National Association of Japanese Canadians calls for community support for Kogawa House

NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

CALL FOR COMMUNITY SUPPORT FOR KOGAWA HOUSE

Winnipeg, MB  March  27, 2006: 

Joy Kogawa in one of her visits to Vancouver, recently `found’ her childhood home, which out of memory had been recorded in some detail in her books.  She had forgotten the address, but discovered it to be at 1450 West 64th Avenue, in the Marpole district of Vancouver.  Not only the house, but the cherry tree which she used to climb and hug as a child was still there, symbolically surviving the harsh wear and tear of life and times.  

This is the place Joy Kogawa had spent the first six years of her life when, in 1942, she, together with her family, and all Japanese Canadians in the West Coast of British Columbia, were relocated to internment sites in the interior of British Columbia. Like other homes owned by Japanese Canadians, the Government of Canada confiscated it and auctioned it off in their absence.  This is the place she returned to in her imagination and memories to write the book, Obasan, to record the events.
 
Today the Land Conservancy of British Columbia (TLC), in response to Joy’s plea to save the house, is spearheading a campaign to raise funds to buy it and to convert the heritage property into a writers-in-residence retreat.  There have been various public awareness and fundraising events held to date, and a sum close to $200,000 has been raised.  The total purchase price is $700,000.

Canada’s leading writers’ organizations are appealing to the federal government for an emergency grant of $350,000 (matching funds) to save the historic Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver.  Letters of support have been received from MPs from both the Liberal party and the NDP.  Ujjahl Dosanjh, PC, QC, MP, Vancouver South, has written to the Hon. Bev Oda, PC, MP, Department of Canadian Heritage, to support this request.

There is now great urgency to the fundraising and to achieving its goal. We believe the NAJC membership and Japanese Canadian communities, in particular, should be made aware of this important project so that they may have the opportunity to join with others to bring this project to a successful conclusion.  

Japanese Canadian community members have been very proud of the author, Joy Kogawa, and benefited largely from the book, Obasan, which poignantly relates `our’ story, studied by students internationally.  We are now celebrating with her the release by Penguin of her new book, Emily Kato, a re-writing of Itsuka.  Joy decided that Itsuka was not quite good enough, to be placed alongside Obasan, and chose to re-write it.  The Joy Kogawa House will be a place where such writings and re-writings by young and renowned writers may occur, and may be celebrated.   

We urge you to send in your donation, large or small.  Donations may be made online on the TLC's website http://www.conservancy.bc.ca/content.asp?sectionid=179
or by sending a cheque, payable to “The Land Conservancy”,
to The Land Conservancy, 5655 Sperling Avenue, Burnaby, BC V5E 2T2
or by telephoning 604-733 2313.  Charitable receipts will be issued.

Thank you for your support.  .For further information, you may contact any of the following list of supporters.  

Save Joy Kogawa House Committee
www.kogawahouse.com  
Anton Wagner, Secretary; (416) 863-1209; fax: 416-863-9973
201 Sherbourne St., Suite 2306, Toronto, ON M5A 3X2
Ann-Marie Metten, 604-263-6586
Todd Wong, 604-987-7124

The Land Conservancy of BC
http://www.conservancy.bc.ca
Bill Turner, Executive Director; 250-479 8053; fax: 250-744 2251
Heather Skydt (604) 733-2313; fax: 604-299 5054
5655 Sperling Avenue, Burnaby, BC V5E 2T2

National Association of Japanese Canadians
www.najc.ca
Claudia Earl, National Administrator

The Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival
www.writersfest.bc.ca
Hal Wake, Artistic Director

The Writers Union of Canada
www.writersunion.ca
Brian Brett, Chair
Deborah Windsor, Executive Director

The Federation of BC Writers
www.bcwriters.com
Brian Busby, President
Fernanda Viveiros, Executive Director

The Playwrights Guild of Canada
www.playwrightsguild.com/pgc
Amela Simic, Executive Director

