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This oral history is from an interview conducted by the Oral History cluster of the Landscapes of Injustice project.
Canadianlifestyle and living as much as possible. Yes, and just as an example: I can't speak Japanese, I can't read Japanese, in fact, my wife says to me,
When we're with Japanese people, do not speak any Japanese!
Oh well we're full Japanese. Like ethnically we're Japanese and we look Japanese, but then as soon as we speak when we visited Japan, it kind of throws them off that we speak English!And uh... yeah, but no, I've heard that a couple times.
Well what should we do?And of course nobody knew how long the war was going to last and then somebody got the bright idea
Why don't we grow strawberries?So they all cleared up their land and they started growing strawberries, which is amazing because out in the middle of nowhere you're growing all these strawberries and they marketed them, I believe to Alberta as their main source. Mhm. And so Vivian's family, her grandfather, went up there and my grandfather went up there and there were a Miyazaki family and Orano, there were a bunch of families. And if you wanted more information you could probably talk to Vivian's uncle,
We had to pack that truckand she said,
I remember driving away from my home in Steveston and just being broken-hearted because she said that stuff was falling out of the truck because they'd overloaded it
What happened to the cow?And they said,
It's right here!Like it was part of our meal! Oh my god!
You know what? We're now allowed to go back to the Coastand he said,
I want to move back and I'm going to start a shoe repair shop.So my grandfather said
Okay we've got this family pot of money,and he gave him, I think, one tenth of whatever was in the pot. My father came with that money and started a shoe repair shop and as long as I remembered my father working, he always got up around 6:30 in the morning, had his breakfast, drove to work, and didn't come back until about 6:20. And that was his life, six days a week until he retired. Oh! But he did retire early, that was a good thing. I think he retired about aged fifty. So- Ohh, oh yeah that's quite early... And during that period of time when he came back to Vancouver, he ended up buying eleven houses. And when he retired he sold all of his stocks - and this was his mistake - and he bought this giant-sized building. So wait, just to situate this year-wise. When was this happening? This was roughly, um... Forty-four years ago. Yeah forty-four years ago Okay. Yeah, so he bought this giant-sized building in New West. Like here's a whole city block, but what he didn't realize was there's a rule when you retire. Never do anything that you haven't done before. Business-wise. You see he didn't know the commercial market so of course he buys this giant-sized building, well that was great, but then all of a sudden, all of these people moved out and all of a sudden he was stuck with this building that was one third full and he couldn't rent them out, you know, the unit. Whereas if he had a whole bunch of houses, like added to his eleven houses and bought like, four more houses or five more houses, they're easy, you know, somebody moves out, you just rent it and it's rented again. So that was his- but he's fine. I mean, he still lives in West Van, he's okay.
You're getting ten cents on the dollar, you know, all your supplies, all your everything...equipment and he um... but he said the funny thing was when they added up all their cash, because my grandfather was blind, he said to my father
Okay, I want you to keep track of all of our cash.So he added up everything, he says that they left with close to ten thousand dollars when they went up to Magna Bay. Now ten thousand doesn't sound like a lot today, but – Back then... Back then...1940...forty-one... Around 1942, yeah. 1942. Forty-two. It was quite a bit of money, so well, even today it's not a lot because if you account for inflation and everything, it's probably about three or four hundred thousand dollars today. But, it was still a lot for them considering they only owned this barbershop and shoe repair shop. Wow... So they went up to Magna Bay and did their thing. So did they sell the businesses then? No. Or they just liquidated everything? They just liquidated everything. Nobody was going to buy anything from a Japanese-Canadian because they knew they could just take it at some point. Oh, really?! Oh yeah, that's why you hear stories of people getting ten cents on the dollar over and over and over because we had no choice, I mean, the only thing you could do is just get– if you had something that was worth a hundred bucks. You sold it for ten bucks. Wow...So, but, what you're saying is people knew that they could get - Oh yeah. These personal properties, or, items essentially either really cheap or for free later on? Yeah, or once the building was empty. Every so often you hear a story of a Japanese-Canadian, who transferred the title of his house, or whatever, to a friend, like a Caucasian person, and being able to retrieve it later on. But I don't – I haven't kept track of those stories so...but in your wanderings you may find stories like that. A few people. But there were cases of people who were transferring – Well we've heard, but I can't say for certain. It was some years ago... That that happened. Okay, yeah, I think – But those would be great stories because – Totally! Because, you know, the person that you entrusted had to be pretty honest to say
Hey, I'm giving it back to you.Yeah, it's a big responsibility to look after somebody's property and then, like you said, you don't know how long the war's going to go on, right? It could be decades until things could've finished. Yeah I'll definitely make note of that because, I mean, part of the other part of the project is we're also looking at the experiences or memories from the non-Japanese-Canadian perspective, so Caucasian families. Like not only ones who bought property, really, at really inexpensive prices, but also ones that, you know, even several generations down or decades down, find out that their house that they now own was confiscated or a property that was owned by Japanese-Canadians and their memoires of that. So if there are people, like you said, who did take on that title, that'd be a whole 'nother perspective, right?
