Vo l I N e w s 2 0 1 9 -2 0 2 0 The Japanese-Canadian Young Leaders Committee Year in Review COPANI XX Hear from our Youth Delegates P r o f il e s : Y o u n g e n s o k u : a g a t h e r in g P l u s : M e e t l e a d e r s f u n d f o r Y o u n g t h e 2 0 2 0 Y l c g r a n t r e c iP ie n t s J a P a n e s e -c a n a d ia n s B o a r d JCYL News The JCYL News is an annual publication pro- duced by the National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC) Young Leaders Committee (YLC) to inform of activities in the Japa- nese-Canadian young leader community. Editors: Alex Miki, Alex Okuda-Rayfuse Layout: Alex Okuda-Rayfuse Proofreading: Alex Miki Thanks to the following people for their sub- mission of articles and photos: Alex Miki Ramses Miki-Hanson Carolyn Nakagawa Stéphane Hamade Alex Okuda-Rayfuse Jun Cura-Bongolan Chad Pickerell Message from the YLC Chair Kayla Isomura by Alex Miki Caitlin Morishita-Miki Jesse Miki Mark Shigenaga The NAJC Young Leaders Commit- across the country, connecting youth to tee (YLC) is excited to share a look back their local organizations or connecting at an incredible year of youth-led proj- youth around the world at international ects and programming. The YLC meets conventions. It is these connections that monthly and aims to support Japanese make our community stronger and it is Canadian (JC) youth activities and proj- these connections that can last forever. I Edmonton AGM and ects and this newsletter gives us an op- am fortunate to have been able to form Conference 2020 portunity to showcase the amazing, tal- amazing bonds with the young leaders I The YLC is looking for eager ented and hardworking JC youth from have met in the last few years. None of Young Leaders to attend and partic- across Canada as well as share their ex- this could be possible without the hard ipate in the upcoming NAJC confer- periences from conferences and gather- work of my incredible 2020 committee ence to be held in Edmonton October ings they have attended and organized in members: Mana Murata (Vancouver), 2-4, 2020. This is a great opportuni- the last year. Carolyn Nakagawa (Vancouver), Chad ty to meet other young leaders from Since taking over the role of chair of Pickerell (Calgary), Ramses Miki-Han- across Canada, attend workshops and the YLC in October 2018, I was quite son (Saskatoon), Jun Cura-Bongolan to learn more about your local and nervous and unsure I could even begin (Toronto), Stéphane Hamade (Toron- national JC community. to fill the inspiring and fearless shoes to) and Alex Okuda-Rayfuse (Ottawa). To apply for subsidy, please submit of my predecessor Bryan Tomlinson. I look forward to seeing what the YLC your application no later than May Through my time with the YLC and brings in the upcoming years. 31, 2020. For more information and while serving as a director on the Na- I thank you for looking back at an to apply, visit: najc.ca/committees/ tional Executive Board of the NAJC, I’ve amazing year. Please continue to support young-leaders-committee learned that the most important goal JC young leaders in your communities that needs to be achieved is connectiv- and let us all help to create more lasting ity: connecting youth to their JC iden- connections in our community. tity, connecting youth to other youth Stay Connected with the YLC: What’s inside COPANI XX ...............................................................................3 JCYoungLeaders Kessoku .......................................................................................5 Ensoku ........................................................................................6 najc.ca/committees/ 2019-2020 YLF Grant Recipients ............................................8 young-leaders-committee Meet the 2020 Board .............................................................. 10 2 Canadian delegates with Norman Mine- ta at COPANI C O P A N I X X the future of our global Nikkei commu- Convención Panamericana Nikkei nity. We knew this workshop should re- flect and capture this experience of shar- P h o t o s b y M a r k s h ig e n a g a ing knowledge and we used that as the foundation for our workshop. We asked YLC chair Alex Miki and committee member Carolyn Nakagawa the group to split into five small groups, attended COPANI, a Pan-American Nikkei Convention September each group revolving around one of the 20-22, 2019 in San Francisco. Alex was the co-moderator for the themes: business; activism and diversity; Young Adult Workshop and was a panelist for the all youth panel. history; identity; and arts and culture. In three rounds, they worked together to create an infographic