Nikkei Images
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Nikkei NIKKEI national museum & cultural centre IMAGES Nikkei national museum Nikkei cultuMarieral Katsuno cen and Michikot Saitore on General Meigs exile ship on way to Japan from Vancouver NMM 2001.5.1.6.5.a A publication of the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre ISSN #1203-9017 Volume 24, No. 3 Welcome to Nikkei Images Nikkei Images is a publication of the Nikkei Nikkei National Museum & Cultural national museum & cultural centre Centre dedicated to the preservation and sharing of Japanese Canadian Nikkei Images is published by the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre Stories since 1996. In this issue, we feature Copy Editor: Elizabeth Weber Contents the resilience of Japanese Canadians through Design: John Endo Greenaway adversity, whether it be labor unions, fighting for Subscription to Nikkei Images is free (with pre-paid postage) voting rights, or internment and incarceration. with your yearly membership to NNMCC: We welcome proposals of family and community Family $48.00 | IndividualN $38.00ikke i stories for publication in future issues. Articles Senior Individual $28.00nati onal museum $2 per copy (plus postage) for non-members should be between 500 – 3,500 words and finished works should be accompanied by NNMCC relevant high resolution photographs with proper 6688 Southoaks Crescent Burnaby, B.C., V5E 4M7 Canada photo credits. Please send a brief description or TEL: 604.777.7000 FAX: 604.777.7001 summary of the theme and topic of your proposed www.nikkeiplace.org article to [email protected]. Disclaimer: Every effort is Nmade to ensureikke the accuracy of thei information contained within Nikkei Images.c However,ultu duer toal the possibilitycen oft humanre or mechanical error, Our publishing agreement can be found online at Nikkei Images is not responsible for any errors or omissions. Opinions expressed in Kohei and Kimie Shimozawa: Hanjian Earth Pilgrim: a story of a second this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors or of the NNMCC. Memories and Thanks (Part 3) Page 8 generation Japanese Canadian center.nikkeiplace.org/nikkei-images Page 4 Page 11 NNMCC Membership form Name (mMs. m Mr. mMrs. mMr. & Mrs.): ________________________________________ Address:__________________________________________CITY___________ PROVINCE___________POSTAL CODE_______ Tel: (_____)______________ E-mail:_______________________________________ Individual: $38.00 Senior Individual: $28.00 (60 or over) Family: $50.00 (member, spouse or common-law partner and children) all prices include GST Check one: FREE: I would like to receive the Nikkei Images at my email address $6 (Domestic) / $10 (US) / $20 (Intl) per year: I would like to include postage to receive Nikkei Images at my mailing address. Membership $_______ x _____yrs = $ ___________ Please make cheques payable to: Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre Nikkei Images Postage (optional) $_______ x _____yrs = $ ___________ 6688 Southoaks Crescent Burnaby, B.C., V5E 4M7 Celebrating Civil Courage Japanese Canadians in Exile Hitoshi Okabe’s registration card Donation $10 $25 $50 $100 Surprise us! $ ___________ T 604.777.7000 F 604.777.7001 Page 20 Page 22 Back Cover [email protected] www.nikkeiplace.org Please find enclosed a cheque TOTAL $____________ Please debit this amount from my credit card: Expiry Date: Name of cardholder __________________________________ Signature of cardholder ________________________________ 2 3 Kohei and Kimie Shimozawa: Memories and Thanks (Part 3) by David T. Shimozawa From the time that the war ended, Mom relentlessly lament, asking Atsuko, why she could not stay for one sought permission for Atsuko to leave Japan and join more year. her family in Canada but to no avail. Japanese Nationals Atsuko left for Japan in the spring of 1955. She married were not on the list of allowed immigrants. Senator Hisao the following year, and they settled in the John Thomas Haig, was the Leader of the Opposition Hakusan district of Tokyo. Atsuko became a dressmaker/ in the Senate. He was also a member of Knox United designer for wealthy women in Tokyo. Japan was rapidly Church. Mom asked him to appeal on her behalf to the recovering from the war and the wives of diplomats and Minister of Immigration, to allow Atsuko to be reunited corporate executives were beginning to travel abroad. with her family for humanitarian reasons. With Senator For this, they needed fashionable western clothing that Haig’s assistance, Atsuko was allowed enter Canada as would look good on a Japanese woman. Mom would an immigrant and was finally reunited with her family send her the latest issue