TLC and Save Joy Kogawa
House committee both
receive City of Vancouver
Heritage Award of Honour
It was a great night for the members of Save Kogawa House Committee and TLC: The Land Conservancy of BC. We were all honoured with the City of Vancouver Heritage Awards of Honour. It was the last award presented following the multiple recipients for awards of recognition and awards of merit. TLC executive director Bill Turner and myself, for Save Kogawa House Committee, were tagged to give the aceptance speeches.
The awards were held at the beautiful and historic Coastal Church, at 1160 West Georgia St. A reception was held from 5:30 to 7pm, and it was great to see and socialize with all the event's attendees. I had a great chat with historian Jean Barman. City Councillor Peter Ladner congratulated me on a well-run Gung Haggis Fat Choy that he attended. Other City Councillors Heather Deal, George Chow and Suzanne Anton congratulated us on saving Kogawa House. Friends Kelly Ip, Howe Lee were there. Parks Commissioner Spencer Herbert gave me the latest update on his petition to name the new Vancouver park at Selkirk and 72nd, as David Suzuki Park. Artist Raymond Chow and house genealogist James Johnstone were there. Dianne Switzer of the Vancouver Heritage Foundation waved to us.
The evening's emcee was Christopher Gaze, creator and director of Bard on the Beach. Gaze gave a summation of Vancouver's early arts and cultural history, accompanied by projected pictures. It started with the first piano arriving in 1851, and included great names and performances such as Nijinksky, Boris Karloff and Benny Goodman, as well as local luminaries such as Dal Richards and Jimmy Pattison. This "introduction" to the awards event finished with a musical performance by Destino, the four tenors "popera" group.
Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan came to the stage to welcome and thank all the nominees. Mayor Sullivan handed out the award certificates, after Gaze read descriptions of each of the award winning projects.
Here is the draft of the acceptance speech which I presented at the Vancouver Heritage Awards:
Once upon a time, 6 year old Naomi Nakane was told to pack for a train vacation with her brother Stephen. But it wasn’t a vacation. And the train took them far away from the house that they loved. They would never ever again live in a house as nice or as loved. They would learn that as Canadians of Japanese ancestry… they were being singled out, removed from the West Coast, interned in former ghost-towns as make-shift camps, have their houses, businesses and property left behind confiscated and sold by the government, and then given an option to “repatriate” to Japan or move East away from the coast, because the government and community leaders did not want them trying to reclaim their former property. They were dispersed across Canada like the blowing snow.
That is the fictional story of Joy Kogawa’s award winning books Obasan and Naomi’s Road.
Joy’s real story is that after they were interned, as a little girl, she would dream about their house. She would write letters to the occupants of the house, asking politely if someday, when they no longer wanted the house, if they could buy it back.
The little girl – Joy Kogawa grew up to become one of Canada’s most important writers. Her first novel Obasan was the first major Canadian fiction to address with Japanese Canadian internment. It later became a children’s story Naomi’s Road.
On later visits she discovered that the house, her childhood home was still standing. Attempts in 2002 to raise money to purchase the house, was thwarted when the house was sold to an overseas owner.
2005 was the year of Joy Kogawa. Vancouver Public Library chose Obasan as the 2005 selection for One Book One Vancouver. Vancouver Opera premiered a 45 minute opera based on Naomi’s Road to tour to BC Schools.
And during a week when Joy’s work was being celebrated all across the city, at Word On The Street, Vancouver Arts Awards, and by Asian Canadian Writer’s Workshop… We learned that the demolition permit was being applied for.
This house was saved.
This house was saved by poets, writers, film makers, human rights activists, historians, and visionaries.
From people all across Canada. From Canadians abroad – We heard from Sweden and Japan and USA. This house is for all Vancouverites, and for Canadians and global citizens who care about Canadian history. Culture and human rights. Anton Wagner, Ann-Marie and I are not Japanese-Canadians. We weren’t interned. We aren’t married into JC families. But we are concerned Canadians who love our history, culture and heritage. There is little in Vancouver to celebrate our Japanese Canadian, Asian Canadian pioneer heritage in Vancouver. We need to recognize our Asian-Canadian pioneers and our centuries long heritage.
Vancouver’s literary landmarks are a Robbie Burns statue and Pauline Johnson memorial in Stanley Park. Kogawa House gives us something contempoary. It lives and breathes with each reading of Obasan, each performance of Naomi’s Road. Millions of people visit Amsterdam to visit Anne Frank House. Millions of people visit Prince Edward Island to see the home of Anne of Green Gables. But Anne Shirley was fictional. Joy Kogawa is real. And Joy’s stories continue to tell the history and the culture of Canadians.
