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This oral history is from an interview conducted by the Oral History cluster of the Landscapes of Injustice project.
I’ll take you fishing.Well, the story is that he hated to wake me up because I was sound asleep at four o’clock in the morning, like we got to bike to get there. And, so, anyways, I wake up, Dad’s gone. Well, I can remember bawling, you know making a big fuss over this. And so, anyways, we used to go almost every weekend. So the next weekend he took me, you know, to
You dirty Japs!You know? Yeah, the kids are yelling it at us. I couldn’t figure that out, you know? Some of them were kids that I’d played with, you know.
Well she’s going to school, I’m going.
Oh you can’t. you have to go to kindergarten, you’re two years different.I said ,
No, no, no.And again, making a fuss. And so the kindergarten teacher, I remember, taking me to the school, and talking to the principle. And to this day, I remember the principle saying,
Alright,You know. And well I never did go back. Wow. Yeah, so I was fortunate. You know, two years younger, and now, in the same class. And fortunately, I managed to stay up with the, yeah. That’s a big age gap for, that’s a big age gap for a young person in school. Was it, did you ever feel younger than the rest of your classmates? No, I didn’t feel younger than the classmates. Where I noticed the difference was in playing sports. The guys were always bigger. So they, like in soccer they’d always put me in goal. Where I don’t get bumped or whatever. I always says,Kaye , we’ll take you. But, if you can’t do what everybody else is doing, you’re going right back.
You mean I have to go in goal again?And they’d say,
Yeah, yeah. That’s where you gotta go!But during those years, between say age 4-5 and so on, yeah there was a period where, because I was born in the Depression, right? That my parents moved to
Oh well!there were hundreds, more than hundreds of other kids for me to play with. Anyway, it was tough, in thinking back. It must have been very tough on my mom. It was, I think, four of us at that time. How old, what was the age range of your siblings? Oh, let’s see. I was, in April, I would have turned 9. Then
Well, you know, I’m thinking of going to the Interior, to build these houses. To help build. And if I do that, you guys, you know you’ll be together as a family, much earlier.And so, there was a period, I think he left in, I don’t know whether it was May or June, something around there. And then shortly afterwards, I think it was in July, we took this train. Again, as a kid it’s an adventure, never been on a train before, into the Interior. And, one place that, you know, I mean, there were these trestle ridges and so on that you cross. I remember those things. And I think at Nelson, there’s that river that runs through there? Well back then, I mean, it was whitewater. There were no power stations, so the water was. . . And I still remember. And then getting to
Okay, that’s where you guys are going to live.And we see the bunch of army tents, and yeah. So, we lived there for a period. And I remember
Come on, everybody get into this tent.We go in there, and we’re standing there, and all of a sudden she said,
Grab a pot!And we see all this water coming through, right? Because all of our luggage is in there. Yeah. And anyway, I don’t know why some of those memories still stay in your mind. But yeah, after a couple of months—we were lucky because Dad had gone on to build. So, when the settlements, like
Well take the roofing paper and wrap it around the house.And that’s basically all the insulation that you have. And so to this day, I think everybody refers to it as tar paper shacks. And it happens that that winter was one of the coldest, right? Well I still remember getting up in the morning and all the inside of the house is white, right?
GeeYou know? And yeah I can’t, it’s a good thing I loved peanut butter and jam sandwiches, that kind of thing. Anyway, we didn’t starve. And, my favorite was, and still today, I love banana. During the war years, you didn’t get it. And every time you know a chocolate bar, or bananas came into the little store, we’d all go running. Or if they had a Popsicle or something. It was a luxury to get a banana, and to be able to make a banana sandwich, this is one of those things that I always remember. So, in ’43, school started. And I think for awhile we went to the neighbouring communityAts , what did we eat in those days?
Hey,I saidAts , I think Mom and Dad want to go toJapan .
I’m not going, I don’t want to go.I said,
I hardly speak the language, or very little.Yeah. And so we confront my mom and dad, and say,
I heard that you were thinking of . . . well, if you decide to do that, well bothYou know, they had more money, and whatever. And that posed the problem. By that time—all during the time that the settlement inAts and I will go live with our cousin who moved directly toManitoba .