map surrounding By Alex Miki - When the NAJC first ex- something meaningful and tangible to their theme and common goals that per- pressed interest in participating in CO- come out of the two-hour session. We tained to their theme. In the first round, PANI, organizer Roji Oyama suggested I focused on the uniqueness that COPANI they were tasked with thinking of any- help plan a young adult workshop along- offered; this was a chance for Nikkei to thing that came to mind when thinking side former youth chair of the Japanese come together from different countries of their theme. For example, the identity American Citizens’ League (JACL), Kota and communities to share their experi- theme sparked words like ‘food’, ‘family,’ Mizutani. Since COPANI’s theme was ences, their challenges and their goals for and ‘language’. In the second round, they ‘the future is here,’ Roji wanted there to be youth representation at the conference, but also wanted Nikkei youth to be part of the planning and organizing process. Kota and I were first looped in with Nik- kei youth from Peru, Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay to get a feel for what youth workshops were like at past COPANIs as well as to gauge current challenges that other Nikkei communities were facing. We found that we all shared common focuses: youth involvement, keeping youth engaged in the community, and organizing youth programming. We kept in touch monthly to share possible ideas for a workshop and to get mean- ingful input and feedback. The first ques- tion that Kota and I had to ask ourselves was ‘what do we want participants to get Dynamic Duo: COPANI Young adult workshop co-moderators Alex Miki (left) and out of this workshop?’. We both wanted Kota Mizutani (right) 3 focused on each word from the previ- ous round and asked themselves what a Reflections shared goal was surrounding that word. This could be ‘sharing Nikkei recipes Youth Ambassadors at COPANI from around the world’, or ‘wanting to learn more about my family history’. For The YLC and NAJC were pleased to provide subsidy to two Youth the third round, they had to come up Ambassadors (who have recently joined the YLC) to attend COPANI. with a potential solution or action item to achieve each goal. Maybe an online Japanese cooking class that is hosted by a COPANI was an Being Japanese Canadian was just some- different country every month, or having eye-opening experi- thing particular to my family. It wasn’t an intergenerational workshop encour- ence. The attendees, until I was in my early twenties that I be- aging generations to share family stories. having come from all gan to meet other Nikkei people. Being At this stage, we also asked how Nik- over the Americas, able to attend COPANI helped put things kei youth could get involved and stay en- naturally had a wide into perspective for me, particularly re- gaged in these action items. The goal of this Ramses variety of experienc- garding identity and community. There workshop was to create a map of shared Miki-Hanson es and backgrounds. was a real welcoming feeling at COPANI. goals and actions that individuals could It was fascinating to hear about how the It is amazing to see such solidarity with- bring home to their respective communi- South American Nikkei experience var- in our communities, even with such dis- ties but also to think about how to bring ied from that of North Americans’. De- tance between them. The one thing that together the Nikkei community to achieve spite facing their own challenges, the fact united all of us in attendance was the fact our common goals. that they never experienced internment that we all share the same Japanese heri- The workshop overall was very well at- made for some major contrast. tage. No matter how different our experi- tended and the feedback we received was One of the workshops I attended had ences are, we are all Nikkei. positive. It was interesting to see how each group made the workshop their own and to do with Nikkei identity. Young, old, developed their own ideas from it. Each North American, and South American all Last year, I was group had an opportunity to share with shared their views on the issue. Guided the larger group on what they had come up by the facilitator, we discussed how our fortunate to attend with. I was able to capture and transcribe Nikkei identity has shaped our experi- COPANI XX in San each group’s map and have also compiled ences, and what it means to us. Being of Francisco as a Youth a summary map using some of the action mixed ethnic background always brings Ambassador with items from each theme: questions of identity with it.