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This oral history is from an interview conducted by the Oral History cluster of the Landscapes of Injustice project.
Hmm, I don't mind being a nurse.After, you know, taking a few courses, lessons, from them because there was a variety of them. And I thought,
Hmm, that seems logical.So I left it at that and then, of course, the first year we were there that's when December the 7th came along. So we left school early a little bit. I helped to close off the shop, because I used to help there quite a bit. So we ended up ... All this time we were renting, we didn't have, you know, a place that we had to sell. We just rented living quarters, in Japantown, in what they called the Japantown area along ... Oh gee, I can't remember the names. Is that ... Sorry to interrupt, is that Powell Street in Japantown? Yeah, near Powell Street. Yeah, mmhmm. So we all got our walking papers from the government to go inland. So we ended up in Greenwood because we had a family friend already there, in a house. So we decided we'd go there. My brother ended up-Because he was so big they didn't want him to be there, because he looked almost like an adult because he was so big. So he went with father to, I guess he told you where it was, Tijon (?). So it was just my mother and myself and my younger brother. And we ended up in a one room hotel room
Do you want to come?And I said,
It depends on what my mother says.She said,
No, you can't go.But that's what got us leaving early. We got there in, what, May the '42? And we left there in October '44. No, '43, we left Greenwood October '43. We met a bunch of soldiers on the train
Do not get anywhere close to him,and that's where we found out for the first time. It was interesting news. Also, there were a lot of people who ... It's not very interesting but, in a way, it was very interesting to us as a young person to hear a lady walking up and down the caged veranda, which was a fair sized veranda, and she was swearing blue murder
You know, when we went to Guelph we didn't have any trouble at high schools.Mother felt that that was not a very good idea to, you know, have all kinds of influence when the patients are insane and, you know, not quite normal. Anyway, we went to a farm but we only stayed there a short period because the living conditions were so awful. They arranged for us to go Blenheim, Ontario to a fruit farm and then we attended Blenheim High School and we had a wonderful French, you know, in Ontario schools, of course, French was important and since we didn't have any lessons in grade nine, there were about four or five of us Nisseis that needed instruction, and the French school teacher, she was so kind, she stayed after school and taught us for about a month or two so that we could catch up. Yes, very kind. Later on, I just want to interject this one is, when I go to the reunion to meet my classmates and, one year, one of the classmates said to me, she said,
You know, we really didn't know why you were there.Why we had moved into the Blenheim area. She said,
Our parents didn't tell us why you were there.They had no idea so they accepted that we just moved in because we need to be there, you know? Yeah. I thought that was very interesting that the parents didn't tell the children. Everybody, sort of, accepted us as we were and we didn't have any trouble. Although we were far away from school, we were always able to get a ride or we had a bicycle. We'd bike to school. So that school, people either became nurses, school teachers, or went to university. There's a few odd ones like, I think, one of them went to tech school to learn something else. I forgot, but the other's dead. So I ended up going to university for that reason. Although, there was some rejection from the family, mind you
Well, maybe I want to go to,because my classmates were going and I had the marks to go, so I said,
I wouldn't mind going.They agreed to it and I worked all through summer. I always worked summer for about -we all worked because we'd get out early in May and then we don't start until the middle of September, the people who worked on the farm, so we had a long period of working on the farm. A couple of years I also worked during the summer, at an American cottage, and I learned to cook a lot better. The first time I remember having to work with a black lady and she was a cook that the family had brought up. So she was ... Although she left early and left me with the cooking, but she gave me some hints about cooking, you know. That's one thing about coming here. Being on a fruit farm we learned all about, and also on the vegetable farms, we all learned about different vegetables, different fruits, how to preserve them, and how they went selling them, and things like that. It was really interesting in that sense that you never seen anybody doing things like that before. So during the winter, summer, despite the fact that we worked six days a week we spent all our time preserving for the winter. We preserved everything from fruits, vegetables, meat, chicken, everything, and I made sauces and things like that. I even made wine
