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This oral history is from an interview conducted by the Oral History cluster of the Landscapes of Injustice project.
jek. And
jekis, considered a kind of a pejorative...you know it's like
Japor something like that, right, or
chinkor something, it's not a positive word to use, in Lao. But then, I went to some minority Chinese areas in Lao-speaking areas where they haven't really been exposed, they're in another country, they're in Cambodia actually, so they haven't exposed to the politics of that term? And you go to see Chinese communities and they're talking in Lao and the just identify as jek themselves. And I was like, oh geez, I would never call a Chinese person that, when I'm talking in Lao because I don't think it's polite. But they themselves are identifying that way. So the point is that... you know, there can be complex ways in which people identify themselves, some people can adopt...pejorative terms as very positive for themselves, like incorporate those, and make them into something that they think is positive, even though those terms were not created as positive terms initially? I just...yeah. So that's kind of how I’ve dealt with that issue.
You know you're from Nanaimo when...and, I posted the 1934 class photo. From Brechin school. Which, shows forty percent Japanese in the class picture. I was amazed by the comments of all these Facebook people who are collected to that page, but. Uh, people that I don't know, who were commenting, saying, oh. Nanaimo was more diverse back then than it is now, or, like they were. I didn't make any comment about the diversity, but THEY were all making a comment about how diverse...it looked and there was a bunch of comments back and forth, so I thought, okay. You know? Um...it's important for Nanaimo people nowadays to know that their history was not always just white people. I mean that's actually a very valuable thing, right. You know, that's going to make them more open to racial diversity now. Right? Like this can have a positive - so it's not just about history, it's, I do feel that as a white person maybe my job is to, sensitize white people a bit more to some of these issues. You know. In a certain way. But also to help...I mean I wish there was a Japanese Canadian who was doing the history of Japanese Canadians in Nanaimo. But since nobody's doing it, and the only people that know about it are between eighty and ninety, if I don't do it now it's going to be gone entirely. And nobody else seems to be in the wings waiting to do it. So, at least I haven't met anyone, maybe there is somebody. I think Mas Fukawa's doing some of that research. I've talked to her about it, she's definitely interested in relations, she said that to me from the very beginning, she was one of the very first people who...but you know, and she said to me, at the very beginning, she said,
Oh finally I have a friend, before I thought I was the only one who cared about Nanaimo, now I know there's somebody else who cares, so she also encouraged me a lot, from the very beginning. And, you know, I'm going to go see her tomorrow at her house because, you know - Great, tell her I say hi. Yeah, yeah. But, so, but she told me that she'd been looking for stories about...white connections to Japanese Canadians, that she wanted to do that, and that was something that she thought was important to document, so she has a sense that, you know, she lived in Nanaimo herself for many years. I think she has a sense that that's important? And she sort of said to me, she said um...you know. Some people are looking for the more negative stuff, she said you know, I'm looking for some of the positive stuff, she actually said to me. That's the way she put it. But she said she had not been able to find much! She had been unsuccessful in finding many stories. And now, with...you know now, due to family health issues, she's not able to get out as much to do this work right now. So, she's not really able to pursue it so, she has had an interest in this, you're right. And she has an interest in Nanaimo but, she actually hasn't, according to her, and maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised when I go there that there's more to it than meets the eye but, in my telephone and email communications with her, over the last number of months, it seems that...she has not...been able to put together this history, herself. She went, she told me initially that she went to Nanaimo Archives and they told her that they didn't have anything there that was valuable. So I thought that was the case. You know, then I found all this stuff...from the Native Sons and Daughters and I sent it to her, she was amazed, she didn't think any of it existed in Nanaimo Archives, she'd been living in Nanaimo for years, she'd gone to the archives, she had - because it wasn't in a Japanese file, it was in the Native Sons and Daughters file, so she'd never, you know, I came across it by accident. She, you know, she hadn't asked the right question or, hadn't been given the right answer. So she didn't know that. Then when I went, and then, in this last year, in 2016...the archivist got a little bit more interested because John Price and his people, had asked her to do a little, report of what the archives in Nanaimo had because, they considered Nanaimo to be, a less-studied area that people knew less about. This is for the, Asian Canadians in Vancouver Island project? Absolutely. Yeah. And, so...that had, made the archivist more aware of the situation, and she - when I went to the archives, I know her, and she gave me that report right away. Hmm. So that I could see what she compiled, she complied some stuff for them? To kind of show what they had, but there wasn't much. And she'd done no interviews, and what you could see from that little report was, that there's not much note. And, and so, you know that kind of um...so yeah. So I think, yeah. Masako is very interested, obviously. But...I don't think she was able to get what she wanted to get. My, having said that...you know, her books...to me, are... you know, the best, in terms of really documenting...that history, it's, you know the fishing history...her books are wonderful. You know, really important resources. So I'm really glad to have those. And I've definitely made good use of them, and I consider her work to be, you know the best, for this issue. From what I've seen.
niceracism? You know, nice Canadian racism, right? Where you're, where you're racist but you don't necessarily yell in somebody's face? Right, but it's just there...internally. That's...that's a bit more difficult to convey that, to people. People have to be at a certain level of understanding before you begin to talk about that. I think the first stage is to connect them to, their place or their people in a way, that they can see that they were a part of this history, or their ancestors were a part of this history. That's probably, lower-lying fruit for, making successes with connecting people. But, what I've certainly found in my own research, when it comes to white people...it's much much easier, and no resistance at all, when I talk to really old people. The ones between eighty and ninety who had contact with Japanese, real easy. It's a real easy conversation. When I talk to younger people? Who didn't, even a few years younger? But who didn't know any Japanese? The discussion is much more difficult. The discussion of what specifically? The discussion about what happened! About the internment. And the internment, and the injustice that occurred, right? Because...they don't...that's somebody else's issue, that's not them. They have no connection. They don't see the injustices, they don't have a strong opinion about it. They don't want to recognize it, or... I don't know, I wouldn't say they're in denial, they just don't KNOW anything about it. You know, they don't know enough, they don't see it's related to them, and they, so it doesn't grab them. So the difference - And I don't feel like they're very emotional about it. And you know, it's just like, you're hearing about what's happening in Sudan or something. I mean, you might be interested, but you're not connected to Sudan, so. You can listen to it on the news, or you can listen to somebody talking about it. You might be mildly interested, but it doesn't have a huge emotional effect on you. You know, whereas when I talk to older people that really affect, you know, were there...I'm amazed at how emotional they are. At how...vocal they are. At how...you know, speaking as if, you know ninety-year-old people who, I'm sure have never been involved in any kind of advocacy or they haven't been protesting in their lives ever, but yet, they SOUND like they're...like they're talking about INJUSTICE and maybe that's their main point in their lives where they really saw injustice and recognize it as such. I think that's something that people don't realize, that there are people out there that feel that way. I'm not saying it's everyone. And it's complicated, you know, as I've mentioned already. But, it's something that is important, that people need to realize. And I think THAT'S the message. That is the least understood, and is the message that needs to get out to the public. That I think, is going to resolve in the type of positive...societal changes that I think the Landscapes of Injustice project is trying to promote. I think that that is...the connection. That can actually...have the biggest impact. If it can be made. Right? Mhm.