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The New Canadian (1938-2001) was a small newspaper of national, historic importance. Many Canadians do not know its story. It was the newspaper of the Nisei, the first Canadian-born generation of Japanese Canadians. Tom Shoyama served as New Canadian editor from 1939 to 1945. Mirroring the plight of the unfortunate Japanese Canadians it served, the paper moved from Vancouver to the small Kootenay "ghost town" of Kaslo, where 1200 Japanese Canadians were interned during and after the WWII years. Why was this little newspaper important to us all?
1. It is the primary source document for the Japanese Canadian wartime experience. It leads us step by step through wartime injustices, evacuations, internments, confiscations, depatriation, and upheavals of the wartime diaspora of 22,000 Japanese Canadians.
2. Its editorial stance never wavered, anti-racist, pro-justice and pro-Canadian.
3. The Kaslo Years of the New Canadian provide a comprehensive look at "Ghost Town" life and was the vehicle for emergent Nisei literature.
4. Finally it championed their postwar fight for justice and Redress.

The Struggle for human rights and freedom is most eloquently told by those who have suffered its loss. The Japanese Canadians lost everything but their self respect in the war years and have been Canadian leaders in fighting racism ever since. Their experience reminds us that our "free country" has not always been free for all.

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'No Direction Home'
1944
Kaslo,BC

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TOMMY SHOYAMA AT THE CROSSROADS

Tommy was at the crossroads in June 1944. The censors wanted to shutdown The New Canadian for criticizing the racist tendencies of Vancouver's mayor in the previous issue. After years of fighting for justice for Japanese Canadians, was it time to buckle under? No. Tom Shoyama's editorial in The New Canadian began:

REAFFIRMING A PURPOSE
Despite all the things that have been said and done since Pearl Harbor, and despite all the things that becloud the horizon, this Dominion Day serves as an appropriate time to re-affirm here the fundamental purpose for the existence of this Newspaper.
That purpose, simply, is to lift a voice and fight to establish the right and privilege of every citizen, irrespective of his racial origin, to walk with equal dignity, freedom and service amongst his fellow Canadians.

Tommy Shoyama ... from the Langham tape collection

"We had a sense of mission in the sense that it was very important to do everything we could to sustain morale. We had to tell people: Look, in spite of all these terrible things that have happened to you, stand on your own feet. Look within yourself to your own strength and self-respect and your own sense of dignity."

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Front Street in Kaslo
1942
Kaslo,BC

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When The New Canadian started publishing on Front Street in November, 1942, Kaslo on the shores of Kootenay Lake became the centre of the Japanese Canadian world. News of friends and family members scattered to the winds, as well as official "proclamations" and government policy directives were available only through this paper.

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'Memories of Powell Street' Caricature by Frank Moritsugu as published in the The New Canadian.
1943

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Before the wartime troubles, the First Issue of The New Canadian was published in 1938 in Vancouver. British Columbia was home to all but a handful of Canada's Japanese Canadians. Over 60% were Canadian born and English-speaking Nisei. Vancouver's Powell Street was the centre of the prewar community.

"We started a little weekly paper called the New Canadian, which became a voice crying out for equality in the wilderness." Frequent New Canadian contributor Muriel Kitigawa as cited in THIS IS MY OWN, Talonbooks, 1985, Roy Miki, ed.

powell street knows
all about those
who limp, run stagger or
walk
criss-cross, stop and talk
for echoes of laughter
whispers of pain
odour of burnt toast
exotic scent of chow mein
dissolve into the street in
midnight rain
that's how
powell st. knows

Mark Toyama's poem Powell Street as published in New Canadian in 1940, was viewed by many as the beginning of Nisei poetry.

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The backdrop was racist. The "Japanese Problem" was part of the "Oriental Problem" and was stirred by the media of the day and the antagonism of such political pressure groups as the White Canada Association.

The Legislative assembly of British Columbia (1935) was passing legislation that read, in part:

"Whereas the standard of living of the average Oriental is far lower than that of the white man, thus enabling him to live comfortably on a much lower wage than our white men:
and whereas the Orientals have invaded many fields of industrial and commercial activities to the serious detriment of our white citizens: …
Therefore be it Resolved, that this house go on record as being utterly opposed to further influx of Orientals into this Province…"

as cited by Harold Innis in The Japanese Canadians. University of Toronto Press, 1938.