Well, maybe if you want, you go to be on your own.So I did that for a year. In the third year the family moved to London. In that sense, I had to find a job in London
What do I do?You can always wait at tables but I don't want to do that. So I looked after, about, four children because I was used to this couple of children where I was, you know, school girling. So I thought,
I can do that.So I did that. When I finished I got my BA and came to Toronto to find work and I worked for the government and stayed with the government until the end, yes. Let's go back a little bit. I have a few questions about when you started. It sounds like a really, you know, fruitful life. Well, I found that afterwards, when I think about it, it was such a learning period for me because we were brought up as purely Japanese and not knowing too much about what the other people did and to learn so much during that growing period, I think, was great. Yeah, I like that, learning period. It is about learning isn't it? Mmhmm. Always learning something new. So if I was in British Columbia, I don't know when I would've learned all that. Right. Yes. Okay, well, let's start with, I mean, you've mentioned a few locations where you moved quite a bit as a child but if we talk about, sort of, pre-internment or pre-war time, the last community that you were in was in Vancouver? Yes. Do you think you could describe a bit more of what Powell Street and Japantown was like at that time? We were only there from, what, September, more or less, or late August. Oh, so quite short. Only for a month. So the life in Vancouver isn't what I ... All I know is when we were going to school, when you had the fog you could hardly see the streetcar coming. Other than that, I'm not ... So what community, in your memory as a child, sticks out for you the most? It's just that, I think, it would be in Haney because that is more memorable than, you know, when you're very young. So it was a much more active life at that time. Day times are, more or less, school days and then you went home. We had a garden. We had ... Also, mother needed help sometimes. There's a cooking cart, as well. So, because mother was always busy I ended up helping grandma in cooking.
We didn't mind your dresses all the time.Really? So your mother was quite skilled then. Yes.
I don't know anything about that.School, I don't know, childhood, neighborhood children, because you're always in a neighborhood of some sort. It's just the neighborhood children. We had relatives in the area. Actually, I only had one family of relatives but we were always nearby so, yes, but all the rest were just children from school or neighborhood children. I don't recall. When you move, like we did from Hammond to Haney and Vancouver and whatnot, you don't have a constant. Even when I go to my reunion, when they talk about their childhood stories I really, sort of, have no idea what it was really like when you have a continuation of childhood friends. That's one thing I'm missing in my life is that, because we moved so much you just don't have that connection at all. I said,
That's funny because I sort of admire them when I hear their stories, when they talk about their childhood.When I go to my reunion it's in their own area, you know, a lot of the school people came from there so, of course, they grew up together from public school right up to high school. So, yes. I know what you mean a little bit. I mean, we stayed in Victoria but, for some reason, I moved schools quite a bit. I went to kindergarten, and then switched to another school in a totally different part of the city, and then I stayed there until I was in grade five, and then my mother and father put me in a late French immersion program. So you have to go to another school which is in another part of the city, and then I moved into another middle school but I stayed with the friends because that was a natural progression, and then when I finished