Interviewee: Raymond Moriyama
Interviewer: Peter Wakayama
Date: December 18th 2009
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Accession Number: 2010-022[Start part 1]
Peter Wakayama: Could you give me your full name, when you were born and where
you were born?
Raymond Moriyama: My full name is Raymond Junichi Moriyama. I was born in
Vancouver, the date was October 11th, 1929, Friday before “the big crash”. We lived,at the beginning, in apparently a small, but wonderful, house, on Cordova Street. But,
with the coming of the Depression, we moved into the back of a hardware store
downtown, that my father was looking after. My father came from Kagoshima, he
was a schoolteacher, and his ambition was to become an engineer. But, he sacrificed
all of this, in my mind, when his older brother, who was twenty five years older,asked him to come to Vancouver, to help him run the store for a little while. Well, he
did come, in 1923, and he helped run the store with the brother, until the brotherdecided he had to go back to Japan, and look after the parents. Well, my father was asensitive person, and, you know, he went to school, to learn English, so he spoke
English quite well- except, he wanted to take up engineering, part-time, and hewanted to take up accounting and legal business, which he couldn’t do, as a Japanese.
I guess he faced a lot of disappointing situations, and he, at one point, wanted to
become a priest. So, he became a Roman Catholic, one of the first Japanese
Canadians to become a Roman Catholic- as a result, you know, we’re all Roman
Catholics- maybe I should just talk about Mother.
Mother was born in Hokkaido, a daughter of a mining executive, who was, at thattime, in Hokkaido, but, she was largely raised as a Edokko1 in Tokyo. Her interest
was very much like my grandfather, she was interested in the cultural aspect; she
was interested in floral arrangement and odori, and so on. And, I guess [chuckles], I
often wonder how the two of them, the [unintelligible] was able to bring somebody
from Kagoshima [chuckles], and somebody from the middle of the country, Tokyo, tocome together and marry. I’m sure that when the two of them married, they knew
very little about each other, and I guess that was quite typical in those days. I knowthat they married late, in 1928, and in January 1929, they took Heiyo Maru from
Yokohama to Vancouver. According to my mother, after the first day winter crossing
1 Edokko refers to someone who was born and raised in Tokyo.

the Pacific, it was just horrendous, and the boat rocked, and she said she was sick all
through the whole trip, until she landed in Vancouver. And, she used to tell me,“Junichi, you were conceived in this storm,” so she said, “you’ll never have any
motion sickness.” And, she was right; I never have motion sickness, in fact, she used
to say, “Maybe you have a built-in gyroscope,” and she used to pronounce“gyroscope” like a Japanese, she said, “Well, you know, that’ll be interesting.” And
that idea of a gyroscope used to interest me a lot as a child, and I said, “Can you
make your mind a gyroscope, to be well- balanced?” So, that always struck me, rightthrough university, and so on. Well, when they came up to Vancouver, I think I said
earlier, they lived in a neat little house, but that wasn’t too long; within a short time,they moved into the back of a hardware store, in a makeshift, sort of, living quarter,and I think Dad built a second level above the kitchen, a very low ceiling bedroom,
as I remember. And I think this is quite typical of, you know, many of the Japanese
who lived behind or above a store.
PW: I’m just curious, why did your father turn to Catholicism, the Catholic Church,
did he ever explain that to you?
RM: I think the reason why- he’s a prolific reader, and, as I remember, he used to
become very interested in the Roman Catholic religion, I think he liked the ritual of
Roman Catholic [practices]-and, his friend was a Roman Catholic priest, and I think
he had a large influence on his life, so, he considered it. But I think it was his friend
himself, who dissuaded Father from becoming a priest, but to go back to Japan tomarry my mother. So, I don’t think I could explain much more than that, about why
Dad wanted to become a Roman Catholic, except to say that, I think, in those days, it
may have been the fact that he was having a hard time. He is the son of a samurai,
you know, very much versed in the whole notion of bushido, and honour, and hewasn’t very good in business, he was terrible at it [chuckles], and so, you know, thewhole middle-class idea of being a merchant was disagreeable- well maybe notdisagreeable, but not his cup of tea. So, I think there were several reasons, some ofthem very subtle that forced him in that direction. But that’s about all I could say
about why he became a Roman Catholic, and why he became interested in becoming
a priest. When they arrived, into the back of the hardware store, I think he was now
determined to make some sort of success out of this, and he really worked hard, andbecause he had an inventive mind and very capable hands, he started to develop all
kinds of little things, and the most successful thing he developed during the late ‘30s
was this sawdust burner that one could attach to the side of a wood-burning stove,and use sawdust from a sawmill- a waste product that the sawmill owners wanted
to get rid of-so, he was able to get them sort of packaged and really, almost givethem away to whoever would take them away. And he got this sawdust burner thatwas, you know, really- I guess, in many ways, he was ahead of his time, he was trying
to save people not only money, but, to use waste material, and make use of it. Andthis burner was quite a thing; he used to be able to control the temperature andeverything - so, before the war started, he was just about at the point of becoming
quite successful, starting with the Japanese community buying it, and then theoutside community. Well, maybe I’ve said enough about my parents, except- see,
Mother encouraged me to develop a kind of “gyroscope of the mind”, and I don’tknow whether she knew what she was talking about, but, she always said, “Look,
Junichi, in Canada, you’ve got to be more than twice as good as the average to be
accepted. No, you’ve got to be three to five times better than these people to be able
to get your ahead above the -.” Well, Dad, on the other hand, was much morephilosophical, to give you an example, at my graduation, high school graduation, hehanded me an envelope. And for a moment, I thought, “Wow, maybe it’s a cheque!”But this is shortly after the wartime incarceration, so, when I opened the thing, there
was no cheque- this is 1949, when they were really struggling to start a new life, in
Hamilton- but, it had a beautifully scripted poem, he was really good in calligraphy,
English or Japanese, and this one was in English, and it said, “Into God’s temple ofeternity, drive a nail of gold.” I thought about that for years and years, I still think
about it, and our grandchildren think about it, and he wasn’t telling me, “Look,
Raymond, you’re going to be an architect, you’re going to design this temple,” notthat, he didn’t ask me to build it, he just asked me to put one nail into this temple,
and to be sure it’s forged out of gold. And that poem sustained and propelled me,
right through my whole career, and I used to think about it a lot.
PW: You said your grandfather was from a samurai family? In Kagoshima?
RM: Well, yes.
PW: So, you come from a lineage of samurai family, then?
RM: Oh, yeah. But, I should tell you more about Sachi and her family. Sachi was mywife, was born in Vancouver, virtually two years after I was born. Her parents, bothof them, came from Kagoshima, so they were very good friends of my father, and thetwo mothers were almost identical in age- very young, you know, seventeen,eighteen, so they were very good friends. Well, Sachi lived on the same block, 100
Block West, and on the same side of the street. Now, the other side of the street, it
was like no-man’s land, no, no, no, you never go across the street [chuckles], and weused to think that was a complete no-no, [chuckles], it’s like going to hell. So, we
stayed on our side, so, we were in the middle of the block, Sachi’s place was down
the corner, so, we grew up together, played together, and, the first time we met waswhen Sachi was two and a half months old, and I was two- the parents were friends,
they were getting together for a pre-New Year get together, on December 28th, andthat’s when we first met, in 1931. And, since then, we played together, we grew up
together, and- until the wartime, and, when I was eight, I said to my father, after
seeing play the koto, she used to be good at playing the koto, and she tap dance- shebecame my only Shirley Temple [chuckles]. “You know, when I become an architect,I’m going to marry Sachi.” And Dad thought it was a bit funny, I guess, and he said,“Oh, Junichi, you’re only eight, you may change your mind,” [chuckles] and I
apparently got really, not hot-tempered, but, told him, “No, Dad, remember, I told
you, I’m going to be an architect when I was four and a half, and after I become anarchitect, you now, and I’m sure going to be an architect, I’m going to marry Sachi.”And he chuckled, and said, “Raymond, you’re either going to be really consistent orreally boring.” [laughs] I still remember that! Anyway, the whole course of our lives
would be totally different if I had changed my mind [chuckles]!
PW: Why did you decide at such a young age to be an architect?
RM: Well, I was just going to get to that- life with Mother and Father, up to four
years old, was wonderful, you know, they looked after us, and I had a wonderfulsister, two years younger, Jiyong [sic], and we were best of friends. Well, at four, I
used to be pretty good at making models, apparently, and I used to make thesebalsam wood models, and put elastic bands inside, for the propellers, and cover it up
with tissue paper, and I used to be able to fly this plane from the living room, andmake it fly through the archway, and make it land on the kitchen table. Well, I wasvery successful at doing this several times, and, one day, I did the same thing, fixed
the tail wind and adjusted the wings so that it would do the same thing. Well, thisparticular day, Mother went out to the back lane, and left the back door open, whichchanged the whole sort of air movement within the kitchen, and the plane, rather
than swerving to the left, swerved to the right, and landed on top of the oldfashioned warmer that they had. Well, I should have waited for mother to return,but, I was worried about the plane getting burned up [chuckles], so, I got the tallest
stool possible- which was a three-legged stool, which was really stupid but it was
the tallest. I pushed it to the stove, and there was a boiling stew on top, and I
climbed it, and as soon as I started to reach for the top of the warmer, the threelegged stool collapsed, and I guess as I went down, part of my body and clothes
tripped the stew, and everything came down. Fortunately, the oven door opened,
and my face was under the oven door, but the rest of my body was exposed, so, theback of my neck, my back, all the way down, my arms were really badly scalded. And
apparently, Mother, I guess she heard the screams, and she came in and just about
fainted when she saw my skin peeling off and all that.
Well, it was unfortunate, they had this white doctor- young, must have been very
ambitious, and he talked them letting me try this special cream that was supposed to
improve my condition very quickly, so, they agreed that my two arms would be thetesting area. Well, I never got better, I got worse, and it festered and so, I was laid up,
and I was almost like a puppet, a stiff one. And this white doctor just walked away,
saying “Look, it would have worked on a white kid, not a yellow kid.” And I guess,you know, maybe things like that still happen, but, in those days, my parents just bitthe bullet, and let him go. After that, they couldn’t trust anybody, and so they tried tolook after me. And it was really, in many ways, a warm time, because, every night,
my Dad used to sort of scratch my back, which was slowly healing, but very itchy,and he read a book. So, I used to look forward to this, and even now, when Sachi
scratches my back, it’s like heaven, you know? [Laughs]. It’s wonderful! I tell Sachi,“You know, sometimes, I think it’s better than sex!” [chuckles].
And Dad, in order to keep me sort of aware of what was going on, he’d place the bed
in one corner of the store, where people couldn’t really see me too much, and I used
to watch what was going on in the street. And there was a small- well, at the time, I
used to think it was a castle going up across the street but it was a minor
construction but it was wonderful, watching these men come with the equipment,
digging for foundation, pour footing, start laying blocks, and it intrigued me. But, youknow, a couple of times, there was this young-ish guy, with a pipe, and a row ofdrawings. He’d come on the site, and there used to be a big rock, on the side of theconstruction, and he would roll out these drawings, and then all the men would
come around and surround this fellow, and the guy would sort of lean back andsmoke his pipe, and then I see [chuckles] this wonderful curl of smoke, going into
the sky, and every time he said something, all these men would nod, you know? And,I said to Dad, “Those guys all love this guy, can you find out who he is?” And Dad
immediately went across the street, talked to the guy, and talked to the other guys,
men you know, and came back, and I was really anxious to find out who it was, andDad said, “Well, he’s called an architect. That’s what he said he is.” [Raymond said]“Oh, he’s an architect, well, I’m going to be an architect, too, because they all likehim.” [laughs] And so, four and a half, my life was laid out, simple: I was going to be
an architect. And, at eight, my life mate was settled [chuckles]. So, life has gone verysmoothly [smiles].
But, before that, four and a half, going onto five, I wasn’t getting any better. So, this isin the middle of the Depression, you have to understand, my parents were having areally hard time, as, you know, everybody else was. But they decided Mother, mysister, and I, would go to Japan, and spend some time with Grandfather’s good friend,
who was a medical doctor, and get medical care for my burn. So, we went to Japan.
My grandfather on my mother’s side, Sejima-san, Sejima Grandpa, as I said, was amining executive, but I think his desire was to be a poet. He used to write wonderful
haiku, and I remember him as a really handsome samurai fellow, who believed inbushido, and wrote these fantastic haiku. He had a little platform in the backyard,
and a little pond, and he used to go out there, and you know, sit Japanese-fashion,
with the rice paper rolled out, and write - and I used to admire this, he taught me
several things: one, to love nature. For example, he used to teach me about the moon.

