Stan Kirk

@Stankirk

Stan Kirk grew up in rural Alberta and graduated from the University of Calgary. He now lives in Ashiya City, Japan with his wife Masako and son Takayuki Donald. Presently he teaches English at the Institute for Language and Culture at Konan University in Kobe. Recently Stan has been researching and writing the life histories of Japanese Canadians who were exiled to Japan at the end of World War II.

Updated April 2018

Stories from This Author

A Japanese Canadian Child-Exile: The Life History of Basil Izumi

Part 2: The Realization by Anglican Japanese Canadians That They Had Lost Their Church Properties

May 1, 2018 • Stan Kirk

Rear Part 1 >> In April, 1949, approximately four years after the end of the war, the ban on Japanese Canadians returning to the coast was lifted and some started moving back to the Vancouver area. Unlike before the war when most lived in or near Steveston or the Powell Street area, many of these returnees ended up living scattered in various parts of the city. Consequently, some of the Anglicans among them began to attend non-Japanese Canadian Anglican churches …

Anglicans buildings Canada churches dispersal dispossession Holy Cross Japanese Canadian Anglican Church Japanese Canadians postwar Protestants World War II World War II camps

A Japanese Canadian Child-Exile: The Life History of Basil Izumi

Part 1: Historical Overview of the Japanese Canadian Anglicans to the End of World War 2

April 24, 2018 • Stan Kirk

Christian missions came quickly to the early Japanese immigrant community in Vancouver. The earliest known missionary activity among them was conducted by an itinerant minister from the United States, Matsutaro Okamoto, in 1892. Three years later he was succeeded by Goro Kaburagi, who eventually affiliated with the Methodist church. It seems that Christianity spread rather quickly and a large number of the Japanese Canadians came to identify themselves as Christians, although there were various levels of devoutness and commitment.1 The …