STORIES

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

The Only Life I Know

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By Paul Kariya

In 1942 my father, Takeo, was taken away and locked up in a concentration camp in Angler, Ontario. He was uprooted from his home on the west coast of Vancouver Island—stripped of his possessions, including the salmon troller he had built and his civil rights as a Canadian citizen—rights to live where he wanted to and make a living as a fisherman.

His crime was that he was of Japanese ancestry during a time when Canada was at war with Japan.

The Adams River at dawn: a fisherman’s delight. Photo: Adams River Salmon Society

The authorities soon realized that he was not a security threat and released him from detention, but demanded that he live east of the Rocky Mountains. He and my mother chose to live in a suburb of Toronto and indentured themselves. My father worked as a farm labourer and my mother worked as a maid to a wealthy landowner. They had no choice, since any assets and equity they possessed previously had been taken.

The attitudes toward Japanese-Canadians at the time were all over the map. In the west, a strong lobby petitioned the government to send all the “Japs” back to Japan because they were out-competing non-Japanese labour. But in central Canada, displaced Japanese labour was sought after because Japanese were seen as hard working, industrious, loyal etc.

The War ended in 1949. The government rescinded discriminatory legislation against Japanese-Canadians and permitted their free movement throughout the country. My father made plans to return to the west coast of Vancouver Island.

The kindly landowner and his wife pleaded with my father and mother to stay on. “We will build you a house, you will have employment for life—why would you return to a place with such bad memories of loss and discrimination?” they asked. “You have nothing to return to—you’ll have to start over again!” .

To this, my father responded, “I am a fisherman. This is why our family came to Canada originally. I have missed the sea for seven long years; I must return to fish, to the only life I know.”