Why it’s never too late to apologize: Japanese internment
September 22, 2018, marks the 30th anniversary of the historic Redress Settlement from the Government of Canada to all Japanese-Canadians who were taken from their homes and forced into internment camps in Canada during World War II.
In the United States, more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent were sent to internment camps during World War II.
I wish my “ojiichan” (grandfather) Ishii was still alive to see the agreement signed in Ottawa thirty years ago. I wonder what he would have felt?
It was a deeply buried secret, the internment camps, that I didn’t know about until I was 17. My history teacher Mr. Hillary talked about it in class one day. He liked to share things you didn’t find in the history books, and that’s one of the reasons his classes were popular.
I went home from school that day surprised and confused.
Mr. Hillary had said that the Japanese-Canadians were taken away from their homes and interned during World War II using the War Measures Act, stripping them of their civil liberties, personal freedoms, and possessions, and was a grave error. I perked up when I heard Japanese-Canadians. Heh, that’s me!
I wondered if my parents would know anything about this as they spoke little about their past and certainly not this. During family dinner that night, I asked my father about it, and he said: “yes, we lost everything, and were put in camps”.
What surprised me more than anything else was that my father had never mentioned this to me before.
A typical 17-year-old, I didn’t think much about my parents’ backgrounds before this incident, absorbed in my own world of fitting in and being accepted in high school, only standing out enough so I would get special attention or praise.
This was when the song “Turning Japanese” was released by the band the Vapors, and all things Japanese were “in”, including Hello Kitty, PAC-MAN, Astro Boy, Sailor Moon, and me. I was “in” by the very fact of my looks.
I never thought then how different it was for my grandparents and parents.
With World War II and Canada at war with Japan, the Japanese in Canada were categorized as “enemy aliens”, even though the majority were Canadian by birth and naturalized citizens. They were definitely not “in” but kept on the outside fringes of “normal” society, with not even the right to vote until 1949.
After the end of the war, the internees in the camps were given two options. Go east of the Rockies or to Japan. They couldn’t go back to where they came from and their homes. My ojiichan Ishii chose to return to Kobe, Japan, some forty years later, taking his family with him.
Once in Japan, ojiichan realized there was nothing left after the war. He told his children to go back to Canada.
My Aunt Helen, who had married in the internment camp and had stayed in Canada with her husband, worked hard at Nikko Gardens restaurant in Toronto to pay for her siblings and parents to return to Canada.
Ojiichan Ishii never made it back. He died there on July 15, 1949.
I believe he always loved Canada, with many dreams realized. A beautiful island with a cherished homestead and dream life he had created from the ground up through a successful fishing business, his picture bride, and six children.
But his love, Canada, called him names, took what he built up and owned, put him and his family into a camp, and didn’t allow him to leave until the end of the war. This must have been hard on him.
Maybe ojiichan realized at some point, as I did from my long-term relationship that ended, that someone may turn their back on you, but it’s not easy to erase the memories from your heart. The love and excitement that took you there in first place and kept you there for what you thought would be forever, still remain, even though you are not together anymore.
My father and mother, as “nisei” or second generation of Japanese-born immigrants (issei), were happy enough with the formal apology in 1988, and more so with the compensation. Who doesn’t like extra money? But I wouldn’t say there were ecstatic.
Looking back, I think it was surreal and bittersweet for them.
Over forty years later there is an apology for a wrong that was done to you and others. They were children then, memories distant, and the redress agreement brought back memories of what their parents had to endure, and sadness that they were no longer around to hear the apology.
More than this, I believe they heard the whispers of their parents, often saying “shikata ga nai”, meaning “it can’t be helped” or “nothing can be done about it” so we need to accept our fate and let the past go.
Shikata ga nai is an important part of Japanese culture and helped my grandparents endure what happened to them, from being taken away from their island and home, to being put into internment camps in ghost towns, and then released, realizing that they could not go back to their homes as was originally promised to them and all they owned had been sold or destroyed.
Generations that came afterward were shocked and outraged by what happened to the Japanese-Canadians during World War II. They felt that the time for “shikata ga nai” was over and believed that something needed to be done to acknowledge this black mark in Canadian history for Japanese-Canadians and all Canadians.
I’m extremely grateful for the hard work of Arthur Miki and the National Association of Japanese Canadians, and countless others, who worked tirelessly to seek a formal apology and compensation for Japanese-Canadians who were interned by the Government of Canada during Work War II, leading to the historic Redress agreement signed in Ottawa on September 22, 1988.
After a decade-long campaign by the Japanese-American community, United States President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, apologizing for Japanese-American internment and providing compensation to surviving victims.
Being of Japanese descent, I feel that the collective shame and pain of being Japanese in Canada during World War II was in my DNA. If we can pass on hereditary characteristics and diseases from one generation to another, why not traumatic experiences too?
A Science Daily article of April 13, 2014, says that it has long been known in psychology that traumatic experiences can induce behavioural disorders that are passed down from one generation to the next.
“The environment leaves traces on the brain, on organs and also on gametes. Through gametes, these traces can be passed to the next generation,”. explains Isabelle Mansuy, a professor at the Brain Research Institute of the University of Zurich.
The formal apology to the wider community of Canada and the world, and not only to Japanese-Canadians, saying we made a mistake, we think it was wrong, and we want to correct it, made me feel that our family finally belonged in Canada and stopped the collective shame we felt for being who we are.
We were Canadians before because we born and lived here, but I am not sure we belonged before.
Brené Brown, internationally-renowned researcher and speaker on shame, says, when we “fit in” as opposed to “belong,” we acclimate to the situation instead of standing for our authentic self. Shame says, “I’m a bad person and not good enough.”
Brown says, “Shame is the most powerful, master emotion” and makes people do things that are destructive to themselves and others.”
I believe this is the same for countries with shame. Without recognition of our wrongs and apologies, we could repeat the same mistakes over and over again, we have collective guilt and discomfort over the words unsaid, and there is always a ball and chain around our ankles, holding us back from moving forward together.
This is why the apology was necessary. And why an apology made late still matters.
I’d like to think that my grandparents, while long gone when the Redress agreement was signed, knew it happened and cried with tears of relief and joy.
There are so many things that happen in our lifetimes that could harden us.
People and organizations, and even the government in this case, wrong us. Loved ones turn their backs on us when we need them most. And people we love die before we can apologize to them and express what they meant to us.
We may not see an apology in this lifetime for the wrongdoings of others against us and the people we love. But this may not be the end of the story.
Ojiichan Ishii must have thought that he saw the end of the story when he died in 1949. However, with all stories, we never know where we are in the story. We may think it’s the end, but it may be only the beginning.
One of my favourite proverbs, says,
Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, it turned into a butterfly.
Originally published at Caroline Ishii.