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'Everything has Changed' (The New Canadian Staff in Vancouver)
1942
Vancouver, BC

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"When Pearl Harbor wiped out our past, our homes, our community life, and our businesses, we clung to that paper, as we would to a spar, a raft, the beacon of a lighthouse … Our little weekly paper, the New Canadian , the only survivor of the shutdown orders on the local Japanese press, kept on repeating editorially: "Have Faith In Canada!"

Keeping our faith was an uphill job, when our cars, radios, and cameras were impounded, our homes taken over and sold over our protests. When our freedom to move, to assemble, to work, to find homes, was curtailed, restricted and administrated by both the RCMP and a new office called the Japanese Division, Department of Labour."
Muriel Kitigawa as cited in THIS IS MY OWN, Talonbooks, 1985, Roy Miki, ed.

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"It's hard to even think of the people's feelings towards the Nikkei people. It was the media that was responsible, and the politicians, too. There were three "wheeling and dealing" politicians at the coast who pushed the "back across the briny solution". They came into political prominence on these anti-Japanese issues. The media, particularly the Sun, was particularly harsh. The cartoons in those days pictured our skin to be like lemon and our eyes thin and slanted and we had big buck teeth.
The slogan they pushed was "once a Jap always a Jap". It didn't matter that we had never seen Japan, didn't know that country or have any connection with it and that we were Canadians."

... Kaslo internee and long time resident, Aya Higashi from the Langham tape collection.

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'Trick or Treat' Wartime Propaganda
6 November 1943

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"Most of the people in Kaslo had never seen Japanese people. With the propaganda, they had heard terrible things about us. Suddenly a town of 500 was to receive 1100 or 1200 hundred new residents. Were they enemy or foreigners? You could see why the townsfolk would be apprehensive. But most of them treated us very well."

... Aya Higashi from the Langham tape collection.

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Train Departing to Ghost Town Camps
1942

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The Japanese Canadian community was leaving everything behind, suffering family break-up and facing an unknown future.

"I was 7 when we were forced to leave Vancouver. On the train, an Italian Canadian conductor befriended us. He said that it was a real shame what they were doing to us. They weren't doing it to the Italians or the Germans. We stayed in Slocan for about 5 months I think. My father was apparently still in Vancouver because he was ill. When Tom Shoyama called him to set up a Japanese section of the New Canadian we moved to Kaslo to join him."
... Marge Umezuki from the Langham tape collection.

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Internees Arrive At Slocan
1942

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SLOCAN WAS A REAL MESS

"That was a long train ride. We didn't know anyone else in the group. It was late summer when the train unloaded us. Slocan was a wilderness to us. It was a real mess. People didn't know where they were or where their families or friends were. It was as though you went to a rally with two thousand people and you didn't know anybody and you were totally lost. And nothing was familiar. Everyone was running around trying to find loved ones and trying to get settled and things like that. I don't even remember what housing we had."
... Aya Higashi from the Langham tape collection.

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Japanese Canadian 'Road Camp'
1942

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With the Ghost Town Exodus, The New Canadian resumed publication in Kaslo on November 30, 1942. It had become the main source of community news and government policy directives within the Japanese Canadian community. The Authorities had realized that communication with the Issei generation of Japanese speakers would require Japanese language media, so the decision was made to turn the NEW CANADIAN into a bilingual publication.

"Junji Ikeno's father Munisuke had just returned from a special trip to Vancouver. The government had asked Mr. Ikeno to recover all the fonts to replenish the needs of The New Canadian. That weekly bilingual newspaper was being published with permission of the government as the only news and communications source for the Japanese-Canadian population which was being scattered across Canada. Amongst the articles confiscated by the Custodian of Enemy Alien Property, warehoused together with the fonts of Japanese type which had belonged to his printing business prior to the evacuation, Mr. Ikeno found a box of Harmonicas. With the beginning of the Japanese language section of the New Canadian, the Lemon Creek Harmonica Band was also founded."

... Former New Canadian Staffer Noji Murase as cited in the Nikkei Voice, Toronto, 2002.

