's why he could be Buddhist, he could be anything. It didn't matter to him. He could be Catholic, If he wanted to be Catholic, he could be Catholic. But he never became the Buddhist or the Catholic. He's just “every religion is good,” yeah that's how he looked at it.

Were there any items you had growing up in your house that you knew had been brought from the coast?

I don't really – I guess the only thing I can remember is probably those clippers and scissors.

Your dad's tools?

Dad's tools. That's about the only thing I can remember.

And there weren't anything that your family talked about having to leave behind?

Um, not really. Except my dad lost the barbershop in Steveston. So that was a great loss. And I don't know if he had any other properties, but that he lost. I know that, yeah.

Is that something that you were aware of at the time? Like did he talk about what that meant to him?

Well he talked about that, yep.

Oh.

Yeah he said, “I lost the barbershop.” Especially during the Redress time he started bringing that up and said, “Oh yeah, gee it would be worth so much by that time.” I can't remember it could have been 100 thousand or something. And I don't know, his friends built that barbershop for him, so I'm sure it wasn't that much back in those days. But it's now the bike shop on Moncton Street, that blue building. There's a really dark, blue building and it's got the bike shop—it was a florist before.

But it's the same building that's there today?

It's still the same.

Wow.

So I always take my brothers and sisters, my friends, to the back of the building because the original wood, original siding, is still there. It's still there. It hasn't changed.

How does that make you feel when you visit that building?

Well I've heard a lot of stories. Like the guy that owned, the kid that owns, was working there. I mean the father's the owner, probably, of that bike shop. He says it's sort of haunted. He says one time they went up in mid—hottest, in a hot day of July, they went up to the attic. And they had to wear a coat, they had to wear a jacket it was that cold. So he thinks, you know, there's kind of a haunting feeling there. So why would it be so hot in the attic in mid-July and yet, you know, they had to wear a jacket. Then he says at times the door would flap open. So on that one maybe I can see because a flimsy latch, right? And then another story that I heard from my older brother is that there was a bank robbery or some robbery and the police were chasing this burglar and he had a gun. So he came through my dads barber shop and he hid the gun and took off through the back, back of where you know our house, where the kids were. So boom, he took off.

This was when your family lived there?

Yeah, the family lived behind the barbershop, see. So anyway, the police came and said, well my dad said he took off. He tried to find that gun—couldn't find it. So even a few years ago, my brother, my eldest brother, long time ago he tried to look for that gun. Couldn't find it. So when I interviewed or when I talked to that boy who was running the bicycle shop, I said, “This burglar hid the gun somewhere in that house. And my dad figured it was behind the chimney.” So we looked all over—couldn't find the gun.

Wow.

Yeah, the pistol.

So it wasn't that it was haunted because your family being forced to leave there. It was already—spooky things were happening.

No it was a – this had happened before the war and the burglar like you say, hid the gun and took off. The cop chased after that burglar. So my dad said that there was a gun, hidden, somewhere. But no one could find it. This is before the war, though.

And it was a new building, though? His friends—

It was new, yeah. Built in 1938, so it's fairly new. And then they have to leave by '42.

Right. So any theories about what was going on there?

No, no.

No? No one has any idea why it would be haunted?

That's what those guys, the boys at the bicycle shop told me, said it's haunted.

That's wild.

Yeah, so I don't know.

Well I was wondering if it was something to do with the internment but you're saying it's from before then?

Yeah, so I don't know really. But you know, like I say, the cold attic? That happened after the war, though. Like you know, fairly recent when they bought that bicycle shop. Those are the legends or rumors or whatever—stories I've heard from various people.

Do you feel a connection to the Steveston area—

I do.

—because of knowing your family lived there?

Even though I didn't live in Steveston, I have a connection. A more connection I think with Steveston than say Powell Street. But you know when I was young, like twelve, eight, eleven, twelve years old, you know, we had to visit cousins in Steveston and it smelled like cannery. You couldn't walk. I mean, “I want to go back to Greenwood.” I said, “ I don't want to be walking in this stinky place.” You know, like that. Laughs. But now you go there, there's not a scent. Not a sight of all that. But that was a really smelly, sleepy village back in the 50s and 60s. But now it's all trendy.

Oh that reminded me, I wanted to ask you about fishing. You said you went fishing in the river in Greenwood?

Yeah, in the creek.

A creek. I was wondering who taught you how to fish? Was that—

Older kids.

Older kids?

Yeah, because we didn't have the materials back in those days. So we used, not steal but borrow mom's pin, you know.

Like a sewing pin?

