Kelly Fleck
Kelly Fleck is the editor of the Nikkei Voice, a Japanese-Canadian national newspaper. A recent graduate of Carleton University's journalism and communication program, she volunteered with the paper for years before taking on the job. Working at Nikkei Voice, Fleck has her finger on the pulse of Japanese Canadian culture and community.
Updated July 2018
Stories from This Author
Exploring the Sprawling and Complex History of Japanese Canadian Gardens
March 16, 2021 • Kelly Fleck
CALGARY — Growing up, filmmaker Guillaume Carlier would visit a cabin on Trout Lake in British Columbia with his family. On the way, they would visit a Japanese garden in New Denver, built in the early 90s. Called Heiwa Teien Peace Garden, it surrounds the buildings of the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre, the site of a former Japanese Canadian internment camp. The peace garden was designed by renowned gardener Roy Tomomichi Sumi. Sumi was interned at the New Denver internment …
Exploring Secret Histories with Artist Cindy Mochizuki
Jan. 12, 2021 • Kelly Fleck
VANCOUVER — Interdisciplinary artist Cindy Mochizuki explores a variety of mediums to create art that engages audiences with Japanese Canadian narratives and histories. Whether through painting, sculpture, drawing, dance, film, audio fiction, or even divination, at the heart of each project is thoughtful and thought-provoking storytelling, often about stories and moments overlooked in history. This October, the Vancouver-based artist was recognized with the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation’s VIVA Award, a prestigious cultural award in B.C. The annual award does …
Artist Randall Okita Pieces Together Grandfather's Past in The Book of Distance
Dec. 20, 2020 • Kelly Fleck
In artist Randall Okita’s new project, The Book of Distance, he introduces audiences to a great hero in his life, his grandfather, Yonezo Okita. For Okita growing up in Calgary, his grandfather was always close by in Lethbridge. They visited each other often, and there were many family fishing and camping trips. “He was a big part of my life, and he was also the quietest person I’ve ever met,” Okita tells Nikkei Voice in an interview. “I never saw him angry, and increasingly …
Giant Pigeons Carry Messages of Love and Gratitude in Toronto
Oct. 5, 2020 • Kelly Fleck
TORONTO — Sisters Emmie and Lisa Tsumura have been using art to share messages of gratitude and love in Toronto and Ajax during the COVID-19 pandemic. Emmie, an artist working in illustration and graphic design, has been creating giant pigeons and placing them around Toronto. These works of art carry messages of thanks to essential workers, especially those in often thankless jobs, such as grocery store workers, sanitation workers, delivery drivers and migrant farm workers. Lisa, a kindergarten teacher in …
Hiroshima 75 Years Later: An Interview With Survivor Setsuko Thurlow
Aug. 6, 2020 • Kelly Fleck
At 13 years old, Setsuko Thurlow, the youngest of seven children, organized her school paper and liked to read books recommended by her older brother, play the organ with her mother and learn English with her father. But her entire life changed in a blinding bluish white flash on Aug. 6, 1945. A hibakusha, Thurlow survived the nuclear bombing of her home, Hiroshima. She has dedicated the last 70 years of her life to advocating for the abolition of nuclear …
Pilates Keeps Centenarian Healthy During Quarantine
June 30, 2020 • Kelly Fleck
TORONTO — On Nisei Masako Okawara‘s birthday, she looked out the window to see her two granddaughters and their families in the parking lot of her North Scarborough condo next to a sign reading, “Happy 100th Birthday!” The rest of the day was filled with phone calls, flower deliveries, and a zoom video conference call with friends and family singing Happy Birthday, while she blew out the candle on an ice cream treat. Her five grandchildren made virtual flowers, since …
Abuzz on the Rooftop
Jan. 7, 2020 • Kelly Fleck
TORONTO — Mariko Kawano’s apiary, Heiwa Honey, is a project three generations in the making, and combines her Japanese heritage with her passion for beekeeping. Heiwa means peace and harmony in Japanese and is the philosophy Kawano brings to her beekeeping. While showing her apiary on the rooftop of the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, she pauses to help a bee stuck on its back. Gently, she guides the bee back to the opening of the hive, where it flies in …
Author Sarah Kuhn on Becoming the (Super)Hero of Your Own Story
Dec. 13, 2019 • Kelly Fleck
Growing up, Sarah Kuhn rarely saw characters that looked like her, now she changing that. Author Sarah Kuhn is creating stories with Asian American girls as the heroes of their own stories, either as literal superheroes or regular girls forging their own paths. Growing up as a Hapa, Japanese American, Kuhn rarely saw characters that looked like her in the stories she loved, sci-fi/fantasies or romantic comedies. Even more rare were stories where Asian girls and women were the heroes …
Kyo Maclear’s New Childrens’ Book Tells The Story of a Nisei Trailblazer
Nov. 25, 2019 • Kelly Fleck
Author Gyo Fujikawa‘s books have been read, shared and loved by generations of families all over the world for over 50 years. Fujikawa began with a blank page and created children’s books that imagined a bigger, better world, away from societal constraints of race and gender. Fujikawa’s first book, Babies, was the one of the earliest to feature children of different races interacting with each other. Now Fujikawa’s own, overlooked story is being told in It Began With a Page: …
History Meets Hi-tech with East of the Rockies
June 12, 2019 • Kelly Fleck
TORONTO — University of British Columbia student Anne Canute has fond memories of her grandmother encouraging her and her cousins to create and tell their own silly and funny stories as children. Years later, Canute worked with her grandmother, activist and award-winning author Joy Kogawa, on a different kind of story. The two collaborated on the script for the new, experimental storytelling video game called East of the Rockies. The app, which is a game that can be used on …
