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Intergenerational Conflict and Cooperation: Japanese Canadian Experience Tatsuo Kage

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Intergenerational Conflict and Cooperation: Japanese Canadian Experience Tatsuo Kage Original Paper Intergenerational Conflict and Cooperation: Japanese Canadian Experience Tatsuo Kage Abstract In 1977 the Japanese Canadian community celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the arrival of the first immigrant to Canada. Looking back at the community’s history, younger generations started questioning their parents and grandparents on their silence about wartime experiences of unjust uprooting and incarceration by Canada’s government. The redress movement started with this awareness of their history. To begin with, leaders of the movement had to overcome resistance from older generations who feared backlash from government and the public. A series of kitchen-table meetings were effective means for helping older people open up and share their wartime experiences with younger generations. Some bilingual Nisei and postwar immigrants, including the author himself, had a role to play in this process by facilitating communication between Japanese speaking Issei and English speaking Sansei. Unified efforts through intergenerational co-operation were crucial for the successful campaign that prevented the government from taking advantage of division in the community. By making the redress for Japanese Canadians an issue of democratic principles, the redress campaign gained support from the wider public, including prominent individuals and organizations. The mainstream media also supported the Japanese Canadians, which contributed to bringing about the redress settlement in September 22, 1988. Keywords: Issei, Nisei, Sansei, generations, immigration, racial discrimination, uprooting, incarceration, redress WCPRR Oct 2008: 167-179 © 2008 WACP ISSN: 1932-6270 INTRODUCTION The experience of the Japanese immigrants and their descendants in Canada stretches for over a period of 130 years. The focuses of this paper are: firstly, to review the generational makeup of the Japanese Canadian community in the prewar period, namely, Issei or prewar immigrants, and their children, the Nisei; secondly, to look into the way both generations had to deal with an unprecedented challenge, which was the government’s wartime measures of uprooting and incarceration of the entire community between 1942 and 1949, and thirdly, to analyze the redress movement. After the end of World War II, Sansei or the third generation eventually spearheaded the redress movement along with some Nisei community leaders, even though most Sansei were too young to have direct experience of the government’s wartime measures. Redress has been regarded as a major achievement in the history of Human Rights in Canada. The question to be addressed is how these generations interacted in order to achieve redress in 1988. Joy Kogawa, a Nisei writer, says “We are such a small community, a minority among minorities”, “But the song and the story of the struggle for justice that we have jointly created will endure through time” (Kogawa, 2000; emphasis is by the author). _________________ Corrispondence to: Tatsuo Kage, Independent Historian, BA, MA, University of Tokyo. Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens, Association Human Rights Committee, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 3471 East 48th Ave., Vancouver, BC Canada V5S 1H6 E-Mail: [email protected] Received August 31st, 2008. Accepted September 30th, 2008 KAGE, T. A standard work on the history of Japanese Canadians was written by Ken Adachi, a Nisei journalist, in 1976. He covered some interactions between Issei immigrants and the Canadian-born Nisei. His work is so far the best source of information about Nisei. The background of uprooting and incarceration is analyzed by Ann Gomer Sunahara in 1981, based on newly available government documents. Soon after the redress settlement of 1988 Roy Miki and Cassandra Kobayashi published in 1991 an excellent overview of the wartime experience of Japanese Canadians, the redress movement and its settlement. Miki’s more recent work of 2004 includes detailed analysis of some aspects of the Japanese Canadian experiences, such as the Nisei mass evacuation group which resisted the government measures of uprooting, and negotiations with ministers in charge of redress. All previous publications touch various generations of the community, but their main interest is not the intergenerational issues and their reference to this aspect of the community is sporadic.The author would like to argue that intergenerational cooperation led to the successful settlement of redress for the injustices inflicted on Japanese Canadians during and after the World War II (Note 1). ISSEI PIONEERS The history of Japanese Canadians will be briefly reviewed in order to see the