grade eight my parents wanted to put me in another school that was in a totally different part of town, a different district. So I think I switched schools four, five times. So I totally know what you mean. I mean, I still see some friends from those later days but my brother on the other hand, it was a much smoother, I guess more continual like you said, he went to school with the same kids from about grade one up until high school. The relationships, not to say that they're more, I don't know, more important or anything like that but ... There's this connection. Yeah, more established in some way. Yeah, I didn't move to different locations but I get, yeah, my childhood, it was a lot of breaks and always starting fresh with new friends. Mmhmm. So, the people in your neighborhood then, were they mostly Japanese or was it a mix of people? In Hammond it was mostly homogeneous, but in Haney, where we were living, a little bit apart. So they were mixed, yes. And, what other type of people? Was it Chinese, was it Hakujin? No, actually, Haney didn't have any Chinese, just Caucasians and Japanese. Japanese were doing a lot of the farming work, a few had shops, and we went to Japanese School, of course. I forgot about that. The Japanese School, we started when we were very young. When we were very young we went every day after school and then we got only, what, two days or three days and it came to eventually be one day
How do you tell the doctor what kind of operation?Because she went to Japan one time to have an operation and, now I may understand what it means you know when they want to have an operation in Japan and not in Canada, I think I partly know what it is, but she never ever mentioned it. You know? In those days they didn't talk about those things, you know, your parents. So when she got sick and I said,
I don't know how to say that in English,because I said,
I don't know what it is in Japanese.So when she was sick I said,
I have no idea.But I think the doctor had some idea, maybe because she had examined her, I don't, you know, but I didn't ask the doctor. I don't think it was right for me to ask the doctor
No, that's my name. Why should I change my name?So I always kept my name, yes, and always used it. I have a baptismal name and that's about it. I never use it other than sometimes for business, but other than that, no. I always used my Japanese name. There's the short form, Ritso, it's very easy for most people to remember. Ritso? Yes. What other ways then was your upbringing Japanese? What other aspects of your life? Well, I like Japanese food but, you know, in this day and age I can't go to a Japanese shop to buy stuff. I just have, sort of, imitation
I don't think I ever want to go and live in a retirement home where they cook for you. I can't stand it.One day, I think, yeah, my niece brought some Japanese food and I wasn't able to get out yet. So she brought some in from the funeral. Oh, that's nice.
How do you manage to like that thing every day?I certainly miss a lot of things and some of it you just cannot duplicate. That's right. Miso or anything like that. Yeah, or even certain companies will come over and make miso, like there's a local company in Vancouver that makes miso. It's good but it doesn't taste the same. It never tastes the same. So every time I go back to Japan I always have a list of restaurants and food that I'm like,
This is what I need to eat,and then I go to the grocery store and I bring like boxes and boxes of stuff. Oh, my god, curries and, you know, fish flakes, the things you just cannot get. It's so expensive here if you can get it. Totally, and, you know, I find that you just cannot recreate it. Like you said, the monotony of eating the same thing every day, I find Japanese food has this amazing spectrum of flavors, like it's so much broader than a lot of North American food, I find. Yes, and then for each meal you could have such a variety instead of two or three. I find ... People say,
How can you eat all kinds of food like that?But you just have to eat a little bit of each. That's right. I said,
I like them so I have them refrigerated so I can eat them any time I want.Yeah, I certainly miss that. When you move out and you're learning to cook again, it's a whole new learning process
You can come in regularly.So I was working in the cannery for, you know, at twelve. When I get my check I said,
Oh.They had deductions for unemployment insurance. I said,
When am I going to collect that?and I'd get my little book with the stamps
You want to try this?