And we would bend it into a hook. And, you know, back in those days mottainai (wasteful) to throw things away, so we had a lot of strings from the stores. So we would tie the strings together, and the hook, and then we would cut a branch so we had a string, and a hook. and then we would dig for worms. Put the worm on the hook and we'd fish. Well once we found out that those pins, if you caught a big fish, the pin would just—

Break?

Break or bend. So we'd lose a lot of fish that way. So eventually they started selling real fish hooks, and then bamboo. Bamboo like—Mr. Leonard Cowdrill was a BC Security Commissioner guy—after the war his job was gone so he started a surplus store. We used to call it a junk store. Carolyn laughs. But anyway, surplus store. So that's where we bought the fishing hooks, the bamboo poles and everything, and I think he was selling those lines, those fishing gut lines. Then the lid. Can you imagine? We were biting that lid to squeeze it onto the fishing line and things like that that would act as a weight so that you know the worm and the hook could go down the creek. Things like that. And we'd make our own spanners too out of tin cans, like if you get the tin lid? And it's shiny, right? And then we'd make our own lure, spinners with those tin tops. Eventually we could afford to buy real spinners and then eventually flies and yeah, we'd fish.

So this was just like any other activity that you did? This was just like any other activity—

Any other. It's just whatever came where kids were doing—So we see kids going to fish? Oh we'd grab our rod and we'd go join them. And the summertime was when the water was a little bit warmer and safer. In the spring it was dangerous, you know, but we would go wading. Have you ever heard of wading?

Oh yeah.

Okay. So what we'd do is we'd walk about over a mile up the creek and we'd come down, and we would fish while being in the creek. So we wore gumboots or whatever. Swimming shorts. And that's how we—And if we didn't have gumboots, we wore running shoes without socks. And you know, our legs would be red because of the cold water. But anyway, by the time we got home we had lots of fish. Laughs.

Would you eat them?

Oh yeah. That was our dinner. So we could, after fishing, we would have dinner.

Wow.

So we'd catch a lot of fish. Sometimes not too many. Laughs. I won't say anything. Some caught more than you should. Both laugh.

Was there any awareness in the community that you know you would mostly come from fishing families and now you were fishing in Greenwood?

See, my dad never came really from a fishing family. But fishing was just a natural thing to do. And we, you know, a lot of the parents were fishermen so they would probably get their children tips on how to fish. You know what kind of rod to use, you know what kind of hook, things like that.

That's not an experience you had.

Yeah.

But maybe other families?

Through older kids we learned.

I see.

Yeah.

Right.

So the kids, one of the older kids goes, “Oh geez you should use this fly.” I can't remember the name of this one fly that really worked well in Greenwood. So they'd say “Oh geez” and we'd go to the store and get this fly. So we learnt through interaction with older kids and that's how we learned. And we of course would teach the younger kids. So yeah things like that. So we never had teachers, policeman coming to talk to us about safety. We learnt it. The older kids said well you know, “Be careful with the gun.” How to fish, how to go up to find the pond to swim and play hockey and all that. How to scrape the ice and things like that we all learned. And where to find the best worms because you have to find the damp area so you have to go to a part where it’s more marshy, and that's where we found the biggest worm. And the garden too, we would dig in the garden for worms. So things like that. Catch grasshoppers for bait. And then periwinkles, found out it wasn't really periwinkles, but we would turn a stone and you'd see this bug in a cocoon and we'd get those and then we had to slide, peal the sand kind of hardened cocoon, and we'd peel that. And it's this bright yellowish-orangy bug, almost like larva, would come out and then that was another good bait that we used, too. Unfortunately it was so soft that if it was a fast running stream, it would just disappear. Carolyn laughs. So the worm was the best. And grasshopper wasn't that great for fishing. But we used it anyway.

I want to jump forward in time a bit. So you finished UBC, and then where did you teach mainly to begin with?

