Interviewee: Kinzie Tanaka(with Terry Tanaka, wife)
Interviewer(s): Dan Toguri and Tak
Yano
Date: June 8, 2006
Location: Mississauga, Ontario
Accession Number: 2010-010[Start part 1]
Kinzie Tanaka: Pickup truck was directly behind it, and he had rammed the, thetruck. Wow. [sighs]
We came through that, we could see all this, you know, and I knew we were going to
hit it, because we weren’t going fast. We were not that bad. By the time we got to the
pickup truck, we were only going maybe 20, 25 miles an hour. But we hit it, and I
could see the front of the hood come up like this on the car. Brand new car, justbought it. And I went, “Oh my god.” And I was thinking about the car, and my brother[George Tanaka] wears glasses, so it went – the, the [punches palm] – the [punchespalm] stoppage caused his glasses to fall off, you see. So, he was bending down andpicking up his glasses, and then he said, “Get out of the car.” And I thought, “Oh mygod, yeah, so there’s a lot of trucks and cars coming.” So, I – he – he was putting on
his glasses. I undid my seatbelt, and swung open the door, and opened the door for –to – Terry was – and she – what she [Terry Tanaka, wife of Kinzie] had done, justprior to that, she had taken her seatbelt off, because she wanted to get some writing
material, books, at her feet. And 25 miles an hour seems like nothing. But, my god,
when you hit something [claps hands] like that, no seatbelt on – you’re smashingyourself against something that’s stationary, at 25 miles an hour, is a lot of speed tobe hit in your face.
Consequently, it smashed her face, broke three ribs, collarbone, three pelvis, pelvic
cracks. I’ve forgotten everything. Just – but I didn’t know that at the time. I just gotout, and swung the door open, and she was all slumped in between the seat and theback, and the – or I was – so I lifted her out, and pulled her out, and laid her out onto
the, the gravel at the edge of the road.
And I looked up, from the way we came, and through the haze of the snow, I could
see something coming. It was a truck, a tractor-trailer truck. And I only got Terry outof the truck, and then all of a sudden – bang! Just swept everything in front of myeyes. They – our car went along and it smashed against the pickup truck, careened
over the snow plow. I don’t know how, however that ever happened, enough force
that it created, and it went over and it pushed the snow plow, of course, several
yards ahead. Well, I was frozen at the moment, you know, in my emotions and I
knew, intellectually, that my brother and his wife [Cana Tanaka] are going to bedead. But you don’t want to believe that, you see, nobody wants to believe thosekinds of things in a situation like that.
1

So, there was another truck that came, and it was a flatbed truck, but it – it slowed
right down and it slowed right in front of us. And that’s only a distance between
maybe six feet from where the truck was and where I was and where Terry was left,
and I wanted a still place for Terry to be. So, I pulled her up, and got her up aboutanother ten feet up the side of the hill there, and I thought, “Well, I think maybe
that’s alright.” And so I said to Terry, “I’m going to look for George and Cana.” And –and then I could see through the haze of snow there was a – The truck was not on
the road, it was, it was in, in the burn, but the burn was like a ditch, and then it went
up into a hill. So, it was kind of an odd shape. It was not a flat burn, it was like down,
and up. And this truck was – the cab was in like that, and the – most of the truck wason the road, but the cab and so on was smashed in there like that.
Terry Tanaka: He can’t listen to you.
KT: And I –TT: He can’t – The tiger can’t listen to you.
KT: I went, I went to the side there, and –Tak Yano: Okay.
TT: [laughter]
TY: So, I need to move him.
KT: And, and looked into the wreckage, and I could see a bare limb.
TT: There’s a bear behind you.
KT: And it turned out to be my brother’s wife. And I knew they were – of course I
knew they were both gone, and – So that was a real traumatic experience for – andTerry was all smashed up. She didn’t know anything. And – but the people down in
Pennsylvania – The ambulance driver came, bout, took about a half an hour, [picked
an ?] elderly fellow, and I went with him and went to the hospital. Hospital
happened to be a brand new hospital that they just built. It just opened up not many
months ahead of that, you see. And they were wonderful. They looked after Terry,and – on examination, apparently, they didn’t want to do anything with Terry. In
other words, there was nothing that they could do down there that would help her,
without going through a whole lot of operations.
TY: Right.
KT: And they didn’t want to do that. They’d rather get Terry sent back to Toronto.
And so she was down in the hospital for ten days. And then they took – They
brought a –TT: Airplane.
KT: A small plane. I think it was – I think it was a, I think it was a monoplane, but it
was one of, one of the small planes, and it’s only enough room for a nurse, the pilot,
myself, and Terry on a stretcher. That’s all the room there was in that thing. And it
landed at Toronto International and there was a –TT: They landed it there.
KT: A ambulance waiting for us, and took us down to St. Michael’s Hospital. And she
was transferred, the next two or three days, to Riverdale Hospital. And they looked
after her, and she got all these broken bones more or less set as best they could – but
she was a real, real wreck, I’ll tell you. But, sure, my brother and Cana, his wife, were,
were killed – bang! – instantly. So – It’s been a pretty sad thing, as far as our family2was concerned. We were small to begin with. My brother and I were the only
children of our, our family and our mother – And my father died in Vancouver when
he was only 51 years of age. I was nine at that time, my brother was twelve. So,
Mother more or less brought us up. So, it was a – it was a rough time.
TY: So, are you comfortable there?
KT: Yeah.
TY: Do you want to put a shirt on? A dress shirt?
KT: Sure. [gets up and leaves]
TY: Okay. Have a seat in that seat. And –TT: What was your name again?
Dan Toguri: My name is Dan.
TT: What?
TY/DT: Dan.
TT: What?
TY: Dan. Dan.
TT: Oh, Jan.
TY: Dan!
TT: I know, we had that teacher named –DT: Like Daniel.
TT: Named Death.
TY: You had a teacher named Death?
TT: Yeah, last name.
TY: Mister Death! Mister Death! I have a question, Mister Death!
TT: [laughter]
TY: When was that?
TT: You can tell I’ve worked with children. Kept a few – Look, it’d be nice if we had
you two – Death. That – that must be the last name?
DT: No. Actually, it’s not Death. Actually, it’s Daniel.
TY: [laughter]
TT: Oh, really? Yeah.
DT: And that’s my first name, though. Daniel.
TT: Danny?
DT: Yeah.
TT: Oftentimes I find how the parents find these names –TY: Okay. Alright, I’m going to move this mike a little closer for him.
TT: Where did Kinzie go?
TY: Put a shirt on!
TT: Huh?
TY: To put a shirt on.
TT: He went to put a shirt on. [laughter][adjusting film equipment]
TY: And we’ll zoom in so that the mike’s not sticking in his face. This is how much
fun I have doing this. That’s good enough because I’ll zoom in and squeeze out themike. Do you want to just say a few words? Today’s date, where we are, the sort ofbasic information that we’re trying to tape.
DT: It might actually cut off the top of his head a bit. But um –3

TY: Well, we can adjust – just hang on a sec here. [sound cuts out. DT is talking but
there is no sound]
DT: – Mississauga. The date is the 9 th of June, 2006, and Tak and myself are going to
document, in a video interview with Kinzie, some of his experiences during the war
years as part of the Sedai Project for the JCC [Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre].
