Chuck Tasaka

Chuck Tasaka é neto de Isaburo e Yorie Tasaka. O pai de Chuck foi o quarto de uma família de 19 filhos. Chuck nasceu em Midway, na Colúmbia Britânica, e cresceu em Greenwood, B.C., até terminar o ginásio. O Chuck cursou a University of B.C. e se formou em 1968. Depois de se aposentar em 2002, ele desenvolveu um interesse pela história dos nikkeis. Esta foto foi tirada por Andrew Tripp do Boundary Creek Times em Greenwood.

Atualizado em outubro de 2015

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The Ironies of the Japanese Canadian Internment History: Part 2—Discovering Japanese Canadian History

Read Part 1 >> For too long, I lacked understanding about Japanese Canadian history and why World War II internment had happened. Even when I retired in 2002, I was still too busy coaching to research this history. I told myself that when I turned 65, I would dive deeply into this project. That was in 2010. I read voraciously, but there weren’t too many books on Japanese Canadian history. I studied Chinese Canadian, First Nations, Native American, and Japanese American history. The Discover Nikkei website was a great help to me because I could read about the internment camps in …

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The Ironies of the Japanese Canadian Internment History: Part 1—My Family’s Life in Greenwood

I was once so naive and ignorant about Japanese Canadian history. For many years, I neglected to dig deeper to learn about my personal family history as well as the larger injustices inflicted on Japanese Canadians.  I was born in 1945 in Midway, British Columbia, just 9 miles west of Greenwood. In 1946, my family moved back to Greenwood, and that’s where I grew up. It was there that I was detained in a theoretical Canadian “internment camp” for Japanese Canadians until April 1, 1949. However, I didn’t even know that I was living in an internment camp, let alone…

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Crônicas Nikkeis n.º 11—Itadakimasu 3! A Comida, Família e Comunidade Nikkei

Canadian Nikkei Comfort Food

I previously wrote an article on Nikkei food that was uniquely Japanese Canadian: kan-ba-lando chow mein that evolved in the coal mining town of Cumberland, B.C., and Denbazuke from New Denver internment camp. Fuki is symbolic of Japanese immigration. In the late 1800’s, when poor people from rural villages came to Canada or Amerika, for some reason they brought this insignificant root that is grown on the hillside of Japan. My theory is that perhaps these villagers thought that there wouldn’t be any Japanese food in Canada, and therefore concealed fuki roots onto the ship. Anot…

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Greenwood's 80th Anniversary Commemoration

Mission Accomplished. Greenwood’s 80th Anniversary of the Japanese Canadian Internment Reunion Concert, held on July 16, 2022, was a resounding success! With people shaking hands, embracing each other with hugs and big smiles all around, there was that ambience of camaraderie and friendship. The Japanese Canadian Survivor Health and Wellness Funding goal was achieved. How significant was this event held in the first internment ‘camp’ in British Columbia? First of all, there were some 23,000 Japanese Canadians in Canada at the time prior to 1942. Most of them lived around t…

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United Church’s Role in Greenwood

I have written extensively on the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement’s Japanese Catholic Mission connection with the Japanese Canadians in Steveston and Vancouver’s Powell Street Japantown. Of course, they were the ones responsible for bringing the mostly Catholic Japanese Canadians to the first internment site of Greenwood in 1942. The United Church groups were to be sent to internment camps in Kaslo, Tashme, New Denver, and Slocan area, however, the government decided to send the overflowing United Church members to various ‘camps’. Esumatsu Nakata…

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