That's another story. Laughs. Okay I graduated in 1968 and I was living in Vancouver at the time. I didn't want to stray too far off from Vancouver. I figured “Okay, within a three hour range, I could teach.” At first I was interested—I was looking for grade six job anyway, so I only focused on the grade six want ads. So the Lytton area, gee that's about a three hour bus ride or whatever, drive. I didn't have a car, right. So I said, “Oh that's a three hour. I could come home on the weekend.” So I applied at Lytton, but I needed a car because I have to go to Clinton as well, drive to Clinton to be a roving teacher. So I said, “I don't have a car, I don't drive.” So I passed that up. Hope—there was another one in Hope, but that was junior high school. So I said, “I'm not a junior high teacher.” Then Langley, I really wanted Langley because that's where I did my practicum, I enjoyed myself. And this, remember this is not the Langley that you know now. I mean, it was rural country. So I applied for that job. They said, “Yes, we have that job opening. You could be hired.” But I said, “Is there an apartment near the school?” “No.” “Do I need a car?” “Yes.” I said, “I can't take it.” Because I didn't have a car, they didn't have an apartment close enough to the school. So unfortunately, I declined. So I started working the island and there was a job in Ladysmith, grade six. So they called me because I wanted to apply. So I said, “Where's the school? Is there a hotel or apartment close to the school?” “Yep.” “Can I walk to school?” “Yep.” I said, “Okay, I'll take it.” Carolyn laughs. So I ended up in Ladysmith. I had taught there for twenty years and then there was this sports transfer policy after teaching eight years, so I was teaching twenty years, so after eight years you have to transfer because we joined the Nanaimo district, right? So I thought I would be moving to Nanaimo so that's when I bought my condo in Nanaimo, but ended up just outside of Ladysmith. I had to commute from Nanaimo. About a twenty minute drive. So I taught thirteen years there. So you know, thirty-three years. Then I look one year leave of absence to go to Japan, because I wanted to learn how to speak Japanese. Then I taught English there. So that was my career. But I coached skip—Jump Rope for Heart Skipping—after my retirement in 2002. And I didn't retire from absolute coaching until 2010, after 41 years of coaching I stopped. Because I said, “When I turn sixty-five, that's it. It's my time now.” So that's what I did. And that's when I started really focusing on the Nikkei history. There are so many things that I didn't even know anything about my own hometown. It's amazing.“”

You mentioned going to the Powell Street Festival when it first started up in the 70s.

'77, yeah.

And I'm interested in like what was your thinking about this history at that time, when you were still working before you had done your research?

We just thought it was a celebration. I mean I had no knowledge of what that meant, really. We just wanted to go have chow mein or whatever, Laughs. inari sushi. That kind of lack of knowledge that I had.

What about during the Redress years?

Yeah, I was living in Ladysmith. I had no idea about—What are they talking about, Redress? You know, like that. Listening to, when I came back to Vancouver on the weekends, I'd hear stories, you know, talk about it. Some people disagreed, especially older folks. They said, “Well don't cause any more trouble,” you know that kind of thing. “No, we're okay. We don't need money now,” you know. So that was a tough thing about the Redress is that I think Art Miki and them had to try and get everyone on the same page. So, again, we were spread out so much. You know, right across the country. So how do you get them all together to agree on that Redress. But when you think about it now, it's not that we needed the money but it was just a symbol. I don't want to say token, but at least it was a sign that said that the government was apologetic. But like I said, I lacked so much knowledge back in those days. I had no idea.

So what do you think made you become really interested in this history once you did retire?

Well I was always listening to older people, so I was always interested. But I just didn't have the time. I was too busy coaching and teaching—you know what coaching does. You have tournaments on weekends. Basically, teaching and coaching consumed my life, almost. So I had no time for that kind of activities. Just trying to make your team win and have a better team next year, you know that kind of things. You'd understand that, right?

So you started your research with Greenwood, right?

Because I was writing that first book, I thought I'd better start researching on Greenwood. And that's how I got started, yeah.

But since then you've kind of branched out into kind of all areas?

Yeah, yeah. Because like I say, I worked in Rosebery. I didn't know Rosebery was an internment camp,you know. Then I said, “Okay, I want to learn more about New Denver and Sandon.” So we took summer trips there just to see the place but not knowing anything about the history. Just, “Oh yeah this is New Denver, this is Sandon.” You know back in those says we said, “Japanese lived there.” That's it. That's how much ... little I knew.

How was your sort of way of being in the community changed since you started to do more research and know more?

I think making that re-connection. Like living on the island, I was completely—almost completely—away from any of the Nikkei activities. You know, whatever was going on with the Nikkei community, I was just completely out of it. I mean, I was more interested in coaching and teaching, right. So it didn't really matter to me. I was more focused on what I was doing, that's the thing. So once I started connecting—reconnecting I guess you might say—with the Nikkei community, of course, then I started, there was more relevance to come to Nikkei museum, Nikkei Place. Like you say, I just started to reconnect with the people. And then when I started writing my book, my second book, I started interviewing a lot of the older people, the Nisei. And I'm going, “I know that many people that I never knew existed in Greenwood?” You know that was the case.

Like these were people you already knew?

No, I didn't.

Oh you didn't know them.