One day, he called me out, and said, “Junichi, come over here,” “Oji-san nandeska?”“Look at the moon. What do you see?” “It’s round.” “Yes, it’s round. It’s a full moon
tonight. What do you see?” And I start describing all the rabbits and things I
imagined [chuckles], he was very patient. And later, my mother said, “Oh, Grandpa
really got interested in your imagination.”[chuckles] And two nights later, he said
“Junichi, come on out, look at the moon again,” [Raymond said,]“Wow, it’s not roundanymore!” [Grandpa said,] “No, it’s not round. Now, Junichi, which is more beautiful?
This moon, or the moon two nights ago?” [Raymond answered,] “The other one wasround.” And before I could answer, he said, “Junichi, don’t you think this moon ismore beautiful?” He said, “See, in doing something, you have to pursue whatever
you’re doing, and aim for that perfect moon. But, for a mortal person, the result may
be more comfortable if there is this magic imperfection.” And you know, [I] think
about that for the longest time.
On another occasion, he gave me a handful of water from the small ike2, and I holdthis water and I’m trying not to let it slip out between the fingers, and he said,“Junichi, remember, the moon shines in your handful of water, just as much as that
ike there, and the lake over there, and the ocean. Just remember that. Anythingworthwhile doing is worthwhile doing well, it doesn’t matter whether it’s big or
small. It is important to do it well.” The lesson went like that, and it was really awonderful learning experience. And then, he used to teach me, and my grandmothertoo, about the Japanese saying, for example, saru mo ki kara ochiru, meaning, even amonkey falls from a tree. Well, what it means is, don’t be arrogant[chuckles].
Nobody’s perfect, you know. And that’s a good lesson. Just because you’re aprofessional, don’t think you’re not going to fall from a tree [chuckles]. Or, [murisunna?], don’t force it, or you’ll fail, you know. It went on and on. These are
wonderful sayings, you know, sometimes only a Japanese can say it so well, it
doesn’t translate so well, and, of course, he, being a samurai, taught me bushido, andChūshingura was his favourite. We went to see the Chūshingura play, we went to see
movies, and it is a wonderful thing, to learn loyalty and honesty and to sacrifice yourlife for what you believe in.
And, here was a grandfather who was able to give me a lesson that I wouldn’t [have]
had otherwise, and he and I used to communicate until the wartime. He used towrite to me in English, and I would write to him in Japanese. [Chuckles] Quite aremarkable thing, and during the wartime, we lost all that letters, which is a big
regret. And I went to school during that time in Yotsuya, which is only two stops

2 Pond.

away from the Canadian Embassy on the other side of Togu gosho3. It’s kind ofinteresting, to realise that, somehow, destiny brings you back to a similar area, and,in fact, the Sejima’s burial ground is in Aoyama, just around the corner from theEmbassy ground. And I used to go there, at nighttime, specially during the Sakura
season. Magic, and so peaceful. What can I tell you? Well, we came back to Canada,because I was getting better, and I guess mother wanted to be back with Father.
PW: How long were you there?
RM: About a year, not quite a year. And I was getting better, I was gaining mobility,
and at the same time I had the chance to learn Japanese, which was important.
Grade one, that stuck with me, so, when we were working on the Canadian Embassy,
it was easy to add to it, and communicate with Shimizu [Corporation] And I used totell the Shimizu people, “You know, I’m Canadian, so, my Japanese is going to bepretty crude.” [chuckles] You’ll have to goman [shiku?] nasai. And they said, “That’s
okay,” and, I think in a funny way, they used to enjoy my Japanese [laughs]. I thinkthey enjoyed the abruptness too. So there was a lot of things that, kind of, influencethat Grandpa brought to bear, especially about how I feel even now, even more now,
about nature, and what’s important in life. So, when we got back to Vancouver, I
think Dad was happy to see us, but he was still struggling, and for a few years, I tried
to help Father, but [I was] still young. At nine, he used to take me to various places,
especially to help him with the sawdust burner, and, one day, we were going to New
Westminster on a tram, and the tram used to take off on Hastings Street, and go easton Hastings and Main Street, and then turn towards to the right, to the south, and I
used to say to Dad, it’s kind of interesting like Hastings Street is largely businessstores, and my favourite library is on the corner, Carnegie Library, and, I used tothink, in those days, “Boy, if I can design a library that big and wonderful, oh, my life
will be fulfilled!” Well, it wasn’t the greatest building [chuckles], but, in my mind, it
was terrific. And then, the tram would go down towards Chinatown, and then we’d
get to C.P. railway station, and then there was some open space, and I look back, andI see the twin sisters [mountains], you know, across the inlet. So, I said to Dad, “Dad,I’m going to be an architect, but who thinks about cities?” And Dad said, “Well,they’re called planners.” [Raymond said,] “Well, okay, after I become an architect,and marry Sachi, I’m going to be a planner!” [laughs] So, it was this additional
thought. And I was really amazed at how some people do think about a city, as
architects think about buildings. What can I tell you more about those days?
PW: Did you go to Japanese school in Vancouver?
RM: Oh, yeah, I used to go to Japanese school after Strathcona [school].
PW: So, you went to Strathcona Public School?