Oh I guess we have to go to the east,because don’t want to break up the family with the two eldest going to
Well, if you don’t mind this, I can take the tractors out, and you can move there temporarily.And that’s what we did, yeah. When we went there, there was not enough work on Peterson’s—he had a small nursery. So I remember going and working at Sheridan Nursery, with my dad and my sister.
This is crazy. They are paying me half as much as these guys are getting.I said,
Sorry guys, I’m going to be way back here.
Oh let’s go down there and see what that area is like.And Turgano is a well-known individual who had a big peach farm, had many acres and a packing house and all this. When we got there, they said,
Oh god, come down, we’ve got lots of work here.So I remember from that point on, my dad, my sister, and I worked picking peaches. And that’s where I met the Sano friend I was talking about, who now has Alzheimer’s. Once they decided to move east, they moved to
I am going back to school.I said,
How are you going to get back to school?I figured where his parents were living, it wasn’t going to be in St. Catherines. And he said,
Oh, I found a place where I can go to schoolboy. And get room and board.You know? And I said,
I’m not sure what I was going to do.And anyway, one day I didn’t know he was going to become my future brother-in-law. He said,
So I was one of the first to go up and see the place. And when I get here, it’s all evening. And we stopped the struck loaded with stuff, you know. And in fron t of this, I think,Kaye , how would you like to go to Mount Forest? Turgano’s bought a basket factory in Mount Forest, and he wants to move Japanese, some of the Japanese that want to go up there.
My god, it’s a huge Victorian mansion.It was the house of a former, one of the few senators that come from
Come on, let’s go to the restaurant and grab a bite to eat before we go back home.I remember going to this restaurant, and we walk in. The people were full. As soon as we walk in, you could hear a pin drop. People never seen Japanese before, right? And we didn’t look like the caricature that they had at that period of time, you know? At that point in time. Anyways, the upshot of all this is when I got back to my mum and dad’s place, Dad had gone back to Oakville. I said,
Listen, you guys should move up to Mount Forest. Because they have this big house, they have a little room, it has indoor plumbing. It’s got running water and so on.And so they eventually moved from Oakville, I think it was in October period, just as school was starting, or yeah that they moved up there. And then I decided, well, I guess I’ll, you know, I’ll work this year. I was 13. And so I remember having to go to the OPP and saying to them,
Yeah, I want a work permit.You have to go to school til 15 or 16. But my parents need some financial support, they have no money, etc. And so I worked for a basket factory. Bloody tough job, I remember. Because as a kid that age, getting up at 6, walking to the basket factory—it wasn’t that far fortunately, but nevertheless—working til 5 or 6, five and a half days a week. Yeah. So when did you end up going to school? My saving grace during that period of time is that when I went to Mount Forest, I used to play a lot of baseball as a kid. That was one of the things I was reasonably good at, back in the
Come onAnd so I went, and this is a juvenile team, I guess. Everybody’s much bigger than me. But anyway, I said,Kaye , let’s go out and try for the team.
Yeah, I used to pitch.
Okay, we’ll see how good you are.And I started to play, and you know, I wasn’t bad. I would hang out with these guys and play. And so during the summer months, for me, that summer was a wonderful summer because we’d play baseball in all the neighbouring towns. So when people mention places like Listowel, Durham, I know all these places. Harriston, Palmerston. I’ve been there, I played baseball there.
You know, guys, I don’t think I can hack this. Playing baseball is great, but the season comes to a close, and I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t go back to school.So I said,
I’ll go back to school.I went to the Mount Forest High School because we lived there. And I stayed there one week. And I still remember the science teacher who was the principle of the school teaching us how to build a compost pile, you know? We spent a whole week on this thing.
