It had been about three years and I was really itching to get back to Japan this past summer.
What does being Nikkei mean to you? Do I have a greater claim on Nikkeiness because my grandparents immigrated to Canada before World War Two, were interned and dispossessed of their property? Does it matter that my father served in the Canadian army? Does it matter that you can speak …
The hands that brought me into this world were Dr. Misao Yoneyama’s at Toronto’s Women’s College Hospital and it was about 30 years later that I met her and husband Dr. Wes Fujiwara during the Ghost town bus tour that was part of Homecoming, outside the Ainsworth Hot Springs Hotel …
Even though American Enka-singing sensation JERO is being proclaimed at the “first black Enka singer” in Japan, I would like to claim him as one of us.
B.C. filmmaker Brendan Uegama is intensely involved in the exploration of what-it-is-to-be Nikkei today.
“Hail to new Canadians. Pledge loyalty with the land that gave us birth and our destiny yonder gleam the challenge bright, though the way be dark. All together with one voice onto victory…” words by Dr. Irene Uchida, first principal of Lemon Creek School, Officer of the Order of Canada …
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