KT: Do you do all this for a living?
TY: No. I did this at college. I learned enough of it at college to do it. Actually, you
looked pretty comfortable in your chair. Yeah.
KT: Okay. [Kinzie sits back down]
TY: We’ll get – Maybe in your chair. But I do this and various things for the [Japanese
Canadian] Cultural Centre. You’ll be talking to Dan, so if maybe you could face overhere.
KT: Okay.
DT: I think the main things – A long time ago, actually, we had a sort of a preinterview on the phone, and the – The, the main things that maybe we could
highlight in a not a very structured way are, sort of firstly, your family – your family
coming to, to Canada. I know you said your father came in 1896, and your mother in
1905.
KT: That’s right. 1896.
DT: And then your brother was born in 1912.
KT: Right.
DT: And then sort of go into a bit about the early years, what it was like, and I think
your family was on Gerrard Street? Your dad had a business there?
KT: Yes, he was on Burrard. He had a tailoring establishment on Burrard Street.
DT: Okay.
TY: You’re talking about Vancouver?
DT: Yeah.
TY: Okay.
DT: And then after that, maybe we’ll go into some of the war years. And – Actually,
you and George went to Yokohama? During the, during the – when you were very
young? Is that right?
KT: No, uh – my mother – oh yeah, right. I wasn’t born at that time. My mother wascarrying me.
DT: Okay.
KT: See, she – she was pregnant at that time. My father thought it best for her to go
back to Japan because of the fact that there were some talk of submarines, German
submarines, on the Pacific at that time.
DT: Okay.
KT: And so he thought it would be wise for Mother to go back to Japan with, with mybrother George and – They have relatives in Yokohama.
DT: Right.
KT: So, they stayed there, and during that year [1915], that’s when I was born, in
April. So, Mother stayed for about another year, until that – she thought that I would
be able to travel, you know, as a baby there, and so Father told her by letter that it
looked like the coast was alright, there’s no danger there. So, she returned to
Vancouver.
4DT: Right, so –KT: And of course the upshot of this whole thing, even though I was conceived in
Canada, I was born in Japan. So, I became really a national. While my brother was a
Canadian, I was 26 at that time, 1941, I was the one the RCMP [Royal Canadian
Mounted Police] said, “Well, you – Catch the train, the CN [Canadian National] train,
at seven o’clock in the evening on March the 12th, 1942.”
And – so I – they were – well, you know. You’ve heard this before, that you were only
allowed a small amount of baggage to take with you. So, most of my things, course,
didn’t matter too much about my things, but – were left there at the house. And I
boarded the train, at that time there were about another dozen or so other Japanesenationals in that particular coach. And I asked them, I says, “Do you know where
we’re going?” And they said that as far as they know, there’s a place called
Lempriere. Course that didn’t mean anything to any of us, because we weren’t
familiar with that area, but that’s a place north of Kamloops, in British Columbia.
The following morning, we arrived at Lempriere and of course the thing that strikes
you when you are in the Rocky Mountains is that the mountains go seemingly
straight up on either side of the North Thompson River. And there was about, what,maybe three feet of snow around. So, when you’re young like that – I was only 26 –and all kinds of thoughts go through your mind, you know, because you don’t knowwhat the future’s going to be. And – But, you put those things aside. I guess young
people can do that. They can sort of forget their immediate problems and see what
they can do to enjoy whatever situation they’re in. I was no different.
And the twelve of us got off the train at that time, and then we saw that the – on thesiding there, the railway siding, there were several light boxcars, but they wereconstruction crew cars. And it must’ve been about half a dozen of them at least,
along the siding there. And this happened to be a Sunday, so they weren’t doing any
work at all. They were standing at the doorways of the boxcars, to see who wascoming in, who new was coming in to Lempriere, and they watched the twelve of us
walk past, and the first car, of course, belonged to the foremen of this particular
camp, and all – they were occidentals, Caucasians. There was a foreman, he was a
fellow by the name of John Abear, he’s from Kamloops, and there was a sub for him,
and there was a cook, and a timekeeper. They had their own little place to stay, in a –in a private car, also.
And as we walked by, some of these cars – These fellows that were Japanese who
preceded us—there was approximately 100 of them, had preceded us—and they
were looking to see who was coming in off this particular train. And all of a sudden, I
hear somebody yell out from the, from the bunk cars, he said “Hey! Kinzie! Are you aJap, too?” And I looked up, and here was a fellow that I had done – I had worked within a landscaping work. I was just a youngster at that time and doing some – cutting
the grass, that sort of thing, and he was one of the men that worked for theparticular – the boss of the Japanese gardeners and, curiously enough, the boss wasMoritsugu, the father of Frank [Moritsugu], who is now in Toronto as the editor of5the Japanese Canadian newspaper. But he was the man that had hired these
Japanese to work in the gardens in Kerrisdale and so on in Vancouver. So when heyelled out at me, I said, “Well, I guess so!” And –Anyway, we went to our place where we thought we could have a bunk, and so on,
and about a half an hour later, the timekeeper, who was a young Caucasian Canadian,he came down and he says, “The boss wants to see you.” And I said okay, and I went
up to his particular coach, and he said to me – he says, “You speak English quite well.”
I says, “Well, sure, it’s all I know.” And he says, “Well, how would you like to work up
here, and help the resident engineer?” And that’s the survey engineer. I said, “Oh,gee, that’s great. I’d like that.” So, he shifted me from where I was going to be intoanother boxcar, and – which was a lot better than what I was in, and I thought, “Gee,this is going to be okay, see!” [chuckles]
And, being young, you always look at the bright side if things are favorable, and so I
was given a job helping the resident engineer, and I had graduated from the
Vancouver Technical School, so I had my trigonometry, I had my algebra, I had allthese high school courses. And trigonometry, of course – just tune right in tosurveying. So I had no difficulty in picking up what – the road survey maps and so on,
I just had to study them a bit, and so the engineer told me, he said, “What I want you
to do is locate some of the stakes that have put out by a previous group.” I don’tknow how many years ago, but they had – at one time, they had – at one time British
Columbia was going to build a road from Jasper right down through the North
Thompson to Kamloops and make it a road, so there was a preliminary survey done.
And this engineer says, “I want you to go out and locate certain spots.” Youremember, there’s three or four feet of snow. So, you know, when you look at the
ground, you’re trudging through three and four feet of snow.
So anyway, I got the map of the area he wanted, and he gave me an assistant, who
happened to be a nisei. He was only about – I would say he was about 15 or 16 yearsof age, and the reason he was there was – he’s Canadian-born, but the reason he wasthere is his father, who was a national, was in the camp. So, he went along with thefather and that’s why he was there. So they gave that youngster to help me, using thevarious things that are required to do surveying, and he carried the staff theymarked off in inches and feet, and so on, and I guess one of the interesting things
about that particular part of it was that – I said, “On the map, it says there’s aparticular stake, at a certain point.” And I said, “We have to find that.” And he –course, he thought that was impossible, there’s three feet of snow, how are you
going to find a little stake sticking out of the ground like this? I said, “Well, look, lookat the map, and see it, by triangulation, we’ll see if we can figure it out.” So, we, we
did that, we measured off of the tape measure and by triangulation we got a spot,
and then we took another tray and did the same thing, and where they crossed, I
says, “That’s where the stake should be.” “Oh, go on,” he says, “I don’t believe you.”