This is not the kind of science that I . . .Yeah. And so I wrote to my friend, Sano guy, who was going to—school boy. And I said
Listen Tak, I gotta get out of Mount Forest. Can you find me a place?You know, and within a week of writing, I get a letter back, and it’s Tak saying
Yeah, yeah, I’ve got a place for you. He’s the brother of the mother that I’m living with, right? And his name was Rigbys.And so a week later, after I received the letter, I’m hoofing it down, well, hitchhiking on—there was a truck, a basket truck that used to come up from St. Catherine’s to pick up the baskets they found. So I got a ride with them and they dropped me off at the camp, where the Japanese workers were—I don’t know whether you know quonset army huts, right? That’s where the workers stayed, and yeah. And the Rigbys used to tease me. They came to pick me up and here was this little kid, two big bag, waiting at the end of the road
Hey, you’re playing with bigger kids, you keep up.Well, I went to St. Catherine’s and now, all city baseball team, I tried out and I found out that yeah, okay, I could make the team as a pitcher, but I wasn’t going to be the number one pitcher, right? And I said,
Okay.And besides, Rigby’s weren’t anxious for me to spend time when I’m supposed to be helping them. So I said,
Okay, it’s not going to work.And so I thought to myself well, well, I guess baseball is not going to be your career, you’re going to have to do something else. And this is in grade ten, I had just started grade ten. And I said,
And so I thought to myself,Kaye , I guess you’re going to have to do it in school.
If you’re going to do that, you’ve got to do better than the rest of the kids in the class.And so yeah, that was the attitude.
Come onKaye , get in the car.
What do you mean get in the car?
In the driver’s seat.He says,
You’re going to drive me to work this morning.
Oh god, okay, well straighten it out and get it going.And I drove to work with no incident. And from that point on, I was now a driver. Yeah. So my life in St. Catherine’s going to school was, yeah, suddenly, yeah coming from a really poor family to a family that’s quite well to do, it was quite a, quite a change. And they were—they would have been a white family? Huh? They were a white family? Yeah, yeah, John Rigbys. Yeah, yeah. Their father came from England. And came and started a construction company. He was involved in building the, what do you call it? Well and? The Welland Canal. Yeah, so he was one of the contractors doing that. Wow. Yeah. And so the Rigbys were a large family, they had about seven kids, right? Did you keep in touch with your family of origin after you moved in with the Rigbys? Oh yeah, yeah, yes. I would go home, take Christmas presents to my brothers and sisters in Mount Forest, that kind of thing. And then it got so that in the summertime I would work at the plant, I call it the plant, they had a ready-mix contract business along with the building supply. So there was lots of work. I remember working there one summer. And then, on the weekends, he’d be going up to the park. And he says,
Come onAnd of course, I get to drive. And all that. So we’d go up on Friday and come back Monday. Because I’m working for him, and it didn’t matter that I, you know, don’t show up for work till later, right? But yeah, this is how I got introduced to Algonquin Park. And at that time, I thought where’s the mountains? You know?Kaye , leave work early and go up to the park.
North, okay, I’m going to see mountains,right?
Japsoften, but you did hear it. And I remember going to the barbershop, walking in,
I’m not cutting Japs hair!Being told that. You know?
You knowThey said they couldn’t believe that, why would I, we come from a poor family. Although, in Dad’s side of the family, Dad’s brother did go to university. And anyway. My next big decision was what do I do, after graduating? And David my friends says,Kaye , when you were little, I don’t know what hurry you got, but you said, ‘One day, I’m going to university.’
Come on you’re going to the art college.So I applied. And my other friend, he was Ben Pownder, his dad was a music teacher and through him, he would always bring records over to my place, all the classical stuff, and we’d listen, we’d go to the symphony when it came into town. And so Ben comes over before school started and he said,
Come onKaye , you and I are going to Mac.
What do you mean you and I are going to Mac?
Well, you’re a good student.
I haven’t registered.
Oh you don’t have to register, you can just go and do it the day you arrive.And that’s the way it was. Wow. Yeah, back then, eh? And so I went to university. I knew I was interested in science. I didn’t know what I was going to take. You’ve got to major in something. So I said to Ben,
What are you going to take?
Well, I’m going to take . . .In first year, everybody has to take calculus, right? And then you take physics, chemistry and then one of the two of: geology or biology. And Ben says
I’m taking geology.