Sure.And because I was tall enough to do it, I wasn't too short yet. I'm already short
I'd really love to do it but I cannot get down on my knees.It's a little bit hard on the knees then? Definitely. I couldn't sit like that. If I were to go to Japan now I couldn't even sit like them anymore. I have to stretch my legs all the time. Yeah, if you're not doing it all the time you can feel quite stiff can't you? Mmhmm. Unless they have those ones with the open pits, you know, then you can sit there. Yeah, for sure. Now, we've talked a lot about the work that you were doing and how you helped your mother and you worked at the cannery, what sort of things did you do for fun? Well, let's see. Well, in our young days it's just all sort of after school or everybody skipped and, you know, played marbles, and all these sort of things. That's about it. You didn't do an awful lot. There's no, sort of, organized anything. You just went and did something. You played baseball. There was no organized stuff. You just went and, you know, if somebody was doing skipping everybody joined in. I think nowadays everything's organized. You've got to wait until something starts or something like that but when we were kids it was just natural things you did. You ran around like mad and went to the creek or went to the lake or whatever it was close-by. There wasn't really anything that I can say, you know, all kinds of funny games kids played but I can't remember all the games that we played. Not only that, I get sort of told off. I was quite often told that, you know,
After all, you're a girl. You're supposed to be staying at home helping your mother.In those days that's about it
Oh.I thought it was rather interesting in that sense that they had such a, you know, I kept thinking ... In those days you never think a girl's going into mechanical work type of thing and, yet, there it was for us to do. Wow. I thought,
Oh, that's strange.Yet, you had your other, you know, very house-keeping type. What was your favorite subject at the technical school? I don't think I had any favorite subjects because it was just your first year learning stages. You're just being introduced to all these different kinds of activities that you can do in the future. So I never had any favorites. No. But I found it rather interesting. So I kept thinking,
Oh, this is what nursing is like.Mind you, it was just bed making and a few other things but, you know, you do it the proper way in other words and then you say,
Oh, so this is the way they do it when you go to the hospital.Right. Perhaps we'll move up a little bit. We'll tackle around the war time area, but just before that when you were moving throughout these different places from Port Coquitlam, Haney, Vancouver, all those different locations, do you have any childhood objects or mementos or items that really stick out for you at that time? Any memorable toys or even within your teenage years? Now I seem to be a pack-rat but in those days I wasn't. The only thing I remember is I used to hate dolls. I had two brothers and I wasn't a bit interested in dolls but when my mother went to Japan and brought a Japanese doll home and she dressed it up, she put the thing together herself, of course, being a dress maker, and so she said,
This is your doll.I said,
Ohbut it traveled with us to the ghost town but I don't know where it went after that. I can't remember. I can't remember seeing it again. I know the clothes did last until we got to London. I remember seeing it there and that was about it. Yes. That's all I remember. It came along with us because she liked it I think, not so much me. My mother liked it. Do you remember what the doll looked like? Well, it had a Japanese haircut. You know, it was straight, a little long. It had a purple, pink, yellow ... You know that purple is quite popular in kimonos, so one of the colors was purple. My mother made it just like a kimono, yes. I thought,
Hmmbecause I wasn't interested in very Japanese things at all. Some of my family friends they take up odori and things like that. I wasn't interested in that kind of thing. I wanted to tap dance but nobody wanted to teach me. I mean, my mother wouldn't allow me to tap dance
I'm not interested in pianos.But tap dancing? I wanted to but I never picked it up. Well, maybe now? I mean, you're still quite active, Ritsuko. No, not anymore. Not anymore. When you were moving as a family, do you have any recollection of the items that your family brought each time you moved? I mean, it sounds like your mother had the items from her dress shop.
This is my mother's. I'll grab ittype of thing. I didn't feel I had the right so I didn't claim anything too much. You'd also mentioned that your family were renters, owners. Mmhmm. What type of living quarters did you live in when you were younger? It was sort of like a house of some sort. When my mother had a shop ... She had to find a place where she could open a shop and she found a place that was a bar on the side. I think that was a barbershop on that side and some sort of a, maybe a rooming house, and a bar underneath or something like that. So she was looking for that shop. So that's where we went. We went in the upstairs, yes, in Haney. In Vancouver we were in a tenement type of a rental. Okay. In Ontario it was mostly farm houses. Some farm houses were just terrible because we didn't go through the same-going through the PE buildings (?). So we didn't know what that was like but when we came here ... All the people in Alberta who worked there found it was so cold and we found the same thing here when we first came to the farm. Well, the place we went to there wasn't much heat. I said,
Oh, my goodness. This is cold.So I thought,
Oh, this is really crazy.So that's why we left there. They didn't try to help us out too much so we decided we'd leave but I had a very interesting experience though during those farm days. There was a lot of coloured people in the neighborhood, in the Chatham area, so we saw people coming to help pick berries, fruit, and work on the farms. We saw high school kids from the city hired to go work on the farms. Interesting. They had a senior person there with them but not much older than the high school kids. They were camping by the shore and they had a camp there. Another thing we also ... We weren't allowed to meet them, but anyway, we'd see them. We had POWs around. Yes, they were able to be hired out to work on the farms. We were not allowed to talk to them at all.