The League of Canadian Poets
www.poets.ca
Mary Ellen Csamer, President; maryellen.
Joanna Poblocka, Executive Director;

PEN Canada
www.pencanada.ca
Constance Rooke, President
Isobel Harry, Executive Director

The Writers’ Trust of Canada
www.writerstrust.com
Don Oravec, Executive Director

The Canadian Authors Association
www.canauthors.org
Joan Eyolfson Cadham, National President
www.canauthorsvancouver.org
Bernice Lever, BC Regional Vice-President

The Professional Writers Association of Canada
www.pwac.ca
Gordon Graham, President

The Greater Vancouver Alliance for Arts and Culture
www.allianceforarts.com
Heather Redfern, Executive Director

The Canadian Society of Children's Authors, Illustrators and Performers
www.canscaip.org
Gillian Chan, President
Lena Coakley, CANSCAIP National Office

Asian Canadian Writers Workshop
www.asiancanadianwritersworkshop.com
Don Montgomery, President
Jim Wong-Chu, Executive Director

Ujjal Dosanjh asks Heritage Minister Bev Oda to support saving Joy Kogawa House

Ujjal Dosanjh is the Member of Parliament for Vancouver South, the federal riding containing the historic neighborhood of Marpole, home to the childhood home of Joy Kogawa.  Kogawa House at 1450 West 64th Avenue, was the first on its block in 1915.  It saw many owners before Joy's family moved into it in 1936.  They were forcibly removed due to the internment of Japanese Canadians in 1942, even though they were “naturalized citizens” and both Joy and her brother Tim were born in Canada. 

Who knew then, that the 6 year old little girl named Joy Nozomi Nakayama, on June 6th in Vancouver,  would become a future member of the Order of Canada in 1986?

Below is the article by Robyn Stubbs in 24 HOURS

followed by the press release by Ujjal Dosanjh containing

Vancouver South MP Ujjal Dosanjh is breathing new life into efforts to save a heritage home in his riding.

The Kogawa House in Marpole is the childhood home of Canadian
author Joy Kogawa, who penned the award-winning novel Obasan
chronicling her experience as a Japanese-Canadian in Vancouver during
the Second World War.

In a letter to federal Heritage Minister Beverly Oda, Dosanjh
asked the ministry work with the Land Conservancy and the Save the
Kogawa House Committee to preserve the historic house.

The house is scheduled for demolition unless the TLC and SJKC
can come up with $1.25 million to purchase the house, restore it and
use it to host a permanent writers-in-residence program.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For Immediate Release

March 28, 2006

UJJAL DOSANJH CALLS ON GOVERNMENT TO SAVE JOY KOGAWA HOUSE

OTTAWA – The
Honourable Ujjal Dosanjh, Member of Parliament for Vancouver South,
today called on federal Heritage Minister Beverly Oda to work with the
Land Conservancy of B.C. and the Save Joy Kogawa House Committee to
preserve Joy Kogawa House.

“Joy Kogawa House is
a historical landmark, and its existence reminds us not to forget a
past wrong,” Dosanjh said.  “I urge Minister Oda to meet with both the
Land Conservancy of B.C. and the Save Joy Kogawa House Committee, and
to work toward a viable solution to preserve this reminder of a
shameful episode in Canadian history. I am advised that as of yet,
Minister Oda has not met with either organization, despite their
requests.”

Joy Kogawa House,
located on West 64th Avenue in Mr. Dosanjh's riding of Vancouver South,
is the home from which renowned Canadian author Joy Kogawa and her
family were removed as part of the internment of Japanese-Canadians
during the Second World War. The house is featured in Ms. Kogawa's
award-winning novel, Obasan.

Time runs out for Joy
Kogawa House on April 30, 2006.  Heritage Canada denied an emergency
funding request by the organizations involved for $350 000, a portion
of the amount required to purchase the house (thus preventing its
demolition) and maintain it in the future.   