Okay, I’ll take geology.And we started, and then amongst the others you take English, history, whatever, psychology. You used to carry 6 or 7 subjects, right? After two weeks in geology, every week—David would love this—they give you 50 rocks and minerals, right? And you had to look at them, and weight, hardness, luster, all these features.
This is not going to work, this is not my thing.And so we used to have faculty advisers, so I went to this guy. I said,
Listen, I can’t do geology.And the guy, I met him years later, he was a geologist and the Dean of Science. I said,
No, I can’t do this.He says,
I said,Kaye , you’ve got only one option, and that’s to take biology. But, you’ll have to make up the two weeks that you’ve missed.
I’ll do anything.
No no, you can’t do that, you’ve got to take botany, you’ve got to take plant physiology, plant taxonomy. You have to know the other half.Well rounded. Yeah. So I was forced into that. You know I loved the animal side better, but then I didn’t realize that later in my life, like between undergraduate and graduate, I spent a year—Well or, yeah I guess I. . . Anyways I had a job as a park naturalist, knowing how to key out plants, knowing what a herbarium is. And then when I’m taking people on hikes, nature hikes, you don’t see many animals.
Okay, I think I’ll work there until I decide what I really want to do.And fortunately, there was,my former principal at St. Catherines Collegiate, he was now superintendent of education at Hamilton, and so everyday we’d commute, he’d drive me there and I’d hitchhike home. And during our ride he’d say to me,
Well, earlier I said,Kaye , what are you going to do with your life? You should go on, don’t stop school. What do you want to do?
You know, I thought about medicine. But I’m always thinking graduate work.And Henry said,
ListenAnd so,Kaye , I’ll write a letter for you if you want to go to med school. I’m a graduate of Queen’s and I’m quite well known.
And I’m getting all this input, right? And so, the end result was okay. I get a letter from Greenville, saying,Kaye you know, you have to go back to school too!
Okay you’ve been accepted into meds, year one.It’s year one, though. And I said to myself,
My god, it’s another four or five years to go.And so, I said—and then I got an acceptance at Western in Zoology. Two years I can get a Master’s degree. Yeah so I chose that route. Anyways, managed to get back to school, which is good. And yeah, that. . . Western was a small university at that time. Population 4000 maybe? Today it’s 30,000 right? Very different. And another good fortune on my part was that you decided, you know how you go to a prof and say what kind of research are you doing, describe. I went through the department and found out that there were several—two—that were interested. But the one in particular was a woman. She was one of the few woman scientists, well known. I didn’t know that at the time but she was doing stuff that I thought was,
Hey, that’s pretty neat, yeah I’d like to work with you.So I did my Master’s in the field of histology, you know. And she said to me,
And I said,Kaye , if you do a study with this animal, lamprey, the fishery research board just came into town and set up a division there. So if you go on, and want a job, they’ll probably hire you right off the bat.
Oh that’s a helluva good idea.And so I did that. But it was during my graduate days that I met Carrie at a Christmas party, my wife. And you know, yeah, we ended up getting married. She was in nursing, I was in my first year or something. And yeah, so, by the time I finished my Master’s, Peter was just born. ‘57 or ‘56, I forget. So I didn’t have any more money. I had a bit of a fellowship that terminated with the process, grad work, doing my Master’s. And so the Rigby’s said,
You know, this is the month of May, and June. And he says to me,Kaye , tell you what you do. You’ve been working hard. Go up to the cottage.
Kaye by the way, get a copy of the Globe and Mail, to look for a job.
There’s a charge account at this hut in Huntsville, so you don’t have to worry, go there and pick up the thing.Anyways, while I was there, I did get the Globe and Mail and see this job teaching in Cornwall. I ended up—you know, this is in June, and they are already by that time most schools are hired. Well as soon as they get my letter, they get a telegram back that there was no telephone, you know,
Come and meet us at the Royal York.And so I ended up teaching in Cornwall for a year. It was funny too, because I go and said,
Okay,and once I went to the interview they said,
Okay, you’re hired.I said.
No, no, it’s not as simple as that.They said,
What do you mean, we just hired you?
I don’t have any money to live on between now—
end of June to September. So you’ve got to get me a job for the summer months.
