NAJC Highlights February 2025
By Lorene Oikawa, Past President
On the west coast of Canada, we have posted photos of our flower shoots popping through the soil in the mild days of January. But winter hasn’t forgotten us. We’re on BC Storm watch so expect some social media posts of snow soon.
On February 2 this year, we will celebrate Setsubun. It’s the day which divides winter and spring according to the lunar calendar. Japan uses the Gregorian calendar ever since the Meiji government started adopting western processes and the lunar calendar was replaced in November 1872. However, some traditions still follow the lunar calendar and Setsubun is not a national holiday.
One of the main ceremonies is mamemaki which involves throwing roasted soybeans out the front door to chase away evil spirits and allow good luck into your home. Sometimes you will have a parent who dresses up as the evil spirit and the children will throw beans at them. As you throw the beans, you chant, “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” which means, demons out and luck in.
Another popular ceremony is to eat ehomaki facing the lucky direction for the year. For 2025, the lucky direction is southwest. Ehomaki is an uncut sushi roll. It’s a smaller version of futomaki with seven lucky ingredients. You face the lucky direction and eat the ehomaki silently while thinking of a wish you would like to come true.
NAJC is looking forward to the many Japanese cultural ceremonies and festivals we will celebrate in 2025. If you are organizing an event, please let us know and we will help promote your event. Email [email protected]
Our customized tour in Japan in May is confirmed. New registrations are being paused while our partners in Japan are confirming additional rooms. Once the availability of additional rooms is confirmed and the pause on registration is lifted we will update you. https://najc.ca/programs/japan-tour/
Thank you for your interest in our hiring for NAJC positions. The postings have closed. We will be announcing the new Project Manager – Capacity Building Initiative and the Administrative Assistant. Applications for the Executive Director position are currently being reviewed.
Our work on the Capacity Building Initiative is continuing with planning for regional meetings with our member organizations.
20th Anniversary of Oikawa Island Recognition
It’s the 20th anniversary of the City of Richmond motion that was passed in 2005 to recognize the historical names of Oikawa Island and Sato Island. During the Second World War, the hatred of anything Japanese included the removal of names. Oikawa Island, Oikawa jima is currently known as Don Island in the Fraser River, next to Annacis Island, and Sato Island, Sato jima, is known as Lion Island next to Oikawa Island.
My Oikawa ancestors have ties to Oikawa Island since the late 1800s when a colony was started by Jinzaburo Oikawa. In 1906, he recruited 83 Japanese, most of them from Sendai Miyagi Ken, who left early around 7:30 a.m. on August 31, 1906 on a ship called the Suian Maru. They would arrive on October 19, 1906 in Beecher Bay near Victoria on Vancouver Island. After a deal to provide labour in exchange for the right to remain in Canada was made with the government, they would eventually make it to Oikawa Island in the south arm of the Fraser River, part of Richmond BC.
The Oikawa’s were fishers and boat builders in the off season. They also grew Japanese vegetables like hakusai (cabbage), daikon (radish), kabocha (squash), milled rice, and made soy sauce and sake. They may have started the first commercial sake enterprise in Canada.
My uncle Buck, Tatsuro Suzuki, my dad’s cousin was born on Oikawa Island in 1915. Buck was his nickname. When he was nine years old, he received a commercial fishing license and started fishing from a rowboat. He also worked in a cannery for 25 cents per hour and on Richmond farms for a dollar per day plus meals during the depression years. He exhibited leadership skills at an early age and was good at communicating with people. He was politically active and was one of the founding members of the Japanese Canadian Citizens League. Canadian born Nisei (second generation) wanted to break from the oppressive racism they faced and wanted their rights and the ability to vote. Suzuki was fluent in English and was often called upon to provide interpretation. He was elected an officer and recognized as a spokesperson for the Upper Fraser River Japanese Fisherman’s Association in 1938.
At the time, Japanese Canadians weren’t allowed to be part of the Pacific Coast Fishermen’s union. Suzuki explained his involvement in an interview with the City of Richmond in 1976. These oral histories are part of the City’s Archives.