You ought to go and see a piano person in Japan.I said,
Okay.So I went and then they played. I guess they were hired by the Toronto Symphony to take part in their concert. Later on, I found out from a person, he said,
You should hear a group of something playing jazz.He mentioned when I was just talking to them, you know? I think the pianist was a name like mine. Was it Inouye? Something like that. Anyway, it was something familiar but the person said,
Oh, you should really, if you have the opportunity, you should see a bunch of something players.They said,
You should hear them play jazz. It's really something to hear.Really? And I did hear it at the cultural center, here. They came as a group. The first time they came, they played as a group, and they played jazz. It was really wonderful to hear. How does that even sound? I'm trying to picture it in my head or imagine it in my head but ... I know, yeah. Because, I mean, shamisen is so distinct. I don't know whether they're using different things or different, what do you call the one that you strum with? I have no idea, but it was fantastic. Oh, wasn't that neat. Wow. That's one of the things, you know, when I retired, I didn't put that in, but when I retired, during that time I was helping out. I had all kinds of tickets to various things and I went to a G8 meeting and I thought that was a very interesting experience, yes. Alright, well, let's talk a little bit about the war. You'd mentioned Pearl Harbor. Do you remember much of what happened that day? Well, we heard the news and then we didn't know what would happen and that was ... I guess, everybody said,
What are we going to do? What is going to happen?That's what everybody was saying. I think some people said. I guess. Soon after that I think there were curfews and people were rounded up and all that sort of thing. I don't know who they were but it's all in the book, I guess. There was a, sort of, like a tension all the time with what's going to happen. Of course, you know, you hear these stories from people saying so and so got caught and all this sort of nonsense. They had a curfew. I don't remember the secrets of that period. I never kept a diary. I wish I did. How old were you when Pearl Harbor happened? I was fifteen already. No, I was, let's see, yeah, I guess I was fifteen because when we went up to Greenwood we had to go and get our sixteenth birthday certificate. Sixteen was the age of something. We had to get a special registration. Okay. So that must mean that I'm fif ... No, I'm already sixteen. November sixteen, December. So I was already sixteen, I guess. Was I that old? I'm trying to remember. 1941, the 26th. Yeah, fifteen or sixteen at least.
Where are you going to go?Everybody had different ideas about where they wanted to go. A family friend, because the father had a stroke they were able to get a house in Greenwood. So they said,
Well, we're established here so why don't you come?So that's why ... So we didn't know too many people in Greenwood. Mind you, there was a group of Steveston people there and I nearly had a shock when I heard their Japanese language because their language is so rough, Steveston language. Right. In what way? The women, when they speak it's just like, you know, really rough language that they use. We said,
What kind of language is that?We couldn't figure it out at all but we knew what it meant because of the way they spoke. We could tell. I thought,
Where did they come from? Are they Japanese?
Why do I have to leave?in other words. You know, your friends say
Why are you going?type of thing.
Why do you have to go there? Why do you have to leave?That kind of thing. That's about all. Did you ever discuss it with your younger brother and you mother about what was going on? My mother didn't say very much, nor did my father. They kept us in the dark. That's why we didn't discuss too much about it because they didn't. All they said was, you know,
We've got to gotype of thing and
We've got to pack.We knew we had to go so that's why I was helping out mother close the shop, but other than that, you know, those kind of things are sort of an interference in your, you know, school life in other words. We didn't take too much, just what we could carry. When we got there, winter got very cold
This is utterly crazy.I thought,
How can the church do things like that to anybody?So I never, never liked the Catholic Church. So I didn't join the Catholic Church school. Although, I got my certificate back from, you know, the high school so I had my grade nine. So I, in other words, wasted a whole year. Not quite, because when I got to next year to Guelph I was able to get into grade ten anyways so I didn't lose a year. I just missed a few lessons and whatnot but you just, sort of, went around for walks. We found things to eat, like, you know, when you're up there and there's nothing and you don't get as much variety of food so you went out looking for dandelions, you're looking for lettuce, you're looking for something you can make tea leaves out of, and what else did we pick? That's about it. I remember those, definitely. In the winter months, of course, we stayed in most of the time, other than going skating because, you know, when it's cold you can only stay out too long. Then they'd start playing cards and I thought,
Oh, what kind of card is that?So we learned to play Japanese cards.
