Image 12. This family in the Lemon Creek internment camp was housed in a tarpaper shack. Primitive conditions and overcrowding were common in the camps.
Image 13. Children sit around a campfire in New Denver in 1944. The boy on the far left is Tatsuo Sakamoto, who became a lieutenant-colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces. Another well-known Canadian who spent part of his childhood in the camps is David Suzuki.
Image 14. These students are being taught by volunteer teacher Hideo Hiraki.
Image 15. The internment camps were outside the “Protected Area” along B.C.’s coastline. The map shows many camps in the New Denver area, not far from the Rocky Mountains and the Alberta border.
Credits
Cover cameo (detail): Fumiye Ohori, 1931 at age 13 years, Japanese Canadian National Museum, 1931001.
Cover background (detail): Interned Japanese Canadians Leaving the Slocan Valley, Japanese Canadian National Museum, Alex Eastwood Collection, 1994-69-4-29.
Image 1: Last Vancouver Asahi team, 1941, Japanese Canadian National Museum.
Image 2: Hina Matsuri day, courtesy of Molly Aihoshi.
Image 3: Sailors aboard Japanese fishing boats in Fraser River, Dominion Photo Co., Vancouver Public Library, 26951.
Image 4: “Notice to All Japanese Persons and Persons of Japanese Racial Origin,” signed by Austin C. Taylor, Chairman, British Columbia Security Commission, Province Newspaper, Vancouver Public Library, 12851.
Image 5: Kimiko Saito’s Registration Card, 1941 (Saito Family collection), JCNM, 2011.16.5.1.
Image 6: Yellow Peril board game, Collection of the Galt Museum & Archives, P19970041915.
Image 7: Unidentified road camp, University of British Columbia Library, Rare Books and Special Collections, Japanese Canadian Photograph Collection, 5.012.
Image 8: Relocation of Japanese-Canadians to camps in the interior of British Columbia 1942-46, Tak Toyota/Collections Canada, C-0470660.
Image 9: Relocation of Japanese-Canadians to camps in the interior of British Columbia, Tak Toyota/Collections Canada, C-046350.
Image 10: Relocation of Japanese-Canadians to camps in the interior of British Columbia, Collections Canada, PA-146355.
Image 11: Courtesy of Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre.
Image 12: Courtesy of Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre.
Image 13: Courtesy of Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre.
Image 14: Courtesy of Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre.
Image 15: Map by Paul Heersink/Paperglyphs.
The publisher wishes to thank Barbara Hehner for her attention to the factual details, and Dr. Michiko Midge Ayukawa, author of Hiroshima Immigrants in Canada, 1891–1941, for her historical expertise.
For my grandparents
About the Author
Author Susan Aihoshi is a third-generation Japanese Canadian whose grandparents and parents were interned in the ghost town of New Denver in 1942. Her mother and several of Susan’s aunts were volunteer teachers, while her father and her uncle repaired derelict buildings in Sandon before moving to New Denver. Susan’s parents met in New Denver, then later came to Toronto, where they married.
One of Susan’s lifelong goals has been to write a book. She says: “It has been a revelation exploring my own family’s experience as people who lived through a major injustice and went on to thrive in spite of it. The highlight of my research was visiting New Denver for the first time and then touring the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre, a National Historic Site. Visitors can enter some of the original cabins and view first-hand what life was like for the evacuees during the internment years. Writing this book has changed my understanding of my own history as a Japanese Canadian.”
Susan worked for seventeen years at Books in Canada, a position that allowed her to meet many writers, journalists and editors. She later spent six years at Madison Press Books, where as managing editor she worked on a wide variety of children’s books, including To Be a Princess and New Dinos. She is currently a freelance editor and writer.
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without my mother, Molly Aihoshi, and her sister, Tomiko Kadota. Their childhood memories of 2321 Oxford Street, along with their later experiences in New Denver and Rosebery, provided rich material for Mary’s diary.
Special thanks go to my uncle Barney Aihoshi and his wife Setty, and my aunt Alice Sakaguchi and her husband Herb for sharing their stories of those long ago years. I am indebted to Ina Boxeur for memories of Templeton Junior High and for providing me with invaluable copies of TeeJay, Templeton’s student magazine from 1941 and 1942. Special thanks also to my mother’s childhood friends and former Girl Guides, Margaret Lloyd and Michiko Kayama.
Thanks to Alfred and Lucie Iwasaki for their generous hospitality whenever I am in Vancouver. Nora Kaji, Stephen Kaji, Hannah Mizuno and Mary Rose MacLachan all helped me immeasurably. Emiko Mori and Toshiko Usami welcomed me into their homes and answered my questions. Thanks to Eve Baker for reading an early draft, and to Grace Gabber, Deanna Rudder and Basia Thompson for their helpful insights into friendship. My husband Roger Stevens deserves acknowledgment as my intrepid driver in the wilds of Alberta and B.C.
For assistance with my research, I thank Catherine Miller Mort of Girl Guides of Canada and Sakaye Hashimoto of the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre. Alexis Jensen and Linda Reid of the Japanese Canadian National Museum were extremely helpful in finding historical photos, as was Peter Wakayama of the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, Anne-Marie Metten of Kogawa House and Kevin MacLean of the Galt Museum & Archives. I also wish to extend my thanks to Dr. Michiko Midge Ayukawa, the historical consultant.
Finally, I am deeply grateful to Laurie Coulter for her advice and moral support, Hugh Brewster for his inspiration, Barbara Hehner for her fact-checking, and my patient and most wonderful editor, Sandra Bogart Johnston. Arigatō gozaimasu!
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Mary Kobayashi is a fictional character created by the author, and her diary is a work of fiction.
Copyright © 2012 by Susan Midori Aihoshi.
A Dear Canada Book. Published by Scholastic Canada Ltd. SCHOLASTIC and DEAR CANADA and logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
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eISBN: 978-1-4431-1922-1
First eBook edition: February, 2012
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