Hey! You guys are all moving off the coast.Right, yeah. So, but certainly our family was much poorer than Vivian's family. I mean, both in terms of actual dollars and education. Oh and my father, he was actually pulled out of high school when he was in grade eight because my grandfather was blind. This was well before the war and my grandfather said you can't go to school anymore. So the superintendent actually came to my grandfather and said, Look, we could put your father through high school, instead of
No, we need him to work.To help support the family. Support the family, I see. So your father then, I guess, helped in the shoe repair and later on he decided to open up a shoe repair business. Yeah. He learned that from when he was younger from your grandfather? Yeah. I see, interesting. So sounds like you have a bit of memory of what Shuswap lake was like at the time. Can you describe what the building or the place that you lived in and the surroundings, what did it look like? So the family – there were six brothers and sisters and my grandparents. And they were all living in this – it was a log cabin, which they built. Like all of the families built these. So they must've all banded together, chopped down the trees, and built each cabin, on each property. But they were separated, like each of them bought around twenty acres. I'd say at least twenty acres of land. And so it was quite a trek to go between from property to property, but they each a log cabin. And the one we had always seemed really big to me as a child, but as an adult I realized, you know, just remembering various parts of the cabin, it wasn't very big. So to fit, like eight people in that cabin is kind of astounding. What was the layout like of the cabin? In the centre was this pot-belly stove. And I remember that because when I was a child – when I was first born – my first memory that I remember of at all was not of my mother or of my father, it was of my grandmother carrying me and wandering around this stove over and over. And that's only memory – that's my very first memory. Maybe I was like, not even a year old, but I remember her going around the stove. Wow. And was it one, big, open concept cabin? Yeah it was pretty open. Yeah I don't remember any real walls – oh except! Oh no, there was one room to the left, where my grandfather lived. And my grandfather was kind of like Vivian's in that they both lost a leg because they were busy eating candies all the time.
Oh! Let's go out and have a drink,and my dad's like,
Can't the wife will kill me, it's New Year's!
I'm not going anymore.So then I took lessons on French horn and joined a band and...oh and of course I played piano to the grade ten level. Oh and she stressed art too. She wanted us to be really all-around, but not Japanese. Just really good and, sort of, in a broad area of knowledge. So then beyond things like Oshagatsu and things like that, were there any Japanese traditions practiced in your household? Or like you said, it sounds like your mother emphasized more of the integration. Yeah well we didn't speak Japanese. My parents would every so often speak Japanese if there was something they didn't want us to know, but um – Yeah, that happens a lot still
Gee that's not complete, but it's truly beautiful and imperfect and impermanent.