3 Known today as the Akasaka Palace.

RM: Yeah, I went to Strathcona Public School, my sister and I walked six blocks, fourtimes a day. The whole city was a resource; every once in a while, we’d have a penny,
and we would sneak off to the side street, to a Chinese store, where they had theginger for a penny a bag [chuckles], and that was our big treat. We used to enjoy thewhole city. Every day, at exactly- I think it was four o’clock; we would be seated inJapanese school, on Alexander Street. We had Mrs. Sato -. At the same time, my nextdoor neighbour, across the alleyway, Noburo [last name redacted], I think, there wasa young boy, Noburo, and he was a brilliant student, and we were the best of friends.
And our two mothers had this game going, they made us compete against each otherto see who would get the highest marks. It started in Japanese school and extended
into Strathcona, and all that- but, Noboru and I were smart enough to know what thegame was, but, you know, we agreed that we were going to do our best, but we weregoing to stay very good friends [chuckles]. Sometimes Noboru would get better
marks, and sometimes I’d get better marks, and we always kind of laughed at
keeping our mothers happy, but we knew that the most important thing for us, evenat that age, was for each one of us to compete with our own selves; if anything, we’dpush ourselves. Noboru, after the war, because of his age, he went with his parents,
back to Japan, because, Noboru was a frail person, it didn’t take too long before hebecame sick; not used to the kind of food that they had, and, he passed away. And healways wanted to be either an engineer or some sort of a physicist, or a teacher. And
I’ve always thought it was a great loss, to his family, and to the community in Canada,because we lost a great mind. So, you know, you have to question what the hell
governments do. And then, during the war, as I’ll tell you about the tree house, I
built- I used to call it a “magic tree house”- and, shortly after that, the war startedPW: How much do you remember about when the war started?
RM: Oh, yeah, I remember quite well, really well, what happened to us. I know thatthings were starting to look up for my Dad, and he could see that light at the end of
the tunnel, but, December 7th, that day was really a disastrous day for all Japanese
Canadians, and, I guess, there were many people- many issei maybe more thannissei-who really were for Japan to win, but, for most of us, like my mother used tosay, “We live in a democratic country, things happening overseas to the Jews andothers will never happen, this is democratic Canada”. She used to almost pound it inus, so that we believed it.
But the war came, and things became quite different, and life became real. Shortly
after the war started, my Dad was given about two or three days’ notice to take a
train to a road camp; the whole idea of “separate and conquer” became a kind of atheme. And, based on no knowledge, the Canadian government knew nothing,
except for a preconceived notion, and even the military stated that they don’t see
any threat coming from the Japanese Canadians. I think most of us remember that,but, only a few handful in B.C. pushed, and it was based on greed, self-interest,
political motivation and the eastern politicians just willy-nilly accepted that,
accepting the fact that the Japanese Canadian’s situation was a “minor incident” inthe life of Canada, and they didn’t really care, and this lead to a few people pushingfor the idea. It was really unfortunate, but it’s a reality that happened. I won’t namenames, but it really is unfortunate. And of course, King [William Lyon Mackenzie
King] was such a wishy-washy Prime Minister, who just sat there on the fence andsee which way it was going to lead, and then he’s take the winning side.
When the notice came to Dad, I was twelve. And, he said, “Junichi-,” and thishappened in the back of the store, in the workshop, in the semi-darkness- he said,“Junichi”- he usually called me Raymond, but, in important situations, he always
called me by the Japanese name-“Junichi, I have to tell you something. You and I aregoing to have our first man-to-man conversation.” And I was so proud that we were
now equal, you know? And, Dad said, “I got a notice today to go on a train, and I’ll tell
you that I’m going to resist.” And he said, “I’ll give the reasons: one, your mother ispregnant. And, I cannot close the hardware store in two days.” And, in many ways,
this whole action was predicated on a contradiction; Canada’s gone to war, based on
democracy and individual rights, and here at home, it’s a total about-face situation,and he said, “I have to fight the contradiction.”
Well, at that point, I was more proud to be made equal, and Dad’s telling me all this,it wasn’t a pleasant talk, but, it was a man-to-man. And I thought, “Here’s a father
who never spanked his son, taking a very firm stance that he’s going to fight the
government.” And I was really proud of that. Well, a few days later, as you canimagine, three Mounties came, out of uniform, and two of them took Dad- I justhappened to be home that day and Dad walked out to Cordova Street, very proud,
didn’t look back, between to tall Mounties and we didn’t know where he was going.
And he did say, “I am not going to know what’s going to happen to me, or the family,
but I have to do this, I’ve got to fight the contradiction.” So, I watched him, and I wasreally proud of him that day.
And then this third fellow [R.C.M.P. officer] stayed behind, I guess he thought wewere all bloody spies, and he started telling us, “You cannot communicate, you
cannot write to Japan, we’ll be watching.” And he took everything that we could
communicate with, including my crystal set that was attached to the kitchenradiator [chuckle], and he left us one telephone. And this is still the store, and hetook all this, but the last comment he made, and his gesture, was really frightening,
and it still sticks in my head: he pointed down [chuckles], because, I’m twelve, and,with a long finger, he said, “If we see you outside after sunset, you will be shot”. And

my mother was really shocked, and after he left, she said, “Oh, this is Canada.” And
my father was right; the bloody discrimination, a contradiction, and “You’re not
worth anything.”
So, I tried to run the store, with Mother, who knew nothing about the store. I wastrying to sell a pen [chuckles], you know, a pocket knife, that’s maybe worth aquarter, for a dollar and a quarter, and I sold a kitchen stove to this kind man, whoshowed all this sympathy and “I’m going to help you” kind of thing, for four dollars.
Well, the creditors were after us, and mother said, “Junichi, I can’t stand all of thishorrendous commercial raping that’s going around you, so, I want you to stop. It
won’t be worth anything after all this experience.” So, she said, “I think I’ll have an
auction.” Well, there was a lot of fly by night auctioneers and the legitimate ones. I
don’t know we had, but the auction was quickly set up, and after the auction, themoney was confiscated and who took it, there’s no receipt, and that Mountie who
took things didn’t give us any receipt, he may have taken everything and pocketed it
himself. It was a pretty dismal scene, you know. If Canada tries to defend itself,
legally, you know, there was nothing much he could have defend. Well anyway, we
didn’t get any receipt, we were just told it was against regulation.
So, that night, it was really sad, the four of us; my mother, who was then turning
thirty- I used to think she was so old, but thirty is a young person [chuckles]! So, thefour of us got together, brought out every bit of money that we had, we opened our
piggy banks, and counted everything. I counted mine twice Mother counted
everything maybe three times. Her thirteen years in Canada amounted to $34.92.
That’s not much, you could say. And we had lost everything. So, we said, “Okay, we’ll
get up and go”.
Next day, my mother disappeared with Margie [Raymond’s younger sister]. Margie
was 4 years old. So, Joan [Raymond’s older sister] and I, we said, “Oh, they went
shopping,” we didn’t think much more, until sunset. They didn’t come home, so, we
started to worry, but we didn’t dare go out, either, because you could be shot. In
those days, the Chinese used to wear a plaque, saying, “I’m Chinese, not a Jap” andyou can’t blame them. So, that night, we started to worry, you know, maybe they
stayed with family friends, so they wouldn’t be shot. Well, we phoned around,including Sachi’s, and nobody saw them. So, the next day, we went looking around,
thinking there must be somewhere, but we couldn’t find them. That second night,
we really worried, maybe they’ve been shot, all this imagination running wild. Next
day, we were in tears, we ran around the community asking people, and nobody
knew. Then, I looked in the kitchen cupboard, and there was a jar with $30, exactly

$30 in it. And I thought, “My god, maybe she committed suicide.” Because, why
would she leave $30 and take the rest? So we really started to worry.
But then, just before sunset, my mother came home, gaunt, she’d lost her stomach,and Margie was on her back, strapped. So, we were elated, so we made tea, and wenever asked her where she went. When she asked, “Did you worry?” we said “Oh, alittle bit,” [chuckles] trying not to make a mountain out of it. The fascinating thing is,she never said anything, except to say, “Junichi, I’m sorry, I lost your little brother.” I
don’t know if she had a miscarriage or if she had an abortion- I didn’t know anything
too much about self-induced abortions. I never did ask her. I did think she wasplanning to commit suicide.
[End of part 1][Start of part 2]
RM: Well, 60 years later, my sister, Margie, was in town, and she was telling me
about this nightmare she’s been having off and on, all her life. She’s falling into thiswhirlpool, a dark sort of a hole, and she never reaches the bottom, she always wakes
up in a real start and a sweat. So, all of a sudden, it all came back, so I said to Margie,“I think what happened to give you that sort of a nightmare is the time mother andyou disappeared in Vancouver, because mother knew all about the whirlpool in the
middle of Lions Gate Bridge.” Because, before the war, we went to look at it, andwhen you look at it, it’s like “Come on down”, you know? It’s not hard, it’s almost likehypnosis, it wants you to jump. Well, I said to Margie, “You know, mother had known
about this whirlpool, I bet what happened was that after she had an abortion, shemust have somehow struggled, with you on her back, strapped, got to the middle ofthe bridge, and she was going to jump. And she must have gotten over a higher
railing, to look over, and I bet when she leaned over to look at the whirlpool, younearly slipped out. And that’s my take on the scenario of what happened, and why
you have this nightmare.” And my sister said, “Oh, my gosh,” she never had the
dream again. It just disappeared. Well, she told me that, I don’t know, but she said
she never had it again. So, when they came home, I didn’t even tell mother that I saw
the thirty dollars, because talking about possible suicide wouldn’t make it any better.
Then, a few days later, my mother said, “We have to go to Hastings Park, we don’t
have any money”, so, we made arrangements to go to Hastings Park.
PW: So you did go to Hastings Park?
RM: Oh, yeah.
PW: Even though you lived in Vancouver?
RM: Oh, yeah. And we were told “Four suitcases only, one per person”. I think wetook all the wrong things, you know, stupid short pants and [chuckles], letters andphotographs- now, you know, with experience I know that photographs and letters
are more important than any underwear, but, that’s what we took.
Hastings Park was an astonishing experience; see, because I was twelve, mother had
the choice of having me with her in the woman’s building, or send me to the boy’s
building. Well, I wanted to go to the boy’s building! But, mother had the final say, so,
I stayed with Mother. And we were given a horse stall, for the four of us; two narrow
bunks on each side, you know, well you’ve seen pictures of it. So, you know, we weredirected to this particular horse stall, I don’t know the number, and we put down thesuitcase on the upper bunk and the four of us, two on each side, sat down, feelingreally pretty low, to now have a home in a horse stall, we were feeling low. But then,all of a sudden, our eight eyes went to the corner, to the head of the bed, and we saw
hundreds of bunks, maybe thousands of them, creeping up and down the corner,
and that, I felt, was the lowest point in my life. And I think we cried for about anhour. You know, Dad’s gone, my mother lost my brother, and to be in this place, withbugs crawling all over your head but then, after an hour, my mother got up and said,“shiyō ga nai”, it’s a wonderful phrase, basically saying “that’s it, now let’s get off ourass and move forward,” you know? Shiyō ga nai, it’s a wonderful phrase. And, shewent to the commissary and got the strongest insect repellent and came back, andsprayed all over, sprayed the mattresses, and I still remember those bugs, I don’tknow whether they were the biting kind, but, it didn’t matter, it was just a low point
in life.
PW: When you were growing up, before the evacuation, what kinds of friends andactivities did you do?
RM: Oh, yeah, well, our activities were really, well, good and bad. Once we came backfrom Japan, I was much more able, more flexible, so I used to play with the kids, anddid all kinds of things. Everything was handmade, you know, kick the can, any can, it
didn’t matter, big ones, small ones, and that was a wonderful game. And we used tohave can races; we would get a can, stomp it onto our shoes, and run like hell andhave a race, and all the parents used to hate the noise [chuckles], you know, on the
sidewalk or in the alleys, and we had an empty lot next to our alley, and the city
dumped concrete blocks and road asphalt- it was really dangerous, but, we used tothink of it as a castle and we’ll play. And one time I fell, and hit the asphalt, and you
can still see a bruise, a cut, I was bleeding like hell, so I’m cupping my eye, and theblood’s streaming down, and I went home, and my mother nearly fainted, shethought I’d lost my eyeball [chuckles]. So, we had all these things going on, and weused to make our own roller skates, these box-car, and nail on half a roller skate in
the front and back. With a pair of roller skates, we had a wonderful wagon. The
worst game that we used to play was canko [sic], they used to have a truck lane withall the base, and the whole thing was concrete, and it was a wonderful sort of ahockey area, on roller skates. Ah, we used to think that was wonderful! But, Mother[chuckles], and our parents, would curse at us, because we would come home withripped pants and scraped knees, and [chuckling] all kinds of things, but, you know,
those were the kinds of games we used to play. And behind the Japanese school,
there was pretty high grass, a weedy area, we’d play hide-and-seek there, and I think
the Japanese people, you know, the school people didn’t like us doing that that much.
And, of course, we used to visit each other a lot, you know the kids, and I used toplay with Sachi, we’d play jacks or skip rope, and she used to hate cats in those days,and I used to pick up an alley cat and put it in a paper bag, and give it to her, and thecat would jump out [chuckling], and she’d call me “bozo, yancha,” and I said tomyself, “I think at least she likes me, otherwise she wouldn’t call me names.”[chuckles]
PW: Did you have hakujin4 friends as well as nisei friends?
RM: Well, very little, because Strathcona School was mostly Japanese and Chinese.
And we only had one kid- one boy, anyway, maybe a couple girls, but, we didn’t playwith girls- I think his name was Bill, and he was a very light-coloured, skinny kid.
And he was the only one I knew, because, after school, we had Japanese school, andafter Japanese school, I used to do kendo. Not to be good at kendo, but to be flexible.
And I’d watch the Asahi team, and I was very good at playing marbles, we used toplay keepers and I used to be proud of myself, all these marbles into my pockets[chuckles]. So, these were the kinds of games- and, there was a Catholic church
across the ground, to the west of Powell ground, and we were sent there as young
children before public school. And I used to hate it! And I think my sister hated it,
too, because the Sisters will always made you feel small, they always talked about
what kind of martyrs they were, serving these Jap kids [chuckles]. Oh, it was aterrible sort of a feeling that you had, that these were God’s people and that’s when I
started to lose interest, in the Catholic kindergarten, and it may have been
erroneous, but, as a kid, you don’t see any kind nuns, so, these were some of theimpressions- and, when we weren’t playing, we were trying to raise money to go to
movies.
So, Saturday morning, we’d go fishing for perch, get enough, and go to the fish
market and sell them for whatever it was, I can’t remember, five cents a pound? And
we realized that if you catch too many, the price goes down [chuckles], so, “What’s
the right amount?” Those were always interesting; you’d look into the fish market tosee how many perch were on the counter [chuckles], and sometimes we’d wait until
it diminished [laughs]. And, it didn’t take much to go to a movie, our theatre used to
be one cent, at one time, and it went to two cents, and I nearly cried [chuckling], and4 Referring to non-Japanese person.