So, I said, “Well, let’s try.” So, we dug a six-foot circle and got out shovels and started
to shovel all this snow. And lo and behold, there was a stake right there, and he justcouldn’t believe it, you know. So, he was really tickled pink about it.
6

Well, that’s the introduction that I had with the road. And since then, following thatpart of the – I think it was in May, that year – that the B.C. government sent a fellow
by the name of Bill Wishart, he’s going to check on all the camps, and see how they
were running and so on, and find out if there’s things that he could look after andhelp with – help the camp, camps out. And, of course he latched onto me when hecame to Lempriere, and he asked me all kinds of questions and so on and so on. He
was leaving the next day, so he said to me – he says – he says, “Kinzie, how would
you like to go up to the head office in Red Pass?” And I thought, “Oh gee, that sounds
good.” Because the chief engineer for the whole project was there, you see. So I’d beworking with him, and I thought, “Gee, that sounds great.”
So I agreed and I caught the next way-train, that’s a local train, and went up to Red
Pass, and I met the engineer’s fellow, by the name of Ray Corning, he’s from
Kamloops, and – I think he had retired, and the B.C. government had got him to go
back onto this particular project, because the shortage of knowledgeable people inas far as the road construction was concerned. And I worked under him, and worked
with him, and I thought it was great.
One problem that, though, as time went on, the – Since I wasn’t sleeping in the
bunkhouses with all the other Japanese – there were approximately 100 Japanese ineach camp – they were – and since I didn’t speak Japanese, they were getting a little
nervous about me, and they were thinking that maybe I was spying on them for the,for the Commission, you see – which I wasn’t, of course. But I helped them get things
that they needed and wanted, like things to make the Japanese bath, the ofuro, you
know. I was able to – Through my particular connection there, I was able to get themto order the stuff in so they could build that up. So gradually, over time, I guess thatsince they didn’t – there was no repercussions as far as me being there. I didn’t doanything that hindered the Japanese Canadians that were in the camps, and morethan that, I was able to help them get things, and so on. So that fear that they had at
one time – that I was a spy for the Commission – it dissipated. And I don’t know if
you’ve read any of the history of the road camps in that area, Yellowhead Road
Camp. There is a book written by – what’s his name?
TT: Stum? Stum.
KT: No.
TT: Yon.
KT: Yeah, Yon. Boy gosh, being 91, you know, your memory goes out the window!
TT: Yon Shimizu.1
KT: Shimizu. Right. Terrible.
DT: Actually, can we pause for a moment?
TY: Yeah, maybe we’ll shoot from this angle. So, you can have a seat over here.
DT: Okay. Sure. Yeah, actually – Kinzie, this story’s really good. You kind of jumped
the gun on me a little bit, I was – I wanted to sort of provide a layout of where –KT: Sure.
1 The Exiles: An Archival History of the World War II Japanese Road Camps in British Columbia and Ontario

by Yoshio "Yon" Shimizu.

7DT: Things you could bring up before we start the interview? Can – After you finish
talking about this story, and when you’re talking about this story, can you bring up,
maybe, how you found out that various Japanese Canadians in this camp thought
you might be spying on them, and if there were any sort of interactions in thatcapacity that you can recall, that might be interesting? And, and then I’ll – after that,
we’ll pause again, and I’ll ask you if we can go back to the beginning a bit, and if you
can talk a bit about your family coming to Canada, your early sort of childhood years,
and then going to – your mother going to Yokahama, and then we can, when we’reediting it, we can include that story that you just told.
KT: Sure, sure.
DT: Thanks.
TT: You heard every word he said? Did you hear him?
TY: Did you hear everything he said?
KT: Yeah, I heard everything he said.
[adjusting camera and microphone, discussion with KT about filming]
DT: Kinzie, maybe, towards the end, we could sort of leave off on another generation.
And you could talk about your granddaughter of mixed descent, and –KT: Okay. But you want me to start from way back when, do you?
DT: Yeah, at first. Let’s start at the beginning and your family coming to Canada andyour mother going to Yokohama.
KT: Okay.
DT: And maybe what kind of things, when you were a little kid, what you did. And
then we can take a break. And then we can talk about, about the war years, and thenlet’s talk a bit about your involvement and your brother’s involvement in the – andsort of the NAJC [National Association of Japanese Canadians] and the various
developments that that took, and as well as the – some of the issues with Japanese
Canadians being able to enrol in the Armed Services and then, and then maybe we
can talk about sort of the changing face of Japanese Canadians and how they’re
integrating into Canadian society and one of the examples of that, or – I don’t wantto put these words into your mouth, but just from listening to you talk a bit before,maybe you can bring in your granddaughter in some way, and this, this will just sortof be accessible and you can like – when you’re talking about – that you could holdthis photo, and have it sort of here.
KT: Okay.
DT: We could get that on the camera.
KT: Sure.
DT: Okay, thanks. I think that would be interesting.
KT: Okay.
[discussion of beverages, changing the tape]
DT: Hi, Kinzie. Could you tell us, please, a bit about your family coming to Canada?
KT: Yes. My father arrived in Vancouver in 1896, and he was a young man, of course,
at that time, and found whatever work he could find at that time, which was not very
easily done, because most Japanese that came to Canada at that time didn’t really
speak English at all, and they had to pick it up. However, he managed, and in 1905,
my mother arrived in Canada. She wasn’t married at that time, and eventually, the,8the Japanese community not being very large, people would tend to flock together,and so, my mother had met my father, and in succeeding years they were married.
My earliest recollection was – Well, I was about four or five years old, and – I guess
the thing that stuck in my mind at that time is – My father had a, the – There was a
fellow with a donkey, and he, he was taking pictures of children, and he went fromhouse to house, and so on, and anybody that had a child, he would try and sell on theidea of having a picture taken. Well, he, he ended up at my father’s tailoring
establishment – he had established a tailoring shop at that time. I was about four orfive years old and [chuckles] my recollection was that he put me on this – this fellow
put me on this donkey, and just told me to sit still, and while he took his picture. Of
course, I was crying by that time, and not enjoying myself at all. But anyway, he took
the picture, and [chuckles] I have that picture today, to remind me of my early, earlychildhood days.
Other things that, of course that – as I grew older, I found that my father was asportsman – in other words, he loved hunting, he loved fishing, and he even went
horseback riding down in Stanley Park. And he did photography too, using plate –the glass, not rolls of film, but glass, and he did his own processing, and he made his
own pictures that way. He had a postcard-sized camera, Kodak, and I have some of
the negatives in my possession, from that camera, black and white. My brother’s
three years older than I was, and of course he always tried to escape from me. I wastrying to follow him around, and of course, a person that is three years older than
the youngster don’t, don’t like the young kids traipsing around behind them.
But anyway, Vancouver at that time was quite calm, and very picturesque, compared
to today, and I remember going walking down to Stanley Park, from Burrard and –we lived on Burrard and Hastings, the corner, and we could walk down to Stanley
Park and Stanley Park at that time was very, very picturesque in a natural way.