Yeah because I just trying to interview people and my sister said, “Oh she lived in Greenwood, why don't you interview her?' You know that kind of thing. So the one in Los Angeles, to me Kurisu, the name Kurisu never meant anything to me because I didn't know they even lived in Greenwood, see. For some reason, she heard it from a friend in Toronto and then she contacted me via email that she wanted to buy my book on Greenwood. Then one thing led to another, I said ”Holy geez.“ It’s her parents who sold the dry-cleaner to my brother-in-law's parents, the Nakagawa's. Laughs. Then you know, we started making connections and the more we got to know each other—So the Nakagawa's and the Kurisu were really good friends. And the Nakagawa's were our neighbours in Greenwood. So then I was going on the Route 66 trip, and I said ”Gee, we're going to be in California. Maybe we could meet somewhere?“ And guess what? She lived only twenty minutes away from where my niece lived in Los Angeles. So it was easy for Teresa's daughter to drive her because she said, ”Don't want to drive on the freeway.“ So the daughter was able to bring her. It was only a twenty minute drive, not even that, to get to my niece's place. So like I say, it was meant to be that we're supposed to meet each other. And she's like 95 or something. You know, just amazing that I could get to know these people that I never knew existed in my life. And the ones in Toronto too, or Oakville, Matsubuchi's and Yuasa’s, they never meant anything to me. I didn't even know they lived in Greenwood. And again, through these connection, I started getting to know these families. So now I have connections back East, so anytime I need to go researching, I call them.”

Would you say that most of your connections doing this research were people that you already knew, or were they mostly new people?

My parent's friends, you know, or my brother or sisters friends. So things like that. And even my friends, we grew up together in Greenwood. So naturally I would start with them, but little did I realize that there were so many people that the names never even clicked. And now it seems like they're my friends Laughs., my email friends or whatever. Laughs. It's just amazing. So I'm glad with that. That's really a nice closing, closure for me that I got to know all these people that to me never existed in Greenwood. Because they moved in '46, I guess. They went to Japan or they went to Toronto area, you know. And I was born in '45, I was a year old. So I didn't know these people. So there must have been hundreds that left Greenwood at that time. So the only people I knew in Greenwood were the ones who stayed. And a lot of the families moved in 1950, so I was about 5 years old, right. They went back to Steveston to resume their fishing career. So I didn't know them, I mean I knew the kids, little kids, we were three, four years old. That's all I knew. One day they're gone. Like I'm in kindergarten and next day, you know, they're gone. They're saying, “The family moved to Steveston.”

Is that something you remember, like missing your friends?

Yeah I remember that because I'm playing with them one day—next day, he's gone. That kind of – the coming and going. So you can just imagine Greenwood isn't that bad, but let's say New Denver or places like that. I mean they were just coming and going, like they were just moving. So how do you know everyone? Whereas in Greenwood it was more stable, so we got to know a lot of the families that stayed. But like you say, I just barely remember kids who were in kindergarten class. And then when they got older, I say “Gee I remember you, you were in kindergarten with me.” You know, like that?

And then they disappeared.

But I don't really know them really well.

At the time did you understand what was happening when those kids were leaving?

Nothing.

No?

No. I mean I guess I didn't even know I was in an internment camp.

Right, right.

Right? So no one talked about it. I mean to me, it was just, “Gee our parents all came here. My friends all moved here to Greenwood. Great! We got friends, we could play together, blah blah blah.” So we had no trouble. It was just fun. So again, this person, the perspective of others, the ones who suffered the trauma of being interned, I think they have a different story to tell than say myself. Like I always tell my friends and everyone, I say “We grew up in the right time. The right age.” We could go to university by that time. You know by the time we grew up we could go to university, no problem, no hassle, you know. And the discriminatory laws were gone, they were lifted. So we weren't affected even by '49, I was four years old, you know. Everything worked out well for us at that time. And then being in Greenwood, too, we never suffered discrimination and all that. So can you imagine if we were living in Vancouver during the war or just shortly after? That would be quite traumatic. My attitude might be changed, it could be different. But because we came from that exceptional, you know, internment location where we were accepted by the mayor and the church and the people, so to me it was just normal, normal life.

So you were doing research on Greenwood and you wrote two books, right?

Yep.

And overall, so far. But I also know that you are physically involved with events happening in Greenwood, now.

Yes.

Like Founders Day and the park there.

Yeah.

So how did that come about?

Laughs. Well because I was writing the book, the first book, I had to approach the Greenwood Museum. For photos, I needed photos. So at that time, Marj Maclean was the president, and she said, “Oh yeah, drop in and look at all the photos. You can use any of these photos you want, except as long as you give us credit.” So things like that, just started very innocently, right. So I had a book launch there, twice. So again, I had to go back to Greenwood, I mean again I had to reconnect with Greenwood. I mean for about the twenty years, I have never went back, I didn't go back to Greenwood at all. I mean the demographic has changed so much, I said, “Every time I go to Greenwood I don't know anyone there.” So that was my attitude, right. So the need to go to Greenwood wasn't strong. But because I wrote the book, I had to go, right. So Claire, she says, “You know Chuck, did you know that there's a Japanese park?” And I said, “No.” Laughs. I said, “In all my life I never knew, never heard.” So she said, “Oh just go down there, it's over there in the corner.” And I walked down there and I looked, and I thought “Oh my god.” I said, “I said holy, this is called a Japanese park?” I was kind of embarrassed that it was. There was a gazebo and picnic table, open gazebo. And just because that sign, there was a signage that they erected there, that's why in 1999/2000 they had a contest to name the park. So they named it Ohairi Park. So I didn't even know that there was a Ohairi Park, right? Carolyn laughs. And then somebody build a bridge, a little bridge, and they had a stone lantern. But the grass was like, that high.

