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Japanese Canadians reflect on internment hardships

Luncheon in Victoria on Sunday to feature guest speakers
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Kanzo and Misuyo Kurushima with their daughter Ritsuko in Vancouver in 1929. Tsugio KurushimaB次元官网网址檚 parents and older siblings were sent to a internment camp in Slocan in 1942. (Photo courtesy of Tsugio Kurushima)

More than a dozen survivors of the Japanese-Canadian internment camps during the Second World War are coming forward to share their experiences, 75 years after families were ripped from their British Columbia homes and shipped across the country.

Greater Victoria residents will share their stories at a luncheon Sunday (Sept. 10) hosted by the Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society, which aims to remind Canadians of this dark part of our countryB次元官网网址檚 past. Tsugio Kurushima, president of the society, said the event is a chance to honour those who experienced this hardship.

B次元官网网址淭heir rights were trampled, and they were treated as enemy aliens,B次元官网网址 he said.

B次元官网网址淚tB次元官网网址檚 a [significant] chapter in Canadian history, one thatB次元官网网址檚 not well-known. Time is marching on and the people who actually went through this experience are getting on in age and wonB次元官网网址檛 be here much longer.B次元官网网址

KurushimaB次元官网网址檚 parents were interned with his older siblings in Slocan, B.C. before they moved to Winnipeg, where he was born. Internment camps are seldom discussed by Japanese-Canadians, he said, because most would rather B次元官网网址渇orget about it and move on.B次元官网网址

But the camps are something that everyone with Japanese-Canadian heritage has a connection to, and itB次元官网网址檚 a part of history that cannot be forgotten. B次元官网网址淲ithin the Japanese-Canadian community, they always talk about where your family was interned, so itB次元官网网址檚 a very common link that we have.B次元官网网址

Also at the luncheon will be a presentation by Jordan Stanger-Ross of the Landscapes of Injustice at the University of Victoria, a project that investigates the history of the forced dispossession of Japanese- Canadians.

Internment camps ran from 1942 to 1949, four years after the Second World War ended. Japanese-Canadians were detained by the Canadian government and relocated to farms and camps in the Interior and across Canada. Their movements were restricted and their personal property sold to fund the camps that imprisoned them.

The luncheon will take place at the Ambrosia Event centre at 638 Fisgard St. on Sunday from 1 to 4:30 p.m. Admission is $15 (or $7.50 for children five to 12) and includes a buffet lunch. For more details, email internmentanniversary@vncs.ca or call Patti Ayukawa at (250)-858-8445.

lauren.boothby@vicnews.com

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Tsugio Kurushima is president of the Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society. Lauren Boothby/VICTORIA NEWS




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