Hello , Canadians have a great reputation. In fact, for three of the last four years running the Reputation Institute reports Canada has been the most beloved country in the world.
Maybe that's why it was such a shock when I discovered Canada, like the United States, treated its Japanese citizens
so shamefully during World War II.
Reading a novel based on these events, I nearly had to put it down, it was so awful. But as is often true, I found the story of a woman who survived horrible hardship and injustice, and somehow spun straw into gold.
From Some Nightmares There is No Waking |
Following Pearl Harbor, racist fear and resentment exploded against Japanese Canadians in British Columbia.
"It is the government's plan to get these people out of B.C. as fast as possible," said Cabinet Minister Ian MacKenzie. "It is my personal intention, as long as I remain in public life, to see they never come back here. Let our slogan be...No Japs from the Rockies to the
seas."
Six-year-old Joy Kogawa and her brother were separated from their father and grandparents and herded onto a train with an aunt & uncle. The train carried them to Slocan City, a long played-out silver mining town in the
foothills of the B.C. Rockies.
Joy choose one doll to take with her. The outcasts were allowed only what they could carry to build a life in a two room shack with no plumbing or electricity. The family's home in Vancouver, BC and all it’s furnishings were confiscated and later sold for a tenth of their value. Many women, children and elderly were rounded up and housed for months in an over-crowded livestock exhibition building, before being shipped off to shanty towns and
internment camps.
At right, Fumiko Fukuhara with two of her children in front of their tar-paper shack near Tappin B.C. Nearly starving the winter of 1942-43, they found a farmer, Henry Calhoun farm willing to give them work on his vegetable farm. Photo by George Fukuhara Royal Canadian Mounted Police yanked men away from their livelihood, fishing boats and gear confiscated, their life on the temperate coast exchanged for the harsh conditions of inland roadwork camps. Twelve-hundred fishing boats were taken from Japanese
Canadians. After WWII, Joy and her family hoped to return to their home and life in Vancouver where her father had been a
doctor.
Instead they were hauled even further from home, over the Rocky Mountains to a sugar beet farm near Lethbridge, Alberta. They lived in a one-room hut with their aunt & uncle, toiled in the beet fields during the blazing summers and traded places near the stove during the freezing winters.
Joy Kogawa wrote a novelized version of her experiences
during this time. In Obasan, she writes of those years slaving on the sugar beet farm. “The fact is, I never got used to it, and I cannot. I cannot bear the memories. There are some nightmares from which there is no waking.” But the nightmare grew even worse. Years later, Joy discovered her mother, who had been visiting Japan when the war broke out, was in Nagasaki when the U.S. bombed the
city.
Next week, I'll tell you about Joy's journey through "personal hell" to find mercy. Her novel Obasan is now required reading in many schools across Canada, and has been called one of the country's all-time best 100 books. (Photo thanks to Dan Toulgoet of the
Vancouver Courier)
Great news this week from my editor! Pub date for FANNIE NEVER FLINCHED is fixed: March 2017. Plus, it appears likely he will go ahead with the
next nonfiction book I have proposed.
I can't tell you about the book yet, but the editorial board at Abrams has given it the go ahead. Sometime in June, my proposal will go before the pub board, which looks at the financial viability of the book. That's a little like getting to third base, with the a good chance the next batter will hit you home.
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Follow up to Chocolate Hummus! |
I'm touched and grateful to all of you who wrote to encourage me last week. And to those who relayed their reviews of my recipe. One reader whipped up some chocolate hummus for her grandchildren to try. They
knew exactly how to perfect the recipe--throw in a handful of chocolate chips and microwave! Thank you for your support!
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