Introduction

An earlier article on Discover Nikkei titled “A Japanese Canadian Child Exile: The Life History of Basil Izumi” presented the life history of Basil Izumi, a second-generation Japanese Canadian born on April 25, 1937 in Vancouver who, with his family, experienced incarceration in various internment camps during World War II, was exiled to Japan following the war at the age of nine and, at the age of twelve, returned alone to Canada where he lived with relatives. That article also described his career in Canada as a high school teacher and then in the fish packing industry as well as his active role in the Holy Cross Japanese Canadian Anglican Church in Vancouver. It additionally described his childhood memories about his parents, especially about his father, John Tadao Izumi, who had immigrated from Wakayama to Canada at the age of 19, trained as a photographer, and took numerous photos of the various internment camps where the family lived during the war.

However, the research for that article had a serious handicap. Because Basil had returned to Canada alone in 1949 and subsequently had no direct contact with his father and only reconnected with his mother and sisters many years later, the information he could offer about their lives in Japan after his return to Canada was limited.

Fortunately, after publication of that article, through the intermediation of Basil, the writer was able to make contact with his two sisters, Megumi and Emiko, and his half-sister, Junko, who live in Japan. They readily agreed to cooperate with the writer’s research. The writer was also very fortunate to receive the help of Professor Masumi Izumi of Doshisha University who twice visited and conducted detailed video-recorded interviews in Japanese with the sisters—the first one with Megumi, Emiko and Junko (their half-sister), and the second one with Megumi and Emiko—and then gave the writer free access and permission to use the recordings of those interviews as the core source of data for this research. She additionally participated in several follow-up visits with the sisters.

The writer also received valuable assistance from Satoshi Shiraki, an English instructor at Konan University, who transcribed the interviews and helped the author with some difficult expressions in the Kansai dialect. From the information gathered through the interviews of the sisters emerged a fascinating account of their parents’ lives as Japanese Canadian exiles in Japan and what it was like to grow up as children in a Japanese Canadian exile family in post-war Japan. Their life histories are interwoven in this paper, which is essentially a sequel to the previous article on the life history of Basil Izumi and should be read in conjunction with it.

Background of the Izumi Family

The mother, May (Ume) Shiga, was a second-generation Japanese Canadian born in Vancouver in 1915 to Japanese immigrants from Kochi prefecture. They had arrived in Canada sometime sometime between 1910 and 1912 as a married couple with a small son and ran a store in Vancouver. At some point they converted to Christianity and became active members of the Holy Cross Anglican Mission where May’s father volunteered as a custodian and her mother played the piano in the church services.

John Izumi with employer Mr. Campbell at Campbell Photography Studio in Vancouver
(photo courtesy of Izumi sisters)

The father, John (Tadao) Izumi, was born in 1910 in Shimosato, a small coastal village in Wakayama where his parents engaged in farming. He came to Canada alone at the age of nineteen, following a friend from the same village, James Shingo Murakami, who later would become a well-known photographer. John’s first job was fishing for the Celtic Cannery, but he soon started looking for photography work and was introduced by Murakami to Campbell Studio where he apprenticed as a photographer. Murakami also introduced John to the Holy Cross Anglican Mission where he converted to Christianity.

It seems that John and May met while attending the mission activities as both were active members of the mission and it played a central role in their lives.

They lived at various locations in Vancouver including Powell Street, Cordova Street, and Nelson Street. On April 25, 1937, May gave birth to their first child, Basil. It appears they had many friends and generally enjoyed their life within the Japanese Canadian community. They actively participated in church social activities such as picnics and home Bible studies and Basil attended Sunday school and kindergarten at the Holy Cross Mission where he was taught by Margaret Foster, a respected and much-beloved Anglican kindergarten teacher who would later follow the Japanese Canadians to the internment camps and help establish kindergartens there.

Uprooting and Internment

Second child Megumi at Harris Ranch internment camp shortly before exile to Japan
(photo courtesy of Izumi sisters)

When the uprooting and internment of Japanese Canadians occurred soon after the start of the war, John was initially sent to work in a road construction camp while Basil and his mother were sent directly from Vancouver to the Slocan City internment camp. Soon John was released from the road camp and joined them, and they moved to another nearby camp at New Denver.

Cameras were officially banned from the camps. However, apparently some officials became lax in enforcing the rules against the possession of cameras and taking photos. John wanted to photograph life in the camps, and it seems he received permission to do so, and the Izumi family lived in various camps in the Slocan Lake area. Both Megumi and Emiko were born during this period; Megumi, on April 22, 1944, and Emiko on August 6, 1945.

Read Part 2 >>

Note: The content of Chapter 1 is elaborated in more detail in Part 3 and Part 4 of the series “A Japanese Canadian Child Exile: The Life History of Basil Izumi.” (Discover Nikkei, April to June 2018)

© 2021 Stan Kirk