of huge McCall’s and Butterick in 1954. pattern books. Atsuko would use these to create custom Atsuko, by this time had met her future husband, Hisao fit garments for her clients. Atsuko and Hisao built a Tsushima, an accountant. Atsuko promised Hisao that house in the Hakusan district of Tokyo with a fitting room she would spend one year in Canada at her parent’s and a sewing room for the seamstresses that she hired. Winnipeg, Spring 1955, Family portrait as Atsuko is about to leave for Japan to marry her fiancé Hisao Tsushima (Shimozawa Family photo) home, then return to marry him. He promised to wait They bought a car, opened a fashion store, and had two as a cutter. Like most Japanese, Dad was a proud man. very happy but Dad, who did not adjust as easily to for her return. Atsuko arrived in the spring of 1954 and boys. Atsuko then started buying condo apartments and Losing his job and working for less pay must have been rapid change, was depressed. He told Rita that he as she promised, returned to Japan after one year. It parking spaces in Tokyo. hard for him. He persevered, and over time, he came had come here to die. They found a bungalow on 71A was an exciting time for all of us to meet the oldest Mom and Dad’s children were becoming adults and to enjoy driving to work and coming home with Mom. avenue in Delta, on a large sunny lot, only five minutes sister that Mom had talked about so often. Atsuko was over the next few years, we would all leave Winnipeg. They were soon empty nesters and were able to save from our place and moved into it in April 1980. a trained seamstress and dress designer. Mom’s friend, Carol became a flight attendant for CP Air in 1959 and toward their retirement in 1975, when Dad was seventy Dad’s outlook changed dramatically. Mom and Dad Mrs. Katsue Nagamatsu found work for Atsuko at Stall was stationed in Vancouver. She flew the Vancouver – and Mom was sixty five. reconnected with old friends from Ocean Falls and and Sons, a garment manufacturer where she worked. Tokyo run and would always visit Atsuko at her home. Long after he retired, I told him that I had a sense of Winnipeg. They joined the Fraser Valley United Church. They were located near Perfecfit Glove where Mom Carol and Atsuko became close siblings. She married relief when he left the foundry and stopped breathing The congregation was made up of many families with worked, so she and Atsuko could commute together. Robert Genn in 1964. I graduated from Engineering in in the fumes and coal dust. He agreed that if he had farming backgrounds. Mom said she and Dad, who Atsuko was well liked at her workplace. 1963 and left for Graduate School at UBC, followed stayed at that job he might not have lived to enjoy a came from farm families themselves, felt a kinship with Mom told her to save all of her earnings so that she by work in Toronto, where I met my future wife, Rita. I long retirement. them. When I visited them there was often a car in the could go back with enough money to start her married moved to Ottawa and we were married in 1971. Betty driveway, belonging to friends who were visiting them. life. graduated with a B.A. in 1965 and like Mom, became In 1979, Rita and I left Ottawa and moved to Delta, just south of Vancouver. Mom and Dad decided to move to Mom and Dad loved to go to garage sales. and would Dad now owned his first car, a used 1951 Chevrolet that a teacher. She moved to Toronto in 1966. We shared Vancouver where their children lived, and was closer spend Saturday mornings cruising around Delta he had purchased a year earlier. Dad taught Atsuko an apartment for a while until she married my friend, to Japan where Atsuko lived. looking around for bargains. They had sold most of how to drive, and before long she went for her test Ken Shinozaki in 1967. their furniture in their Winnipeg house, or had given it and received her driver’s license. Dad and Atsuko In 1962, the foundry where Dad worked closed down. Mom and Dad arrived in Vancouver in January 1980 to friends. I think that part of their house in Delta was became very close as father and daughter. When the He was fifty seven years old, without a job, with little and stayed with us for three months. Their house in furnished with stuff they found at a garage sale. Dad time approached for her to return to Japan, Dad would prospect at finding another one that paid as well. After Winnipeg sold quickly and they had to move within a finally had space for a large garden. Mom said he would much soul searching, he joined Mom at Perfecfit Glove month. When they arrived, Rita recalls that Mom was 4 5 happily spend most of the day working in the back yard, only coming in when Mom called him for lunch or dinner.