Oh.And he says,
Well, the chairman of our board is Dr. Talmondson, and he’s the chief of research at Dome Park. We’ll see what we can do for you.Gee within a matter of a week, I had a job. Arrived in Cornwall July 1, you start work. So I worked in the research part of that, and again I was lucky because I ran into this Dr. Moose who was a professor of chemistry at Xanthan St. Lawrence University . He and I hit it off, and I learned a lot. He wanted me to come back after I started school.
Come back and work for me again in Christmas holidays—
—and the summer holidays.Anyways, that was the beginning of my teaching career. High school teaching. Ended up I think teaching four or five years. Because each year went on. I had David, I had Tarissa, and John-Paul, I think. So I had four kids in six years. Whoa! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So some of them are a couple of years apart, but anyways, so. Maybe that’s a good time to stop. I’ve got a couple of questions about everything you’ve been sharing so far. Because we’re definitely in your adulthood now,
You knowshe says,Kaye ,
Mass was smarter than you.
Oh my god, what was your name?Yeah, yeah, there’s that. And, but, that’s a sign of the times, I guess. It’s funny, I feel like pregnancy is doing that to me right now, actually. Yeah, so, anyways. Can you talk a little bit about—so
We’re moving.They bought this farmhouse from a friend, and had—I thought it had more than 5 acres, but my sister tells me it was 5 acres. And it had asparagus, strawberries, most of the 5 acres were an orchard. And so, I remember moving to the house, saying,
Wow, what a big house,right? I had the whole upstairs to myself. Well in, I don’t know, some 20 years later or so, we were taking a trip out there with my kids, and I visited it. I said,
My god, it’s a small house!You know? But again as kids everything, you know. Everything was big. Yeah, yeah, so. So where was— That was in
Oh this farm is coming up to sale because the guy’s moving toSo my Dad bought it. So now, it was me, again, thinking back. All this acreage, fruit trees, strawberries, all this stuff. And we had a big apple tree in the front yard. Lots of plum trees and you know, mostly they’d drop. No one wanted Italian plums. I think we inherited a cat and a dog too, which was okay. And, yeah, but then it wasn’t long before of course it’s ’39, the war started in ’41, right? So we might have been there two years. And what I didn’t know until I talked with my sister was, well, people were now having to move off their land, right? And getting nothing for it in return. Well Dad managed to sell the place to a guy inJapan . It’d be a good idea if you bought it.
Do you know how much?He said,
No, I have no idea how much.You know but all the stories I get is that it was a fire sale, right? Either you get something or nothing. Yeah. And so, fortunately, I think my Dad came away with a little bit. I’m thinking back today, how did they manage, all during this time, right? And, yeah. Now it’s true I think that the Japanese guys were employed building houses or attending bath houses, was paid 25 cents, 50 cents an hour, something like, yeah. Do you remember what it was like to have to pack up and leave? Was there, did you have specific— Yeah, yeah, yeah. The thing that I remember, that strikes in my mind, is that I had my fishing tackle, right? And there were talks, I had discussion vaguely that,
Oh Japanese people were not going to be turfed out of their houses for long. They’ll be back again.I remember my mom and dad packing up stuff, and taking it over to my cousin’s place, who had just built a new house. And they’d separated one room, and put all the luggages that we had. Some of it, anyway. Some, my sister said, the furniture just stayed in the house, right? Yeah but other personal possessions, like Japanese have these dolls, mingei, you know in glass cases? They all have those, those things all of course got put into there. And even taking dishes. But one thing my mother did was that she did pack some dishes and pots and pans. Mothers at that time always cooked rice in this cast iron pot for rice, right? And she brought that along. And so when, I don’t remember that packing and you know, the indecision-decision of what to take and that, but I do remember my decision. What was I going to do with my fishing rod? You know, I couldn’t take it. I said,
I know what, we’re going to come back, anyway, so,as you go from the main floor to the next level, there’s that open stairway, and I said,
I’ll throw it up there, and then I know where it is and I’ll come back and get it.Well that was the last of it, you know. Never happened, right? Yeah, yeah. But the one part that I do remember is when the truck came to pick us up, you know, to take us to
No I still have that bag. I used to use it for carrying my duck decoys.