Buck Suzuki: “Well, in those days, I tried my best to be a sort of liaison person. Because one, you were not allowed to claim, you know, become a member in the Pacific Coast Fishermen’s Union. And the other, you were sort of semi welcome provided you toed the line and did as you were told sort of idea. Then you were a good man and they would stand by all that they came up with. And so when you looked at it, if you joined one, you antagonized the other. Where do we go? The companies, for one thing, didn’t like the idea of us joining the Pacific Coast Fishermen’s Union. Why were we afraid of the company? Because most of the Japanese people, especially in Steveston, were subservient to the company. Everything they owned, except their boats and nets, their houses, their tie-up facilities, everything else was owned by the company and they ensured they were advanced enough to, you know, tide them over the wintertime and they’d start again in the spring sort of idea. So they had no choice but to, not be principled, would just be, you know, straddling both sides. What can we do? No politician wanted to help us for the simple reason we were without franchise. We were second class citizens at that time or third class citizens, whatever you want to say. We weren’t worth, well, speaking for. So they just really, you know, instead, they gave us the boot.”
Suzuki was tying up his boat in Steveston on a misty evening in December 1941 when his sister came out to tell him the news about the bombing of Pearl Harbour.
Conflicting information was causing confusion in the community. Suzuki was part of a six person advisory committee that dealt with the BC Security Commission.
“We took the more prudent, cautious step and we advised our people to that effect. We realized our main responsibility was to see that these people survived,” said Suzuki, adding that no one knew what was going to happen and tempers were flaring.
“We were just ordinary Canadians Joes, that’s all,” said Suzuki. “Slightly segregated, perhaps, from the outside… But you take, for instance, Steveston. (The Japanese) were there and they thought, ‘What have I done that was so wrong? I’ve broken no law.’”
Fishing boats, equipment, and personal property were taken from Japanese Canadians in Steveston. By April 1942, more than 2,000 Japanese Canadians were removed from Steveston and no one of Japanese descent was left. The rest of the approximately 22,000 Japanese Canadians on BC’s west coast were also forcibly uprooted, dispossessed, incarcerated and exiled.
Buck Suzuki and his family was sent to the incarceration camp in Kaslo. Later, he moved to Brantford Ontario with his wife Jean. He wanted to enlist, but the Canadian military refused to accept Japanese Canadians. He ended up being recruited by the British Army. He left on March 4, 1945 along with eleven other Nisei and headed to England and then India. He wrote to his wife from India explaining his decision, “It was a hard decision to make, but I wanted all of us, all nisei, to be able to hold our heads up high when we walk the streets after the war.”
He joined the No. 2 Mobile Section, Southeast Asia Translator Interrogator Centre in Rangoon, and then to Singapore to work in broadcasting as a newly promoted warrant officer. He also did war crimes investigation work in the Malay peninsula. He stayed for 19 months, missing the birth of his son. He wrote to his wife, “I wanted to go home more than anything else, but there is still unfinished work here, and I’m afraid we might undo what good we have done by leaving now. I’m a sucker or a dreamer, but I feel I have to carry on a little longer.”
On March 12, 1946, Suzuki wrote, “ I’m back in Singapore on loan from SEATIC to the Far East Bureau. I’ve been out to Jurong Internment Camp for the Japanese. If those leaving Canada (on repatriation) could only see what they are in for, especially the teenagers. I’m trying to find a baby just about Junior’s size. I saw one in the camp yesterday, but I didn’t have the courage to ask the woman to let me hold it.”
On August 13, 1946, Suzuki wrote, “ After writing to you and saying I would be on the Monarch of Bermuda, I find myself unable to move out of my bed and, as a result, ship number four sailed without me. I should be on Athlone Castle for sure.