Don't buy a dinner because then I have to remember to buy you dinner next time.I would rather use the North American way of we each pay our own way, you know, like when we go out with friends... but that sense of giri is so strongly ingrained in us, I mean, you know most Caucasian guys, you do something for them, you never– well number one, of course, when you do something for someone you never expect something to happen back to you, but quite often nothing will happen back. So that's sense is...it's astounding. And when Vivian and I went to Japan about six year's ago, we stayed at the Imperial Hotel and it's a really nice hotel. And after about four days we looked at each other and said, you know there's something about – even though we don't understand what people are talking about - there's something about being home. And it was really true. So it's different. Hmm, that way of life. Yeah... That way of being there. Yeah. There are ten million people just like us and not because they looked like us! It was their thinking... Totally. Well my family's side, on my mother's side - Japanese side, we are all Shinto. So that idea of imperfection and beauty and that there is no such thing as perfection has been so solidly ingrained, I – like I totally get what you're saying because it's just... yeah. It's little things, I don't think my mother consciously ingrained those things, but it was always, you know, when we'd go back and you go do certain things or you go back to temples and things like that, it's just the way of being, it's your way of life and you don't really think about it. And it's amazing how much it sticks with you later on even living in Canada, there's still some things that I think about a little bit differently or approach a little bit differently. Right. And you know you don't really think about why and then my mom will say,
Well yeah, obviously. You're – we did Shinto stuff all the time every time we went back to Japan. That's why!But yeah it is...and if you're not a part of that or you weren't raised in that sort of upbringing, it's really difficult to empathize or understand a hundred percent, you know, that perspective, right? Isn't there in Canada, for example, but as soon as you go back to Japan, even when I was back just last week, yeah, it just slides right in. And everyone is sort of on that thought process. Yeah, I totally – it's so off topic, but I totally get what you're saying. Yeah, yeah...So it sounds like for you two, it's more a subconscious passing of ways of life or practices, but nothing really explicit, it was more... That's right. She wanted us to be...she just wanted us to have a great life in Canada because she was well aware that we weren't going back to Japan. We were here to stay as Canadian citizens. So your parents were Nisei then? Nisei. Were they planning on going back to Japan eventually? No, there was no way my dad was going back to Japan. He only understood one way of doing business and that was to repair shoes and he always said to me,
When you do something, you become the very best at it.And he became one of the very best.
upscaleor
high-end clientsin Vancouver. You know, like, Gordon Southam from the Southam family. He went there, his wife went there, the Segals went there. Pretty well all of the, sort of, elite in Vancouver they went there. And in fact, once there was a lady, who he got really annoyed at, so he said to her,
Don't ever come back to my store!And she started crying, she left the store and then a couple days later, her husband came and said,
Do you mind fixing these shoes?
Look, we can gas all these strawberries and they'll last three or four days longer.And so they had a long discussion with all of the farmers and they decided that no, they didn't want to do that. So they were the forerunners of people who thought, hey we're not going to mess with our food, so even though it wouldn't last as long, they were satisfied. And you'd mentioned that they were shipped out to Alberta usually? Yeah! Like to a co-op. To a co-op? That kind of idea. Oh okay, wow. So what happened when you and your family finally decide to move back? What happened to the strawberry farm? Oh well because there were six brothers and sisters, my father was the first of the siblings to leave. Okay. So he moved down here and then the rest of them stayed up there. Oh they stated there? Yeah and then eventually, Tusatsu moved to Lumby – Which is near Vernon... Yeah. And then they built a second house on the property and they lived on the second house. And when my grandfather passed away, the two remaining kids, my father took them in and said to them,
Okay, you guys each have to get a job of some kind.So my aunt went to hairdressing school and my uncle said,
Well I don't want to go to school,because in Magna Bay, there was a rumor that he and a couple of other kids had burned a school down. So he worked for my father. Oh, I see. Does your family still have property on Shuswap? No, they sold it. Years after my grandfather passed away, my uncle actually paid all the property taxes and he assumed that the farm was his because he was the last boy to leave. And then decided one day that he was tired of paying taxes and he was going to sell it – so he did sell it. But they did have a little – one of the other uncles wanted half or something– anyways they all fixed all that. You know how families are, sometimes they argue over things.