Which one is which?There were magazines and whatnot so I used to read magazines but I didn't do very much, yeah. I spent time just chatting away and cooking, learning to cook
Oh, yeah, now I know why
This is the way you cook.This kind of thing. What were you cooking in Greenwood at the time when you were learning, because, like you said, there were limited supplies in some ways, so what did you cook? You ended up making your own things like tofu and konyaku (?), things like that, you know, mostly Japanese food. So there was always rice. In those days I ate a lot of rice and doing not too much in the way of exercise other than going out for a walk and having picnics and whatnot. You put on weight and I thought,
Oh, dear.So I didn't do very much when I was there. As soon as I heard people were leaving, I wanted to go, too
I should have kept them.I think I kept some but they're buried somewhere in the moving. A lot of things disappeared so I thought
What did I have?One time I remember saying
I thought I had it somewhere.Maybe it disappeared when we were moving. That's why I don't seem to put my thoughts to all those things that I thought I had. Things are always constantly changing and things are being moved around. And so it just disappears
It's really strange that, minus thirty-five, you're not really that cold, but here it is a lot lower and I'm so cold.A lot of my friends who have lived in both Toronto and Victoria say the exact same thing, that Toronto, the temperature is very cold but it's a dry winter. So a good friend of mine said she can warm up quite quickly, but Victoria is damp. It rains so much. It goes below freezing occasionally but not to the extent that the east coast gets but it hits your core and you can't really shake the cold in any way. It's damp, humid. I was in Victoria one Christmas and I said
You know, it's so grey. It's impossible to live here.
Yeah, it snows and the winters are very harsh but it's sunny.Yeah, it's sort of refreshing when you look at it. Mhm. So you went into farming afterwards and this is around, what age were you now? Let's see. Pardon me. Oh, no. Let's see, what was I? I was twenty-one in '47 so that means '46 I was twenty; nineteen when the war ended. Nineteen when the war ended. Yes, '45 because '47 I was twenty-one and '46 twenty. So, yeah. No, I wasn't young because I think I started school a little later. Did you? Yeah, because in BC they had the funny system where you were born after September or something, you had to wait until you ... You were held back? Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I think ... That's why I'm always older than everybody. Even when I came to Ontario I noticed, yeah. Oh, I see. Oh, interesting. How did your ... Let's start over again. What did your mother do while you were in Greenwood and Guelph? Well, she did have time to do a little bit of sewing because everybody needed clothing so she made some clothes just for the family. I think she made some for some of the kids in the neighboring room. Other than that she didn't do that much sewing. Of course, we farmed until we got to London. She opened up a shop again. Right. So farming, you farmed strawberries? Well, there were some strawberries but not always strawberries. It's mostly vegetables and fruit. I spent one summer doing that, not the whole summer, but doing tobacco which was interesting. Oh, how so? It's heavy work but different. One of the things that stops anybody from ever smoking is if you ever had a little bit of a taste of that, a little bit of the dew on the leaf of the tobacco you'll be feeling really sick. Really? Yeah a drop would. What did it taste like? No, it's just that when we were working on it if you touched it and then you had, it was still a little bit wet, and you somehow tasted it your body just gets so weak the next day. Really? Oh, so that deterred you from smoking then? Oh, yes. You knew what it was going to be like when you smoked too much. Wow, so you did tobacco for a while. No, not for a while, just one year. And then vegetables and fruits. Yeah. What type of veggies and fruits? Everything. Everything? Yup, everything. This is the same time that you were also canning as well? Yes, so, you know, when we went to the fruit farm the lady helped us with all the canning. She taught us. She said
