Orientation
Three major waves of Japanese people moved into southern Alberta. Settlers arrived in the early 1900s to work and homestead in the area. When thousands of Japanese Canadians were evacuated from the west coast in the Second World War, many came to southern Alberta to work in the sugar beet fields. A third wave of people emigrated from Japan in the 1960s and 1970s when Canada changed its Immigration Policy.
Japanese community picnic, near Raymond, Alberta 1931. Reverend Shinjo Nagatomi is on the extreme right.
Galt Museum & Archives, 19790275002.
Raymond Buddhist Church Women’s Auxiliary, ca 1940s. Left to right: Chica Oishi, Isa Koyata, Masae Nakahama, Shizuyo Kawade, Ako Nishimura, and Tsuki Hironaka.
Courtesy of David Tanaka.
Issei
Almost 10,000 Canadians were Issei: immigrants from Japan or Japanese settlers from Hawaii. Most Issei were from the land-owning peasant class of Japan. They had grown up in the rapidly modernizing Meiji period (1868-1912) when Japan was emerging as an industrialized world power, and had come to Canada before the First World War.
Go to The Issei Chapter for a more indepth look.
Idosha
With the advent of the Second World War, many Japanese Canadians were uprooted and put in detention camps in British Columbia and Ontario for the duration of the war. Some evacuees were sent to farms in southern Alberta to help with the shortage of labour during the war.
Many men went to work in lumber camps like the ones in Slave Lake, Rocky Mountain House, or Fort Macleod. Others served with the Armed Forces.
Go to The Idosha Chapter for a more indepth look.
Japanese Canadian evacuees arriving in Picture Butte, north-east of Lethbridge, Alberta, 1942
Galt Museum & Archives, 19790283009.
Sunday School class, Raymond Buddhist Church, ca. 1950s. Teachers Haruko Imahashi, Hiede Karaki and Yoichi Oishi and students Setsuko Matsuno, Jane Nakamura, Irene Kinoshita, Michi Fukushima, Judy Miyauchi, Tomiye Tanaka, Sachiko Nakagawa, Kimiye Fujita, Michiko Nakamura, Reiko Takahashi, Yoshiko Imahashi, Robert Takaguchi, George Kondo, Roy Yamasaki, Satoshi Oishi, Jimmy Takahashi, and Bobby Imahashi.
Courtesy of Mac and Reyko Nishiyama.
Nisei
The Nisei were Canadian-born and Canadian-educated. They were taught by their elders to obey the laws and be good Canadian citizens.
To be accepted in Canadian society, they had to assimilate into the Anglo-Canadian culture.
The Nisei learned their lessons well. By 1941, their main criticism of the Issei was that the Issei were “too Japanese”.
Go to The Nisei Chapter for a more indepth look.
Sansei and Beyond
The Sansei are the third generation, children of the Nisei. Most are not old enough to remember the events of World War II, which were rarely discussed by relatives and family. Most Sansei were raised in homes in which, except for food, there were few visible evidences of Japanese culture.
The fourth generation, the Yonsei, gets further away from their cultural roots but their ethnicity is written upon their faces, and they are still subject to subtle forms of racism and exclusion.
A fifth generation of Japanese Canadians, known as Gosei is now being born.
Hapa is a term for persons of mixed non-Japanese and Japanese race.
Go to The Sansei and Beyond Chapter for a more indepth look.
Wendy Takeda, 2011. Born and raised in Lethbridge, Alberta, Wendy is the eldest daughter of Minoru and Katie Koyata. She attended the University of Alberta to become a physical therapist in 1987 and went on to pursue a Master's Degree in Science researching the effectiveness of acupuncture in 1992. She achieved a doctorate in Traditional Chinese Medicine in 1998, and practices in her own clinic, specializing in the Japanese tradition of acupuncture.
Courtesy of Wendy Takeda.
Karate demonstration at the Genevieve E. Yates Memorial Centre, Lethbridge, 2005. Kynan Gordon (Gosei) is doing the board breaking. Taka Kinjo is the second to the right adult in the back. He has reached the highest ranks of Karate and holds a 10th Degree black belt in the Gohaukai style of Karate. He is head of Canadian Gohakukai Karate-do Association.
Shin Issei
In 1967, Minister of Manpower and Immigration Jean Marchand lifted the long held barrier of Japanese immigration to Canada. He announced that as long as the criteria of such requirements as education, personal assessment and occupational demand were met, anyone may immigrate to Canada. Many chose to come to southern Alberta.
These Japanese immigrants are referred to as the Shin Issei: the new first generation.
Go to The Shin Issei Chapter for a more indepth look.