Name’sI saidJohn Kato .
Kaye -to.
I said Kato.
I know you, your family.He says
Oh, how’s that?
Well, my wife’s name is Tsuyuki.And suddenly—you know, the Tsuyukis and Katos are related. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, and so I told him,
Yeah, years ago, I rememberAnd so we went there, and there was this little baby, you know, flopping around on the floor, and all the guys were over. And that was John. And then I said to John,Irene Tsuyuki , the person that Patsy’s, we’ve got to go see your cousins, the Katos, with Terri.
You know, I know David along with your oldest brother.I forget his name now. I said,
David was a chiropractor that came over, and he was getting married to some woman.And we were invited, or Terri was invited to the wedding. And he said,
Oh, I didn’t know that!And so we shared a bus seat together for most of the trip. In some ways that was both good and bad because, you know, as you went along it was nice to meet people, right? I’ve only—And there were—Fortunately, you’re riding the bus, but you can really only talk to your neighbor, right? Yeah. Yeah. And in the evening, after dinner, at dinner and at lunch, you sat with different people and met a few. At night, by the time you’ve done your day, everybody’s heading off for a shower, and whatever. Was it primarily people of your generation, who were doing the tour? No, that’s the thing that surprised me. There were people like myself—oldest one was about 85. And then there were others that were from
Hey, I want to talk to you,to me. I said
Okay.
Do you think we can change seats?We couldn’t, so we were chatting back and forth. I said,
Give me your email,whatever, and anyway, through that contact, I think she sent me an email, or whatever. I said,
You’ve got to come and visit me in Los Angeles.I was going out west anyways, and I thought okay maybe I’d take a few days and go out of town. Well, her name is Catherine Uchida. She and her sister are both born in
I’m a foodie, so I’ll take you to all my favorite places.I said
Okay Cathy, I’ll tell you what. You take me, that’s great. I’m paying for all this stuff.
No you can’t!I said,
No.So, she took me. It’s nice when someone lives there—I go to an ice cream shop,
This is the best ice cream.Been there since the ‘20s, right? And people from miles around here come to buy it. And when I went there, sure enough, there were dozens of people in there. And we bought ice cream, and yeah. And said,
Oh, this sandwich shop has also been around for 40, 50 years, or longer. And makes the best sandwiches.What do you call them? Ah, it doesn’t matter. It’s, yeah. And,
Oh, this is a good Vietnamese, good Chinese, oh Japanese,right? So, she took me around. You got spoiled.
Hey, read this!You know? So
Oh, you’ve got a piano, I’ll give you like pennies on the dollar for whatever it’s worth.And I remember you expressing something kind of like that’s really an unhappy experience. Yeah, yeah, that I think, you know, was not uncommon. Right? Yeah well the Japanese had hoped, you know in conversation that I hear, that they were, well having to leave their house, that they will be coming back after the scare mongering was over. You know? But, at the same time, there were also doubts, because apparently the Kusanos immediately decided—they had money, so they had trucks, so they had
We didn’t get anything for . . ., yeah. I know in downtown
We will allow you to go and retrieve some of your stuff, if you can contact someone who’ll then ship that thing to you.Oh. So Mom and Dad got in contact with whoever was now living in Kusano’s place, asking for certain items. One of the stories I get is that Mom had, remembers, we used to buy—because we lived on a farm—
I want to go skiing.Well, that costs money. He says,
Well I can fix that for you. I can, you know . . .So he’d go and get a piece of wood and steam it, and you know put a tip on it, and then hey, I got a pair of skis, you know? Wow. Doing that kind of thing for me. My first fishing rod and reel was made by him. A fishing rod is just a piece of wood, tapered, and then he fashioned a reel that I could wind my line around. He was, yeah. Amazing. He was pretty handy. The only—I don’t—when I got to do a little bit of carpentry, was when Dad got up the first house in Oakville, and he bought it because it was old but it was another double lot? It was a huge lot, and for most of the time they used that lot as a garden. And but after, he—I forgot what I was going to tell you.
