Japanese

by Carol Baker and Naomi Uranishi

The most visible Japanese in Vancouver today are the visitors who frequent the downtown hotels, such sites of interest as the Capilano Suspension Bridge and the numerous Japanese restaurants and shops on Robson and Alberni Streets. Vancouver has about 300 Japanese restaurants. Japan Air Lines, which has been flying into Vancouver since 1968, runs 12 flights a week in summer from Tokyo to Vancouver (about eight-hours’ flying time). After Hawaii, Australia and Switzerland, Canada is the holiday destination of choice for the Japanese. About 250,000 visited Vancouver last year. Many of these were single young women.

That’s quite a different situation from a century and a quarter ago when most of the Japanese arriving in Vancouver were single young men. They did not come to sightsee, shop, snap photos nor take home the prestige of having studied English in Canada. They came to work toward their dreams of riches, hoping to find a better life for themselves and their families.

Japan had been isolated from the world for a long time when in 1870 the new Meiji regime declared that, “During youth, it is positively necessary to view foreign countries ... knowledge shall be sought throughout the world, so that the welfare of the empire may be promoted.”

The first Japanese immigrant was Manzo Nagano, an energetic 19-year-old sailor who jumped ship in New Westminster in 1877. He fished for salmon on the Fraser River and worked as a longshoreman, merchant, salmon exporter and hotelier, setting the example for fellow countrymen who followed. Other settlers, mostly from southern Japan, struggled to make a living in fishing, farming, mining, in the timber trade and working on the railroad. Some enterprising immigrants built up good businesses. Arichika Ikeda headed north to what is now known as Ikeda Bay on Moresby Island where he developed a copper mine. Shinkichi Tamura built the New World Hotel on Powell Street and made a fortune exporting wheat and lumber to Japan. Y. Aoki--who employed 45 Japanese in his logging camp at Indian River--and other lumber barons in Port Moody and North Vancouver built up their businesses to nearly $ 1.2 million worth of timber exports by the mid-1930s.

At the turn of the century about 5,000 Japanese, mostly men, were living in British Columbia, mostly in the Lower Mainland. But Vancouverites resented the successes of entrepreneurial Asian immigrants and the fact that these Asians were paid half the wages that European- Canadians earned.

In 1907 whites rioted and plundered Chinatown, but when they hit the Japanese community on Powell Street they were met with flying rocks and fierce resistance. European-Canadians fought back with legislation limiting immigration of Japanese men but they neglected to mention women. So, Japanese men started bringing in “picture brides"--wives ordered from Japan, mostly through pictures shown to them by friends and relatives. One Japanese-Canadian employer of the time advised, “However goodlooking a wife may be, if she neglects her household duties by drinking tea or sightseeing or rambling on the hillside, she must be divorced.” But the women worked as hard as the men, if not more so.

Although numerous Japanese fishing families lived in Steveston, the Japanese commercial centre for the province was Powell Street, which had developed because it was close to the Hastings Sawmill. There were Japanese shops, hotels and boarding houses, restaurants and ice cream parlors, a language school and a community hall, Buddhist and Christian churches and a sandlot for sports.

Some immigrants or issei, as they have come to be known, were realizing their dreams. During World War I a Japanese contingent fought for Canada, which had promised citizenship to the survivors. A monument to them stands near Lumbermen’s Arch in Stanley Park. However, by the time citizenship was finally granted in 1931, only 80 of more than 200 soldiers were still living. They were the only Japanese in Canada with the right to vote.

The issei pioneers sent their children (the nisei) to school to study the professions but licences to practice were issued only to citizens on the voters list. At the start of World War II about 22,000 people of Japanese origin were living in the Lower Mainland. Some wanted to enlist to fight against Hitler but were refused.