This is the way you canand we learned how to can. So we did all that kind of thing during the summer days. That's what it was like, seven days a week work
Does it make a difference, food-wise, now that I'm gone?They said,
No, because your brother eats what you would eat. So it's still like feeding a family of four or moreshe said. He's a teenager, so he's really hungry all the time
There's nothing to dobecause she comes from Chicago and so she said it's boring for her. She doesn't go into the water or anything and there was a big black dog, Newfy dog, Newfoundland, a huge black one and, to her, it looked like a bear. She was so scared
I'm going homeand took off. You said the tips that she shared with you, you remember. It's interesting because, you know, she cooks in a different way that we never think of but I would never cook it that way. Now I would say
That's really fattening.Can you share a tip that she passed on to you? One of the nice things is, you know, if you don't mind having a little bit of fat, when you have green beans, use bacon fat to flavor it. Oh, that's dangerous. That's what I mean. Oh, but that sounds good. Oh, it is. Is it? Mhm. Oh. Some of the other ones, she didn't teach me this but the other one's ... After she had gone, they had a big party and I thought
How am I going to handle a big party?but everybody pitched in. You should see one girl who had come from Florida. She would, you know, she's pure white but she was so brown. It was amazing. She's so tanned. She said,
We're going to make some scallop potatoes.So she had her own concoction
That's enough.When did you retire? Hm? When did you retire? '86. '86, wow. Were you ever part of the redress settlement at all then? I was part of it. KYLA You were? You know, redress started ... The first inclination of the redress we talked about at the centennial time. There was a conference in Hamilton and somebody brought up the subject. Then the Toronto JCCA had an active group and, not that active but active enough, and so we started talking about that after that conference and because we were talking about it somebody heard about it. A couple of fellows from Ottawa came down, not government people, but they knew about redress for some reason. Maybe they were studying the American one, I don't know. They came to us and said
We will get you money but we want a portion of that, the payments.And, sorry, who were these people? They're just interested in ... They think they were helping us out but they are looking at money, I guess, and they heard that there was a group in Toronto, you know, talking about it. I don't know where they heard it from but all of a sudden they came to visit us and said ... You know, because it was just the beginning when they came down and said
We could help you and if we get the money, you give us a portion of the payment.We said
No.That was the end of that one. That was the first time that somebody from Ottawa came down. It had nothing to do with the government. Whether they had any connection, I don't know. What year was that when you started discussing? That was right after centennial. That was '77, '76, was it? Wasn't it '76? Yeah, or '77. Anyway, and then after that we kept discussing it for a while. Eventually, there was enough interest that they wanted to have a separate committee, Toronto JCCA had a separate committee, and, I think, everybody started getting a little bit interested in it. We had a survey and most people said
Let's get an apology and a little bit of a grant.Those people wanted to go ahead and ask for more money for anything they want whether it was for their property, or for whatever it is, then they could use the money to go and sue the government for more money for themselves. Some people didn't like that so there was another group formed in Toronto and, I guess, they got other groups in Canada interested enough.