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The New Canadian staffer Junji Ikeno on the linotype machine.
1944
Kaslo,BC

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HOW THE NEWSPAPER WAS PRODUCED by Frank Moritsugu

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning we wrote and edited all copy in the office and sent it on to linotypest Ikeno next door in the "Kootenaian Newspaper" shop. On Wednesday afternoon, Thursday and Friday we composed the type in the forms and picked headlines by hand in the plant. On Saturday we addressed, wrapped and mailed the week's issue.
Another thing: The week's issue could not be "put to bed" on the press until the wire arrived from the censor (usually late Thursday) giving approval or suggesting certain deletions. What the Censor of Enemy-Language Publications, based in Vancouver, got from us were carbons of all our copies - English and Japanese. And accompanying the Japanese copy were English summaries, which the assistant editor had whipped together on Wednesdays with help of the Kenkyusha dictionary, help from the Japanese editor and a lot of curses.

From…The Kaslo Years … How the Newspaper was produced by Frank Moritsugu. First published in the June 14, 1958 in the New Canadian.

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Aya Higashi with former New Canadian staffer Frank Moritsugu at Homecoming Show.
1992
Kaslo,BC

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"We moved into a house up the hill on Sutherland's Farm along with the staff of the New Canadian. My mother used to cook for the whole gang. There was Tom Shoyama, Roy Ito, Harry Kondo and a gentle older man who spoke Japanese, who used to be a photographer and had a collection of beautiful photographs. And I remember Junji Ikeno , Noji Murase and others. They used to play poker in the evenings. I remember it as a very pleasant time. It was like having a bunch of fun-loving uncles who used to kid us all the time..."

... Marje Umezuki from the Langham tapes collection

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The New Canadian Staff
1943

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The New Canadian Staff
1943
Kaslo,BC

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Later,"Because of the housing shortage our family moved out to Allsbrook's Camp, a summer camp out Shutty Bench way. About 4 miles by road I think , or 2 miles by rowboat.
The rest of the NC staff moved to a house by Vimy Park I think. Our father used to row us into school every day through all kinds of weather. Some times it was very rough. We all learned how to bale out water. I don't remember being afraid but in retrospect my father must have had a few fearful moments with three little kids in a row boat. I don't remember there being anything like life jackets aboard. After school we went to the NC office to wait for dad to row us back home again."
Marje Umezuki from the Langham tape collection

New Canadian Staffers on the beach:
Back L to R.
Harry Kondo, Tom Shoyama, Takaichi Umezuki.
Front: Harold Mayeda, Roy Ito, Junji Ikeno.

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"Our people were filled with such great feeling of fear, dread, bitterness, anger, and resentment. And we all wondered what the future held for us. To try to create some stability and to try to fill in that huge gap of the unknown was the role of our newspaper."

... Tommy Shoyama from the Langham tapes.

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Japanese Canadian Buddhist congregation in front of Kaslo Hotel.
1944
Kaslo,BC

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"I came to Kaslo in 1942 on the Moyie. I had a thirty day old baby I had to carry there. One family could bring 175 pounds. Not very much. I couldn't carry anything but my son. Then our two apple boxes arrived. It was cold. And so sad you know. I just went into my room in the Kaslo Hotel with my baby. It was a bunk bed. l don't think at that time it had any mattress. Just hay."

...Mrs K. Takenaka.

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Langham Japanese Canadian Museum replicates internment era sleeping room.
1992
Kaslo,BC

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"Of course we were put into vacant buildings. Vacant since the twenties when the depression hit. I think the depression hit Kaslo long before the real depression hit the rest of the country. The buildings were uninsulated and plastered in those days and the plaster was all fallen down. Windows were broken. They were dirty and crowded."

... Aya Higashi

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Behind the Langham Hotel
1943
Kaslo,BC

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In May of 1942, my mother and her seven children (ages 8 months to 13 years) were loaded into a train and then the S. S. Moyie, steamship to Kaslo. There we were housed at the Langham Hotel in one room with a divider. We shared it with another family of 8, the Tabata's. Later the Tabata's were moved into another building. We lived in the Langham for two and a half years.

... Mrs. Konno relates in a letter to the Langham.

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Trunk brought to Langham by Konno family in 1942.
1992
Kaslo,BC

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St. Andrew's United Church
1944
Kaslo,BC

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"The BC Security Commission evacuated the people by Church groups. For example, the Catholics went to Greenwood. Members of the United Church and Buddhists both came here to Kaslo. We all lived together harmoniously. This was good, but families were still separated.