About how, like three feet high?

Yeah it was just sort of neglected, almost. So I said, “I want to maybe upgrade it, somehow.” So I started thinking, “Gee, what should I do?” So I said with my mind going brains going, “Gee, I have to find a way to get people, get Nikkei people a reason to come back to Greenwood.” So I was one of those guys guilty of not going back, right. So I thought, “Geez. If I can only find a way to get them to return to Greenwood, at least come and visit your internment camp or location.” So I thought about the family plaque. I said, “Gee.” I was thinking brick because I've seen those bricks before.

Which bricks?

You know the bricks where you donate money and then you buy a brick and your family name is on there? And you see them on the seawall and all that. So I thought, “Well, I'll do that.” But I wanted little bit more than that. I said, “Gee, we should put the children's name.” Then that way it'll give the grandkids, “Oh that's my dad, or that's my mom,” you know that kind of thing. So I thought, “Gee that might be one way of bringing people back.” Is if people buy the family plaque, there's something to say, “Hey, this is Greenwood. This was the first internment cite.” You know, that kind of thing. And I guess to give more visibility, that was more my intention. So that's where one thing led to another, I said, “I want to have a Japanese garden.” And then I approached the city about my intention and they basically said, “Well we don't have any money for maintenance.” So I said, “Okay, I'll figure that out.” So I started with the fundraising. And that's how I say, “You buy a family plaque for two hundred dollars, then you get your plaque with all the children’s names, grandparents, whatever.” Boom, you know.

And then I said, “Gee, I'd like to have”—there were twelve WWII veterans in Greenwood —I said, “Gee maybe I could do something with that, too.” So I said, “Gee I'd like to build a monument to say that there were twelve”—actually there was eleven at the time when I was thinking—so I thought, “Maybe I could get a monument built to honour the twelve—eleven—WWI veterans.” And just recently, the twelfth one came up. I never knew of my—my brother and his wife said, “You know, this lady down the street. Her dad was a WWI veteran.” And I said, “Gee I don't remember that name.” I got the full number and I phoned, and yeah sure enough, he was a WWI veteran. But it wasn't in Roy Ito's book because he was living in Saskatchewan. So he didn't have to fight. He wasn't from the coast so he didn't have to fight to get to—

Alberta?

—Calgary or Alberta. He automatically enlisted in Saskatchewan. And he was not with the same battalion. But again, when the Uegama family were interned in Greenwood, I found out. So he became my twelfth veteran who lived in Greenwood. So again, I never knew these families existed until I found out from my brother and his wife, so they bought the family plaque for the Uegama's. So that's again how you learn and find out more about families that never existed in my life. So anyway, that's what it is now. So this year I'll go to look for a stonemason and an arborist to see what I can do with the garden, you know the park area. So that's where I'm now. So I did, like I say, had a fundraiser last April and it was really successful, and then now with this signage, I thought I was only going to help Greenwood Laughs. and ended up Howard and I.

This is the legacy—

And Laura and yeah.

Legacy Committee.

So I got deeper into this, you know, projects. So that's where I am.

Did your parents ever leave Greenwood? Or did they stay there?

Well they left Greenwood because a lot of their friends were dying and leaving. Plus there were health issues. My mom had stroke and she was blind. My dad had some health issues, too. So they decided to move to Vancouver permanently, you know the house that they bought years ago? So they came and lived there.

Around when was that?

Hmm?

When was that?

Yeah I can't—They were commuting because in the 80s they would live in Greenwood in the summer and then the winter they would come to Vancouver. And we had our basement suite, that was our place. So we'd be with mom and dad and all that. But I think maybe in the early 90s or late 80s, they finally moved permanently because they just couldn't function because they were getting late 80s, right. So that's what happened.

So that house in Kitsilano was still like a collective family space?

Hmm?

So, that house in Kitsilano—

Yeah.

—was still a collective family space?

Yep. It still was a place where we could come. So relatives way out of town they could come and stay at the basement suite. So that was like our place. Our summer home or winter home, or whatever you call it. Like it was my weekend home when I came back from Ladysmith and Nanaimo. So that was like my weekend place, yeah.