Well can't I have my friend pack come over, my friend Linda,and they'd say,
No.And then my mum would say to me – I got so mad, I would get so upset at times that she finally said that,
I can't help you with this, that this is your father's decision.So he was so bitter that I wasn't allowed to have friends, only Japanese people. Only Japanese people. And there weren't that many. So it was not the happiest situation for someone like myself because I didn't have any siblings. So that's basically, you know, when I told you earlier I don't really have that many memories it maybe because I'm blocking some things, that just sort of came to mind now. Yeah I wasn't allowed to have anybody... And you had mentioned before that nobody had really talked about their experiences – My dad would sometimes he would get frustrated and he would say things that he couldn't do as well because of the war. But never really a full explanation, I knew that the families had to move away from their homes and that they lost property and they lost money and they had to start all over again, but that would be about it. He would just...sometimes he would let that much out when he was upset, but I never really got a full explanation, that's why my memories are not like his. So where did you eventually find out or have a broader picture of what happened during your father's time? Only when I became an adult. As an adult. When he started becoming involved in the Redress... Oh really? ...Movement when we were living in Ottawa is when I started to find out exactly what had happened and I started asking more questions. And then got more clear-cut answers, you know, but I didn't really delve into that until I finished university. So would you ask community members or friends? It was more family, I'd ask my grandmother... She would talk to me in Japanese and I'd picked up the gist of what she was saying, but I couldn't respond to her, you know...
White guys are bad, never trust them,or anything like that. It was always like it was part of life and it happened. And that goes to the root of the way Japanese thinking is, is that you accept what happens and whenever ...I'm going off subject a bit but you know this whole Greek situation? Mhmm. You know if this happened in Japan, the people of Japan would not riot. There wouldn't be protests! No, they would sort of say
Hey this is really unfortunate, but you know we've been living beyond our means and we have to pay the price.And that's what it would be. And I think a lot of Japanese families are the same thing that they said, well this was wrong, but it happened and we're going to make the best of it that we can. And that's the way my parents sort of looked at it. Although my father always said to us kids, he said,
When you graduate from university and you're applying for a job and there's you and there's a white guy, you better be at least ten percent better than that white guy or else they're always going to choose the white guy.And it was sort of a good lesson for us in the sense that we always knew that we had to be good no matter what we did in life. So it forced us to- that concept of excellence was always there. So would you say that that was a guiding mandate in some ways for life and it influenced how you approached things? Yeah it had a strong influence because no matter what I did, I'd always immerse myself. Like when I decided that I was going to build houses, like a house, our house in Ottawa, for six months I lived and breathed houses and that's all I could think about...
Do you mind if we look through your house?Really?! Yeah, it was amazing because it all came from my father's thing of
You better be better than everybody else.Sounds like your house was more than ten percent better than this other house
We'd like to offer you a job,and I said,
Oh I actually wasn't that interested,and they said,
Do you know what? Ten thousand people wrote this exam, students across Canada...we're only hiring one hundred people.Well that kind of got my attention. So then I talked to a bunch of profs and they all said, you should go to Ottawa. So we ended up going to Ottawa. And that's how you moved to Ottawa. Yeah. But you know the sad thing is, Thom Shoyama, he told me this story. How when he graduated from UBC and he got his – he was the gold medal student in accounting, like he was the absolute top student. He couldn't get a job. And he went back to his prof and said,
I'd like a job, but nobody will hire me,and the prof said,
You know the unfortunate thing is nobody wants to hire a Japanese-Canadian right now because it's bad for business. So the poor guy went to Saskatchewan – well of course, he eventually became famous: Deputy Minister of Finance. Yeah... Now Thom had a very strong influence on me because – and of course I didn't even know him at the time – he became Deputy Minister of Finance and when I joined the Government I was thinking,
I'd like to be Deputy Minister of Finance one day.And he became one and I thought,
Oh my gosh! He's the first Japanese-Canadian to do that!So a good driving motivation then? Well...no, it was a downer.
itfactor. They had it. Ok let's fast forward a little bit more. How did you two meet?