then, it was two [tickets] for three cents, and I never took Sachi, because I knew thather father would never allow his daughter to go out with such a yancha, go to these
terrible movies, like Green Hornet, Flash Gordon, [laughs] we’d watch these weekly
serials. My favourite was Tarzan, at the time.
PW: What do you remember about food, in those days?
RM: Well, my mother was interesting, I think it was the way she was raised; there
were only two fish [chuckles] that she used to buy: tuna and salmon. The rest were
garbage [laughs], and I had very little other fish, until I married Sachi. It’s fascinating,that my mother thought that that was it, and I think we ate more meat than mostpeople, but, meat was hard to get, and expensive, so, I used to go and get these perch,but she would never cook it! [Chuckles]. One time, Dad and I dug up one sack full ofoysters, and we thought, “Wow, that’s great,” but, after two days of oysters, it was
just sand in one’s mouth [laughs]. Oh, and we had fried oysters, and pickled oysters,
and all kinds of oysters, and I said to my mother, “I’m never getting oysters again
unless we buy in the store.” [chuckles]
PW: Okay, then you were in Hastings Park, and what happened after that?
RM: Well, it’s interesting, because every week we used to be able to go out, and,because we had very little money, we used to walk, usually to Powell Street, meet
our friends, and it wasn’t always pleasant, because you’d encounter all these nasty
comments from the white [people]. Maybe Canada hasn’t changed that much, but, it
was a nastier time. And, one day, we put our best clothes on, and we had aphotographer take our picture. He did it for nothing, because he knew our situation,so we could send a well-dressed picture to Father, to show him we were okay. And,on one occasion, we walked down the street, to Sachi’s store, and the Miyochi’s had aconfectionary store, and it was dark, and they were gone. And my sister, Joan was
worried, “Oh, where did she go, are we ever going to ever see them again?” And mymother said, “Well, yes, we will see them,” but you know, we weren’t sure so thatwas the last-. So, what happened to Sachi was that her family went to Alberta, toWelland, to a sugar beet farm. My wife’s feelings about those days are much morepositive than mine; she felt the Mormons understood them, because of theirprevious discrimination they received, so, she really had nothing but good things tosay- Sachi always has nothing but good things to say about people [laughs]. She’s sogracious, gentle [smiling], in many ways, too genuine, she thinks highly of everybody[chuckles].
PW: How did you feel about discrimination when you were in B.C.? How did that
affect you?
RM: Well, the interesting thing is, I guess until the wartime, we really never did
expect too much, because we were basically isolated, the Japanese Canadian
community was almost talking architecturally isolated, like a column, and people
chopped at it, the column came down, and it didn’t affect anything else, because itwasn’t connected. So, in many ways, the connection to the outside world was limited,as a child, until you started to grow up and you realized what’s going on. And you
start reading all the political comments that people made, so, at the time, as a youth,
I didn’t think much about it. But, I knew that it was there.
PW: How long were you in Hastings Park?
RM: Oh, I can’t remember exactly, but it wasn’t all that long, maybe a couple
months?
PW: You said you were allowed to go out to the streets, even though you were in
Hastings Park, was everybody allowed to go out in the streets?
RM: Well, I think they were, but some people never did go out, they felt insecuregoing out. We went out, because it’s like getting fresh air.
PW: And did you go as a group or individually?
RM: Just as a family, we never went out with a group. I don’t know whether motherfelt it was safer just as a family, rather than a group going out, like a sort of gang.
PW: Right. So then, tell us about what happened after Hastings Park.
RM: Well, my mother spent an enormous amount of time thinking about where to go.
See, we were Roman Catholic, so, we were basically supposed to go to Greenwood,
but Mother didn’t want to go to Greenwood.
PW: Why?
RM: Because she felt that too many of the Catholics were catty. Not that other places
weren’t just as bad. So, she decided to go to Slocan, and I don’t think it was muchbetter. In fact, when we went to see Greenwood, after 25 years, 50 years, and foundit much more pleasant than where we were. Well, we took the same four suitcases,
and boarded a train close to Hastings Park that day, and we took off to Slocan. We
used to call it the “Slocan Go” [chuckles], because the train was so slow, and nobody
wanted to think about tomorrow, and we never knew where we were going. When
we got to Slocan, that particular day was really beautiful, and I thought Slocan city
itself, which is a sort of silvery city, because people didn’t paint the buildings, so thewood was a silver colour, and I thought it was quite beautiful, this city beside Slocan
Lake, Slocan River, and I thought, “Oh, it’s quite nice, it’s better than the treatment
we were going through in Vancouver.” But that wasn’t the destination, they loaded
us up on a truck, and we went to Popoff, and we were given - we were given a room,on the second floor of this bunkhouse, it was a freshly-built bunkhouse, no acoustic
treatment, but visually, it was private, but, acoustically, you could hear everythingthat went on [chuckles].
We were on the second floor, and I started to work immediately, for five cents anhour, digging ditches and digging holes for outhouses, and soon, they made me I
guess a “straw boss”, you know, looking after two or three guys, and I didn’t mind atall. But, all the kids were smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, and so, [chuckles], oneevening, I said to my mother, “I’m now working, and I’m looking after the family, andall of the people working are smoking, shouldn’t I be able to smoke?” I had neversmoked before, and I don’t know why I asked my mother, because I was expecting
her to give me an argument not to smoke, but my mother was very smart, she said,“Yeah, you’re the head of the family, you’re looking after us,”- five cents an hour, youknow, the government took two of those cents, the first pay check was less than four
dollars [chuckles]. So, mother said, “In fact, Raymond, you should smoke right now,
I’ll get you a cigarette.” So, she went next door, got a cigarette and a match, and cameback, and put the cigarette in my mouth, and lit the match, and [chuckles] [said],“You got to suck in, suck harder, suck harder.” And I start to feel - this was a boughtcigarette, kind of crummy cigarette and I’m smoking away, a quarter way, halfway,and I said, “Mom, I think I’m going to be sick,” and I dropped the cigarette, and I ran
down the stairs, and out to the outhouse, and barfed all over! [Laughs]. I didn’t
smoke until I was 27.
That was a very good lesson, so we always did this with our kids. As soon as they
could understand, okay, we smoke, and Mom smokes, and we sometimes take adrink, so anytime you want to have a drink, or a cigarette, we will not stop you, but
we want you to have the first one with us. None of them smoke, none of them takehard liquor- they might drink wine or beer, but that’s it. So, I thought, well, anybody
who’s got kids coming up, it’s a wonderful way, you know, it doesn’t allow them tohide behind a barn door or behind a garage, having a secret cigarette. So, at the
moment, our grandkids don’t smoke, none. Ten of them don’t smoke yet. Well, theyoungest one is eight, so, I don’t know- these are really good lessons but, I became
an expert on outhouses, and my friend, my two good friends were George [full nameredacted] and Glenn [full name redacted], Glenn is now retired and lives outside of
Ottawa, and George has passed away. The last time I saw George, I went to visit him
in Vancouver- do you know George?
PW: No.
RM: He had a club foot, and he was the best mentor I ever had, and I still admire him,
for taking abusive comments and being able to laugh it off, and some of thecomments kids would make to make him chase them, because he would be so
awkward, and I thought, “Wow, that’s really wonderful.” So, I became very consciousof physically challenged people very early, and I said, “When I become an architect,
I’ll have to make sure -.” Did you know we were some of the first ones to make that astandard? I bet you didn’t know that. We set up a standard, for the Ontario ScienceCentre, and then I went around, talking to developers, to organizations, aboutlooking after the physically challenged, and some of the rules were pretty crude, youknow turning radius and all that, I’m sure most people don’t know that. And it
doesn’t matter who started it but ah- And George had this wonderful sense of humor,and I used to admire him for it, you know; if you’re handicapped and people makefun of you, to be able to overcome all this by having a sense of humour. In fact, onetime, George and I [chuckles] had this funny thing- were you in Slocan?
PW: We were in Tashme.
RM: Oh, well, in Slocan, this hakujin farmer, I don’t know if he was Doukhbor or not,he shot a Nikkei boy for stealing an apple. Well, he was really abrasive, “Damn Japkids”, and the boys said he didn’t steal the apples, he just picked up the ones on the
ground. Well, the guy is giving the implication that he was taking it off the tree, so,
we sort of sided up with the boy, and said, “We’d better teach this guy a lesson”. So,
this was about two months before Halloween, and so, we watched him, [chuckling]
every day, every chance we had- when he came into town, when he came home, youknow, he had no conscience about talking badly about “the Jap kids”, “Japs in thetown” and all this, he comes around, selling apples and stuff, taking our money, so,
we said, “We should teach him a lesson.” So, we decided we’ll do it on Halloween so
we watched him. The conclusion we came to, was that the only thing that wasconstant was every night, at nine o’clock sharp, no miss, he would come out to theouthouse. And he never carried a flashlight, never carried a lantern, he obviously
aimed for the outline of the outhouse. So, George and I said, “Okay, we know exactly
what to do.”So I gathered all these two-by-fours and we were going to nudge the toilet over[chuckling], so the opening was in front. You can’t miss. So, we pictured him coming
out at 9:00, 9:01, he’s close to the hole, and ten seconds later, he slips into this hole,and gets covered in slop and well, you know, and the smell! All over, because of thissloppy condition, and he’ll be yelling and screaming, and the wife comes out, andshe’s sort of happy, “Oh, George got what he deserves!” [Laughs] And so, she doesn’tpull him out herself, she goes back into the house, and gets a long rope, and aclothespin, and puts it on her nose, and gives him this rope, and then she ties it to atree. And she’ll be snickering and laughing, happiness all over [chuckles]. And it was
funny, because, we were ready, and could’ve done it, and nobody would have known.
But then, the day that we were going to do it, that morning, George says to me, “Ray,
if we did this, does the farmer go to heaven, and we go to hell?” “Hey, that’s a goodthought, lets think about it”, “Well, we could go to hell for being so bad” [nods], youknow, this is 12 13 year olds talking.” George, maybe it’s better if he goes to hell, andwe have revenge from heaven.”[laughs] So, call this the “revenge from heaven
incident,” and so we never carried it out. And I hope the guy’s in hell, right now[laughs]! But George and I laughed about it before he passed away, and I can stillhear his “hee hee hee”, how he used to laugh, and I thought, well, I’m sure George isin heaven, looking down and looking at the farmer way down below [chuckles].