Is it still in the family now?

Still, still there. But now we've moved to 8th Avenue, that's all. From 7th to 8th.

So your family doesn't own that house anymore?

No, because once my mom passed away. So my brother was the one who paid for the taxes and renovated and all that. So yeah, he owns it. I'm a tenant now. Both laugh.

Oh, so that's where you're living?

Yeah, that's where I'm living.

Wow, that's amazing.

So that's why I'm familiar with Vancouver and that area.

Wow, cool. Oh, I wanted to ask you, you also did some research into your family's history on Salt Spring Island?

Yep.

Mary Kitagawa told me about that.

Yes.

But she didn't give me much detail about what that was or how you learned about it or how you got involved.

Yeah, that was another—I don't know how it ever got to that point, you know? I was living in Nanaimo, right. Ladysmith/Nanaimo. And I knew just a glimpse of the history of our family. My dad would say, “Oh yeah, one of the sisters died as a baby. She's buried in the cemetery.”

One of your sisters?

Well no, my dad's.

Your dad's sister?

Yeah, because they came from a family of 19, right.

Wow.

So anyway one of them died as a baby, so she's apparently buried there. We didn't—I didn't know. My dad kind of said, “Oh, there's a stick there.” So nothing. Then my dad said, “Oh we lived in Ganges,” he always talked about Ganges. And says, “Oh yeah my mom's Fuki still there.” So with Mary's mom and we drove there, and this is quite a while ago right, and we drove there and we said, “Oh the Fuki is still there.” And that's where my grandparents lived, my dad was telling me where they lived, and then Mouat Park, my dad used to call it Motsu, Motsu right? But it Mouat Park. He said, “My dad had all that acreage to make charcoal.” Now he would call—

So—

—call it sumiaki. So to me, it didn't make too much sense. Sumiaki. But little did I know that was charcoal-making. So I had snippets of all this little information that I knew. So recently I took my teacher friend and said, “Gee, my grandfather had a charcoal kiln somewhere here.” And we looked all over, but we were looking at the far end Laughs., way on the other side. I said, “Gee, the charcoal kiln must have been by the brook.” you know, the little stream that came by. We're looking, looking, but couldn't find a thing. Then somehow later on, I got in touch with Rose Murakami, and Stephen Nemtem, and from them we knew where the, took us to the pit. And it looked like a First Nation burial pit. I mean it was all covered with leaves and branches, you would never have thought that was a charcoal kiln. So one thing that they pointed out was the rock walls. So you could see bits and pieces of the rock wall, and that's how we got started. So then Rose started contacting me and then they said they were going to start restoring this park.

Alright so we just took a quick break and we're back now. And Chuck you were telling me about finding the charcoal kilns on Salt Spring.

Right, so we found this mound full of leaves and all that. And once the restoration began, then we got more serious about the project and so I started researching on my grandfather, and again, started to ask a lot of people about, you know, grandfather and what he did and why he did it and all that. But Steve knew a lot more and Mrs. Murakami also knew a lot. So Rose was able to—But in the collaboration, we were able to pull it off. So to leave that legacy for my grandfather, that was really a neat thing.

So your grandfather originally settled in Salt Spring?

No, no.

No?

So my grandfather, Isaburo Tasaka, he was not a Tasaka either, he was adopted by a Tasaka. So it's actually Mr. Masujiro's wife's brother. So Noyo actually adopted her younger brother. So that's how we got the name Tasaka. So Isaburo Tasaka, like Mr. Tasaka owned a shipping, you know, cargo shipping business. Sake Brewery and Orange Orchard and all that. But it was during, about 1893ish, eh, so guess the war with Russia was kind of looming, kind of hearsay. But again I don't know the real story, but mind you he sunk two ships Laughs., but anyway he was sent to Portland, Oregon in 1893. So some of the relatives must have been living in Portland at the time. I don't know if the Shiomi's were there before my grandfather or not, but anyway, for some reason, Portland was the destination. So in 1893 he ended up there, worked in the forestry industry. But like I say the second time the ship sunk, it sunk just off the coast of Mio-mura, which is the Steveston. You know, that. And so the whole village was so good to them, they saved them, they brought warm blankets, put on a fire, kept him warm, fed him. So he connected with the Mio villagers. So when he was in Portland, Oregon, he heard in Steveston there are a lot of Mio fisherman up there. So he commuted. So in the summer he would fish in Steveston and then in the winter he would come back and work in the forest, logging or whatever. So back in Portland. But by 1900, he decided that, he went in business with Mr. Shiozaki. So the business of salted fish or exporting the salted fish and dog salmon was so profitable that he decided to stay permanently in Steveston. So 1900. So he made enough money, he went back to Japan to find a wife. Laughs. It's in my book, anyway. But what happened was he was like 29 years old then or whatever, so he took a small furoshiki, bag of lunch. And he went to one island just to—Because if you live in a small island, it gets too close. You're all related to each other, sort of. So they knew to go off to another island to look for a bride. So he went to this one island, I've forgotten the name of it, but just near where Sashima. So what happened was—

So he was from?