Many older people (Issei) were hard for me to understand. As I said before, I was raised among Caucasian people and had little contact with other Japanese Canadians previous to internment. I just didn't know many Nikkei people outside of my family. When we came here we were cheek to jowl with them. It was a new experience. I had learned Japanese at home but it was a formal form of Japanese. I was embarrassed about my Japanese as it wasn't like the comfortable colloquial Japanese which the others spoke easily and freely among themselves. For that reason, I didn't speak Japanese during internment. Most people didn't know that I could."

... Aya Higashi

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Rev. Shimizu and ladies in front of Security Commission Office.
1943
Kaslo,BC

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Editorial by The Reverend K. Skimizu
from The New Canadian in 1943

ON A SENSE OF HUMOUR

In life we meet many things which are hard, sad, offensive and painful. But there is a humorous side also. Given a good sense of humour, there are many reasons for laughter whatever the circumstances may be. In life it is important to cry at times. But it is equally important that we laugh.

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Primary and beginner's Sunday school at the United Church.
1944
Kaslo,BC

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"It never occurred to us to question. The pain of being treated like a criminal was there but we never questioned it. They said people of Japanese origin were not to fish because they could contact the Japanese battleships and so forth. …but I don't know how the battleships could get to Kootenay Lake!"

... Aya Higashi from the Langham tapes

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Kaslo Japanese Canadian School
1944
Kaslo,BC

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To the adults, the children were the first concern. The war might be over in a matter of months, or it might continue for years. Their English education must continue. They must be prepared to proceed with their lives when it was all over. But there was no provision for their education. They could not be enrolled at the local school. For the little ones kindergarten was started by a United Church missionary, Miss Sadler and two young Japanese Canadian church workers.

Classes for elementary-aged children were started by untrained high school graduates and a few university students (whose education had been interrupted by the war) as teachers. The first summer, the children were gathered in small groups. Classes were taught in the park and in empty kitchens, vacant rooms or buildings; wherever space was available. There were no books, blackboards or chalk at first.

... Aya Higashi

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Desk from the Internment Years in the Langham Museum.
2006
Kaslo,BC

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In the fall of 1943 the Farmers Institute Building was leased by the Security Commission. Temporary walls were put up, and the school moved once more. This was to be the school for the duration. Discarded and outdated textbooks and old desks from up the lake were donated and school was in full swing.

... Aya Higashi

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Kaslo Ball Teams in Vimy Park
1943
Kaslo,BC

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After settling in and meeting the other occupants of their particular buildings, life went on for the Kaslo Japanese Canadians. They began to organize and to use their time to advantage: churches, clubs (music, crafts, haiku, drama), the Canadian Red Cross, seminars (music, sewing, cooking), sports (baseball, basketball, soccer, skating, gymnastics, softball and Kendo). The ladies continued to knit and sew for the Red Cross. Not withstanding that the government had labeled them "enemy aliens" , they nonetheless considered themselves Canadians and worked for the war effort. This was a puzzlement to some amongst the local citizenry - enemy aliens and prisoners of war working in support of the war effort.

... Aya Higashi

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"We kids were too young to feel anxious about the uncertainty of our situation. Kaslo was a beautiful area to grow up in -- with the lake and the mountains and the forests and the creek. Its only in retrospect that I get angry about the betrayal of the government and think about the anguish that my mother and father and all the older generation had to go through. Still it can't be denied that the Kaslo years were a memorable and exciting time for everyone."

... Joy Kogawa from Langham tapes

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Japanese Canadian Boy Scout Troop, picnicing at Ainsworth.
1944
Ainsworth,BC

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The Bus Depot in Kaslo. Scene of many departures.
1944
Kaslo,BC

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GOVERNMENT DISPERSION POLICY

"People don't realize how much we were moved around. We moved eight times. Towards the end of the war, they started to move everybody out as their numbers came up. They sent them east of the Rockies. They were sent to work on beet farms in Alberta or as domestics out East, as foundry workers in Ontario, or as loggers in remote camps. If you decided to go East they sent you immediately. Good-byes were said once again -- often never to meet again. We sang "Till We Meet again" countless times.

