Welcome to Historic Joy Kogawa House

Paul Yee's letter to the mayor and council via email from Todd:

QUOTE

From : Paul Yee
To: mayorandcouncil AT vancouver.ca
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 6:57 PM
Subject: save kogawa house

Mayor Campbell, City Councillors
City of Vancouver

I am writing to add my voice to many others that are asking that you take action to prevent the demolition of the Joy Kogawa House located at 1450 West 64th AVenue in Vancouver.

I have been writing about Vancouver's Chinese Canadians in history and in fiction for some twenty-five years now, and I firmly believe that this house is of historical and literary significance.

It is of especial importance because of its roots in Vancouver's Japanese-Canadian community, which was uprooted and destroyed during World War II by the governments of the day.

The built environment of the past is particularly fragile in Vancouver these days given the tremendous population and development pressures that exist. However, this is an occasion when delicate human memory requires the solid, three-dimensional frame of a house to endure and to flourish.

I urge you to preserve the Kogawa House.

Yours truly

Paul Yee
Toronto, ON

UNQUOTE

I usually don't link to the Globe and Mail because of their r*diculous paywall but I'll make an exception in this case because I love Joy Kogawa's Obasan. Go Todd (By the way Rod Mickleburgh, it's Todd Wong not Wang :-) !) go! Go Joy go! And check out the Obasan Day photos.

From The Globe and Mail: Group rallies to save Kogawa home.:

QUOTE

"It's a big challenge," confessed Todd Wang, spokesman for the Save Kogawa House Committee. "But miracles happen."

Yesterday, a ceremony took place at city hall that gave some solace to Ms. Kogawa and her supporters.

As a mist-like drizzle fell on the north slope municipal gardens, the white-haired, 70-year-old author helped plant a cutting from the aging cherry tree still standing in her old backyard.

"It's propped up and Band-Aided, but it's still very much alive," said Mayor Larry Campbell, who proclaimed yesterday Obasan Cherry Tree Day.

"We now have a new tree that is going to live for generations, commemorating both internment, so it will never be repeated, and the outstanding contributions of Japanese-Canadians to this city."

Ms. Kogawa was clearly moved by the occasion, flooded by memories of her early childhood and the bitterness of what lay ahead, and almost overcome by the rebirth of her backyard cherry tree.

"This is so much more than I ever imagined could happen, as a result of all the things we went through," she told the small group of politicians and friends.

"How is one to make sense of it all? I can't tell you how I feel, except that I am happier than I ever thought I could be. It's like a star bursting forth. I am just so, so grateful."

After Canada's declaration of war against Japan, Joy, her brother Tim and her parents (a kindergarten teacher and Anglican minister), like 20,000 other Japanese-Canadians, were stripped of their possessions and shipped to internment or work camps.

When the war ended, they were not allowed to return to Vancouver, forced to move instead to a tiny shack in rural Alberta. Meanwhile, their Marpole home was auctioned off.

Obasan was quickly recognized as a literary tour de force, named Book of the Year by the Canadian Authors Association and winning a First Novel Award and Best Paperback Fiction Award.

UNQUOTE

Check out kogawa.homestead.com for another source of info.

Nikkei Voice asks Japanese Canadian community for support to preserve Kogawa House


Joy Kogawa at Kogawa House, the house she left at age 6, never to return. 

Katherine Mika Fukuma, the English Editor of the Nikkei Voice, has come out strongly in favor of the effort to save the Joy Kogawa House in her October 2005 "Editor's File" column. The Nikkei Voice is the national forum for Japanese Canadians.

Katherine's editorial, "The JC community is again in need of your support," is nearly half a page long. It reads in part:

"As you may have already read in the Globe and Mail (Sept.24) or in the Vancouver Courier (Sept. 28), the house of Obasan (Joy Kogawa homestead) is currently in danger of being demolished. According to sources, the owner of the Marpole, West 64th Avenue house--in which Joy Kogawa lived until her family was relocated to Slocan Valley when she was six years old--applied to the city of Vancouver for a demolition permit in late-September.

The news came as a disappointment and a shock despite the fact that the city of Vancouver will be planting a cutting of the cherry tree from the backyard of the Marpole home on city hall grounds this fall as a way to commemorate the experience of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.

Other joyous news for Kogawa this year included her book Obasan chosen as the Vancouver Public Library's One Book, One Vancouver selection for 2005, as well as the premiere of the Vancouver Opera's World Premiere production of the opera for young audiences and their family, Naomi's Road. The Vancouver Opera presented four public performances before the production embarks on a province-wide tour, visiting more than 140 schools and community venues throughout B.C. between October 25 and May 2006.  

Furthermore, there was discussion at the September 19, 2005 meeting of the City of Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation of the possibility of naming the new Park for Marpole (at West 72nd Avenue and Osler Street and Selkirk Street) "Joy Kogawa Park." This park will be a neighbourhood park, with a design element representing a Japanese theme to reflect the history of the area.

Now, wouldn't all these events create more than enough meaning to declare the property, or the house as a historical landmark? If it is impossible to purchase the entire property, at least the house itself should be saved, before it is too late.

The house represents more than just a literary icon's childhood home. It is packed with a historical essence of the kind of lifestyle of the prewar Japanese Canadians and may be the last of its kind. Once it is declared a historical landmark much can be done. (Of course, it shouldn't end up as just a museum!)

I surely hope that Vancouver councillors are smarter than those in Toronto...Preserve our nikkei history and heritage and help educate our future generations."



Nikkei Voice, 6 Garamound Court, Toronto, ON, M3C 1Z5
Phone: 416-386-0287
FAX: 416-386-0136
E-Mail: nikkei1@bellnetc.ca

Publisher: Frank Moritsugu
Owner: Nikkei Research and Education Project of Ontario
Circulation: 3000  Subscription: $35.00  Frequency: 10/year

Yusuke Tanaka, Japanese Editor/Advertising Manager
E-Mail: nikvoice@interlog.com

Kogawa House: Can we save the house? Can we move the house?

Lots of developments happening...

Monday, we met with Vancouver Heritage Foundation, and discussed strategies to save the house, and create a way for the present owner to donate the house to the VFH.  To preserve  the house at its present location will mean a purchase price of around $700,000.  To move the house will mean $50,000 + building a $200,000 foundation later.  What is cheaper?

The owner has not been willing to sell, so trying to save the house from demolition and move it seems the best idea.  There is a proposed park that will commemorate the Japanese Canadian community at Selkirk and 72nd Ave.

To avoid the demolition of the house, we have planned to go to City Council to ask for a stay of demolition, due to the Heritage quality of the house.
Initially that would have been Oct 20 - but the demolition application has not been submitted yet.

But yesterday, the owner may have had a change of heart...  Gerry McGeough, senior planner for City of Vancouver, may have brokered a deal where the owner will delay demolition for 120 days, allowing us to raise funds to purchase the house. 

This is great news.  The house may not be destroyed yet... and it gives us time to raise monies.

Because of these latest developments, Joy will not be interviewed for CBC Radio Early Edition on Thursday morning. CBC wants to wait and see what happens next!