The Canadian government decided in 1949 to allow Japanese Canadians exiled to Japan to restore their Canadian citizenship which had been taken from them when they agreed to be sent to Japan at the end of the war. Japanese Canadian exiles scattered throughout Japan were advised to go to Tokyo, visit the Canadian embassy, and reapply for Canadian citizenship. Roy did so and received his citizenship certificate in April of 1953.
He often talked with those around him about the possibility of going back to Canada, but his superior officer at the Tsuiki Air Base encouraged him to move to the US instead, telling Roy he could get a good job in the car sales business there. The officer even went to the US embassy on Roy’s behalf to enquire about the procedures for Roy to immigrate to the US, thinking it would be easy due to Roy’s restored Canadian citizenship.
However, the embassy explained that, despite Roy’s Canadian citizenship, the US law still categorized immigration applicants not by citizenship but by race, and only a very small quota of Japanese were being accepted into the US each year. In hindsight, Roy believes this outcome, though discriminatory, turned out to be a good thing because Canada is now safer than the US.
In 1958, at the age of 24, though apprehensive about again suffering racial discrimination, Roy returned to Canada. Of his motivation to return, he says, “I will call it roots, just like a salmon going upriver to where it was born. My family were fishermen, so it was something like that.” (Okaeri video, 39:00~).
Another motivation was that he still had siblings living in Canada.
Despite having been born in Canada and having spent most of his early childhood there, Roy recalls experiencing various difficulties related to culture shock and racial discrimination that he experienced upon his return.
I was in Japan for 12 years after the war, and the Japanese culture had seeped into me more than I realized. I was bi-cultural, but I was more Japanese than Canadian. Some people told me I was more Japanese than someone born and raised in Japan. When I came back to Canada, emotionally it took me a long time to re-acclimatize to the local atmosphere, and there was still quite a lot of anti-Japanese feeling.
He spent the first year in Vancouver but really struggled to find suitable employment and thinks he probably would have ended up homeless on the street had he not received free room and board from a young lawyer’s family in exchange for doing various chores around their house and yard, a system that was quite common for young Japanese returnees then. Eventually, after several weeks of persistent job hunting, he was able to find employment in Vancouver, but it turned out to be rather short-lived.
I found work with Brook Bond Canada, a maker of coffee and tea imported from India, especially Darjeeling tea. They would blend the tea in Canada. I got a job there as a shipper. I had gone to many places but there was no work.
But one day I just decided to step into their office, and there happened to be a job as a shipper, but I made the bad mistake of resisting my immediate boss passively, and one day he informed me that they had no more work for me and were laying me off. I had started in July and was laid off in November.
So, I went all around Vancouver again job hunting but couldn’t even find a dishwasher’s job. Because I had worked for four months, I was entitled to some unemployment benefits. At the time I was still doing chores for a lawyer’s family and received room and board in exchange, so at least I had a place to stay.
Roy speculates that racism might also have been one of the factors in his firing and subsequent inability to find a new job. He says,
I often heard the word ‘Japs’ both on the streets and at work. Hearing that word really stung me. Had I not been a Japanese, I might not have been fired right away and could have been given another chance, but they never warned me or gave a reason. In 1959 I went around Vancouver in one last attempt to find work but to no avail.
While in Vancouver, Roy was able to get some training in data processing and using data processing machines at an IBM center. This apparently lasted for about five months, during which time he accumulated considerable knowledge about the data processing field. This would hold him in good stead for his future job-hunting endeavors.
At the urging of one of his older brothers who were living in Montreal, Roy decided to move there and live with him. This move in the Spring of 1959 led to an immediate improvement in his situation.
I had two older brothers living in Montreal, and I was young and wanted to see the world more and gain more experience, so I decided to move to Montreal. Everything there was French which was very different and very refreshing, but best of all I didn’t feel any discrimination in contrast to Vancouver.
His recently acquired knowledge of data processing turned out to be a real asset as within two weeks of his arrival he had received three job offers so could choose the one he liked the most. His first job was at the Canadian head office of a French company in Montreal.
After working there for about 17 months, he moved in late 1960 to Northern Telecom where he worked for 16 years. While working there, he also attended university night classes where he mainly studied commerce. His efforts to combine work with serious study resulted in sleep deprivation and fatigue as he was taking too many difficult courses, so he had to suspend his studies, and it took him about three years to recover his “courage and stamina.” Then he began taking night courses again, this time in geography and history, hoping to become a teacher.
