Innholdsfortegnelse for 55.2 Summer 2022 i British Columbia History

“My Auntie Nobby (Nobuko) was born in 1921 in Steveston, the eldest of 10 children. She contracted TB during the war, and she spent a greater part of the internment recovering at the New Denver Sanatorium for Japanese Canadian patients while her family lived in Minto, a self-supporting internment site. She did not have an easy life, as she always had health issues probably related to her TB. She was very skilled with her hands; she taught me how to knit and crochet. She was a kind, gentle soul, who never complained. “The thriving fishing hamlet of Steveston had a population of about 8,000 in 1925 when my aunt Nobby and Diana Burdett became friends. They were four years old. My aunt’s first language was Japanese, and she didn’t speak…

“The case files have been a way to authenticate and understand my baa-chan’s (grandma Asako) memories about our family. I wanted to learn about the store Asako’s parents, Hana and Matsunosuke (my great-grandmother and great-grandfather) ran in Vancouver. The store is the centre of many of my baachan’s stories about her childhood. While she still remembers the address, she couldn’t remember the store’s name, so opening her files and seeing that information in front of me was like a light going on. “In the case files, I found the store, Star Confectionery, right where my baa-chan remembered it, at 2700 Commercial Drive in Vancouver. It was a small grocery store, and connected to the back was the family home, a four-room frame house that they rented for $15 a month…

“I never knew my paternal Issei grandfather, Heijiro Hiraoka. With the Landscapes of Injustice database files, we have uncovered more than 400 pages of documentation related to our family, beginning with two unexpected and rare photographs that were part of The Bird Commission court transcripts. The Honourable Saul Cherniak, a Winnipeg lawyer, was our family’s advocate. “After the family was removed from the West Coast, they moved seven times times, first to a Powell Street rooming house, then to Hastings Park in Vancouver. They moved to Sandon, Rosebery, and Tashme, all in eastern BC, then to Tully’s sugar beet farm in Manitoba, and finally to Winnipeg. This did not include my father’s road camp assignment at the Revelstoke-Sicamous Highway Project, or his experience with a house-building gang in New Denver.…

Eva Cserfalva (pronounced cher-fal-ve) came to Canada in February 1957, when she was 29. Along with her husband and son—both named Egon—she settled in the Vancouver area. Eva was one of 37,500 Hungarian political refugees who were accepted for settlement by Canada’s government in 1956 and 1957. Of these, 7,000 came to BC, settling mostly in the Lower Mainland.1 Eva Cserfalva’s family lived near Budapest in the countryside. During the Second World War, Germany asked Hungary to open its borders so the Nazi army could invade Poland in 1939, but the Hungarians refused. Eva’s father had been drafted into the German army before the war and was sent to Western Europe with the German army. The family did not hear from him for several years. Finally, through the Red Cross,…

I thought this column would be about me sharing stories and building a bridge from the past to the present and from me to you. But after attending the Indigenous Leadership training course at the Banff Centre for the Arts last fall, I realize that I don’t want to build a bridge which you will go back across once our visit has ended; rather, it is a weaving we need to make together. If we each share our experiences, coming together to make a tight, long-lasting connection, we have a way to move us all forward. We learned that allies are great, but friends are better. I look forward to our dialogue. There’s preservation and then there’s preservation—and I’m not talking about jams and spicy beans. I recently found an…

https://tinyurl.com/FBCAYouTube The Friends of the BC Archives (FBCA) shifted their popular monthly guest speaker series to virtual in the fall of 2020 to keep their members connected during the pandemic and to deliver scheduled presentations at a time when gatherings were restricted. The amount of interest in the first presentation, “Racialized Histories and Archival Erasures: South Asian History in British Columbia,” by Sharanjit Kaur Sandhra from the South Asian Studies Institute and Sikh Heritage Museum, prompted the creation of a YouTube channel where all the FBCA presentations can be viewed. These presentations feature the work of respected authors and historians across the province drawing attention to their research at the BC Archives and also highlighting the work of organizations such as The Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria. The…

Broken Promises is a museum-based and virtual travelling exhibit that complements and highlights research from the Landscapes of Injustice project. Visitors to the in-person exhibit (as well as those doing the virtual tour at https://my.matterport.com/ show/?m=tkFh4LGxnya) can learn about life for Japanese Canadians in Canada before the war, the administration of their lives during and after the war, and how legacies of dispossession continue to this day. The exhibit includes previously unreleased photographs and historical items. Broken Promises is structured around the stories of seven Japanese Canadians—a farmer, surveyor, single mother, store owner, fisher, accountant, and cook—who were interned during the war. Their stories are told in first-person accounts. Broken Promises also contains teaching resources, including digital lesson plans for elementary and secondary classrooms that explore the dispossession of Japanese…

