Norm Masaji Ibuki

Masaji

Writer Norm Masaji Ibuki lives in Oakville, Ontario. He has written extensively about the Canadian Nikkei community since the early 1990s. He wrote a monthly series of articles (1995-2004) for the Nikkei Voice newspaper (Toronto) which chronicled his experiences while in Sendai, Japan. Norm now teaches elementary school and continues to write for various publications.

Updated August 2014

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History Lessons with Professor Masumi Izumi — Part 3: Postwar Community Revitalization and Redress Movement

By Norm Masaji Ibuki
18 Apr 2023

Read Part 2 >> As a historian, Izumi says that the ongoing use of euphemistic language to describe the WWII experience can be problematic. “I now use the term ‘internment/incarceration’ for the confinement of the ethnic Japanese in the camps in the United States and Canada,” she explains. “The reason is that the ethnic Japanese included both Japanese nationals and American/Canadian citizens at the time of World War II. Legally speaking, Nisei, Sansei, and naturalized Canadians of Japanese descent were ‘incarcerated,’ while American Issei and…

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History Lessons with Professor Masumi Izumi — Part 2: Japanese American vs Japanese Canadian Internment/Incarceration

By Norm Masaji Ibuki
11 Apr 2023

Read Part 1 >> Izumi first learned about the Japanese American incarceration experience in 1984: “I saw the NHK TV drama titled Sanga Moyu, a drama based on Toyoko Yamazaki’s novel, Futatsu no Sokoku. The story was about a Japanese American family, and in the story, one brother joined the US Army and his younger brother joined the Japanese Army. The family in the US had to go to Manzanar. I didn’t know about the Canadian internment/incarceration, until I read Toyo Takata’s Nikkei Legacy and Joy Kogawa’s Obasan after I started studying Japanese Canadian hi…

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History Lessons with Professor Masumi Izumi — Part 1: Family Background

By Norm Masaji Ibuki
4 Apr 2023

I had the honour of interviewing History Professor Masumi Izumi earlier this year. Dr. Izumi is Japanese. Her scientist doctor father’s work took the family to Australia, where she attended elementary school. Years later, she returned to Kyoto and attended public school. She received her B.A. in Anglo-American Studies from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and went on to attend Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, for her Master’s studies in Political Science and International Studies. She also studied at the University of Victoria, BC, for two years under Professor Patr…

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Toronto Japanese Canadian Duo Releases Groundbreaking EP

By Norm Masaji Ibuki
2 Mar 2023

“Quiet now, there is not a thing besides the low, humming sound of the bodyIn my mouth, chewing on the wordsI cannot speak to them out loud until I’m ready….” From “Stone Between The Lips” by Brian Kobayakawa (aka Brava Kilo) and Annie Sumi Like stepping into a time machine, Kintsugi takes its audience back more than 80 years in time when we lived on Paueru Gai (Powell Street), up and down BC’s west coast, suffering through the injustices of the dispossession and internment, then being banished, again, east of the Rockies after WWII or deport…

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40 Years of Toronto Taiko with Kiyoshi Nagata — Part 2

By Norm Masaji Ibuki
12 Jan 2023

Read Part 1 >> Another career highlight came in 2005 when the group had two tours in Italy and one across the US, which evoked a feeling that ‘we made it.’ The reception they received was overwhelming: “The people welcomed us with open arms and the hospitality we received was incredible. We played in many old opera houses where the stages are slanted downwards which proved a very big challenge for us as all our drums are on wheeled stands. Nonetheless, those tours gave our group a huge boost in confidence that we could make an impact beyond our Canadian borde…

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Discover Nikkei

Japanese migrants and their descendants

Norm Masaji Ibuki

Series this author contributes to

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Uka Sake: Closing the Circle on a Trans-Pacific Rice-Growing Legacy

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