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In the multi part interview,
This oral history is from an interview conducted by the Oral History cluster of the Landscapes of Injustice project.
he had sent photographs back to Japan for the marriage arrangersbut do you know, did he meet your mother through a marriage arrangement? I have no idea You don't know? I have no idea except, because most of the males would send their photographs back to their town or village or whatever, and the families would know that person, like my father. And it's no different than today. An arranged marriage. Yeah that's true. Yeah. And that's becoming popular because in Canada and the US they have all of these eHarmony or whatever. That is true. Meeting. You go to an arranger. Yup, I met my husband through an online dating service actually. So? I mean now, it's the same thing as way back when. Yeah. Anyway. Do you know, so your mom came in 1913, what, was she teaching right away or did she.... Oh she had been teaching about two or three years, I have photographs of her. I have even a photograph of her from the late 1890s. You know, she was a teacher. In those days, if you graduated from high school then you went into teaching. Same here in the old days you went to Normal School, then senior matric, and then two years later you became a teacher. Now you have to get a bachelor or education. Some people get masters of education too! Do you do you know what your mom's first impressions were of Canada? Well I have no idea. Do you know what her later impressions were? Well Canada was her adopted home so. When the Canadian government in 1945, '46 made people sign back to go to Japan, there was no way she was going to go back to Japan. Really?
Why are you taking out citizenship?Because you don't have vote, you don't have anything. But he did take out citizenship, so I dunno. He believed in this country too, I guess. Did, was he involved in the First World War at all? No, he was working in the mill. Okay. Okay. I love all of the photographs, the photograph of your family car and the beautiful house and because we do have this focus on property, I was wondering if you could reflect a little more about kind of the things that would have been in your childhood? Did you have a lot of toys? A lot of, what was kind of, can you paint a picture of what your family home would of been like on the inside? Well, in those days, there wasn't too many toys that you could buy so, my father actually made toys at the mill for the manager, and of course I got some of the toys but he made baseball bats out of a wooden leg and he would bring it home and I'm sure he would have provided those things to the mill managers family. So yeah in those days I'm sure that there weren't too many toys that you could buy, he made toys for his mill manager. And how about would he also make some furniture in your home? He made a Japanese bath! Oh!
You can come to TorontoI jumped at the big chance and my older brother and I went there.
How come you're taking a photograph?He says,
that was the site of my father's old houseand so this fellow said, he was maybe an owner of that new building that occupied the place and he said
Come on in, I'll show you the place!Oh wow. So he went in and had a nice chat with the fella.
My children's bike needs 30 dollar worth of pay, it's only worth 100 dollars!So it's not a very good business. You know what happened, it's funny, he would stamp his numbers on the bicycle at the bottom and he would only repair the bicycles he sold. Oh interesting, that is clever! He was clever. And he said,
If you bought the bicycle at Canadian Tire, go back to Canadian Tire and have it repaired.It was funny! Hah, that's unfortunate because probably he'd do a better job than someone at Canadian Tire would. Well he was in the business for years. What now, now I'm just curious about your brothers, so there was the bicycle repair person, you did engineering, what did everyone else end up doing? Well, the two brothers, two oldest brother ran the bicycle business, the other graduated from the University of Manitoba, and there's a story about that one too because he was in second year UBC, okay. When the war started and I told you about all the able men being enrolled as Canadian officers in the beginning, and of course when Pearl Harbour started and he was considered an enemy and he was discharged. Well then he came East, and he went to summer school at Queen's hoping to get, get into third year in chemistry, and of course what happened was McGill, Queen's and Toronto would not accept Japanese Canadian students till after the war. We were discriminated by the three big universities. Fortunate for me I graduated, senior in 1946 when they finally opened up and I was one of the first ones to get into University of Toronto.