Because much of the stone wall that’s there today hadn’t been built yet, and justaround the – from the entrance of Stanley Park, there’s a little red shed that housed
an old-fashioned cannon, and in those days in Vancouver, at nine o’clock at night,
they’d set off the cannon, and you could hear the boom all over the city, which was
rather unique. And we would sort of look forward to when nine o’clock came close
to it, we’d all sort of sit still and see if we could hear that “boom!” And sure enough[chuckles] that tickled us. Those are some of the simple pleasures that we enjoyed inthose days.
Another very precious and memorable feelings that I have was that, sometimes on
Sunday, my father would pack my brother and I and my mother in the car, and takecooking utensils and some bacon and eggs and bread and so on, and we’d head off to
Stanley Park, oh, about nine o’clock in the morning, and we drove to a spot just – justpast where the gun was, and the, and the beach was more pronounced in those days
than it is today. Today the wall, of course, limits a lot of that type of beach, where forus, it was sloping and so on. And my father would make a little bonfire down on thebeach, and my mother would cook bacon and eggs, and I guess one of the mostmemorable things that I have at that time was the smell of bacon cooking in the
open air, with tall trees as a backdrop, and the quietness of the harbour at, at that9particular time of the morning. And I’ll always remember that, because it was a little
family gathering and enjoying nature, enjoying the bacon and eggs, and it’s amemory that is – will always naturally stay with me.
Father developed some sort of liver problems and then in 1924, he passed away. He
was only 51 years of age at that time, and he had already established a very
successful tailoring establishment. And he had done his duck hunting, he’d done hishorseback riding, he had done his fishing – as a matter of fact, I went fishing one
time with him, and I was only about seven or eight years of age at that time. And myfather was quite a good fly fisherman, and in the evening of this particular day – I’mjust trying to think of the name of the river, something like Kokohawa – Kokohalla?
Maybe I’m wrong there, but anyway. He would use his fly-fishing expertise, and I
took my little steel rod, green steel rod, and hooked my worms on it, and tossed it
into the river.
My brother, three years older than me, wasn’t interested at all, and that he wentdigging on the bank, digging holes in the bank and see what he could find, and so on.
And a fish had jumped in front of us, just, just a few yards down from where wewere standing, so I made sure that my hook was readily baited and so on. I threw it
in, and nothing happened. And oh, I stayed there for about ten, fifteen minutes or so,and still nothing happened, so I lost interest in that, and turned around to see what
my brother was doing. By that time he had dug several holes in the bank, and I got
interested in it, too. But he didn’t particularly enjoy me butting in on what he wasdoing, so he told me to go back to fishing.
So I went to my rod, and I, and I started to reel in the rod, and all of a sudden, theline took off! “Gee!” I said to my brother, “I got a fish!” And I was so excited, I
couldn’t reel it in, I just took the line and hauled it in hand over hand, and here was atrout on the end of the line, and it was about, oh, I guess fifteen, sixteen inches long.
Big trout! And I hauled it in. My brother got excited, he got a small log and hit it overthe head to make sure it wouldn’t get away. But you see, what had happened, thefish had taken the worm and he had swallowed the whole thing, and the hook wasway down his throat. I couldn’t get it out. So, I thought – My brother said, “Oh, we
better go and see Dad and see what he can do.” And here I trooped up the side of thebank, and towards where my father was, and there was other people fishing along
the way, and they saw me coming along with this great big fish on the end of the line,
and me only being six or seven – seven, I guess or eight years of age, they were quite
surprised.
So that’s another memory that I have as a child. Since my father died when I wasonly nine, I didn’t have too long with him. But I do have these memories, which I
think are very important for any person to have when they’re young, to haveprecious memories that they can live with for all their life.
I don’t know whether I mentioned about – when I was – before I was born, mymother was carrying me at that time, and the Great War, the First Great War had
started, and there were reports in the newspaper that it was possible that theGerman submarines were patrolling the Pacific Coast, and my father, being a little
10

anxious about the situation, because Vancouver – if you know Vancouver at all, it’svery vulnerable, as far as attack is concerned. It’s a secluded harbour, but there’s –there were no armaments or anything around there, and if a submarine could easily
come in from the Gulf of Georgia into Burrard Inlet, and let loose whatever
munitions they had. So, I don’t blame my father being a little worried about that.
So he suggested to my mother that she go back to Japan, and stay there until things
were safe, so she packed my brother George – who was going on three at that time –and they – and my mother, as I said, was carrying me, and we arrived in Tokyo, andthen on to Yokohama, where she has relatives. And subsequently, I was born inJapan, and so Mother, of course, couldn’t travel to come back to Vancouver, becauseof that for one thing; this war, of course, was the other thing. But after being there
for about a year, my father said things seemed to be okay as far as Vancouver wasconcerned, and we’re pretty free from any attack, so he suggested that she comeback to Canada, and so my mother, carrying me – I was one year old at that time –and my brother to go back to Vancouver.
And all this – the fact that I was born in Japan didn’t amount to anything at that time,
but when Pearl Harbour struck, 1941, well it – the whole turmoil of the Japanesecommunity erupted in a lot of difficulties for the, all the families of Japanese in
British Columbia. And as history has shown, they used the war as an excuse. When I
say “they”, I mean the government people and others who were assisting thegovernment at that time – figured a good way to get rid of the Japanese from thecoast was to send them out of the – British Columbia. So they would find it aconvenient excuse to do this.
Now, the Japanese at that time in Vancouver were very successful in almost
everything that they had tried to put their hands to. They were excellent loggers,
they were very good carpenters. They were good farmers, up at the Fraser Valleyand Mission, Haney where they had fruit farms and vegetable farms, and raised
chickens and so on. There was loggers all over the coast of British Columbia were
just – a lot of them were the Japanese who worked there, and then the fishermen –excellent fishermen, the Japanese were.
All this, of course, created a resentment among the Caucasian population. Because
we were successful, they found ways and means of using their prejudice to foment
public opinion, and they used the representatives of the B.C. government. Starting, ofcourse, with Vancouver City Council. It was one or two people there that were rabidanti-Japanese. There were two or three members of Parliament in Ottawa who camefrom British Columbia, they were certainly against the Japanese. So, they influenced
Mackenzie King, who was the Premier – the Prime Minister at that time, to authorize
the relocation of the Japanese Canadian population from the B.C. coast to – A
hundred miles from the B.C. coast, that’s their line of demarcation, as far as 22,000Japanese Canadians, all the way from infants to people well on in age, were uprooted.
And there’s a lot of books and articles that have been written about that particulartime, but it was turmoil.
11And our family being very small – at that time it was just my brother George, I, andmy mother. Since I was born in Japan, I was considered a Japanese national. My
brother was born in Vancouver; he was a Japanese Canadian. My mother, of course,
who was also born in Japan, was considered a national. But they weren’t too
concerned about the older ladies. They were concerned about youngsters, youngmen. So they were the first ones to be shipped out of British Columbia – shipped outof the coast, I should say, and I had three days’ warning – notice, I should say, toreport to Union Station, CN Union Station, to be shipped off to the Rocky Mountains
somewhere.