I had good friends, you know, Min [full name redacted], Peter[full name redacted],and Jim [full name redacted], who passed away, they all did well, Peter became aprincipal, Min became an architect, but, it’s kind of a strange situation, I kept more intouch with the teachers, and I hand it to the teacher for really doing a superb job.
Because some of the teachers were only a few years ahead of the students, they
were young, but they were so passionate about teaching, and to teach well, and ourteacher, the one that I always think about, is Hida [full name redacted], who passed
away. And she used to invite us at night, to go to her place and we’d have a goodtime studying, and she really taught me the difference between teaching andlearning- she was teaching us to love to learn. And teaching is like pressing from the
top down, whereas learning comes from the inside. And so, I became reallyinterested in education- most of architectural jobs are in the area of learning,whether it’s formal or informal, it’s in the area. So, that’s why, I guess, when I went
to university, I became interested, in terms of physical things, I wanted to do three
things: one was to design a city hall, all about democracy at the municipal level, andmuseums, informal education so that you could change the world for the better, andthe [cathedral?] really, all about new way of approaching things, new way of
thinking. It was all about equality. It was all about justice. It was about inclusion.
Every person, sort of healthy and with respect and we’re all equal. And also, tochange the approach to architecture, and that’s why we were very interested in[Miessen?] and also the whole idea of bioremediation, which has been such a
success that they slowly ask us to do things that we shouldn’t normally be doing liketiny [undecipherable]. But what more can I say? So, we were then moved from
Popoff to Lemon Creek, to live with this familyPW: How long were you in Pop-Off?
RM: Oh, a very short time, I can’t remember how long, but, it seemed very short. I
started to work, and my sister and I used to play together, baseball, and all that.
Lemon Creek was a disaster.
PW: Why?
RM: We were- I guess I don’t want to remember the family’s name; we were put inwith this family, and the houses were basically 28x14, outside dimension, and theinside would be 13 x13, and we had one bedroom, another bedroom, and acommunal kitchen. Well, we were sharing this, with this family, but the guy was alecher, like, there were a lot of people trying to be a tiger, [chuckles]. Well, mymother, I thought, was wonderful, she said, “I’m not going to tolerate this”, so, shewent to the Commission and told them that- she didn’t name the guy, but she said, “Iwant to move.” So, we spent that time in the rink, in a tent, for a little bit. And weloved the tent, because it was more spacious [chuckles] than the house, and it wasours, you know? The whole four walls were ours, we loved it. Then, we were moved

into Bay Farm, on the Fourth Avenue, the very last house. And everybody used tosay, “Oh, you’re lucky, you got the biggest land for vegetables,” and all that, and I said,“Are you crazy? Where’s our tap?” [chuckling] The last tap was way down, and wewere then put in a place with the Oyama’s- I don’t know if you remember Oyama[full name redacted], she used to be a cripple, and she was short, but she was awonderful singer, and a teacher. So there’s another teacher there, you know? And
the sister was Oyama [full name redacted], and so, the three women and the four of
us shared this house, fifty-fifty. And we made that 13 x 13 really do amazing stuff[smiles]. But it was so bloody badly built that air used to come through, and I used to
go to the lumber yard, and steal lumber, and I got to understand insulation, likecrumpling newspaper was absolutely amazing insulation, then I got some tarp paper,and it was smelly, but, it was better than the wind coming through. I put some wood
up to about here [gestures], just enough to keep Mother and the three sisters, who
slept in a double bed, warm. And I had a double bunk, and we made that 13 x 13
really do a lot.
But, as you know, they only had two sets of ofuro5, and the ofuro that I was supposed
to go to from the Fourth Avenue was on Second Avenue, and I guess we could’vegone to the other one, there was a women’s section and a men’s section. Well, thefirst couple times I went, the young kids would look at the scars on my arm, because
it never really got fixed, and they would say, “Oh, he’s diseased, don’t touch him!”
And then the older people, you know, even adults, would start to make comments,
so, I said to Mother that I thought Canada was my enemy; they took my Dad and I
lost my brother, we were in this place, and I’m really depressed and I think I would
walk into a gas oven without hesitation, if there was one. My own community wasalmost worse enemy than the country, so, I was in a pretty depressed mood. But,
you know, communication with Dad wasn’t very positive, because by the time you
send a letter, it gets all censored, he gets it, he sends a letter back, it’s all censored,
and I kept some of the letters, it’s almost amusing, you can’t understand what thehell he’s saying except I used to tell my mother, “Oh, I got a letter from Dad, he’s still
alive!” [laughs] That was the good news.
So, I said, “I have to take action myself,” and I never told mother, I decided to go to
the river and take a bath. By this time it was pretty cool, but it was better than hottears. And I built this platform where I could look around, and see if people werecoming, on the other side of this little mountain, and when people weren’t coming, I
would strip and jump into the river. I took my mother’s soap, and I always put itback where it was, so she never knew I was bathing in the river. If she had known,
5 Japanese bath