“Our documented family history focuses on Koichiro Sanmiya, who held the first malt and sake license in British Columbia. While researching our family after his untimely death in 1931, I found a property at 640 E. Cordova listed under M. Sanmiya in 1936. Was M his widow, Morio (my Issei great-grandmother) or Marmuro, their first Canadian-born son (1915-1944)? “Our LOI files clarified that Morio bought the lot at 640 E. Cordova. She renovated it extensively, adding a building behind for a dressmaking factory. Following dispossession, she hoped to get $6,000 [approximately $80,000 in 2022] (initially appraised at $5,000 [approximately $65,000 in 2022]). Our file revealed multiple unabashedly undervalued appraisals each deducting more fees, taxes levied despite forced dispossession, and the Custodian’s five-percent commission. It sold for net $3,000 [approximately $40,000…

“The property form in the case file will tell you where [your family] lived in the ‘protected area,’ whether their residence was owned or rented, and a number of other things. I was shocked to learn that my jii-chan, Hideo Tamaki, had his house built when he was just 21 years old, on land his widowed mother, a midwife at the Fisherman’s Hospital, had purchased for him. When he married my baa-chan, Fumi (née Akiyama), a decade later in 1941, they lived in this house on 2nd Avenue near Chatham, in Steveston. This home was sold by the Office of the Custodian. “My grandfather filed a claim through the Bird Commission, and the report contains the court record of my grandfather’s testimony and itemized list of things that were left…

Hungarian refugees—like Eva—were welcomed to Canada after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, a nationalist uprising against the Soviet Union’s control of Hungary. Among these 38,000 people were faculty and students from the School of Forestry in Sopron, Hungary, near the Austrian border. The dean of the Sopron School, Kalman Roller, had sent letters to deans of forestry in twenty countries, hoping one would take in his group. The Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia responded; they agreed to “adopt” the Soproners—and even guaranteed that they would be taught, at first, in Hungarian. The refugees arrived in BC in January 1957. After spending a few months in the lumber town of Powell River, picking up rudiments of English, attending lectures on forestry practices, and learning about life in…

We are joining Bert on his journey across Canada from Gabriola Island, BC, to Big Shippegan Lighthouse, New Brunswick. His exploration across Canada—in the footsteps and the paddle strokes of Indigenous people, European mapmakers, and ordinary travellers—is his personal quest to understand Canada’s past and to shape our understanding of it today. Beyond the everyday challenges he will face in this journey, he is constrained by time: he must travel to, and cross, the Rocky Mountains at Howse Pass as early as possible in the spring to beat winter to New Brunswick. We caught up with him in his final weeks before he started his journey and will be updating readers on his progress after his start date of April 1. Q: What is it like to travel alone? What…

In July 1942, the Tashme Internment Camp opened its doors to Japanese Canadians who were removed from the BC coast following Canada’s declaration of war against Japan. Formerly called the Fourteen Mile Ranch, the camp was located 14 miles [22.5 kilometres] southeast of Hope in an isolated valley surrounded by high mountains, just outside the 100-mile [161 kilometres] “protected” zone imposed by the federal government. It was Canada’s largest camp, covering 1,200 acres [4.9 square kilometres] and, at its peak, was home to 2,644 internees. In less than six months, a flat area on an existing ranch became a village. There was no pre-existing community or municipal services. Nearly 700 families arrived as strangers and were essentially thrown together to live in 347 hastily built shacks. Conditions were primitive: The…

Woolly Wednesdays, a six-part series on the now extinct Salish wool dog, was hosted by the Museum of North Vancouver (MONOVA) in 2021. The virtual presentations were led by Senaqwila Wyss, an Indigenous programmer at MONOVA. In the series, Senaqwila shared the role of wool dogs in the Coast Salish world, their place in the ecosystem, and how the dogs’ significance might vary between cultures. Based on cultural teachings, she refutes much of the information available about wool dogs in colonial sources and explains the resulting ongoing damage to communities caused by inaccurate information that does not centre cultural knowledge. Recordings of Woolly Wednesdays are available on the Museum of North Vancouver’s YouTube channel and provide an opportunity to learn about the relationship between these intriguing creatures from a Coast…

The Canadian government uprooted and interned all people of Japanese descent living in coastal British Columbia in 1942.1 The following year, it authorized the sale of everything that they had been forced to leave behind. As a result, when officials finally lifted the laws banning Japanese Canadians from their former communities in 1949, they had nothing to return to. Their homes, farms, businesses, fishing vessels, cars, family pets, personal belongings (in short, everything they had been unable to take with them) were gone. Families lost heirlooms and everyday possessions. They lost decades of investment and work. As a result of the dispossession, Japanese Canadians also lost opportunities, neighbourhoods, and communities. They lost retirements, livelihoods, and educations. The uprooting and dispossession transformed the geography of British Columbia: hundreds of localities where…

