Stan Kirk
@StankirkStan Kirk grew up in rural Alberta and graduated from the University of Calgary. He now lives in Ashiya City, Japan with his wife Masako and son Takayuki Donald. Presently he teaches English at the Institute for Language and Culture at Konan University in Kobe. Recently Stan has been researching and writing the life histories of Japanese Canadians who were exiled to Japan at the end of World War II.
Updated April 2018
Stories from This Author
Chapter 6: Roy’s Reflections on Culture Shock, Discrimination, Cultural Identity, and Bilingualism
Oct. 5, 2025 • Stan Kirk
Read Chapter 5 With his detailed recollections of his various experiences of uprooting, racial bigotry, exile to Japan, and repatriation to Canada, Roy often reflects on the significance of those experiences both for himself and for society at large. Experiences of Racism Roy’s mindset is still strongly affected by his own experiences of the racial persecution he experienced, especially as an elementary school child in Vancouver. He frequently comments that hearing the pejorative term “Jap,” first used against him by …
Chapter 5: Return to Canada and Readjustment to Canadian Life
Sept. 21, 2025 • Stan Kirk
Read Chapter 4 The Canadian government decided in 1949 to allow Japanese Canadians exiled to Japan to restore their Canadian citizenship which had been taken from them when they agreed to be sent to Japan at the end of the war. Japanese Canadian exiles scattered throughout Japan were advised to go to Tokyo, visit the Canadian embassy, and reapply for Canadian citizenship. Roy did so and received his citizenship certificate in April of 1953. He often talked with those around …
Chapter 4: Life in Post-War Japan
Sept. 7, 2025 • Stan Kirk
Read Chapter 3 The day after their arrival in their father’s ancestral village Takatsuka, Roy, his father, and two sisters moved to their uncle’s house. Eventually they received more permanent lodging in an abandoned clinic owned by a relative. Roy explains, “A relative had a medical clinic right in the center of the village, but it had been closed several years before the war when a hospital was built. So, it was available as a place for us to live …
Chapter 3: Exile to Japan, Arduous Journey to Father's Home Village
Aug. 17, 2025 • Stan Kirk
Read Chapter 2 Roy’s father was among those Japanese Canadians who, when given the difficult choice by the Canadian government to disperse “east of the Rockies” or forfeit their citizenship and be shipped to Japan, ended up choosing the latter. This was partly because of the complete betrayal he felt from the way the Canadian government had violated his rights as a Canadian citizen and had dispossessed him of all the property he had spent so many years laboring to …
Chapter 2: Pre-War Life and Wartime Internment in Canada
Aug. 3, 2025 • Stan Kirk
Read Chapter 1 In September 1941, Roy and his sister Marion enrolled in Kerrisdale Elementary School in Vancouver. Because he could only speak a few simple words in English and did not know how to even write the alphabet, he was moved back to grade one. This, combined with the drastic difference in educational culture from the very regimented and militarized elementary school he had just come from in Japan, turned out to be the first major culture shock of …
Chapter 1: Life in Canada and Japan Before the War
July 20, 2025 • Stan Kirk
Roy Uyeda was born in a small fishing hamlet in Vancouver called Celtic Cannery1 on November 10, 1933, to Tokinosuke and Shige (Kadota) Uyeda. Roy was the youngest child and had three brothers and five sisters. His father was from a small village called Takatsuka in Fukuoka prefecture in Kyushu where he had apprenticed in farming for five years from the age of 12, during which time he acquired a wide variety of Japanese farm-related skills ranging from ploughing fields …
Chapter 5—Reestablishing Their Connection with Basil
March 2, 2025 • Stan Kirk
Read Chapter 4 Why John and May Never Moved Back to Canada It remains a mystery why John and May never returned to Canada when it became possible to do so despite their English skills and diverse range of work skills. May stayed in contact with her mother and sisters and would have known that the conditions in Canada were much better than those in postwar Japan. Unlike May, John did not have family in Canada but his close friend …
Chapter 4—Memories of Their Parents’ Lives in Japan
Feb. 23, 2025 • Stan Kirk
Read Chapter 3 Memories of Their Mother May After being joined by John and the girls in Kyoto, May continued working as a simultaneous interpreter, translator, and typist at various bases. It seems she was exceptionally skillful as a simultaneous interpreter and could switch seamlessly between English and Japanese. Megumi recalls hearing from May that she had won first prize in several simultaneous interpretation contests held at her workplace. She did well financially as long as the bases remained open. …
Chapter 3—The Sisters’ Childhood in Japan After Basil’s Return to Canada
Feb. 16, 2025 • Stan Kirk
Read Chapter 2 Basil’s Return to Canada Perhaps because he was several years older than the girls, Basil struggled the most trying to adjust to life in Japan. The sisters often noticed him reading English books by himself and believe that he was having an especially difficult time fitting into village society. They feel this was exacerbated by the severe treatment he received from both his father and his grandmother as the oldest child. Apparently both of his parents eventually …
Chapter 2—Exile to Japan and Childhood in Shimosato, Wakayama
Feb. 9, 2025 • Stan Kirk
Read Chapter 1 Exile to Japan John and May were among those Japanese Canadians who made the difficult choice of exile to Japan at the end of the war rather than forced dispersal to eastern Canada. Their reasons for doing so and which of them made the final decision are still rather unclear. The eldest daughter Megumi speculates: I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was Father who decided as Mother had been born and raised in Canada. She had siblings …
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