This second academic venture while working fulltime was also a tough experience with several setbacks and it took him nine years to graduate. Unfortunately, by that time, the job market for teachers had deteriorated, so he gave up his dream to become a teacher (Okaeri video 48:00~).
Because Roy lived in the English section of Montreal, he never became proficient in the French language but he did enjoy experiencing French Canadian culture, even doing a short “homestay” on a French-Canadian dairy farm. He explains:
When I was in Japan, I was impressed by some American servicemen who, despite not speaking a word of Japanese, used to adventurously go around the Japanese countryside. I thought about that and decided I wanted to do something similar.
So, one summer, through a friend, I got to spend a week on a French-Canadian dairy farm in the outskirts of Quebec City. Nobody spoke English there. This was in 1960. I didn’t learn enough French to speak but I became somewhat able to feel comfortable in a completely French speaking environment, and I wasn’t completely lost. If I had stayed longer, I might have learned to speak French.
This adventure caught the attention of a local French newspaper which published an article about it.
While in Montreal, Roy became a Christian and initially attended a Presbyterian church where he was introduced by a friend to Mizue Yuriko Yamada who had come to Canada a few years before as an independent immigrant. Her first job was working for a clothing company in Toronto before moving to Montreal. She had been raised Catholic in Japan but started attending the protestant church after coming to Canada. They married in 1974. While in Montreal, Mizue became actively involved in an NPO assisting elderly immigrants, and Roy often helped her.
Although Roy enjoyed life in Montreal and his friendships with French-Canadians, compared to Vancouver the winter climate was often severe and really affected his health. In the early 1970s, the Quebec political climate also began to change and the separatist party rose to power in 1976. This caused him deep concern about what might transpire, so he decided to move back to Vancouver although apprehensive about the possibility of yet again facing racial discrimination and joblessness there. (Okaeri video 52:30).
The first several years of my life in Quebec were fine. Winters were very harsh, but [it was a] good life there. I had a good time, good French-Canadian friends, but the separatists began gaining momentum and in 1976 they won majority in the government, and separation from Canada became a real possibility. And then I started thinking…there was going to be lots of upheaval and disruption there.
In 1942 I was only a child, but I experienced a lot of upheaval and a lot of hardship. So, I didn't want to go through another [experience] like that. So, I started thinking twice about continuing to live in Quebec (Rebeca Salas interview).
In 1977 he moved back to Vancouver with Mizue. He found that the racial discrimination situation in Vancouver was vastly improved but still existed, and some companies and banks were still excluding people of Asian descent from good jobs. Again he struggled to find good work in Vancouver and at first did part time jobs.
In 1978, while working part time, he also volunteered with MOSAIC, an NPO that assisted new immigrants. While there he mainly did interpreting. In June he attended a conference of volunteers where he met some key persons in the Japanese Canadian community who would influence his future.
In September, the well-known Japanese volunteer organization Tonari Gumi advertised for people to help with Japanese Canadian seniors. Roy had gotten some experience helping his wife assist seniors in Montreal who couldn’t speak English, so he applied and was accepted to work at Tonari Gumi in October 1978. Tonari Gumi was always on a shoestring budget so sometimes he didn’t get paid and worked as a virtual volunteer.
His official employment with Tonari Gumi finished at the end of 1988, but in spring 1989 he continued there as a regular volunteer teaching English to senior citizens every week. This went on for 24 years until the end of 2013, soon after he turned 80.
Simultaneously, from spring of 1989, he had become a free-lance interpreter/translator. In the early 80s, while working as a staff at Tonari Gumi, he had taken evening courses in court interpreting which he now did frequently as a free-lancer. He retired from this work around 2009, However, he still does some volunteering at the Nikkei Cultural Centre whenever he is asked to if he feels he has time and it is something he can handle.
After moving to Vancouver, Roy and his wife also continued to be active in church life. They tried several churches before settling on Faith Baptist Church in southeast Vancouver where they attended for 13 years. Then they switched to the Japanese Gospel Church which has since relocated from inner city Vancouver to New Westminster. Presently they are attending New Westminster Evangelical Free Church where the minister, a former missionary to Japan, can speak fluent Japanese. It holds both Japanese and English worship services.
To be continued ...
© 2025 Stan Kirk