formation of their community in Canada. Issei, the prewar immigrants, were mostly born in the Meiji era, from 1868 to 1912. The first known Japanese immigrant, Manzo Nagano, came to Canada in l877. Others followed between l880’s and l920’s. If some of them are still alive, they are over 90 years old and this generation is rapidly disappearing. Typical early immigrants of the late l9th century were young males who came to work at lumber mills, salmon fishing or coal mining. Farming came a little later. By the turn of the century several thousand Japanese lived on the West Coast of British Columbia and Japantown was established in Vancouver. At that time the male/female ratio was unbalanced by about ten to one. Because of racism in Canada, Asian immigrants, even with citizenship, did not have the right to vote. At the turn of the century, Tomekichi Honma, a naturalized Issei, fought for franchise, but his lawsuit was unsuccessful. In l906/1907 the US restricted immigrants from Japan coming to the mainland. They came mostly through Hawaii and sought to proceed to California, resulting in an influx of several thousand Japanese to the west coast of Canada. This sudden influx alarmed the white population in British Columbia, resulting in an anti-Asian rally in Vancouver in September, l907. Mobs gathered and assaulted the Chinatown and Japantown areas of the city (Kage, 2007). These anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver had a twofold impact on the future of the Japanese community. Firstly, in response to anti-Asian incidents, community activities were intensified. For example, through their representative organization, Japanese protested and requested compensation for the damages done by the riot mobs. Secondly, after the incidents, through negotiation with Canada, Japan agreed to voluntarily limit the number of male immigrant workers coming to Canada. However, at the time the immigration of sponsored women was not restricted, and thousands of young women were able to arrive as brides in 1910’s and l920’s. Male immigrants settled down with their own families and the Japanese community became more stable. By then, the Issei had formed numerous community organizations. Their representative organization was the Canadian Japanese Association, led by prominent Issei, such as successful businessmen. Issei controlled the community, and their families, in a typically authoritarian way and also worked closely with the Japanese Consulate by taking charge of some of consular businesses, such as a paper work needed for sponsoring family members from Japan. Fees for these services were an important source of income for the association. The Issei were the product of Meiji Japan. They strongly valued isshoukenmei (hard work with one’s heart and soul), gaman (self-restraint) and ganbari (perseverance). The next generation, Nisei, had a different outlook. 168 INTERGENERATIONAL CONFLICT AND COOPERATION NISEI, THE SECOND GENERATION Most Nisei were born between 1910-1935 (peak year 1925-30) (Makabe, 1998). By l93l, the Census of Canada showed that the number of Canadian-born community members was only slightly less than those born in Japan - 47% vs. 53% (See below Table 1). Table 1 Census of Canada 1931 BC Canada Canadian-born 10,728 11,081 Japan-born 11,477 12,261 Total 22,205 23,342 Source: Adachi, 1991 Issei parents tried to transmit traditional values and customs to their Nisei children. Many of them attended an extra-curricular Japanese language school and became bilingual, but generally speaking their fluency in Japanese was minimal as they were educated in the public school system, learning Canadian values and behavior. As one often observes in immigrant communities, cultural and language gaps were growing more rapidly than in their home country between immigrant parents and their children and the Japanese community in Canada was no exception. Roy Ito, a Nisei in Hamilton, Ontario, observed a communication gap in Japanese Canadian homes in the prewar years between Issei parents and Nisei children “My father read Japanese language newspapers, he could not read English. I read English language newspapers, Japanese newspapers were too difficult in spite of my years at the Japanese language school”; “Meaningful conversation about politics, government, philosophy and religion was difficult between Issei parents and Nisei offspring. Perhaps it was impossible. The paucity of good conversation at home and around the dinner table probably contributed to the difficulties many Nisei had articulating ideas and thoughts” (Ito, 1994). In the 1930’s generational differences became evident as the Nisei grew to adulthood. Many of them were concerned with questions of citizenship and civil rights rather than tradition and connections with Japan. “Nisei, not very Japanese-like”. This is a comment made by one of characters - an uncle in “Obasan”. Responding to this, Aunt Emily,
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