1930s-40s
1990s
Linda
King
was raised in Trail, British Columbia. She begins this interview by describing how when she was a child, she travelled with her mother and sister to visit Dr.
Shimotakahara
in Kaslo. She recalls how she played with Japanese-Canadian children and her mother visited
Amy
Fugioka
, a woman with chronic arthritis. Despite this experience, Linda explains that she only learned about the internment and dispossession in her 50s. This was when she moved to New Denver to own a shop and her friend
Nobby
Hyashi
brought her books on the internment. When she moved to New Denver, she also met
Tad
Mori
, a Japanese Canadian who in 1942 was in charge of guarding Doukhobor children. She recalls seeing the paper-thin shacks and feeling angry whenever this history is mentioned. Her mother had a kind attitude towards Japanese Canadians, and King attributes her perspectives today to the impact this had on her growing up. She recalls going to a garage sale at her Japanese-Canadian son-in-law’s grandmother’s house where they had jewellery and mink coats; she explains that this gave her the idea that this family was well-off before being uprooted from Vancouver. King discusses how this history should never have happened, and says that the money from Redress was not enough.
This oral history is from an interview conducted by the Oral History cluster of the Landscapes of Injustice project.