And we were only allowed, what, 40 pounds or so of luggage, so you couldn’t takevery much with you, and you left most of the things that you owned in your house.
And, of course, Mother had to sell the piano, she had to sell everything that she
couldn’t take with her, and at distress prices, of course, and – We stored everything
in a small room, that we wanted but couldn’t take with us, and we thought, “Well,when this war’ll be over, we can come back to – and recover those things.” Little did
we know, at that time, that the Canadian government succumbed to the forces of –the people responsible, really, for getting the Japanese out of British Columbia, usedtheir influence for the – to have the government seize all the property that theJapanese Canadians had, which meant houses, which meant cars, which meantfishing boats, which meant farms. All the hard work that the Japanese Canadians had
expended in, from early years up ‘til the time of the outbreak of war.
We had never dreamed that the federal government was going to sell off all of thisproperty, and we would have nothing to come back to, but that’s what they did. Not
only did they sell it, but they sold it at distressed prices. Our house was sold for $600.
$600 was given to my mother. Of course, we got nothing for the contents that we left
there, so everything that we possessed and treasured, that we couldn’t take with us,
was gone. To make it worse, the $600 was used – my mother and my wife, Terry,
who went with my mother that time – they were shipped to Kaslo in British
Columbia, and the $600 was used to pay for whatever food my mother would need.
So she ended up, of course, with nothing as far as money is concerned.
By the time that I had left – I was in the road camp for one year, and my brother, inthe meantime, he was sent to northern Ontario to a road camp. And he didn’t like it
there, and a group of them – I forget how many, but possibly a dozen, fifteen or so
nisei – they volunteered to go to southern Ontario because there was word that thefarmers needed help to bring the harvest, do the harvesting in southern Ontario. So
these young niseis felt, well that’s a lot better to go down there than to fight theblackflies in Northern Ontario. So, they took off and relocated down in Voletta, andother places in southern Ontario. Eventually, quite a few families also moved from
British Columbia into various towns in southern Ontario, so they’re quite familiar.
The – when my brother arrived in Vancouver, in Toronto, from the farm – Like, they
did the harvest in ’42, and in ’43, I think it was January ’43, he was able to come toToronto. You couldn’t come to Toronto without permission from the security
commission at that time, and he was able to get permission to come to Toronto
12through the help of another nisei, a fellow by the name of Dave Watananabe, who
was very energetic in that way, of getting things coming his way. He arrived in
Toronto first, and my brother came a short time later. At that time, Toronto had
almost no Japanese Canadians of any sort in the city. When my brother came toToronto, they – they – he went to the same rooming house that Dave Watananabe,
was living in, and that was on Gerard Street, 84 Gerrard Street, and I wrote mybrother a letter. I said, “See if you can find me a job in Toronto, and then I’ll be able
to come out and be with you.”
It so happened that my training at the Vancouver Technical School, which included acourse in electricity, and during the years prior to the evacuation of the Japanese
Canadians, I had taken up radio. And I was able to do radio repairs and that sort ofthing, and television really hadn’t gotten anywhere yet, at that time. It waspractically all just radio. So, I had some experience in repairing radios, so I said to
my brother, I said, “Maybe you could find me a job in Toronto doing some radio
repair work.”
Well, it so happened that my brother went to a store on Yonge Street, 575 Yonge I
think it was, place called Radio Trade Supply, and he went and talked to the owner
there, a fellow by the name of Weir, Mr. Weir. And he said that his brother, was, his –my brother, he said to Mr. Weir, “My brother, he’s familiar with radio repairs. You
think you could have a job for him?” Well, at that time, all the servicemen that had
any knowledge of radio had all joined the army, so there was a dearth ofexperienced people in the line of electronics, and so on. So naturally, a retailer like
Mr. Weir would jump at the chance of having somebody come and work for them,doing the work of repairing radios and so on. So, he told my brother, “Sure, tell him
to come.” And that’s how I got permission to come to Toronto. You had to havepermission to come to Toronto, and you had to have a job to come to Toronto.
So this is fine, and Mr. Truman, who was the man in charge of the Japanese
Canadians in Toronto and the surrounding area – just in my opinion, happened to bea very fine gentleman. He was a real nice guy, as far as I’m concerned. And I got
word that I could come and got permission, and, and got on the train from
Lempriere. At that time, I was moved down to Lempriere, and I boarded the train. I
got on the train, and I went through the first coach, and it was full of soldiers! And
these were Canadian young fellows from the Vancouver and area, being shipped out
to the East Coast, and then onto Europe, because we were at war at that time.
And you could see the little bit of strangeness here. Here was a Japanese fellow – helooked Japanese, anyway – walking through the aisle, and there were all Canadiansoldiers in uniform there, and Pearl Harbour had – it had just happened not very
long before that, so I was a little on the squeamish side, I must say. And as I walked
down the aisle, I saw a fellow in one of the seats there, an aisle seat, that I knew! He
had belonged – he had been – belonged to our radio club in Vancouver that we had
established a radio club, amateur radio club, and he was one of the members in thatclub! And so he made room and I sat down beside him, and we had a wonderful chat.
13

Well, the army police came by, and didn’t exactly like the idea of me being – sitting
down beside Canadian soldiers, and me being of Japanese descent – course hewouldn’t know what I was, really. He says, “I think you better move on.” And I said,“Yeah, I am, I’m going, it’s just I - " I told him, it just so happened, I met a friend ofmine. He says, “Well, okay, keep going.” So, I went further up, to a coach that was
relatively empty. But that was an experience that I’ll always remember, too.
And I arrived in Toronto at seven o’clock in the morning, and at that time, you must
remember, in 1943 Toronto was “Toronto the Good.” Everything closed down.
Nothing was moving. We looked up Bay Street, and I didn’t see anybody, didn’t see
any cars or anything. And walked up to Gerrard Street, and then down across Yonge
Street, to Church Street, and then to 84 Gerrard. So that was my arrival in Toronto.
DT: Can you tell us a bit about some of the, the work you did in the Japanese
Canadian community?
KT: Okay. 84 Gerrard Street attracted several other niseis from surrounding areas,
and they were all progressives. When I say “progressives”, I mean they’re Canadianat heart, and were vehemently opposed to what the federal government had been
doing to the Japanese Canadians. And we became a nucleus of protest, and weeventually got the help of some Caucasian people, starting with Reverend James
Finlay of the Carlton United Church, who was very supportive of us and could see
the difficulties that we were in, and helped us in every way he could. He evenallowed us to have – to establish a nisei gathering, that we could have our dancesand so on, as the population of Japanese Canadians grew in Toronto.
You must remember, at the beginning of the first Japanese Canadians coming toToronto, as I said, they were very, very few here. And some of the fellows found it
difficult to find places to rent, because not only did we look different, we weredescendants or we were from a race of people that were at war with Canada. So, atthat time it was a little on the dicey side, to try and find places to rent. Gradually, thepopulation of the Japanese Canadians increased in Toronto, and it attracted a lot of
young men and women who were very progressive in their thinking, andacknowledging the injustices that the Canadian government had put upon theJapanese Canadian population. And 84 Gerrard Street became a nucleus of that typeof thinking, and eventually some of the prominent Japanese Canadians at work in
the early years for the – fighting the federal government and the way that they had
been treated, and with the help of Reverend Finley, and a lawyer by the name ofBruin, Andy Bruin, who worked very hard for us, we were able to send delegations
to Ottawa, and even fight a law case in England.