So from Sashima which is the inland sea area.

Okay.

Near Ehime-ken. Which is—

And then he went?

It's like the Gulf Islands of Japan.

I see. And then he went somewhere nearby, not the same island.

An island nearby, that's according to the story. So he looked all over this island, he walked all over, couldn't find a girl that he liked. And then finally he got so tired that he stopped at this tea house, and he came and said might as well have my lunch and get tea. This beautiful sixteen-year-old girl came to serve him and he fell in love. Said, “She's the one.” But the father of the girl said, “No, if you're going to America we won't let her go.” So it took a few years to convince the girl's side to, you know, get married and take her back to the United States or not to the United States but Canada. And so what happened was by 1903 they were married and they returned to Canada, or my grandfather returned to Canada with the new bride, and that's how we started. Ended up in Steveston in 1903, but for some reason Salt Spring had fresh water. Steveston was polluted, you know you couldn't drink the water there. That's why many of the people died of typhoid fever. So found a place in Salt Spring and again, Salt Spring reminded him of his island in Japan. Sashima. It's like the Gulf Island. He moved there in 1905. And so what he did was he lived there but he fished in the summer in Steveston. So he commuted.

So it was like a nice place to raise a family, Salt Spring Island.

Raise a family, yeah. Like you say, he had a big, large property and I don't think he bought, because there's no written document found in Ganges that he owned that house or he owned that property. But again, it was probably under the table with the blacksmith and you know, things like that.

Like owned on paper by somebody else?

Yeah because back in those days the Japanese couldn't own any crown land. So things like that. He fished in the summer and then he came back in the fall to Salt Spring, and then of course you're unemployed, what do you do all winter? So he started the charcoal. He made charcoal for the people in Victoria because by 1912 the cannery—you used to make charcoal, sell charcoal to the cannery for soldering the can. But by 1912 they invented this snap-on lid, so the soldering was obsolete, almost. So there wasn't a need for charcoal at the cannery, but by the time my grandfather was making charcoal, he had customers in Victoria because he sold it to the soap factory and there was a blacksmith next to the soap factory. So that's what happened. Again, that was his part-time job, extra money that he made. So if you read about that charcoal kiln story, you'll know more. So by 1929, he moved back to Steveston. And in 1935, he and his wife plus the four youngest children returned to Japan, because he had an estate to take care of and that's how he ended up back there. But my dad and everyone, they were all grown up. So they stayed in Canada. They did what they were doing, you know barber, fishing, carpentry, whatever.

I see. And then you said the land that he used to have on Salt Spring is now Mouat Park.

Nope because I don't think he really owned it, sort of.

Right.

Because there's no paper saying that he owned it. But he must have given like a rent money or whatever, he just paid money and then he was able to. Back in those days, the paperwork was so lax, so he probably just paid rent for that house and then he had acres for that charcoal to get the trees, timber rights. Apparently the blacksmith is the one that owned it.

What was the blacksmith's name?

Bill McAfee. He apparently owned it. So that's why, you know, the Salt Spring people were researching on who really owned that Mouat Park land.

I see. But that was the land that your grandfather used in some way?

Yeah grandfather used to cut down the trees for the charcoal.

And for you this was another post-2010 retirement project?

Pardon me?

This was another 2010 retirement project that you were digging into this history?

Yeah again it just came to me. I wasn't really expecting it. So three projects going on.

So do you feel an attachment now toSalt Spring Island as well?

Oh yeah a lot more now because now I'm working with the people there with the Japanese Garden Society and the parks, Parks and Rec. So I go quite often. Every time I take my brothers and sisters, even my nieces and nephews, I give them a tour of all the Tasaka history. You know the charcoal, the rock wall that he built for the Mouat Store, and the cemetery where the baby Chizuko gravestone is. And places like that. So I can give my Tasaka history when I take people there. Just like the Murakami's can give a history of that family where the Sharp Road was and now they live on Rainbow Road. So I know some of that history, too.

So if you could tell anyone who's learning about the history of Japanese Canadians, if you could tell them one thing that you think is important to take away from this—I'm asking this because it's a big part of what Landscapes is trying to do—if you think there is one thing they could take away from learning this history that we're doing to be putting out there, what would that be?