Justice in our time,yeah things like that. Then you realize how much you really owe to these people, that got so involved. Yeah. And that marched, that took to Ottawa, and so on. But that activism really emanated from the third generation Japanese, right? Yeah. The Miki family. Yep. They were sort of . . . Whereas there were some Nisei’s, yeah, but the real impetus I think came from that group. Yeah looking back, I’m amazed at the kind of concerted effort that they devoted for the benefit of all Japanese Canadians. Looking back, I think we tend not to give the necessary credit to these people. We don’t have. . . we have not established anything that celebrates that. You know, kind of thing. Oh, Cathy took me to the Go For Broke memorial, you can call it. You know, in L.A.? In
Okay, I’ve got maybe 2 years, 4 years, 5 years.My friend says,
Ah, you’ve got 10.Yeah, if you’re lucky you might have 10. But I think you come to a point where you realize that the end is a lot closer, and so you . . . I want to know more about the Japanese Canadians or Americans, and their history. And I think—I’ve always loved history anyway, but this is of course much more personal, right?
Why are you doing thisIt’s different when you’re 10, or 12, then you’re accumulating knowledge. Just like I’m a real reader of the Economist Magazine. I read that cover to cover. And I say to myself,Kaye ? You’ve only got this much left.
What are you doingYou know? Yeah. And that’s true, that a lot of it, if I want to remember it, I have to do it slower, I have to take notes, I have to, yeah. But I find it, nevertheless, I want to know what’s happening in Syria, I want to know what’s happening in Ethiopia. I want to know what’s happening, and currently. I find that’s satisfying to me. It’s something that I enjoy. The fact that I may not be able to retain it, like I used to, yeah. That’s okay. That’s okay, yeah. And it’s funny, eh, I mean when people used to ask me,Kaye ? After you finish 15 pages, can you remember what you read on page 1?
Do you miss teaching at university?
Yeah. I still teach today though.And I do. In my dreams, I’m still doing that. Right? And it’s how real it is. And a lot of that information still comes back, right? That you never lose, yeah. That part always amazes me. The thing today when I have these is usually I’m in a bloody panic because I haven’t done what I’m supposed to have done. I’ve got more work to do before the next lab.
If you’re going to do any of them, do them well. Because you never know at what point something pops up, and because you’re not a slacker, that you go at it, that somebody will pick you up for that. But no one will remember you if you go through the motions.Yeah. And my dad told me that, too. I was a kid.
Oh do this!And then you do this quickly, and,
Oh it’s done, Dad!
You know,she says,Kaye ,
—Ats and Tak
have never ever taken us on holidays with them. They’ve got no kids,she said.
We’ve gone a number of places with you.I said,
Oh, I didn’t know that they had never taken you.Anyway, most of the traveling that they did, to different places, other than when they went to
Why’s she calling me that?Becuase that’s
Sorry, I’ve got a tennis game or a squash game.
ListenRight? Yeah. There is that truth. But what bothers me now is that I don’t play anywhere close to what I was playing. But then when I was playing, none of the older guys, my age, would ever ask me to play. They watch you play. And so, they don’t. Or I’m playing, when I’m at Club Meds, and people watch you play, and they come up to me and say,Kaye , don’t sweat it, I’ll never be playing tennis like you are, at that age.
How about a game?These people are much younger than me, right? They have no idea. They see me running around, hitting the ball, and they know they can get a good game, so they ask me. But you reach a plateau. There is a, beyond which, things begin to happen, you know? And when I think about it, yea, I’ve been lucky to be able to go. I’m going away with my friend, Tulio, from
You gotta come to Montreal, we've got people that we want you to meet.I said
I can only come on the 4th.He said
No, not good enough; you gotta come on the 2nd.So I said,
I gotta talk to somebody and I'll change it, and see if I can get it.And, I did, so I am going there on the 3rd, the 4th, we fly out to Marrakesh on the night of the 4th.
It's booked.He sent me a ticket and everything in full. I've seen its a one way ticket, right?