Now, that was from 1943 on, and in – by the time – by the time 1947, I think it was,came, during those intervening years, the Japanese Canadian population all
throughout Canada were organizing in protest, and the spearhead was – started in
Toronto, by those that lived at 84 Gerrard Street, and some others in thesurrounding areas of Toronto. Fellows like Roger Obata, who has passed away now,and Kunio Hidaka. Several of them were all bright people when it comes to protest
as far as the – the way that the Japanese Canadians were treated. And through theco-operation of the Caucasian people, they had formed an organization called the14

Cooperative Committee for Japanese Canadians, and we were able to launchlawsuits against the – particularly – particular aspects of the federal government,with respect to the Japanese Canadians.
And it was a night and day struggle. The first organization was formed – it wascalled the Japanese Canadian Committee for Democracy [JCCD], and I remember theactual formation of that, when the constitution was written. My brother, George,
myself, Roger Obata, we went to – oh, shucks, my memory’s gone now. A lawyer,
anyway, George – nah, terrible. Can’t – can’t think of his name. Anyway, there werefour of us at that meeting, and the Japanese Canadian lawyer, he did most of thewriting, actually, and formed the constitution for the Japanese Canadian Committee
for Democracy. And that was about 1944. So, from 1944 to 1947, that organization
worked with the Japanese Canadian Committee for Democracy, which was – which
there were several Caucasians helping. And we were able to send – participate inlawsuits in the federal government and, as I said, in England.
And in 1947, groups across Canada had been formed in every sizable community,
like Winnipeg, and Regina, and in Alberta, and Montreal. So, we decided we should
form a national organization, so representatives from all these areas came on a
specific date, and the Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association [JCCA] was born.
They’re the organization that represents Japanese Canadians all throughout Canada.
And they needed an executive secretary, naturally, to carry on this very importantwork. Tommy Shoyama’s name came up – he was the editor of the New Canadian in
Vancouver, and then subsequently in Winnipeg, where he had relocated. But Tommyfelt that what he was doing in the newspaper was what he should continue to do,
and they approached my brother George, if he would take it on. And I guess one
reason why they wanted him to take it on is because he was one of the originators of
the JCCD, which was established at 84 Gerrard Street.
Well, my brother had been discharged from the army – course, that’s another story,
the niseis in the army. Anyway, he was discharged, and in 1945, I think it was, ’45
or ’46 – and he wanted to – his first love was landscape architecture. And he was –when you’re in the army and you’re discharged, you had the opportunity to go touniversity to take further education, and be paid by the federal government. But theJapanese Canadians in that group, this new-formed group, persuaded my brother totake on the job of national executive secretary, because there’s so much work that
had to be done. So, my brother being a very conscientious person – he’s that way –gave up the idea of going to university and he took on the job of executive secretary.
And I know how hard he worked, because his job was day and night, for – from 1946
I think it was, 1946 to – no, 1947 to 1950, he worked for the Japanese Canadian
Citizen’s Association. And I know how hard he worked because I saw the amount oftime he spent doing the research, doing the connections, doing – writing, writing
reports, meeting politicians, travelling right across Canada, meeting with all theJapanese Canadian organizations, going right over to Victoria, where the CCF [Cooperative Commonwealth Federation] at that time, the forerunner of the New
Democrats of today, they were helping the Japanese Canadians in their effort to get
15

proper treatment from the Canadian government. And he was at the session of the
B.C. legislature – he was naturally in the visitors’ gallery, but he was able to hearfrom that time, that the government of British Columbia recognized some of theinjustices that had been done to the Japanese Canadians. And he was very, very
pleased and proud of that.
So in 1950, I think it was, that he decided that he had done his job and he wanted to
get to do his work as far as landscape architecture was concerned, so he retired
from that, and devoted his full time working as – studying first – and thenestablishing a business. And he ended up buying – having some of the finest gardensthat have been built and designed and constructed in Toronto, and Toronto’s area –and also Stratford, in the ‘69 Canadian show, I guess, the 1969 was the centennial, I
think it was, for Canada. And Stratford, Ontario wanted a garden designed and built
there to commemorate that particular occasion, so my brother designed a garden
with a beautiful waterfall, using rocks that were imported from northern Ontario,
Caledon, and areas of that area where the – that type of rock was found. And to thisday, when you go to Stratford and look at that particular waterfall garden, it still
looks so great. And I have visited several times all throughout the years, and it
always looks so beautiful. Unfortunately, my brother and his wife were killed in an
auto accident on their way south to visit some of the beautiful gardens of southern
United States. He was involved in a – a truck ramming into his car and killing both of– his wife and him instantly.
DT: Kinzie, could you tell us a bit about –TY: Let’s take five.
DT: Pardon?
TY: Let’s take five.
DT: Should we take five? Okay. Thanks.
TY: Kinzie, let’s take a break. I know we’re running out of sunlight, but –KT: You’re going to have to do a lot of editing, I can tell you that.
[discussion of snacks and tea][End of part 1][Start part 2]
KT: – the larger population of Japanese Canadians, you’re going to have that
dissention. Well, that occurred here. Particularly when it came to the question of themoney from the government, that all Japanese Canadians would receive a certain
amount of money. Well, there was a faction that occurred, or – a split occurredbecause the isseis and several niseis thought the isseis’ idea was the better idea, andthat idea was for the government to give a large grant to the Japanese Canadian
population to split up the way that each area thought best to spend, like building acultural centre, that sort of thing. The isseis thought that would be the better idea,
and –TT: I thought – I thought so, too.
KT: And I concurred with them. I knew some of the isseis, and I thought, “Yeah,
that’s –16TT: They thought how am I crazy [indistinct] to hang his hat on my hook.
KT: That’s real – a real nice thought, you know. One reason is that at that time, half
the population of Japanese Canadians had died. A lot of the isseis had died, and someniseis had died. So out of the 22,000 Japanese Canadians, there’s only about 10,000
left, and – so if you’re going to give money to the individual, what – what – what
about all those that have died? They got nothing.
DT: Mm-hm.
KT: Like my mother got nothing.
DT: Right.
KT: My brother and his wife got nothing, got the – ‘cause they got killed in an
accident. Does that not count for something?
DT: I see.
KT: And so I – my feeling was, I think if the government were to give the Japanese
Canadians a good sizable chunk of money to be used at their discretion acrossCanada, and build cultural centres or build whatever they thought wascommemorative to the Japanese Canadians in that particular area. So, there’s aconflict happened. All the others wanted individual compensation. They wanted the$10,000 – what is it? 10,000? I forgot now – for themselves. And so I was – it got tobe pretty hurtful in some ways, you know, from the point of view of associations. So,
you have some people not talking to others anymore. That type of thing.
TT: Yeah.
KT: Very small, but that type of thing. [coughs] And they would – those that wanted
this idea, this idea [coughs] – excuse me – of this large grant to the general
population, they were really picked on. [drinks some tea] And I favored – I was – Ifavoured the idea of one grant to all the, and – although I didn’t, I didn’t push it too
hard.