To me, like personally? I try to look at it objectively. I don't want to feel one way or the other. I have to learn why this happened, how it happened, you know, and try to get the whole perspective not just from the Nikkei point of view, but let's say the other. So I want the other side, even if its negative, I want to hear why, like the government that enforced this discriminatory law, why were the people in general discriminated Japanese Canadians. You know, things like that. So I'm trying to look at it more objectively. And so the last time I gave the talk at UBC, I said, “I think the internment really didn't happen say 1942, it must have happened way before that.” So I said, “I think we have to go back to the California Gold Rush in 1849. And that's how that attitude or the anti-Asian attitude began.” So that's why when I did the talk I said, “It began with the Chinese coming over during the California Gold Rush, the Gold Mountain, that dream that they had.” So then they had to work up on the railway, so they hired thousands of Chinese to work on the railway. Then of course they got into the plaster mining. And by 1882, with the swarm of Chinese coming in to San Francisco, they enforced/passed the Anti-Chinese Exclusion Act. So from there the attitude of “These brown, weird people” like that kind of attitude, “they don't belong in this society of the mainstream America” kind of thing. So from there on, that's how the Japanese immigrants were able to replace the Chinese and then now the Americans had another problem, so they enforced/passed the Oriental Exclusion. And then of course, most of the Japanese immigrants were farmers, so they dominated, you know, the farming communities up and down the West Coast of the United States. Like Belleview, Washington, you know like that. They passed an Alien's Land Act, you know, in the early 20s I think. It depends where it was passed but so that wasn't a level playing field where now the Japanese nationals can't own land in America but the children, the Nisei, the naturally born in the United States could. So again, all these speed bumps that took place upon the new immigrants, see. So again, I think it started from there and then with the Gold Rush in 1858 in Rock Creek and 1860s in the Cariboo, you know Barkerville, the Yukon Gold Rush in late 1800s, lot of the Americans prospectors and miners drifted north to British Columbia. Like you say, back in those days I mean the border really then wasn't really a border, just a line. So they were free to go up and down, back and forth. So you could tell that there's a lot of American influence in British Columbia because a town like Phoenix, New Denver, they thought New Denver was going to be like Denver, Colorado. Silverton, Colorado, so Silverton. Places like that. Deadwood. You could go on and on. So there was a lot of American influence. Apparently I found out that in Oregon there was a Klu Klux Klan, or the White Supremacy group there. And then as you drifted up, I think it was Steveston? The Steveston Sentinel paper, just recently a Kwantlen University professor said that there was a White Supremacist group in Shawnessy, Klu Klux Klan or whatever. But I think it was a more benign name, it was called White Canada Association or something like that. Again those people were around this area so that's how I think it influenced the way it went, that Asians were not allowed sort of, they wanted to drive them out. So I was surprised to see that the Klu Klux Klans were up in the Pacific Northwest.

So you'd say it's part of a long history?

Yeah it's a long history, yeah.

Leading up to—

It just didn't happen in '42. I mean the history from the early 1900, you can remember the Chinatown and Japantown Riot in 1907 and all these 1914, you couldn't enlist in British Columbia because the vote was so important. Like “Don't give these people vote, or else you can't drive them out, they have to stay. Once you give them the vote, they're Canadian.” You know, like that. So I think, to me, the one thing that really stands out is the right to vote. That's so important. And then at the UBC talk, too, I said, “Two things come to my mind, perception and intent. So what's the perception and what's the intent?” So, you know, the perception of Japanese Canadians: they work for lower wages, they live in substandard, they just don't assimilate to the mainstream Canadian structure, and blah blah blah. So that's kind of the perception of the government and the people, right? So what was the intent then? Let's drive them out. So when the war happened, that was a good excuse. They say, “Hey, now we have an excuse —let's label them enemy aliens. Now let's see what we can do.” Repatriate to Japan, go east of the Rockies. So that was the intent. Let's drive them out of BC. Let somebody else have the problem kind of thing. Both laugh.

Well that's all my questions. But I just wanted to give you another chance if there's any stories that you wanted to share or things you wanted to talk about that I haven't asked you about yet?

Yes. You kind of have to give me a clue or else it won't come into my mind.

Laughs. Nothing burning on the tip of your tongue that you want to add to the end of this interview?

Nothing, yeah. I mean if you give me some hint then it might trigger my brain and then I might be able to give you stories. Like I say, there's 1001 stories in my brain so I don't know which one will come out. So when we were kids, not kids but we were university students and we'd moved back, and some weekends we'd just hang out with our friends. And we would be rolling on the floor, laughing, because of all the stories we'd shared about Greenwood. And that's how a lot of the funny stories, yeah... So how are you related to Vincent?

Laughs. Well how about we wrap this interview.

Oh yeah, yeah.

We'll wrap it up and then I'll tell you about that, but that's everything?

That's it.

Great. Thank you so much.