Racism remained rampant. When, in December, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, already half-way to North America, Canadians panicked. Fearing Vancouver might be next and that collaborators might be harbored aboard Japanese boats in Steveston, the Canadian government followed the American example and invoked the War Measures Act. Not only the entire fishing fleet, but also other businesses, radios, cameras and cars were confiscated. Newspapers were suppressed and language schools were closed.

Suspected spies and protesters were shipped to prisoner-of-war camps in Northern Ontario. The rest, about 21,000 in number, were moved from the West Coast inland to Kaslo, New Denver, Lemon Creek, Roseberry, Slocan City, Sandon, Popoff, Greenwood and Tashme, their dreams shattered. Families were forced to live in old mining shacks and rooming houses in overcrowded and humiliating conditions, cut off from the outside world and rejected by their chosen country.

Not a single Japanese-Canadian was ever charged with a treasonable offence, yet they remained undesirable aliens, unwelcome in most communities. In 1946, about 4,000 of the interned were sent back to Japan. British Columbians encouraged the others to relocate in other provinces. Many moved to Toronto although some did return to Vancouver.

Japanese-Americans had been allowed to return to the coast in 1945, before the war ended, but it wasn’t until 1949 that the Canadian exile was actually over. That same year, the federal government finally granted Japanese-Canadians the right to vote. They had lived through years of hardship with perseverance and patience. Finally, they were free to rebuild their lives once more. And they did.

There are still fishing boats in Steveston, some belonging to Japanese-Canadians. The same smell of fish pervades as at the turn of the century but that’s about the only thing that remains the same. The village has grown into sleek rows of big bold homes and cheek-by-jowl townhouses and condominiums, with a core of quaint boutiques, shops and fish and seafood restaurants. The Gulf of Georgia Cannery, located at 12138 Fourth Avenue, has become a national historic site and is open to the public (tel. 664-9009).

Powell Street has faded into a rundown remnant of the past, ripe for redevelopment. There are few Japanese here now except during the first weekend in August when resonant takio drumming announces the annual Powell Street Festival in Oppenheimer Park. Issei, nisei and sansei (third-generation Canadians) come from all over the country to celebrate their dual heritage. Now known as nikkei, Japanese-Canadians have been making the summer pilgrimage for the past 20 years to the first Canadian community of their ancestors.

There are now about 50,000 nikkei in Canada. About 16,000, along with 5,000 Japanese nationals, live in Greater Vancouver. The Vancouver Japanese Canadian Business Directory has 1,350 listings. TV and radio broadcast regularly in Japanese. The Japanese Consulate runs two Japanese movies every month. The Vancouver Shinpo, a weekly newspaper in Japanese, claims a circulation of 5,000. The Bulletin (circ. 2,500) is published monthly in English and Japanese by the Japanese Canadian Citizens Association. The JCCA, located at 511 East Broadway (tel. 874-8187), is the local communications, cultural and contact centre.

Nikkei Place, located ar Kingway and Sperling in Burnaby, is scheduled for completion late 1997. The $25 million complex will comprise a 400-seat theatre for cultural events, a national museum and archives, various rooms for crafts and classes, a Japanese-Canadian garden, a seniors’ residence and a health care home.

The nikkei no longer live clustered together but are scattered throughout the city and work in all walks of life. Some like to live in Richmond, while retired nikkei seem to prefer the North Shore, About 90 per cent of young nikkei marry people of other racial backgrounds. They shop at the local Safeways, buy their rice at Chinese shops and patronize such grocery stores as Fujiya on Clark Drive at Venables and Yaohan in Richmond for specialty items. City streets are filled with Honda, Mazda, Nissan and Toyota vehicles and almost every Vancouver home houses Japanese electronics in the form of telephones, tape decks, TVs and VCRs. B.C. imports from Japan run around $ 3.4 billion annually, while exports to Japan total around $ 5.6 billion. Japan receives 25 per cent of British Columbia’s exports.

The first Japanese came for the salmon, salted it and shipped it back home. Salmon is still important to trade and to Japanese visitors.

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