[moving microphone]
DT: Maybe we can just finish this here, I’ll just ask a question. Kinzie, what would
you have liked to have seen done had that sum grants been given to the Japanese
Canadians?
KT: Well, my thoughts were – first of all, what about all the people that had died?
That they would – and most of them were isseis, or older niseis, whereas some ofthe people who actually got the money later on were just young kids! They were –they were only youngsters, or they were just born! And they didn’t know anything
about anything with respect to the evacuation, or how they were treated or anything.
Yet they were entitled to $10,000 or whatever the amount was. And I didn’t thinkthat was – I think that was not right, because how are we going to remember thosethat really suffered during the evacuation? They got nothing, ‘cause they were dead,and it didn’t count for anything. So, I didn’t like that. So, I got kind of blacklisted
around Toronto, but I was happy that I was thinking in terms of the isseis that had
died. And a lot of them were people that I knew, too, so –However, at some of the meetings that I had attended –I remember the last one that
I attended – and I think Stum was at that meeting and Roger Obata, and several
others – and I could see that they wanted this individual donations – not donations,grants – to the individual. And I said, “Well, you people are having a meeting in
17Winnipeg to, to further discuss all this, before it goes to Ottawa.” And I said, “Surely
there’s enough brains amongst you that you can work something out that would
help those that have gone.” Well, as it turned out, they got their individual grant, butthey also got a grant – a relatively small grant, in relation to the other – as a, a blockof money that could be used for centres, culture centres and so on, across Canada.
But that was only a small amount in relation to the hundreds of thousands that went
to, you know, people all across. And I know Stum, I like Stum, and he says – he says,“Well, I think we should have our individual grant.” And I said “Well, that’s the way
you think.” But he didn’t spend the money for himself, he – he used it as a –TT: Children, I think.
KT: For the University of Toronto? For some sort of – to help students, see.
DT: College.
KT: So that’s fine, I mean I don’t argue against that at all. But I think so much of themoney is actually – because the – it was difficult for – well, look at in Toronto, how
hard they had to work to build that first cultural centre. My brother was amongst agroup of seventy-odd niseis and isseis who formulated the nucleus of the cultural
centre. And they all signed the mortgage. They all signed the mortgage for theamount of money that they’d have to borrow to build that cultural centre that
Raymond Moriyama designed. It means to say, that their – their lives were on thehook for that amount of money if something went wrong. So, my kudos certainly go
out to all those seventy-odd people who signed that first mortgage.
And I think Raymond Moriyama did a – just a marvelous job for that, and I was very
sorry to see in later years it became too small for what their needs were. But when
you stand back and you look at the – Moriyama’s cultural centre, and you look at 6
Garamond – Boy, you have to shake your head. See from the outside, it looks just likea factory, you know? And the inside – they’ve done a lot of good work, I would
certainly – but it still feels like a – it doesn’t have any intimacy at all. It’s cold, hard.
It’s hard walls, naturally. It doesn’t have any warmth of feeling. When you go to the –Raymond Moriyama’s place, you go in there, you can feel the atmosphere, the – how
it was constructed and the type of things that he used – wood, predominantly, andso on, and you could feel it. And you go to 6 Garamond, it looks like a slick, straight,
clean walls, because they were pretty rough concrete before, or concrete block orwhatever. But they had to do the best they could, because they needed the space andsomebody was able to influence the people at the cultural centre responsible thattime to buy that place.
Well, financially, that’s a good idea, it’s – the price of the area – property’s gone away up. Imagine if they were to sell it now, they’d be – they’d get all kinds of money
for it that they could build something later on somewhere else. But it doesn’t havethe feeling that Raymond Moriyama’s structure would give you, when you walk inand look around and feel it, it doesn’t – you can – the only time you feel it is when
you look in through the glass where they’re having their kendo or other martial arts,
then you see, well they’re doing something Japanese, like that, I guess you can feel
that, but – it’s tough. It’s tough that they couldn’t have found a better solution. It’s
just too bad they couldn’t have found a better solution, as far as aesthetics are18

concerned, the feeling. I feel – you know, I feel sad from that point of view, but thepeople who are running the centre, they’re doing a good job. I mean they do the best
they can, and they’re attracting a lot of attention, which is good.
DT: Kinzie, let’s actually shift back to these chairs and then maybe we can talk a bit
about your work with Japanese Canadians participating in the armed forces, andthen conclude with talking a bit about your family.
[adjusting camera and microphone, discussion of camera set-up]
DT: Kinzie, could you tell us a bit about when your brother helped allow Japanese
Canadians to participate in the armed forces?
KT: In the early days of the Japanese Canadians coming to Toronto, in 1943, thosethat came here were quite bright in their thinking, as far as Canadian – thought ofbeing a Canadian, what does it mean to be a Canadian? Not a Japanese, or a Japanese
Canadian, but as a Canadian, what does – what do the nisei – at least the nisei – how
do they feel about what’s happening in the world at this particular time? And thepeople, the few people that were living at 84 Gerrard Street, which included Dave
Watanabe, Louis Suzuki, George Tanaka, subsequently me, and two or three others
that congregated. One thing is that rent was cheap. The place was run by a Scotsman
by the name of MacDonald, and he tolerated the way we, as young people, acted,
without too much fuss from him. So, we enjoyed his kindness.
Well, when you get a group of niseis, forward-thinking niseis, together – the thoughtof “What does it mean to be a Canadian?” comes up in one way, shape, or form. And
Canadians were – young Canadians were being drafted or volunteered for the armed
forces, and Japanese Canadians weren’t allowed. And that wasn’t right. That wasn’t
being a Canadian. The right of a Canadian is to stand up for your country, join thearmed forces if necessary. Fight for Canada, if necessary. These are all what we as
young Japanese Canadians would think about. So it turned out that they decided
they should do something about it, and they contacted the captain in the armed
forces, Canadian Armed Forces, and had him come over and they had someconversations with him, and see what he could do to influence the Canadiangovernment, and the Canadian army – if they could do something about allowing theCanadian-born Japanese to enlist in the armed forces.
And it so happened – at that time, Great Britain was having difficulty down in Burma,
in southeast Asia, because the Japanese Army had penetrated all down through thatarea, and they needed interpreters. And it was a real scarcity of Japanese-speaking
and Japanese – understanding the Japanese language in Canada. So the British
Armed Forces talked to the Canadian Forces and see if they could get some of theJapanese Canadians to enlist in the Canadian Army, and of course that’s what theywanted to do anyways. They had been trying to get the armed forces to listen to – towhat the Japanese Canadians wanted to do.
And so eventually, the door was opened up, and several hundred Japanese
Canadians enlisted in the army. Some had gone prior to all this, and gone to overseas,
and down in Southeast Asia, and – but a lot of Japanese Canadians weren’t thatproficient in the Japanese language. In other words, they may understand some19

words and could say a few words, but as far as doing the interpreting of documentsthat – or messages, whatever, that the army would require some interpretation for,that was pretty scarce among the niseis. So those that weren’t that proficient in theJapanese language were sent to Vancouver to a detachment called the S20, and they
were being taught to read and write the Japanese language. Now, this was in 1945, I
believe. Well, you know what happened in 1945. The atomic bomb landed in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And Japan had to capitulate, and cease their fighting. The
boys at S20 had several months of training there before this happened, but it wasn’tmuch sense of them staying on, because the war in the East was over.