Okay, we want the money firstand that was it. So we said
No, I think the Isseis need to get an apology first because they're getting older.A lot of the Isseis were at an age where they didn't really need the money. In other words, they were already getting old but to have an apology, I think, would be much better. So this is what we were aiming for, is to make them, before they all pass away we wanted them to have an apology. Afterwards they can always go for extra if they want but a lot of people wanted the money first. They wanted money and so this is why the other group formed and they just took over because there were so many branches. See, the thing is, when we first started the National JCCA, we didn't almost exist. Toronto JCCA was a, sort of, keeper of the National JCCA. So there was just a group of us sitting there talking away and it got to the point where people really got interested in it and that's how it started. Every group had formed a committee of their own and, eventually, when they met at a conference they decided that, no, that's not what they wanted. So that's what happened. So the Toronto JCCA Redress Committee got kicked out so they went on their merry way. The timing was very interesting. When the Americans said
We will give redress to the American peoplethen Mulroney decided he wanted to one-up, I guess, he said
We will give them $1000 more than the Americans do.The thing is, at that time, Canadians didn't have anything planned, nothing. Americans had everything planned for this redress. The first people who got it in the United States, I think, are the eldest ones first. Here, it was anybody who can just apply first so that they got the forms out. So I know there are people who got it who shouldn't have gotten it
When are you going to give us the redress? Are you waiting for the Americans?He said,
Oh, no. We'll do it on our own time.It was the way it went and that was it. What motivated you to start the redress? No, it's ... Or, you know ... There's always one or two in a group that is, sort of, a spearhead. I'm not the one but there's always one. I was the president of the JCCA and I also was part of the national executive at that time. So I knew what was going on back and forth. The thing is it started at this small little nucleus of the national and then it expanded to the Toronto JCCA because it was much more active. That's the way it went, yes, because ... And it all ... The whole thing about that is that there were people who had already received money before that. Mind you, it was just a peanut's worth of the total value. I met several people who said, especially one who said
We got ten cents on the dollar but why should I need any more money? I don't really need it. So I'm not even being bothered about the whole thing.He just ignored the whole thing. The others still felt that they ... Of course, when you look at it from the human rights point of view you definitely, you know, want some sort of restitution or whatever it is. I'm not one of those so I was quite happy with the apology, which I would like to receive, yes. Money-wise, I wasn't interested. That's just the way the committee had agreed. That was very satisfactory for me. The committee agreed and that's the way we worked towards it. The government wouldn't agree to it for a long time. There were government conservatives, I don't know how long ago before, you know. That was a long time when you consider it was the centennial, when it was '88.
Everybody has their turn.They'd say,
How was racism when you first came to Toronto?type of thing. I said
I didn't have anytype of thing. I don't have any gripes in that sense, because I was a teenager, sure. I'm not too sure what would have happened if I had stayed in BC to begin with. The future didn't seem to be too bad. Well, maybe just to start wrapping up a little bit, overall, you've touched on this a little bit but when you look back at the uprooting and the internment, when you think about it, how did it affect your life going forward? Well, I always look at, and I don't think people want to hear it too often, but because I didn't really lose too much I felt I have gained. I don't know if I would have lived to be this age as well as I have, and live comfortably as I do at my age if I were to be in BC. It, sort of, opened up my life, to me, anyway. And because I was in JCCA as a president, I had to submit, you know, we submitted all kinds of briefs and things like that. So many organizations, you know. This Equality Now that we had submitted the thing to had that redress in it as a report from the government that that was approved. In other words, they said it's okay to have a redress. Interesting.
Okay.That was one of the subjects we had part of that submission was redress. And ... So because I was very active I met a lot of ... I had to go to many conferences other than, you know, the JCCA conferences, many conferences. Some were interesting, some were very dull, some were mean
Are you Chinese?I thought
I beg your pardon?
What are you reading?I say,
Political stuff.What do you think about, you know, we're looking at current times now, what do you think the younger generations know about the internment and the uprooting and the redress settlement? How do you feel about current knowledge and the dissemination of this history to younger generations? I'm not sure how well they're doing it. I haven't kept up on it. You see, after the Toronto JCCA finished I decided I didn't want to do any more volunteering or getting interested in any organization whatsoever. I would volunteer if I wanted, like, you know, I used to go to the cultural center. I felt that was my contribution and leave it at that. I will do that to other organizations. I will help out when they need me but not on a regular basis, yes. I don't want to do any more