she would’ve been terrified [chuckles]. But, Peter, I start to look around, and nature
was so beautiful, and I started to sort of look at a lot of little details, and I started torealize that man’s perception of nature is really wrong- this is me at 12 years old.
People talk about a frightening storm, beautiful sunsets, but nature looks at it andit’s an even balance; there’s nothing really frightening about the storm, and thesunset is beautiful because there’s dust in the air, and so on. But, because it was sobeautiful, I thought, “Gee, this part of Canada is really beautiful,” so, that’s when I
decided to build a tree house. And, what I learned about the tree house, because I
only had an axe for a hammer, and a saw, half a dozen spikes, and I had a rope, so, I
had to build this with all of that, so, I built this, and it was really a struggle, and I
built a tree house, basically about 6 feet, by about 5 feet, and the southern end was
open, so I could get the sun, and largely, most of the top part was evergreen, andmost people never knew that there was a tree house, it was like camouflage. I went
to the sawmill and got a few boards for the bottom, because those evergreens are
sticky [chuckles]. So, you know, I learned a lot about economy of means- I mean, I
had no money, so I built this out of nothing, and it was a great influence on the way I
practice architecture. When I was in university- did I ever told you that I never used
more than one roll of yellow tracing paper. I used to erase them, and reuse again. I
was able to think everything through in my head, and then put the final result on thepiece of paper. Nowadays, I see [chuckles] people, if they use paper, they make a few
scratches and they go, “Argh!” it doesn’t give you a cringe, but before, you know, I
cringed at the waste. That tree house, for me, was magic; it was my university, myplace of solitude, my place of solace, and I never told anybody about it, so nobody
ever shared that thing, because, I was afraid of committing sabotages [chuckles], if I
told mother, and my mother kept it a secret, if she got caught, I didn’t want her to be
put into a prison or a work camp, just like Dad, and we would have nobody, so, I
never told my mother. Even today, I told before that I did do this but she neverknows that I went for a bath in the river [chuckles].
PW: But, in the wintertime, did you still do that?
RM: No, I didn’t, because what happened was, this ofuro man somehow found out
about my situation, I don’t know how and one day I’m walking on this dusty road,and he comes up to me, and said, “You can come and take a bath before or after,
whenever you want, I’ll wait for you.” Because, by this time, I had this other job,which was a carpenter’s helper, sometimes I’m early, sometimes I’m late. But then,mid-winter, it was really terrible, I used to have this job of supplying water to themess hall. So, I had to take these big tanks on a sled to them, and go to the lake andgo out, and it would be frozen solid, of course, and chop and then I’d slosh aroundand take it to the mess hall. As a result, my shoes would be like a chunk of ice, andusually, because of the mess hall situation, I would be late and he would wait for me.
So, we became kind of good friends, and I used to call him “Oji-san” and I think hereally liked that I used to go and help him whenever I could. And sometimes I would
have to thaw my feet, with the ice on the boots, and put it into the warmer[chuckles], the burner, and I think he was kind of sympathetic about what was
happening to me, so, winter time was good. I loved the wintertime, because, if
there’s no wind, I used to look at the moon, and it would be really silvery, and I
could hear the sound of night, somebody on the wagon or something and it was
really wonderful. And the whisper of the river, you know? So, all these things I
enjoyed, but one of the most important- well, several important things- was that I
learned to fly, mentally. Being able to look up and see. So, as a result, I drew a map of
Bay Farm, I drew 2. 1 I can’t find along with the one with the names of every familyliving in Bay Farm, but I have the other one, with the location of the tree house,
which is a little dot, because I thought, “If I ever get caught, I’ll just say it’s a slip of
the pencil.” [chuckles] But the most important thing was, because I was able to lookdown at the ground. [Undecipherable] not only animals and all that but also how
water flows and you know, after it rain.
I said to myself, “Every square foot of land underneath the tree was different,
absolutely different.” So, I said, “When I become an architect, I have to take that into
account, I will never impose my will,” because, I was learning by then, if thegovernment had listened to us, and learned from listening carefully, they would
have taken another course of action. So, I developed this idea of the ‘three L’s: listen,learn, and maybe when I become an architect, earn your leadership. But the more I
thought about it, every place is different, every people that we encounter are
different, and process is different, every program is different, and the philosophy
will be different. So, I said, “I will never be a dogmatic, egocentric person: this is my
dogma” [chuckles]. Here’s my design. Because, you know, a lot of the heroes inarchitecture are dogmatic assholes, they don’t solve the problem really intimately,
they don’t listen, they do their thing. The ROM [Royal Ontario Museum] is a good
example. It’s bullshit architecture. So, a lot of things that enter into my architecture,
I think, started when I was 12 years old.
In fact, the War Museum, the first sketch I made was a sketch of a sound, did you
know that? It was a sketch of a sound that I remember from the tree house; onenight, the breeze was going through the tree house, and the internment camp,
wartime, and I was imagining a battlefield, with two sides, at night, and the twosides are tired, the soldiers are all afraid, they’re uncomfortable, and they’re mucky,
and this breeze that’s going over the top of them, sort of giving the impression thatthese two sides want the whole thing to disappear, that there’s peace. So, it’s thesound that I remember, and Regeneration Hall is about sound. So, twelve-year-old,
sixty years later- well, more than sixty years later [chuckles], it comes back. I always

feel that you can’t make anything that young people say, you can learn a lot fromwhat they’re saying. So, listen, learn, you know.
PW: So, did you go to school in Bay Farm?
RM: Yeah, but, you see, I went into grade 7 but there were no classes for the longest
time. The school got built, and then we went back, and we were one of the first
families to move out of [the camp]. My dad sent a telegram saying, “I’m free” send a
letter andPW: So your Dad never joined you in Bay Farm?
RM: No. The basic story is that the people who were looking after the camps in
Petawawa, they went to Angler first, and then they went to Petawawa.
PW: Was your Dad in Petawawa, too? Why did he end up in Angler and Petawawa?
RM: Yeah. I have no idea, really.
PW: Because, do you think it was because he was resistant to what was happening
to him? Because those people are the ones that they targeted to put into these P.O.W.
camps, as I understand.
RM: Well, he was in a P.O.W. camp.
PW: Yeah, but, there’s a reason why he was, and do you know why he was, though?
RM: Well, because he basically said, “I will fight the contradiction.”
PW: Okay, that’s why, okay. That’s why he was there.
RM: You know, he wasn’t just being belligerent but he had a cause. But, the people
there, in Petawawa, realized that this man is a peaceful person, if they let him out,
he’s not going to go and bomb the railway yards [chuckling], or some plant, he’ll bebetter off if we sent him off to do constructive work, rather than, you know, staying
in a camp. So, they just let him out.
PW: Did he ever talk to you about his experience in Angler or Petawawa?
RM: No, the only thing I would know is, other people have said, because the one
incident that he did talk about was that there was a shooting, and he had a bulletthat went into the mattress below him, and he kept that bullet until he passed away.
Then, somehow, it disappeared. But, I don’t know whether he ever felt he won or
lost, because, when we joined him in HamiltonPW: So that’s where you went, to Hamilton, after his release from Petawawa?
RM: Well, he was sent there. So, when we joined him, in February, March- I can’t
remember the date, in Hamilton, I know it was a bloody cold day, and we walked tothe [chuckles] rooming house, and we had a two-room attic space, on Jackson Street,
which was replaced by the City Hall, the Hamilton City Hall. But, at the time, it
seemed like the brick building was quite something, compared to the wooden
shacks we were living in. And we used to think that, when we first came east, wewere one of the first to leave the camp. And, oh, everybody warned my mother thatwe’d be killed in the east [chuckles], stories like that, but my mother wasn’t going to
be dissuaded not to go. But we were really shunted back and forth, because, youknow, we had no schedule, it took a long time for us to go from Slocan to Hamilton, it
wasn’t a straight line. And we were on a very old rickety [train]- I think it was usedby the loggers, half of the chairs were out, and there was a big warmer, one of thosepot-belly stoves, at one end, with a bunch of logs piled up on the other side. And wewere the only ones, no blinds, nothing. The only place we had privacy was in the
toilet [chuckles]. But even at that, it was really dark and almost dismal. As we werecoming across, [chuckles], I guess the worst was when they had the Jap family movie,
wherever we stopped, there’d be faces of lots of people, obviously we went downfrom Slocan to Nelson, B.C., and then across towards the east. As we got to Alberta,
people who were there were looking more friendly, and some of them passed us
food; by the time we got to Hamilton, my mother was thinking, “Gee, we better
ration some food, or we may not have enough to eat”. It was an interesting
experience- obviously, the war had a tremendous impact on my father: first of all,his dream of ever becoming an engineer was now, at 39, trashed. And maybe
starting a new life from nothing was really difficult, and living in an attic space. And
out kitchen was a little thing, like this [gestures], on a stair landing, my mother said,“If it smells good, don’t step back, because it’s a long way down!” [laughs]
PW: When you were in Bay Farm, were you working at the same time?
RM: Oh, yeah.
PW: And then, but, were you going to school?
RM: Oh, yeah, as soon as school started.
PW: And that’s when you stopped working, and went to school.
RM: Yeah.
PW: And how many grades would you have gone to?
RM: Well, see, it was grade 7, and I wrote my exams, because B.C. had this test to see
where you should be, and we left for Hamilton. So, when we reached Hamilton, I wasin that funny sort of period, you know, 14, not really feeling secure, not feeling tobad but Hamilton was a strange place. Being the second Japanese Canadian family,
we were looked upon as freaks. And I was the first Japanese Canadian high school
student in Westdale- and, during the wartime, that’s not an easy thing [chuckles].
PW: Speaking of WestdaleRM: Well, there was a Mr. Herbie [full name redacted], there were two teachers; firstof all, there was a Mr. Cavanaugh, a principal of Ryerson Senior Public School, and I
told Dad, “I’m not going to go to school, it’s not really worth it,” because my Dad
worked two jobs, he was helping in plastering the construction jobs, he was alabourer, and he was also working at night, in a restaurant to get additional fund,and my mother did housework, and one day, because there was some sort of an
emergency, I can’t remember what it was, and I had to go and see her. So, I took abus, and then I saw her on the floor, scrubbing the basement floor, and I told Momthat she’s got to quit this, it’s not for her, and that’s when I felt that it’s not worth,you know, serving this community, it’s a bloody farce, trying to do good, so, I wasstarting to lose interest in schooling. Not architecture, but schooling. Then I received
this notice, saying that I should be in grade 8. Well, Dad took that as a good excuse to
get me to school, but he didn’t think I would make grade 8, he took me to the seniorpublic school, to meet the principal, Mr. Cavanaugh. Mr. Cavanaugh was a good guy,
he said, “Oh, you only have two months of grade 8, you’ll never make it, so, you
might as well go into grade 7.” So I said, “I beg to differ,” and Dad was shocked[chuckle], that I said, “Okay, Mr. Cavanaugh, if I don’t make it, I’ll go back next yearand go into grade 8. This way, I’ll work like hell, and see if I can make it; you haven’t
lost anything, and I have everything to gain by working hard.” He took notice, andmy Dad thought I was being arrogant, but I wasn’t, I don’t think. So, Mr. Cavanaugh
said, “Okay, we’ve got a deal, but there’s one additional condition: you have to play
baseball for the school team.” And this was two months away from the regional
finals [chuckles].
Well, we won the championship, I caught a ball that made the difference, you see, I
was on the outfield. So, he was wise, he introduced me not as a Jap, with slanted eyes
and buckteeth, talk funny and all that but as a guy who could play baseball, you
know? And I made grade 8 in two months, so, he congratulated me and I went toWestdale. So, that was wonderful, he could’ve been belligerent, or whatever, he
could have refused to let me go. Grade 9, I think both the classmates and I were notsure of each other, and our class teacher was called Mr. Herbie, he was a physics
teacher, and the first day, he said to the class, “Raymond Moriyama is new in thisschool, and he’s Japanese and born in Canada. If you have anything against him, youhave to come through me first.” Tiny little teacher, and chubby, and I thought, “Wow,that’s really fantastic, he didn’t have to say that.” So, again, a good teacher made a lotof difference in my life, and there were other wonderful teachers, like Mr. Valentine,
who was a tiny, thin. What was he teaching? Biology or something. And the lab table,
he would just about disappear [chuckling] behind this lab table, and one day, he wason his tiptoes, and said to the class, “I guess I didn’t eat enough spinach,” [laughs]
and we all burst out laughing, and I can still hear his comment [chuckles], “I guess I
didn’t eat enough spinach.” So, there were a lot of good teachers along the way, andof course, my Dad’s poem, at the graduation, was something that sustained me. And
Westdale made me one of the thirty, what do you call it, inductees into the WestdaleHall of Fame.
PW: Honour Roll?
RM: Yeah. It was good.
PW: Sorry, just to go back a bit, in Bay Farm, did you feel you were more of a loner?
Because of what you were exposed to, with the other kids-