Extensive educational resources and powerful learning tools are big parts of the Landscapes of Injustice project. These newly developed educational resources include specific teacher lesson packages for elementary and secondary classrooms. These are free and can be used in conjunction with or completely apart from museum and other resources on the history of Japanese Canadians. The elementary lessons are engaging and accessible, using the internment and dispossession of Japanese Canadians to help students learn about the world by seeking answers to big questions: What is fair? How do we deal with unfairness? What is home? Community? What is the difference between belonging and belongings? Students use an engaging simulation to help them understand internment and dispossession, then use a series of supporting lessons to process this learning. Go to https://loi.uvic.ca/…

“When I first opened my grandfather’s case file (which contained about 500 pages) from the Office of the Custodian, there was a handwritten number: 9609. What did this mean? It dawned on me that 9609 was my grandfather’s internee number, assigned by the Office of the Custodian. “I had heard stories about my grandfather but had never met him. Both he and my grandmother died before I was born. I had seen family photos of his four seiner boats and of his house and car in Steveston before the war. Like every granddaughter, I wanted to know more about who my grandfather was. “Then I thought, what could these government documents tell me? As I read every page, tears began streaming down my face. Like any government authority that aims…

“My great-aunty Kay and husband, Charlie Imahashi, owned farmland in New Westminster, but when war broke out, Charlie was sent to a road camp, and Kay stayed with my grandmother and her five boys until they were forcibly moved to Hastings Park. When the Custodian started creating property files for the displaced, I discovered (along with the Custodian) that Kay and Charlie’s deed was still under the name of Charlie’s brother, Kokichi, who had returned to Japan before the war. “The property had been paid for in 1933, but the Imahashis didn’t have any documentation to prove it. There was some correspondence about the situation in one letter from the Custodian that Kay had not responded to because she was sick with the mumps in hospital while at Hastings Park.…

“As a Yonsei who teaches Grade 6 students about Japanese Canadians during the Second World War, my family history helps to bring another level of authenticity to my teaching. I get to use documents from my family files to talk about belongings, loss, and injustice, and the students get to interact with real history—Japanese Canadian history in general, but also my own family history. The students are always shocked to learn how little money families received for their belongings after auction and to see the various fees the government used to ensure they received even less. For example, my great-grandmother arranged for the sale of her property on her own, but she was still charged for valuation and advertising. During the teaching unit, students also read from my great-uncle’s journal,…

Six new resources aimed at reducing racism through education are now available across British Columbia. You can access all six resources at www.threadingourstories.ca. This multi-part project, called the South Asian Canadian Legacy Project, aims to raise awareness of the valuable contributions of South Asian Canadians to British Columbia’s diverse cultures, history, heritage, economy, and society. “The South Asian Canadian Legacy Project empowers British Columbians to discover, learn, research, and share the rich and robust histories of South Asian Canadians who helped build this beautiful province,” said Dr. Satwinder Kaur Bains, Director at UFV’s SASI. Saffron Threads A new learning resource for BC K-12 teachers exploring South Asian Canadian history, culture, and heritage, Saffron Threads includes detailed activity plans and resources, developed in partnership with Open School BC, that will help…

Lisa Uyeda has the archivist’s touch. The Collections Manager at the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre is wearing white gloves as she gently places a drawing of a POW camp on a table. The scene includes a barracks, a guard holding a rifle, and a Japanese Canadian prisoner with a large circle on his back. Drawn and coloured onto a piece of birch bark 80 years ago, it’s now showing its age. The bark has ruptured into two pieces, and scotch tape covers small cracks. Why birch bark? “It was very difficult to have access to paper. It wasn’t until much later in the war that the YMCA started donating paper, pencils and musical instruments,” says Ms Uyeda. The artist is unknown, but the search continues. The pow camp…

During the Second World War, the Canadian government ordered the removal of persons of Japanese racial origin living within 100 miles of the coast of British Columbia. Consequently, nearly 22,000 Japanese Canadians were forced to leave their homes and abandon their assets, which the government unlawfully sold. This washboard—belonging to the family of Tom Yamaura, one of the first men to be sent to a Japanese Canadian prisoner of war (POW) camp in 1942—is a reminder of the forcible uprooting and dispossession of Japanese Canadians during this time and the hardship they faced thereafter. Before internment, Tom had been training as a mechanical engineer but was demoted to labourer after the start of the Second World War. Tom quit his job out of frustration and returned to his parents’ home…