That's the way we should be.Ok anyways getting back to our story...
You know my cousin doesn't have a girlfriend, so would you like me to introduce you to him?and she said,
Oh sure.
So how are you doing with Vivian?He says,
Oh I haven't seen her,I mean, you know, he met her once and then he says,
I haven't seen her since then.And I said,
Well do you mind if I go out with her?and he says,
Oh sure.And wouldn't you know it, I phone Vivian and that was okay, but that weekend he phones Vivian, goes out with her and then he introduces her to the whole family! Like, everybody. Ohh...sneaky... Now that's a bad thing to do because when you introduce somebody to the family, it's like, that's an important person. That's a big deal. Anyways we went out on our first date, then for the next fourteen days we went out together every night. And by the end of the fourteenth date, I said to Vivian,
Would you marry me?and she said,
Yes,and so then we told our parents and then...So three months later we were married. So it's an amazing story because it didn't – my thing always in life was that you pretty well know, pretty quickly if somebody is the right person for a lifetime. And it's turned out to be true and – oh yeah and one other amazing fact about Vivian. When I proposed I said to Vivian,
I'm going to be an artist and we're going to be really poor,and she said,
Well that's okay.Now the amazing thing about that is, you know, in this club if I went out with any woman in this club and I said to them,
I'm going to be an artist and I'm going to be really poor.Do you think any of them are going to marry me? No! Not one single lady!
Well if he does his art then at least one of us hopefully gets a job and at least I can help him.Oh yeah. Although at the same as you got your teaching degree – yeah after a year I decided,
You know what? I don't want to be as poor.Like one of my friends, he lived in this place –
Oh I'd like to have some hot water. I don't want to suffer that badly for my art!
We'll buy that from you.And I was so excited because, I mean, who just buys your art from you? And – Oh my god, people dream about that for years! Yeah, so then I told my parents,
You know what? One of the pottery instructors at Vancouver School of Art –er Emily Carr, said I could use their studio.And my mother got so worried because by the time I got to grade twelve I said,
You know I think I'm going to become a professional potter.She got so sick, she was in the hospital and I thought she was dying because of my decisions so I said,
Mom, I promise I will finish UBC.And then of course, miraculously she got better and –
I'd like to take you out for lunch.And I thought, here I am this starving student and this guy's going to take me out for lunch, but when he took me out for lunch he said to me,
You have to paint.And I said,
Paint?!I said,
I hate painting,and he said,
Why?and I said,
Painting is one of the most elitist of the arts because you have to sell your painting for a really expensive price and only rich people can buy it. Whereas if I do etchings, a poor person can buy my etching and enjoy it.But he said,
You know what? You're going to starve.He says,
The guys who don't starve are the painters.It's an interesting statement. But he's being practical so I've decided, you know what? Maybe art's not going to be the right thing. And you wanted some hot water, too?
This guy's coming out from Toronto, his name was George Imai.And George came up and said,
You know, I think I have an agreement with the government. And they will give us fifty million dollars to settle the whole issue of Redress. And I listened and I didn't know Redress - the internment in its totality – but he gave us some of the numbers, you know I think it was like, fifteen thousand, twenty thousand people of Japanese ancestry who were sent to the camps or sent off the BC coast. And that was it, dividing all the numbers and stuff, and I was thinking
Gee, these numbers don't add up, it's like two thousand dollars a person,and because I remembered what my grandparents and my parents had gone through and I thought,
Wow, I don't know if my grandfather would be very happy, if they plunked down two thousand dollars. Oh and they weren't even getting the money, it was going to be put into a National fund. So I said,
Well what about the individuals? Shouldn't they get some sort of token compensation?And he said,
Well, it's just too much trouble and it would take too long to negotiate something.