RM: Oh, yeah, I tended to be a loner, because I didn’t want to share the tree housewith anybody; I didn’t talk about it including my mother or my sister, nobody knew
about it.
PW: But you found your solace, your home, in the tree house.
RM: Yeah. For me, it was just a place where I learned a lot-about myself as well as
nature. The amazing thing, Peter, is I never read one book in that tree house, not one.
And that’s when I started to understand the whole philosophy of phenomenology;
you discover things, and then you discover the next thing, and you build on all this. I
still do that, you know, the philosophy of phenomenology is about the best thing I’ve
learned, in that tree house in nature. But I was definitely a loner.
PW: So then after Westdale, and high school- you had a fairly good time in highschool? What was your experience in high school?
RM: Well, I don’t know if I really had a good time- first of all, I was bright, first year
out of 628 students, I came first. Second year, I came second, got the silver medal[chuckles]. And third year, I got bronze, I started to get interested in other things,
like girls [laughs].
[End of Part 2][Start Part 3]
PW: So then after Westdale, you went on to U of T6?
RM: U of T. And, it was a new experience; I had to do everything [chuckles] with alimited budget of ten dollars a week, no more, not a cent more. So, that included food,board, and all the paper, the books, pencils, whatever else. So, I really learned toeconomize [laughs]. Like I said before, I used one roll of the cheapest tissue paper,and I made it last five years. Wow, I bet that’s a record [laughs]!
PW: Well, I guess at ten dollars a week [chuckling], you have not much choice!
RM: Well, I used to walk over to Sachi’s place- in those days, there were only twothings: Sachi and architecture. And they were really good days.
PW: So, when did you end up meeting Sachi [again]?
RM: Well, that’s a good question, because what happened- it sounds like a boast, but,
one day, I was in first year, I was at the Hart House, and there were six niseis there,
mostly medical students-people like Rick, I can’t remember the others, maybe acouple of engineers- and they were talking about this girl that they were trying totake out to roam around, and they were all confused [laughs]. So, I’m saying, “Well,
who’s this?” “Oh, Sachi Miyochi” “Oh is that right? You guys all got turned down?”[laughs] Well, I said, “Let me give it a try,” [chuckling], so, I was smart, I phoned up
Mr. Miyochi, and went over, and got reacquainted as a family friend, and I always
6 University of Torontoknew that Mr. Miyochi basically liked me. So, I went to see him, and of course Sachi
was there, and I thought she really looked beautiful. That was the end of that firstnight. A few days later, I phoned up Mr. Miyochi, and I said, “There’s this dancearound the university that I’d really like to take your daughter,” knowing that heapparently he slammed the phone on some of the guys [laughs], I was waiting forthe phone to [making sound and motion of a phone slammed], but that didn’t
happen, and he said, “Okay, as long as your get her home before midnight.” So I said,“yes, I’ll do that.” So, I took her out, and she really looked gorgeous in the moonlight,
just like my grandfather said, “Women look best in moonlight and one candle.” So,
my heart was set, and then I took her out, the next time, to Palais Royale, for a dance,and I had to get a job plastering to make some extra money, then I borrowed Dad’scar, and I took her out, second date, and I proposed to her.
PW: Wow.
RM: And she said yes! [Smiles] Except, she said, “But I don’t believe it.” [laughs] So,
that’s how we got together. So after that was basically, we walk over to Sachi’s place,and I would think about design in between too while I am walking.
PW: So, where did you actually live, when you were in Toronto?
RM: Oh, first of all, Jim [full name redacted] he and I shared a place on Classic
Avenue, which is just west of the university, which is now gone, and Mr. and Mrs.
Atori, they were really good, and he and I shared a room, up in the attic space, verysmall, but adequate, and we paid four dollars a week, including breakfast [chuckles].
So, Jim was interesting, because Jim always had this interesting thing about a handcoming out of the water, so, he didn’t want to be beside the window. So, I didn’t havethat kind of problem. And, the second year, he moved to residence, because he had
more money than I did I guess, and Atori-san moved, I guess the university gavethem a good offer, so I lived with the Hamasaki’s. And Mrs. Hamosaki was a flower
arrangement teacher, and Mr. [Hamosaki] was, by then, retired. And they were on
Nassau Street, right close to Western General [Hospital], off Bathurst. So everyday,
they were really kind, and they treated me like their son, they gave me a whole roomon the second floor, for four dollars a week [chuckles], and I tried to help them withthings around the house, and by this time, Peter, I was really almost neurotic, I had abed, I had a chair, three boards, and that was it [laughs]. So, I could draw, and set
whatever spare stuff on the bed, and Mrs. Hamosaki was really good, she used to,after flower arranging class, she would give me the flowers, so I had flowers tobrighten up the room. So, this bare room was brightened up by the flowers.
This went on, and I used to walk from their place through Kensington Market area,
and I told my friend Frank, “You know, you and I never saw the same thing!” You
saw the wired fence and you know, the [carp?] and I [undecipherable] chicken. So, it
was kind of amusing that he and I are the same age, and he grew up seeing differentthings. And Frank is interesting; he said to me that if he’d stayed in Toronto, hewouldn’t have been an architect, because he wouldn’t have made it, academically, hewouldn’t be able to get in. Luckily, he went to California, and I still have this fond setof feelings for the Kensington area, and the Chinatown- Sachi and I go to Chinatown
quite often, to Lee Garden, the best Chinese food.
PW: So, you graduated from U of T in architectureRM: Can I tell you something? It’s about Eric [full name redacted]. Well, Eric was ateacher, and the first year we were there, the first class we had was with Eric, and hesaid, “Okay guys, I want you to write an essay on “Why I want to be an architect”. It’s
due next week. Oh, shit, you know, I don’t know anything about architecture, I don’tknow who the heroes are, what architects really do, I really didn’t know. But, I knewthat I wanted to be an architect [laughs]. So, I wrote, and I guess I wrote itpassionately, why I wanted to be an architect, and explained some of the reasons,and I thought, “Oh, god, I think I failed.” Well, two weeks later, after we handed it in,there was a class with Eric, and I thought, “Oh god, I got an F,” well, he came before
the class started, and said, “Raymond, it was the best goddamn architecture story
I’ve ever read!” I was shocked! I said, “Oh, I really don’t know too much aboutarchitecture,” and he said, “You’ve given a very good reason for why you want to be
an architect, the best I’ve read. You get an A+.” [Smiles]. A+! Oh my. And after that, I
guess you could say he was on my side.
The second year, for first year, I guess I won some award, and I had to pick it up at
the O.A. Convention, and I had no idea what the bloody O.A. Convention was allabout, all I knew is there’d be some architects there, so, it was held at Royal York,and I went down there, and the best thing I had then was a tweedy brown suit, andbrown pants, which were slightly short, because it was all from high school days,
and black shoes, it didn’t quite match. So, when I landed on that floor, at theconvention, and the elevator door opened, and all these people in tuxedos and tails[laughing], and I’m shocked, and I was just like that joke the comedian tells,
sometimes you think the whole world is in tuxedos, and you’re a pair of brownshoes [chuckles]. So, I was about to turn around, but my feet were nailed to the floor,
because, the $200 [laughs] that I was supposed to receive that night was importantfor me to carry on, and I was kind of hesitant about not knowing what to do. Eric
comes over, and he said, “Raymond! Congratulations! Come and join me at my table.”[Raymond responds,] “Yes, sir.” So, we walk across the floor, and I’m feeling reallyembarrassed, like I was the only fur seal amongst penguins [chuckles]. So, we sit
down, and I guess the table is for ten, and everybody’s in black, except for me, andI’m really feeling uneasy, and Eric introduced me to everybody, I don’t remember
any of them, and then the soup arrived, and it was not tomato soup, it was much
more elegant, and Eric is sitting beside me, and he gets a handful of crackers, anddumps them into the soup [laughs]. And I said, “My god, Eric is really trying to helpme,” so, I grab a handful of crackers too, but not as dramatically as him, you know,
and I felt much better. And at intermission, or whatever it was, I went up andreceived my award, and I still remember that.
Eric was interesting because after I graduated, I got out of second year- maybe you
know this story- I was working in construction in Hamilton, and I received a phone
call from him, and he just happened to catch me, and he said, “Raymond, how would
you like to work for me this summer?”7 This is after second year, and I said, “No, sir,”and there’s dead silence on the other end, and then he said, “Why not?” “Because
you won’t pay me enough, and I need the money to go back to school.” [laughs]
Another silence. “If I made it worthwhile, would you come?” “No, sir.” [laughs] “Whynot?” “Because the summer time is the only time I have with my parents, and I liketo be here.” “Well, what if I paid your way?” “You mean every day?” “Yeah, I mean
every day.” “But that’s really tough on the body, I still don’t think I should work foryou.” Then there was another silence, and Eric said, “Raymond, I want you to talk to
your father,” so I said, “Yes, I will,” and “Call me back!” [laughter] And I said, “Thankyou, sir!”
Dad came home, and I told him what happened, and for the first time in my life, hegave me shit. Before that, he never ever said “Raymond, you’re stupid” or “Junichi
that’s not right” or anything. So, I phoned Eric back, and said, “Sir, I talked to myfather, and he gave me real shit.” [chuckles] “Good! When can you start?” “Well, I
think I can start the day after tomorrow.” I have to give my notice tomorrow. So, thatday, I took an early bus, and I was in the office by nine. Eric was there, and they had
an office on Bedford, right on the corner, and he showed me around the office, which
was in the basement, and then he took me up to the second floor, and he said, “Thisis your working space,” this beautiful, big second floor, with a big window where he
set this drafting board, with an adjoining bathroom with a big tub, and I asked, “Isanybody else here?” [Eric responds,]“No, you’re the only one.” After that, every day,at eleven, he would come in, and we would have a discussion about our architecture,
everything from columns to door hinges, all kinds of things, and most of the time it
was a good discussion, but sometimes we used to get into heated arguments- I think
every meeting, he enjoyed it, as much as I was learning. One day, [chuckles], I waited,and it was eleven fifteen, eleven thirty, twelve, twelve thirty, and he doesn’t show up.
So, I thought, “Well, I’ll have my lunch and take a bath.” [laughs] So, I fill this big tub,and I was just about getting settled in this warm, hot bath, when I hear, “Raymond,
where are you?” [laughs] Eric was there, so, I said, “Sir, I’m in the bathroom,” so, he
7 Back and forth conversation between Raymond and Eric.