Stay upstairs, we don't want you down in the store because we might get vandalizedSo very early on I learned about race and discrimination. However, there's another little story that's Japantown which is around Powell, Powell ground. We went to Strathcona Public School. So, back in 1927 when my brother graduated, grade eight, the oldest one, there were maybe two or three Japanese in the graduating class. When I graduated in 1940 it was a huge school, we had over 11,000 students in the public school and believe it or not over 60 percent were Japanese Canadians. So if there was any discrimination it would have been reversed. And then of course, after public school we went to Japanese school. Japanese language school you mean. Yeah, yeah it was kind of essential because at that point in time nobody would hire an Oriental in a professional rank like accountants, engineering, whatever. And even the even these, crafts like plumbers and so on would not hire Japanese. So what it leaves us, the older people they could be either a fisherman, farmer, lumberjack, or worse, work for Japanese store in downtown which meant that you had to have Japanese. Right?
If you want to send me a letter just say Sandra Matsui Switzerland, they'll find me.They knew, all the immigrants in there, the Italians and so on that came in. They hired Italians for road work and so on you know. So I know, and there is racial discrimination in Switzerland, it's only six or seven million people... Yeah, no, and geographically it's quite small too... Greater than the Toronto area! That's true, that's true. That's funny to think of a whole country being the size of the GTA. Well I think that's wonderful I think let's leave it there, and we may come back some day and ask you some follow up questions but thank you so much for your time Tom. It's been very wonderful. Okay. I was lucky because in 1950 when I graduated, all these service men who got into engineering graduated. A normal graduation in 1950 would have been about 400 engineers. We had something like 1100. Wow And of course the government said
Please give the veterans first choice.Yeah Where did that leave me Yeah The service people, the occidentals then the orientals at the bottom. But I was lucky and I found a job because, the first job is because I had bought a $100 beat up car. And I worked for a company that had three plants and they wanted a plant engineer and I think I was the only one that had lots of maintenance experience with the Royal Canadian Electrical Mechanical Engineers. So I had maintenance experience and probably because I was the only one that had a car. Hmm I could rattle between the three. The next job, I knew it was a dead end job because I worked with the president, who was an owner's son. So I was looking a new job and then I got one in Canadian Industries. But at that time in 1951 there was still the second biggest class of engineers with the service people graduating. But I think I was luck that I had three years of officer's training in the military which probably countered what the recruiting person, who was a veteran. So I was one of the first oriental engineers to be hired.by Canadian Industries. So, if you don't mind chatting a little bit further. So you mentioned you went to university in Ajax at the University of Toronto. Yeah And then just trace through your career for me a little bit. You studied engineering, you graduated from Ajax. Then, if you could but those kind of jobs you just mentioned into a chronology. Well. Back in those days in engineering, you had to have practical experience. Like for instance in mechanical engineering in those days, all the machine parts were made by manual control. You only had two hadns to move the tools, OK? Today, you get three axes and it's automatically controlled by computer, ok. So, if you didn't know, have a good background in machine shop, you could not design machine parts properly. Unless you had experience in machine shop, machining. And so it was a reqiorement that we have at least six hundred hours of machine shop. So the first year I went to work at Massey-Harris in Brantford. But by the time I paid room and board and paid travel expense, I didn't save any money. So, I was looking for another job and the started to advertise for officer's training candidates and I thought Well, they, it was only 1947 so it's only about two years after the war and
well they, they discharged my brother, I don't know if they will take me.But, it fulfilled two things: the maintenance machine shop work counted and then even though the pay was $150 a month
You look familiar, were you living here?And he said
Yeah I lived on such and such street.He says
Do you know when you left couple of days later the whole house was looted.Because they knew that they weren't coming back. And if you get one of the videos that are done, it tells about a story of the people leaving the coastal area and as they left on the boat, this one lady could see her favorite piano being... Oh no. Taken away. Out of the house? Out of the house, and you know it, it if it was a wartime rule okay? If you're caught looting you could be shot. Wow. Did that happen? No. So, yeah there's lots of stories around. Yeah, there are very unfortunate stories. Do you, in Vancouver from your memories growing up as a child do you remember racism towards other groups of people? Like for instance towards Chinese Canadians or...? Well, well we knew that - as I told you about the Halloween – so, oh yeah, we knew that, and I was often mistaken as a Chinese person, so I laughed. And even the Chinese people spoke Chinese to me
They're looking for people, why don't you come with me and we'll get you a job?So, I went and I got a job. That gave me an income for buying clothes and spending money. And then I didn't have to depend on my older brothers for money, you know. We had nothing. So that's where work comes in, I needed a job.