You know, we don't think this is enough.But they didn't know why because they couldn't quite figure it out. And fifty million just seemed like a very small amount. And so I started doing more and more research and then I looked at Ann Sunahara's work and Ken Adachi's stuff and then the Ottawa group asked me if I would represent them at the NAJC meetings and I said,
Sure.So I went with another economist, actually, Elmer Hara. And Elmer was really good because he knew, you know the – what's that of Robert's Rules of – you know for meetings? Yes He was like this unbelievable expert. So he kept all the NAJC meetings going, he would say,
Okay, we can talk about this or you can't talk about this because...it was really great. So between the two of us we started to...we had a fairly good influence and then we became good – or I became really good friend with all of the individual participants. And at one time I knew every single person to the point where I knew which way they would vote on different subject matter and that was an important thing to have in your mind at any time. And so the more I learned about Redress, of course, I realized that George Imai's proposal was not sufficient and so a group of us started to lobby very hard
We should not accept that,and eventually we – yeah we just convinced... we took over the NAJC...and we looked at how we were perceived...And so our roadmap was we would write
Democracy Betrayed,you know like the basic document first and so that became our centerpiece. Whenever people didn't know about Redress, thumb up thumb down, give it to them and then we presented that to Chretien and that became the basis of our claim. And Vivian how did you get involved with the Redress movement?
Can I see your bedroom?So we go up to our bedroom and he says,
That bedroom is big, as big as my apartment in Japan,
My granddaughter is going to go to UBC,and he said,
Do you mind, you know, sort of taking care of her,He said,
She doesn't have to live with you, but can she – you know, can you take her out for dinners and stuff?So it was nice. And then when we went to Japan, she – she personally - She became our guide in Tokyo. Oh that's nice! We met six years ago...yeah it was nice. Yeah she just totally took care of us and it was a trip to remember. Because her grandfather was quite – well he wasn't well then, you know, so I guess he probably talked to her and said,
Oh you know you should - you have to show them around,but it was great having a guide in Tokyo.
I'd like to show you something.So she goes into this draw and she pulls out this box, pulls the top off, and inside was a pot by Hamada. And Hamada was one of my great heroes when I was doing pottery because of his glazes the
Do you think we should take some?and I know he wouldn't mind because he doesn't have – the room that he's in now is significantly smaller, but...I'm pretty sure we have a couple because glazes, I remember my mother saying the glazes are always very famous. Yeah. And so there's one in the genkan, like the entrance way, there's one in my grandparent's old bedroom and there's one in the study upstairs, uh, yeah my grandfather liked to collect a lot of different art pieces and a lot of different – we took back a lot of pottery so far especially since my grandfather has gotten older because my uncle, who lives in Japan, doesn't really care for that stuff and my mom's like,
We are – we are not losing that!And there's like, still beautiful lacquered tables like you know those beautiful coffee tables? Yeah. We're trying to figure out how to bring that over
Look we're looking for a half a billion dollars,then it's truly symbolic, our token settlement. So the eight billion dollars that you're talking about is the perceived total value – Today. Today? In today's dollars, yes. Okay, uh yeah, that's a big number... Yeah, yeah. No matter how we looked at it, the numbers in today's dollars were, you know, when we first applied, they were big numbers, they were all over a billion dollars and if you did the Quebec settlement like the twenty five thousand dollars for six days and you said,
Okay, each year must surely be worth at least twenty-five thousand that means a hundred thousand dollars, at minimum a hundred thousand, times however many people, it adds up to a huge number.But that's not what we were looking for, we just wanted something symbolic, but enough to be a deterrent should this happen again to some other person. I see, so almost in some ways to set precedence if anything happens. Yes, yeah. And if we ask for fifty million dollars, it's insulting and the government would say,
Oh gee we can trample on anybody's rights and just pay fifty million dollars.So for economic novices like myself, one of our clusters is looking at property pricing and what its value was and what it was sold for. Just for listeners, how do come to those numbers and how were you able to take all these properties and come to this one number at the end? Oh okay, because we didn't have the time and the resources, we didn't try to replicate anything exact in terms of what were the numbers. So when we made our presentation to the government, we did not include any supporting numbers, we just said,
We want you to entertain the idea of negotiating with us,but the NAJC, we got them to agree that we would have a minimum of somewhere between twenty and twenty-five thousand dollars per person as the minimum amount. So we might negotiate at a higher amount initially, but we know what our bottom line is. Okay and the twenty to twenty five thousand, you came to that number...?
