“Am I Japanese? Am I Nikkei?” An exploration of the identities of Yonsei and Gosei Japanese Canadians
| dc.contributor.author | Nagasaki, Djuna | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-07-26T17:41:15Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-07-26T17:41:15Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024 | |
| dc.description.abstract | In February 2024, I received a conspicuous text message from my grandmother asking me to call her as soon as possible. “You will not believe what I found,” she exclaimed as I picked up the phone. It was a postcard from my great-grandfather, John Nobuo Nagasaki, sent to my grandparents in 1974, almost 50 years prior. My great-grandfather was born in Vancouver on the 22nd of April, 1922. He was Canadian-born. However, he was also of Japanese descent and, despite never setting foot in Japan, was still considered ‘alien’ on so-called ‘Canadian’ soil. In 1942, when John Nobuo was 20 years old, he and his family were forcibly uprooted from the West Coast along with thousands of other Japanese Canadians and incarcerated in internment camps. Their family home in Vancouver was dispossessed and lost to them forever. In 1974, John Nobuo visited Vancouver for the first time since his uprooting, a trip during which he wrote this postcard. As my grandma read it out loud over the phone, I felt my heart beat erratically in my chest. This postcard is the only piece of writing I have ever found from my great-grandfather, a figure in my ancestry who is somewhat of a mystery while simultaneously holding so much influence over my life and identity. The postcard read: “Hi, It sure has changed a lot here. I am getting lost every time I go out, But it sure is beautiful, and has it ever grown. Our old home is still here, and it’s the nicest on the block (remodeled). See you all soon, Dad.” I felt chills. “It’s practically a family artifact,” my grandmother went on, “look at how he calls it a home and not a house…really shows how they lost so much more than just a house, so much more than just things.” I felt tears well up in my eyes. This postcard offered a rare connection to the past, a short missive which briefly outlined the emotion behind what my great-grandfather went through in the 1940s. Today, my family is mixed, assimilated, and disconnected, a broad tapestry of trauma trickling down through the generations. In reading this short postcard, I form a relationship with my heritage and the intergenerational trauma within my family, coming closer to understanding what it means for me to be Japanese Canadian, what it means to be a descendant of internment. | |
| dc.description.reviewstatus | Reviewed | |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Undergraduate | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1828/16877 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.subject | Japanese Canadian | |
| dc.subject | Nikkei | |
| dc.subject | internment camps | |
| dc.subject | Yonsei | |
| dc.subject | Gosei | |
| dc.title | “Am I Japanese? Am I Nikkei?” An exploration of the identities of Yonsei and Gosei Japanese Canadians | |
| dc.type | Honours thesis |