Till we meet again …tears, hugs, pain.
Till we meet again …Take care. Look after yourselves.
God be with you … Be brave. Heads Up.
Till we meet again …Farewell, Sayonara. Good-bye. …"

... Aya Higashi

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GOVERNMENT "REPATRIATION POLICY"

If for some pressing reason you couldn't go East they pressured you to sign to go to Japan. They called it "volunteer repatriation" but to me it was neither voluntary nor repatriation. It was deportation. We knew that if you signed then they could say, "Well, you signed. You wanted to leave Canada." But as for me, I had reasons that I couldn't go East. My mother was sick in the hospital. I was giving her transfusions. She was hemorrhaging and they didn't know whether it was cancer or what. Our blood was compatible. I couldn't go East and leave her. Also, I had my young brother who was ten years younger than I to take care of. Father was somewhere in a work camp.

...Aya Higashi

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We were given 2 days to sign one way or the other. I spent a couple nights at the Church looking for direction. In those days the Churches were never locked. I went soul searching and praying and I finally decided that I just couldn't go east. We had until 5 pm on the second day to sign but I didn't turn up. They came after me. Come and sign. There were a few stragglers and our replacement officer came over and told me to sign up. I said no, I can't do it. He couldn't see why I couldn't do it. It was my whole future and this is my country and I'm not willing to give it up. And I can't desert my family either, I told him.

...Aya Higashi

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Leaving Slocan for ' Repatriation to Japan'
1946
Slocan, BC

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I finally turned up and signed, but our local representative was very angry with me for being a day late because he wanted to take these RCMP officers on the lake fishing,,, and here was a little snip of a girl slowing things down. It was a big decision and I talked to the RCMP. I had no choice but to sign, as I couldn't leave. The only way to remain was to sign so I went and explained, "I want you to witness this." I wrote all around the margins: You know that I am doing this under duress. For me it's a temporary measure. I will fight it all the way. I won't be shipped out alive. Nobody will take the country away from me.
He signed it and he told me. "I guarantee it. You won't be shipped out". I never heard anything more about it. He really knew how I felt. I'd hate to go through anything like that again or wish it on anybody else. Losing your country! Some were not so lucky, and actually had to go to Japan.

... Aya Higashi

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"When the War was over they started closing the evacuation centers and clearing everyone out. Some from Tashme were sent to Kaslo as a stopover before their final relocation out of B.C.. Many were also sent to Greenwood from Kaslo to be shipped out from there; shuffling people around for reasons we could not fathom. It seemed so inefficient and unnecessary. But I suppose they had their reasons, or did they? People were moved all over, unbelievable! I think I've mentioned that I was moved ten times. I was one of the few stragglers left in Kaslo. From here, I was sent to the Slocan to teach. I lived in Bayfarm and taught at Popoff about three miles away. We walked it in those days." . . . Aya Higashi

By 1949 most of the internees had been dispersed across Canada. A few remained in the Ghost Towns. In 1949 the Japanese Canadians were finally released and free to go where they wished, even to the coast if they could afford it. The community as they had known it in the prewar years no longer existed. Though the war had been over for five years, it took this long for us to have our freedom back. The nightmare of the War Years was over and it was time to pick up the pieces.

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The late Harry Tsuchiya with Kootenaycraft artifacts.
1992

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... from THE CAMPS: BURNING THE DEAD by Kevin Irie
1950

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The fight for compensation for the wartime injustices has been ongoing. The New Canadian continued with its leadership role. When the Redress Movement was in full swing, Price Waterhouse was hired to assess the direct financial losses suffered by Japanese Canadians through losses of their confiscated property. It found direct financial loss of not less than $443 Million measured in 1986 dollars.

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The generosity of the Japanese Canadian community through The Japanese Canadian Redress Foundation and individual donors have assisted the Langham Cultural Society in its valuable historic work.

Thank you to all Japanese Canadians for continuing to ensure that their story is retold, the that the fight against racism is ongoing. Special thanks to Aya Higashi, Tommy Shoyama, Frank Moritsugu, Marge Umezuki, and the Japanese Canadian Community at large for their efforts in educating us to the historic significance of The Kaslo Years of the New Canadian. Thanks also to Elizabeth Scarlett and the Kootenay Lake Archives for their ongoing invaluable assistance.

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The Langham Museum Dedication
1992

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