(On the Athlone Castle) I am the senior warrant officer in charge of a mixed draft of 250 men. As I am more or less a desk man in the Army, everyone from private up knows more about Army procedures than I do. In the draft there are warrant officers and senior NCOs of famous regiments: Cameron and Gordon Highlanders, Commandos and Airborne, Royal Artillery, Infantry, RASC, RAMC, Military Police, Royal Air Force.
The Japanese POWs who were working at the docks couldn’t believe their eyes when a Canadian with SUZUKI on his kit bag was in charge of a British Army group going back to England.
I ordered the Japanese to carry all kit bags onto the ship, and believe me that when I made the request, they jumped to it. One chap carried my kit bag straight to my bunk and wished me bon voyage a la Nipponese. I think the Japanese were proud to see a Suzuki giving orders to the British; perhaps I’m just being egotistical.
Back home, Japanese Canadians always took the back seat. At roll call on the Athlone Castle, every soldier came to attention and answered, “Sir!” to Sergeant Major T. Suzuki, Canadian Army.”
Suzuki finally returned in 1946 to see his wife and son. It wasn’t until March 1947, he was able to bring his wife and son to British Columbia. Suzuki returned to Steveston before Japanese Canadians were released in 1949, four years after the end of the Second World War. He was one of the first to return. However, he wasn’t allowed to fish. Suzuki had received notice from A. J. Whitmore, Director of Western Fisheries: “Please be advised that an order adapted under the War Measures Act early in 1942 restraining the issue of fishing licences to persons of Japanese origin is still in effect as a result of continuance under the National Emergency Transitional Powers Act of 1945.”
He worked as a longshoreman until he able to borrow money to buy a fishing boat and return to fishing. However, not all was calm, the Japanese Canadian fishers were still facing racism.
“Then one day I was fishing up here and my cousin was fishing. We were both returned men and we were fishing down here and then these two men come crying up. And I found, and I wondered what in the world had happened. The whole gang in Steveston, the fishermen, chased them away from the dock, chased them all the way up the river, told them to get out of here and don’t you come back here again. So these two against all of Steveson in those days. Well, they didn’t know what to do. Well, I’ve never seen a man so mad and crying at the same time when he come up here. And I said, well, look, you just take it easy. So I picked the phone up…and I talked to Homer Stevens who I’d known very well. And I said to Homer, I said this is what happened. Well, he says, leave it to me. Leave it to me, he says, I’ll look after it. So he went straight down to Steveston, called a meeting, and he really roasted them, you know, on principle. He [Homer] was secretary treasurer of the union at that time. And he roasted them, he really gave it to them, you know from a philosophical point of view and as a trade unionist. So anyway, they got together and the Steveston local decided that, all right, if any person of Japanese origin wants to come fishing on his own, we’ll do everything we can to set up a committee to protect him from the rowdies. And then right away, immediately, Steveston cannery, especially BC Packers, people who’d been shunning the Japanese and telling everybody else, no we won’t have more Japs around. We’ll never have any Japs. They grabbed every person that had a license in his back pocket and had been hanging around. They just phoned them up and called the whole works in. See, it wasn’t for love of the Japanese or anything. They loved the production at that time.”
Buck continued to fish until health issues forced him to leave. He then started working for the union, organizing people and meetings, and was involved in fisheries regulations and internation law fisheries. He was also president of the union for about a year
Buck was an early advocate for the protection of fish habitat. He saw the threat to our water with the dumping of sewage and Industrial waste. He was a founding member of the Society Promoting Environmental Cooperation (SPEC), Canada’s first environmental NGO. He also participated in the Pacific Salmon Society. He died too early in 1977.
In 1981, the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation was founded by members of the United Fisherman’s and Allied Workers Union (UFAWU) as an independent organization to protect BC’s marine ecosystems, fisheries, and communities. The foundation was named in honour of Tatsuro Buck Suzuki and to carry on his good work.
Resources
Buck Suzuki Interview – Richmond City Archives
The Enemy that Never Was by Ken Adachi
We Went to War by Roy Ito
Stories of My People by Roy Ito
Salmon: The Decline of the West Coast Fishery by Geoff Meggs
