SUCCESS STORY

what it means to be NIKKEI

By Nic Enright-Morin Photos by Sandra Minarik

When Sherri Kajiwara came to Canada from Japan, she was just three years old. She had not been exposed to English whatsoever, which would be a challenge for any newcomer, but even more so for a child who was being sent to Canada for adoption.

“My adoptive parents tried to have their own kids and couldn’t, and I was living with my brother and grandmother in Japan,” says Kajiwara. “In Japan, there was an old tradition, going back hundreds and thousands of years, where if one family had many children and another family didn’t, often the younger children were given up for adoption to the family that didn’t have any children. It was along those lines that my adoptive family and birth family were brought together.”

Kajiwara’s grandmother was raising her and her older brother, but because she had so little support to help with caring for the children and an ailing husband, she decided to have the children adopted, for the chance of a better life.

Although Kajiwara was supposed to be adopted alongside her brother, she ended up coming to Canada by herself, leaving behind everything she had ever known. Despite being so young, Kajiwara says that the transition didn’t faze her. “I spent my rst year in Canada in Lethbridge, Alberta. I don’t remember much of it at all,” she says. “But I was very outgoing and soon I had all the neighbourhood kids following behind me singing Japanese songs. I remember it as being very welcoming. It was probably an easier place to transition into than a large city.”

Because her adoptive parents promised her grandmother that they would keep up her Japanese language and heritage, the family moved a year later to Vancouver, where they felt there would be more opportunity to access Japanese traditions and culture. Kajiwara says her adoptive family worked hard to ensure that she felt a strong connection with her birth country and today she feels she has a rm footing in both places.

“My Canadian family was very open-minded and brought me back to visit Japan many times. ey wanted me to know my brother as my brother,” she says. “When I rst went back, I had lost a lot of my Japanese; I could understand him, I couldn’t argue back, and I didn’t like that at all! I wanted to win the arguments with my older brother, so that gave me the motivation to relearn the language. By the time I graduated from the University of British Columbia here, I was uent.”

Since 2010, Kajiwara has been further immersed in Japanese language and culture, working at the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre, in Burnaby, B.C. ( e word “Nikkei” is derived from the term nikkeijin in Japanese, which refers to Japanese people who emigrated from Japan and their descendants.) And, for the past year, she has been the director and curator of the museum. e Japanese community has a long history in Canada, and the Nikkei Centre o cially opened on Sept. 22, 2000, to commemorate its place in the Canadian mosaic. e date of the museum opening is a signi cant one, as it is the anniversary of the Canadian government’s formal apology for how Japanese Canadians were treated during the Second World War. e centre itself is home to a Japanese cultural centre, a museum, a community centre and a Japanese garden. “When I rst moved to Vancouver, the Nikkei Centre did not exist, which is interesting, because this is de nitely the type of facility that would have ful lled all of the obligations my adoptive parents made when they adopted me, so it’s interesting that I’ve >>

Sherri Kajiwara was just a kid when she left Japan, but today she’s one of Canada’s most devoted promoters of Nikkei culture and history

<< come full circle,” she says.

As curator and director of the museum, Kajiwara takes care of the exhibits and, along with her team, co-ordinates education programs, museum programs, the archives collections and research. e Taiken Exhibit, which is a permanent feature at the museum, documents the rich history of Japanese-born immigrants since their arrival in Canada. is includes stories of the rst settlers who came in 1877, the hardships of the early pioneers, the struggles of the Japanese Canadian community during the war years and how they rebuilt their lives in the 1950s.

Kajiwara says that until the end of the Second World War, Japanese Canadians faced a lot of adversity, including prejudice and racism. “ ere was de nitely an anti-Asian sentiment and certainly the Japanese were not the only ones that faced this prejudice,” she says.

“My aunt [in Canada] was apparently extremely intelligent and quite ambitious and she wanted to go to university to get her teaching degree. But her father, knowing the racism, knowing the reality of the economy at the time, knew she wouldn’t be able to get a job after university and so he encouraged her to go to sewing school instead, so she would have a skill to support herself.”

Fortunately, Kajiwara says that attitudes have changed considerably since the end of the Second World War and, today, the view that Japanese Canadians are a longstanding and integral part of Canadian culture is the norm. She says Canada’s openness to diversity is also apparent when you consider the variety of people that come to the Nikkei National Museum. “We get the whole spectrum coming

to visit us! We have Metro Vancouver residents, Japanese Canadians from all over the country, as well as new immigrants to Canada,” she says. “ e Japanese in Canada have a high intermarriage rate, so it means that we are in many, many cultures in Canada. e Gladstone Japanese Language School is also in the building so there are many young families who come here to educate their kids in the language and culture.” With Asian Heritage Month being celebrated in May, Kajiwara says the museum is proud to be hosting the nal award dinner and gala for the ExplorAsian celebraI was very outgoing and soon I had all the neighbourhood kids following behind me singing Japanese songs.” tions in Vancouver. “Asian Heritage Month is important to celebrate because where we are situated is so multicultural and we have so many di erent Asian cultures here. It’s all about awareness and education, and if there is broader attention paid, even if it is just for one month, then that awareness will increase across the board. But, hopefully, people will appreciate that here at the Nikkei Centre, we are Asian heritage 24/7, 365 days a year!” she says with a warm laugh. And Kajiwara is forever grateful for her own journey to Canada. “I believe it has given me more opportunity and that is exactly the vision my grandmother had. She felt it would be easier for a young girl from a broken home to be able to move ahead in life and get a better education and have better opportunities here,” she says. “I like Canada because there is much more equity between the sexes, it’s more liberal and has freedom of speech. Having said that, there is a beauty to the etiquette, the culture, the grace and the politeness of Japan and I’d like to think I could embrace the best of both.”

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