comes in, doesn’t even say “Oh, you’re naked,” or anything, he just sits on the edge ofthe tub and starts talking about columns [smiles]. And I said to myself, “Of all thedays to be talking about columns, erect columns, tilted columns, diagonally-cut
column.”[laughs] It was really funny, keeping a straight face, and the office at thattime had a diagonally-cut column, which I think was really a bloody waste of [space],
my sense of economy and such, so, we were arguing about that. Next day, somehow
the column disappeared [laughs]. So, the whole summer went like that, and, you see,
I had never realized, until later, that Eric really thought highly of me, and I was toldthat there was quite a discussion at the school, whether I should get a 100% in
design or not. And, I think, in the end, everybody agreed that nobody’s perfect, sothey gave me 98% [chuckles]. Anyway, I reacted so badly after that, I’m a belligerent
little kid, you know? And he paid me so well! I was getting as much as a gradstudent!
PW: Wow.
RM: So, you know, he made it possible for me to go back to school, but maybe themost- I could tell you all kinds of other stories, but, I’ll tell you the most meaningful
story about Eric: when I decided to go out on my own, I talked to Sachi, and Sachi
was absolutely marvelous, and I told Sachi, “I have, between you and I, we have $392,
and we have two kids. And there might be another one coming. And I really have thisurge to go out and make my mistakes, what do you think?” And do you know what
she said? She astonished me, she said, “Do it. The worst thing that could happen to
you is that you go back and work for another architect.” What more can a wife say to
encourage her husband? So I said, “Okay.” $392, even in those days, was reallynothing, you know, maybe we could last a month? Lost fifty dollars for the depositon the telephone which made me cry, and then I had to pay fifty dollars of my sharefor the drape [chuckles], that was another fifty dollars, and then I had to buy a door,
and I made a drafting table, and that cost me so much more. And I said, “Sachi, we
have little more than half, do you think we could last the month?” [chuckles] It’s
crazy.
So I told Eric I’d decided to hang up a shingle, and I gave my two weeks’ notice, and I
was going to start business on the first of May, the worker’s day. And I didn’t say
anything else, and, I guess two or three days later, I heard on the street that Eric
gave me a maximum of half a year’s survival. So I was very curious, so, I went to Eric
and asked him, expecting that he would deny it, but, this is Eric, he said “Yes, I did
say those things.” So, I said, “Can you give me three reasons why?” [chuckles], and hesaid, “Ray, I’ll give you four”. So I said, “What’s the first reason?”, and he said, “You’re
too young,”- I was about 28. And I said some stupid thing, like “Age is no sign ofmaturity,” something like that, and I asked what the second reason? “There’s arecession,” and I said “I don’t know a recession from a hole in the ground.”[chuckles]

So I said, “What’s the third reason?” and he said, “You don’t have enough capital.”
But he expected me to have more than $392. So, I said, “Well, you could be right,
what’s the fourth reason?” And he said, “Because you’re a Jap.” So I said, “Well, I
think more of Canadians than you do.” And Eric said, “You go out there, and they’ll
strip you alive.” And he could be right, you know? It was another Canada [at thattime], and I wasn’t in a partnership with hakujin8 or anybody, I was starting out
fresh. The first invitation I had to come and speak to them came from the Board of
Education, in Toronto. And I went down to see them, and I don’t know why the guy
would invite me, because the first thing he says to me is, “We don’t give jobs toenemies.” Obviously, he’s thinking about the Hong Kong situation, so, I said, “All I
can say to you is that both the Canadians in Hong Kong and the Japanese Canadiansin Canada were the victims. I want you to think about that,” and I left, I didn’t think it
was worth arguing about. But it wasn’t an easy time.
PW: Were there any other Japanese Canadian firms practicing at that time?
RM: Well, Matsui was with the group, andPW: Was there any other Japanese Canadian firm?
RM: [Shaking head] Not on their own.
PW: Yeah, because he was in a partnership, wasn’t he?
RM: Yeah.
PW: What year was that, when you started?
RM: Was it 1956- no, ’58, sorry. Because I went to McGill for my Master’s. [chuckles]
To follow up with the promise I made to myself, to become a planner. Yeah, it wasn’t
easy.
PW: I’m sure it wasn’t.
RM: Yeah. And one time, I was giving a talk at University of Waterloo I think, and thisstudent gets up and said, “Oh, you’re famous, you can do anything,” [laughs] and I
said, “Well, it’s nice of you to think so, but, the reality is, it’s not true.”
PW: So, now you’re going to be into your eighties now, what do you plan to do fromnow on?
RM: Well, my first task is to look after Sachi. And I’ve started to write a book for thekids, the grandkids. It’s not a book of lessons, what to do or anything, it’s going to bea straight story, and also, I get caught up in all kinds of things [chuckles], they wantsome advice on the west wing of the apartment building, so, I go to these meetings,
most of them are non-paying, and some of the friends are dying- [undecipherable]
just passed away, same age as me, so I went to his celebration of life, and then I got
caught up in that, I was just expecting to pay tribute by going and meeting the family,
but, I got called up as “the oldest friend” [chuckles], and it is true, this is going backto my high school days, in Hamilton. So, I thought, “Woah,” a lot of people had their
8 Referring to non-Japanese personspeeches ready, but I got called up. So, things like that are happening, and trips are
side-issued, like a trip to Japan was instigated by our grandson, and-.
PW: Just to go back, just to get your opinion, what did you think when the redress
movement started?
RM: Well, at the time, there was kind of a split between two groups; people who feltthat the money not clean, and all that. But, Canadians are North Americans, and thismoney exchange wasn’t settled, you know, words are easy, which is true. I guess I
felt that the redress itself was necessary, but I wasn’t quite sure whether I wanted toget paid or not. But, I thought, legally, it would be best if there was some payment.
But, you know, $22,000 is peanuts compared to how much people lost, so, I didn’t
feel too badly about the amount. I felt sorry for George [full name redacted], do you
know George?
PW: I don’t know him, but I’ve certainly heard about the stories.
RM: Once I ran into him at the clinic, and I guess he’s getting some sort of atreatment, and I feel badly, because he looks almost, you know, really crushed, I
don’t think he has to feel that way. He was pushing what he believed was the truecourse and a lot of people were pretty aggressive, like Roger Obata. At the time, I
debated whether to join the cause or not- I was working on something, and I
couldn’t do it. And of course, this may sound crazy to you, but the reason why I
decided that I would ask Ted to become a partner was another way of testing
Canada, it was really a test: if they don’t accept two Japanese names, that means wehaven’t advanced very much. And of course, I was told by several people, “You’re on
a disastrous course, you’re just moving into an area of failure,” and I said, “Well, let’s
see what happens.”
PW: Because you had a Japanese partner? Really?
RM: Oh, yeah.
PW: That’s interesting, I never would have thought in those terms, as a test to see
how the Canadians would take two Japanese, as a practice.
RM: Yeah, for a little while, people used to say, “Oh, it’s a Japanese company.”
PW: But by that time, you were fairly successful as a practice, weren’t you? I mean
you’d done several jobs on your own.
RM: Yeah, but that was a point for some people, “You’re successful, why shootyourself in the foot?” Interesting, eh?
PW: Yeah, very interesting. I would have never known that was the reason why you
did that. I mean, Ted’s a really good guy, on top of that.
RM: But Ted and I never really talked about it, you know, because it was a decision I
had to make, to ask Ted, and it’s been a great partnership, sometimes I feel thatwe’ve tried pushing Ted’s name, but we’ve never succeeded in getting him an Orderof Ontario, Order of Canada, we’ve never been able to successfully do that.

PW: I think it’s getting pretty late now, so I won’t keep you any longer, so, it’s been
great, Ray, and I certainly appreciate the time you’ve taken to have a talk.
[End of interview]