Okay you guys have been bad people and if you give us an apology and you give us something that means something, we'll let this all go.So that's the way we approached it. And what was the government's reaction to your initial proposal? Well, it's that whole thing of,
You have to have a dancing partner–
Hey, are you sure this is the right thing to do?It wasn't easy. So you would say, I guess, you guys were both alluding to this before the interview, that it was a lot more of a grey area as opposed to the slam dunk that it's perceived to be today, right? Yes, it was very, very grey. And what do you think made the government finally settle? Personally, and from some of the people I've spoken to in the civil service...now no one's every said for certain, but I think it was Lucien Bouchard, who was the catalyst, and I think he believed in that concept of right and wrong and said,
Hey, I think we should settle this now.And it looks good for us I mean we're the ones who settled it so I think that's what happened. And also I think Bouchard was looking at the states and they were coming to that twenty-five thousand dollar settlement –er twenty-one thousand dollar settlement in this US. So I think that made a big difference. I honestly think that if he was not there, we'd probably would still be struggling today. Well no, actually maybe we wouldn't if we – assuming certain things happened. You know I think it should also be noted in this interview, something that was really shocking for me when we were talking about this over dinner was your current employment during the time of this Redress settlement – Oh yes, yeah. If you want to just explain that a little bit, because that's, you know, it's crazy...
You know if I get fired, I would like you to vigorously defend me,but yeah I was concerned about my position, yeah. Vivian were you concerned as well about the potential, pretty strong conflict of interest in this situation? Mhm, definitely. Yeah. It wasn't so much a conflict of interest as I was worried that the government – if it was the wrong person looking at my situation, he might've sided,
Hey, we don't want you to be outspoken and you either stop or we're going to fire you.But it never came to that point; nobody ever came up to me and said,
You have to stop doing this,so it was okay. Yeah I think that's – I don't know, you always read these books and you never think about what that person's job was at the time, right? Yeah. And so when you mentioned, you're like,
Oh yeah I worked for the federal government,I'm like,
Wait a second here!
Gee, I could get fired if I do this,and so yeah, it wasn't easy for a lot of people. And once the settlement went through, how did you feel about it? What were you memories when the settlement actually happened? Um, I think we were both pretty happy. Oh yeah, we were happy. Relieved! Happy? Relieved? Yeah, relieved, yeah...And it was a good settlement. I really liked the community component, although I really wished that all of the centers had gotten together, the building – the people in charge of the building committees had all gotten together. See in eastern Canada, all of the people in charge of the building committees, I got all of us together and I said,
This is the way we should split up our money and this is the way we should go about doing things.So we told the foundation,
This is what we all agree to, we had a democratic vote, we all unanimously agree that, you know, x number of dollars are coming to us and each community gets this.Anyways, the foundation still gave us a hard time, but at least we talked about it, but all of the groups should've gotten together and the reason is they should've understood the concept,
You don't build with all the money you've gotbecause then you got no ammunition left for all of your yearly expenses. So the res in Ottawa were fine, I think some of the other communities are still okay, but I'm sure over the years there will be some communities who are going to run out of money. And they'll have to either sell their properties or in fact, that would be a good study to see the financial condition of each of the communities and the capital projects. Yeah. Because I don't know what's happened all over because I no longer have contacts all over the place, but that would be an interesting study. Are you two still involved in your local JC chapter here?