Well we'll let you know,which meant they weren't interested. Oh finally, as I said, there was a newspaper ad looking for plant engineers and this was Downty Hepburn and they had structural steel firm, a foundry and a machine shop spread out in the city. And they wanted a plant engineer or you want to call a maintenance engineer and so I applied 'cause I had plenty of maintenance experience with the army. And of course, from a very early age I worked at a bicycle shop where tools were no problem. So I knew, as I say, the reason I got the job I think is because of the three plants you had to travel, and I had a car. The other engineers didn't have a car, so I figured that's how I got my job. How long did you work at that job for? Well, I, less than a year, because I told you before I was responded directly to the president of the company who was the founder's son
No, there's a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment that's open and these couples are looking at it. And if they don't take it you can have it.Three days later they said
You can have it.Oh, amazing. So, then I had to sell the house with 31 years of junk in it. That was quite a job, I tell you. So, so I didn't move in for, ah, four months, till I got the house in shape to sell. So, anyway. What did you do with all the stuff? Were you able to bring some of it with you? Oh yeah, some I brought, but the others, there was a niece and nephew, they took some. Most of it we gave away to Salvation Army and the other stuff went into the dump. Was there a, can you tell me about why you chose Momiji, as opposed to another residence that would have been an option? Well there is a certain advantage to Momiji, because if you're in Momiji and you get to a stage where you have to go to a nursing home, uh, Momiji has connections to Castle View or Ihon Nursing Home. Certain beds, in Ihon there's 25 beds for Japanese Canadians and 18 or so in Castle View or something. So, if you get to that point, there's a, you're taken care of, of nursing home. My brother was at home and he fell down the stairs and he got paralyzed and he had to go to a nursing home. And when one of the one of the city knew that he was a perpetual employee, so when one of these nursing homes bed was open, you only had 24 hours to make up your mind. Whereas at Momiji they'll help you for a long while, because they have support service. They'll do your laundry, they'll even bathe you, so on so forth. So you don't have to worry further down the road so there's certain advantage to it. For sure. And besides all my relatives are here, my cousins and nieces and nephews are around, so. Do you have relatives at the, at Momiji right now there with you? I know your wife, but are there other relatives that are...? My ah, wife's sister lives in the same floor and my cousin just moved in last October, so yes I have two relatives. That's nice, makes it feel a bit more cozy. It, ah, branching away from your family a little bit. I'd love to hear a little bit more about what the archive group means to you. Why, why did you choose to use some of your retirement years helping out with archiving photographs?
Okay each one of you have a question.As soon as I answered their question I said
Next, next...So I gave everyone a chance. That's very kind of you. Because I know that there's always some dominate child that will occupy the time if you let him or her. You're a teacher at heart then. My wife is a teacher. Was she? Yes she was a bacteriologist and then 17 years as a house wife and then at 40 she became a teacher. Wow good for her, like a classroom grade school teacher? Yeah she could teach high school or public school and then by the time she graduated there was a strike on, so she decided to teach public school. That is amazing, and so she taught school while you were in, I should do the math again or I'm going to fail – she taught school while you were in Kingston? She taught, took, when I was here for 10 years she took the course. Bachelor of Education, it was a very first time that they had started the Bachelor of Education program at the U of T. And she was one of the first ones to graduate from there. And then she went to Kingston and she was lucky to get a job. Yeah, yeah. And now, you read the stories now, that a lot of teachers are going to get fired. Really? Fired? Yeah because of the declining, declining school population and they're trying to consolidate schools. Yeah they're closing schools. Yeah so. Yeah my PhD comes out of OISE which is now where U of T does it's education, so I get all kinds of emails about school closures and cut back and all that. Oh I wouldn't want to be a school teacher today. No I have several friends who are and one, its taken her eight or nine years before she was able to find a stable position she just kept hopping from maternity leave to maternity leave because the schools kept changing their enrollments and all that. My granddaughter was lucky she went in as a first year teacher and she had to go and look for another job, except she had applied and the two teachers that had seniority had declined and so she got the job. So she was lucky. That is very lucky for sure, yeah. Tom: Oh yeah.