Mr. Dosanjh has
written to Minister Oda regarding this issue and today raised it with
the federal B.C. Liberal Caucus; its members fully support the call to
save Joy Kogawa House.

“My colleagues and I
feel that Kogawa House is an important part of British Columbia's
history,” said Mr. Dosanjh.  “Moreover, the innovative
writers-in-residence program proposed by the Land Conservancy would
have significant cultural value.”

For more information:

Office of the Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh

(613) 868-3846

Joy Kogawa story in Lethbridge Herald as Naomi's Road opera premieres in Alberta


Joy Kogawa is in Lethbridge Alberta, for the opening of Naomi's Road
opera.  She attended a reception afterwards, and also spoke to the
audience.

The following is a story published in the Lethbridge Herald

Dark days of internment come to life
By Al Beeber
Mar 28, 2006, 22:45

In Naomi’s Road, resilience offers hope for a better future in the
lives of two young children displaced to internment camps during the
Second World War.

That spirit, so vividly detailed in that work and the award-winning
Obasan by novelist and poet Joy Kogawa, survived and thrived despite
the efforts of Canada’s wartime government to disperse
Japanese-Canadian citizens, considered a threat to security after Japan
entered the war.

“The government policy was designed to make sure Japanese-Canadians
never amalgamated and made a community again,” said Kogawa, in the city
Monday to watch the Vancouver Opera presentation of Naomi’s Road at the
University of Lethbridge.

The opera is based on the 1986 children’s book by Kogawa, a
second-generation Japanese-Canadian who was evacuated to Slocan, B.C.
and Coaldale from Vancouver with the rest of her family during the war.
Born Joy Nozomi Nakayama, the author, poet and member of the Order of
Canada attended school in Coaldale from grade 5 to high school and
later taught elementary school there for a year.

The divorced mother of two was actively involved in the efforts to seek
redress from the Canadian government in the 1980s. The internment of
her people is one of the darkest stories in Canadian history and the
production of Naomi’s Road, which has been been staged numerous times
in B.C. schools, is one way to educate Canadians about the injustice,
including younger generations of Japanese Canadians whose family may
not have talked about the internments.

“There was an intense need on the part of parents to protect their
children. It’s a very Buddhist way of thinking, to move forward. The
morality was to endure suffering in silence.”

“Naomi’s Road is a fantastic tool, not just for education but for
healing people,” says the soft-spoken Kogawa who donated much of her
family’s possessions from their Vancouver home to the Galt Museum. Many
of those household items have been mentioned in Kogawa’s works.

“It’s a story that just won’t help Japanese Canadians but people in general. It teaches people about the follies of racism.”

“One can use art to bring about healing,” says Kogawa whose family home
is the centre of an effort by various groups to be converted into a
writer’s residence. It is currently slated for demolition.

The loss of the family home and their internship inspired her novel
Obasan which was named Canadian authors book of the year in 1981.

Canada’s efforts to compensate Japanese Canadians for the internship
were satisfactory to Kogawa who felt the process and dialogue between
Japanese Canadians and government was an act of healing.

“As far as I’m concerned, the appropriate process had been followed,” said Kogawa.
For healing to happen, the voice of the interned people needed to be heard and some of those voices were angry.

“When the kids were told, some got angry,” recalled Kogawa. The issei —
or first generation Canadian immigrants — chose often not to talk about
the internment while the nissei — the second generation — were caught
up in the dispersal and didn’t know what it was all about.

“The burden needs to be lifted by all of society. It’s not an easy process,” said Kogawa.

Anne-Marie Metten of the Vancouver committee of Save Kogawa House is
with the author in Lethbridge. She was planning to meet officials of
the Galt Museum Monday to look at the Kogawa collection so house
restorers can authentically reproduce the family’s furnishings if
efforts to save the house from the wrecking ball are successful.
“We want to create a sense of the house as it was in 1942.”



© Copyright by Lethbridge Herald.com
Top of Page