However some had already left Canada. A few, just a handful, had gone to southeast
Asia, and I know one fellow, that I knew in Toronto before he went to southeast Asia,and he tells a story of getting a hold of some gold bars. Now, I don’t know how thiscame about, I didn’t get enough information about it, but he had these gold bars, andin a – in his army knapsack, and they boarded this plane, and I’m not sure where theplane was going or what, but the – several soldiers were on this plane. But what
happened? The plane crashed in the, in the water, somewhere in the – that area. And
all he could do was swim ashore, never mind the bag of gold. To this day, I don’tknow if that bag of gold is still there or somebody has found it and become very
happy. But he didn’t. He was lucky to come out alive, and be returned to Toronto.
That’s the only real war story that I am familiar with, with respect to friends of mineat that time. Others have – that had gone overseas and had returned – fellows like
Buck Suzuki from British Columbia, and several others that had been overseas. So atleast the niseis that were able to train to become Canadian soldiers, they succeededin that effort that they were after, and they certainly are very proud to be able toserve for Canada, and serve with other Canadians. I think that’s a good part of nisei
history – as far as modern nisei history, as far as Japanese Canadians are concerned,
after the evacuation. I guess that’s enough of that.
DT: Okay. Kinzie –KT: What else would you like me to expound about?
DT: Kinzie, can you tell us about the younger generations of your family, please?
KT: Oh, yeah. Our son, Michael [Tanaka], he – in his younger days – when I say,“younger days”, I’m talking about school days. Brought up in – he was born inToronto. His mother is of German and Polish descent –TY: You’re German and Polish? You mean his daughter?
KT: What did I say?
DT: You said Michael’s mother was of German and Polish descent?
TT: Oh!
KT: Yeah, the – yeah – sorry, if I – maybe I said it wrong.
DT: Wait, should we – should we do this part over?
KT: Yeah.
DT: Yeah, we can easily do it over. I’ll just –TY: Ask the question again.
KT: Let me go back.
DT: Are you ready?
TT: He’s going to sleep.
KT: Alright, our – Michael is my son.
20

DT: I’ll just ask the question, okay? And then it might –KT: Okay. And he married a girl who – in Toronto from – whose parents are – thefather is – her father was Polish and her mother was German. And they had a child, agirl, and my son named her Ryn, R-Y-N. And he got that from the English-Japanesedictionary, where the spelling of the word R-I-N means – several, it has several
meanings, but one is a sort of a corolla or a sphere, a ring, like flowers, so on. So, it
had several, meanings that attracted my son to call his daughter that name. But hechanged the spelling from R-I-N to R-Y-N, and when you have a short name like that,you can’t fool around with it, because it’s so short to begin with. Nobody can make anickname out of it. So he wanted something that was permanent, and that’s the way
it was.
Well, she was a lovely child. A great – a real treasure as far as I’m concerned. And I
guess the unfortunate thing that happened, is that after several years, my son andhis wife parted ways. So Ryn ended up by living with her mother for several years.
But of course we kept in close contact as Grandma and Grandpa with her, and madesure her welfare was good, and she was being taken good care of. Her – I’ve justforgotten now how all this worked out – she was – her mother went to London,
Ontario and – to live there after living in Toronto for a number of years, andconsequently, her daughter Ryn went with her. Her father, our son Michael, he
ended up in London, Ontario also, because at that time he was friends with another
woman who came from London, Ontario. So, my son was able to see his daughter,
Ryn, quite often, which was good.
And she attended the schools in London, then she – in high school, she seemed tohave some ability in artwork, and even at the age of twelve, one of her drawings
attracted a store owner in London that ran a beauty parlour, and she wanted adesign that would sort of attract people to that. And so Ryn designed this, and she
got $80 for it! You know, she was only twelve years old at that time. And her ability
in art seemed to be something that was growing in her, and she was able to come up
with several designs and paintings and so on that I have several in my solarium. But
she finished high school and she finished in the 80s, so she was not bad, as far as
schoolwork was concerned. She took up ballroom dancing in the last two or three
years of high school, also, and she was able to perform quite well at that, but she
knew that wasn’t going to take her anywhere, so she had to give that up.
But like many students from high school, when they finish high school, they’re at aloss of what they want to do in their life. Now higher education, like university orcollege, is the way to go today, because so much is required of young people when it
comes to, oh, getting a job or getting recognized for whatever they’re good at. But
Ryn wasn’t that happy about going to further education. She wanted to do sometravelling and she wanted to get a feel of the world a little more. And so she took off
for Ecuador this last year, of all places. She was going to volunteer down – down
there, doing some work in the, in the – I guess it’s nature work, down there, butwhen she arrived and found out it wasn’t cracked up to what it was supposed to be,
she didn’t stay. And there were two German girls that were there also, and advised21

her not to stay, and so the three of them took off. And so Ryn didn’t spend any timeat this place at all. She ended up by going from village and town to town, and seeing
the sights, and mixing with the people and learning the Spanish language, and so on.
She enjoyed it so much that she ended up by staying down in Ecuador, I think about,what, four months or so? And while she’s there, she met a little – a store or shop
owner who was a silversmith, and Ryn went in and talked with the man, to see what
he was doing, and some of the things that had on display, and she showed aninterest in what silver smithing was like, and so this old fellow said, “I’ll teach you, if
you like.” And he said, “I’ll only charge you (I think) $100, for two weeks.” Well, she
ended up by staying with them for a whole month, and she learned a lot about silversmithing. And she brought home quite a few designs that were quite, quite good.
And we’re very pleased that, as far as I’m concerned, that –that this travel down to
Ecuador has proved something to her, that will help her in her quest for what she
wants to do in life.
And, just to show you a picture of what she looks like today [brings up large framed
photograph] that’s – she’s, she’s twenty-one years of age in that picture. So, you can
get an idea. And she’s quite tall, she’s about five, 5’8, I think. The present time she’sin Ottawa, and she’s working for a jewellery store owner who owns four stores in
the market area of Ottawa, and she’s in charge of one of the stores. So, she’s learning
a little bit about the commerce of jewellery, and art and so on, and how to run astore, and so on. I really don’t think that she wants to get into that as a lifetime thing,but certainly the experience is always – always to the good. So – but she can go touniversity any time, because she has a university fund that she can draw on, if she
wants to go to university. So, I’m hoping that someday that she will think that that’s
the way that she’ll need to go if she wants to really develop her – her abilities.
DT: Thank you, Kinzie.
[discussion of camera setup]
DT: Okay. Okay, thanks Kinzie.
KT: Was that enough?
DT: Yeah, that was great.
TY: Well. If it’s not, we’ll call you and tell you we’re coming over again. Okay?
KT: The trouble is, you know, this kind of stuff you can ramble on and on and on.
TT: If you give Kinzie that chance, he can do it.
TY: Yeah? I’ll remember to bring more tapes next time.
DT: Okay.
[End of interview]22