Would you look into it,so
They're right beside this huge hydro station,and so Tammy Wakayama, who is the chairperson of Tonari Gumi, he said,
Well what do you think?And I said,
Well that thing can't be very healthy,but I didn't know anything about EMFs at the time. So then we got Karen to join us and the three of us started to read all these books on EMFs and we discovered, you know, this is not very good for your health. And so we started saying to the building, the NNHC, we said to the board,
Look maybe we shouldn't buy this property because it's right beside this sub-station.And Tommy and I went out and we measured the EMF levels and they were really high at the edge of our property and like they were way higher than what I considered acceptable and even when we got quite far away, it was still high enough that, to me, it was a concern. And like for example in a typical house the EMF level – average EMF- is no more than one miligosse. But all over there, I think the lowest was three miligosse and as you got closer to the hydro station, I forgot what number, but it was a big number so we were saying,
I don't think we should buy this property. Mmm, interesting... So...but anyways, yeah, I was – I have been involved from time to time. Well I guess to conclude, just for our first interview, what are your thoughts on the uprooting and the internment? What kind of messages would you like to pass on to future generations, future Japanese-Canadians? I know the NAJC is really keen on getting youth and young Japanese-Canadians more involved in continuing the narrative and the history, do you have any messages or any thoughts you'd like to pass on? Mhm. Well I think it's really important to get the young people involved because it seems that a lot of them don't know exactly what happened during those years. So hopefully they'll become interested enough to find out. And I think the education programs have to continue and I think that's happening, there's a youth leadership group now and that's only positive, right? So hopefully if young people can continue to remain interested then that's a big bonus, you know? Yeah and as a teacher yourself, do you see any improvements that you'd like to see appear? Well Mas Fukawa was involved in a program now that's gone out into the grade five level social studies program I think it's about the Japanese-Canadian internment and there's another one in the high school now. So that's been a big plus, right? So I think they're just going to review that program in the next little while to see if everything is okay in it and whether it's approved, I think that's a major thing. It's just like the same thing that's happening with the First Nation's curriculum going into the schools now, I think it's a really good idea – it's about time. Mhm. Yeah and yourself Tony? What messages do you have?
Okay we have this many more properties.But anyways, that's just my thought in terms of something practical. Preservation is something you're interested in, yeah absolutely. And especially now you hear – I get told a lot, especially once I started this project, you know, local JC community members would say like,
Oh you have to talk to the Nisei as much as possible, they're starting to go now –Yeah. Yeah that's right. They're slowing passing away or some of their memories are not as sharp and try and preserving that and capturing it as much as possible and not only for the project, but we've had a couple other interviewees that we're working with, one in particular, who is really keen on capturing his mother's story, and she's about ninety as well - Ninety-something Yeah ninety-something and she's still really sharp. The son was telling me, like,
She can list off everything in Powell Street, like where she lived.Oh my gosh! Right?! And apparently they asked her to write some stuff down and she just start jotting stuff down. Well long-term memory gets better, right, as you get older. Short term gets worse. Mmm, yeah... So we're starting to find out!
Well we have some land in Japan.Well it's this little wee piece of land; it's probably this big.
Just to let you know, you know that beautiful old house just across from us?And I was like,
Yeah, yeah,she's like,
So they knocked it down.I guess the owner passed away so they knocked it down and now - the separation between our house and this guy's old house is like, from me to the door, like it's quite close, but so you look outside to the entrance now and there's four houses.
Oh my god like how can you fit so many houses?And you know they've got those really cute little compact cars, there's like two little neat cars parked in the driveway. And I'm like to my mom,
How can you even build that many on like– it's a regular plot of land that you would find in Canada, right? Like if anyone was buying property, but they....yeah...Well thank you very much. I can't believe it! It was two hours – well, almost two hours. Almost two hours? Yeah I've got two hours and one minute. Yeah, unbelievable! Well thank you. Here we'll just stop this.