Well, I don't know where we're going to go after this.You know? And, so he says, he's got an apartment in Paris, he says
We might go to Paris, and then go from there, or whatever, you know.And, I said
But be prepared to come back here after two weeks or something like that,you know, and so, I took the train to
Remember, when I get there, you're moving over to my hotel.I though,
Okay, Tulio.You know, he stays at the Intercontinental, I don't know what the hell the room rates are, I never see it, anyway. Now, we're staying at a, you know, I mean I thought
$200 bucks a night, you get a fairly decent,
Chinaman, Chinaman,on the other side of the street. And I can just imagine from the books I’ve read and Dad’s description of going into Mount Forest, and other places like that, is people just stop and stare,
What planet are they from?sort of thing. It was sort of an interesting, almost going back in history, where you’re the odd one out. Re-imagining that sort of historical sequence. So it was interesting that way. And I certainly find Newfoundland and Labrador some of the friendliest people I know, so it’s not been a negative thing in that way. But yeah, it was sort of interesting going from here to there. Because of course, it’s more cosmopolitan here. And I was working in
That was an issue then,and he really wonders whether it continues to be an issue in Canada today. And then you talk about the Syrian immigrant situation, which Dad and I were talking about, and you know, there’s a real sense of whether it’s the Saskatchewan Premier or whether it’s our own Premier in Newfoundland and Labrador, an ex-police person, who’s the present premier? They’re—I call it the politics of fear, but you know, in terms of looking at immigrants as potential terrorists, or the enemy, this kind of thing. And so, it’s terrible how quickly things can deteriorate, and you can just point a finger, people just accept that information as being factual. So, certainly part of my interest in understanding where we are as Japanese Canadians is you know,
How did we get here and why are we like we are?And that curiosity continues on. And I’m sowly getting a better understanding of that. You know, some of the things you just take for granted, you can sort of over time begin to understand why those things occurred. Or even what’s going to happen now unfortunately to the situation with bringing over the refugees. Well it’s not a new thing I think, the memory is so short for a lot of Canadians that just easily accept the idea of,
Well there might be a connection between a—.You know, in the Paris situation, that one of them could have had a Syrian passport and he might have been a refugee, and of course I think that was just wild, not based in fact. I think they are going to have a tough time, and I certainly think though that—and Dad was saying the same thing—that certainly what the Trudeau government is doing is a good thing. And we’re very much in support of that. It’s interesting that you bring that up. We all, everybody that works on the project found things that were brought up during the recent election very chilling almost. Like we’re reading documents from 60 years ago that are using similar language. And that nobody seems to be putting two and two together, that it’s, like we keep doing this, and keep using this language, keep making judgments that are not, not right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the words that people use are so critical. And that’s part of the discussion that we’ve had around, that there’s potentially, in artwork, is to resurrect some of those words and use it into an art piece because it really clouds a reasoned discussion when you have the terminology that was used in the past. Certainly a lot of it’s very well documented. And well they never at that time, I think, the word terrorist wasn’t really a term, you take all of the different words that were used and they all add up to one word: terrorist today. They would call Japanese Canadians terrorists, right? Spies, fifth columnists, you know. The list goes on and on. So it is sad that it continues to circle around and around in that way.
us,in other words the problem that we, as a group, had to go through. That’s a wonderful message.
spinand what I call
lies.We should be expecting more from our politicians to be doing the right thing, and not to be able to just spin out to what is consistent at that time, and I think that was a problem that existed back then and it still exists today. You know when you’re able to use terms to demonize certain segments of the population, I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t think it’s right. And it could be certainly the Canadian situation at one point might have been more about who’s white and who’s not, but I think that, to me, that situation is a global one. You could be a situation where everybody is black and you’re the only white person, and I could see there being discrimination there, which is wrong. And so, I think, as Canadians, we have to think more globally, and the planet is one sort of spaceship, as it’s been described before. And we’re all here, very fortunate to be alive, and hopefully we feel a responsibility to other people on the planet to be fair to them as well, to help out when things are bad. Those kinds of things. Yeah. Those are both wonderful reflections and we’ve talked for just over two hours, so that’s quite a long time. So I think it’s a good time to say thank you very much to you both. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for coming over. Any time you’re in the neighbourhood, you know where we live!