With a Kogawa House Writing Centre, we can continue to celebrated Joy’s works and the history of Japanese Canadians. We can also encourage writers to share their stories and help write our future story of Canada – hopefully one free of racism and internment camps.
We wish to thank:
Gerry McGeough and Hugh McLean of the City’s Heritage Planning department, who first communicated with Anton Wagner about the demolition. Hugh was responding to an Attention Read Note that former heritage planner Terry Brunette had placed on the Kogawa House property listing in the City’s planning department. Gerry was very helpful in drafting an unprecedented motion to delay approval of a demolition permit for 120 days.
Heather Redfern of the Vancouver Alliance for Arts and Culture, Marion Quednau of the Writers Union of Canada and Diane Switzer, for speaking on our behalf to Vancouver City Council on November 3, 2005.
Diane Switzer and Vancouver Heritage Foundation for first coming to Vancouver City Hall to meet with Terry Brunette in October 2003 and then connecting us with TLC The Land Conservancy after we had won the 120-day delay.
Jim Green and Sen. Larry Campbell for declaring Joy Kogawa Obasan Day at Vancouver City Hall, for making the first public announcment and telling the audience at Vancouver Arts Awards about the need to save the house.
Chris Kurata in Toronto for organizing to stop the demolition and creating the first Kogawa House website.
Roy Miki for always being there for consultation and readings.
Margaret Atwood and Paul Yee for their valued quotes.
James Johnston for his early genealogy of 1450 West 64th Ave.
Ellen Woodsworth for her early help prepping us for the City Hall Council meeting on November 3, 2005.
City Councilors Suzanne Anton and Heather Deal, whom we first contacted as Park Commissioners.
Raymond Chow for creating a painting of Joy as a child at the house circa 1941.
The 2005 Vancouver City Council for passing a unamimous decision to delay processing of the demolition permit and making donations out of their pocket that day to launch fundraising.
Literary and writing assocations across Canada for their early and continuing support, including the following:
Writers Union of Canada
Federation of BC Writers
Playwrights Guild of Canada
Canadian Authors Association
Periodical Writers Association of Canada
PEN Canada
Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival
Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers
League of Canadian Poets
Writers' Trust of Canada
Asian Canadian Writers Workshop
The project has also been endorsed by the Vancouver Public Library Board, Vancouver Opera, the Alliance for Arts and Culture, Heritage Vancouver, The Land Conservancy, the National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre, the National Association of Japanese Canadians, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Association of Book Publishers of BC
VPL's One Book One Vancouver Program & Vancouver Opera's Naomi's Road for really raising the awareness of Joy Kogawa and her work.
Joan Young and her Grades 3 and 4 class at Thomsett Elementary in Richmond, and her principal Sabina Harpe, for motivating the children to take part in the campaign. They created their own initiatives to save the house by writing letters to Vancouver City Council and meeting with Councillor Kim Capri.
The Reverend Val Anderson, former MLA for Vancouver-Langara, who took a special interest in the project because of his connections to the Japanese Canadian community in Marpole.
The Honorable Ujjal Dosanjh, who spoke on behalf of Kogawa House in Parliament on April 6, 2006.
The Nikkei Voice and the National Association of Japanese Canadians, who were supportive from the beginning of the campaign.
Don Luxton, executive director of Heritage Vancouver, who listed Kogawa House as one of Vancouver's Top 10 Endangered Heritage Sites in 2006 and then discussed our campaign during a guided tour aboard a vintage Transit Museum Society bus
Our wonderful anonymous donor (who came to the rescue when TLC was prepared to purchase the house with a mortgage).
TLC, The Land Conservancy of British Columbia, for stepping into the project to take over the fundraising and the nitty gritty details that we had no experience handling. Bill Turner, executive director, their team of Tamsin Baker, Heather Skydt and Rich Kenny, and the many board members.
Our dedicated members and volunteers of Kogawa House Committee:
Anton Wagner, Chris Kurata, Margaret Steffler, Tomoko Makabe and Kathy Chung in Ontario
Ann-Marie Metten, David Kogawa, Ellen Crowe-Swords, Richard Hopkins, Jen Kato, Joan Young, Sabina Harpe, Deb Martin, and Harry Aoki in Vancouver
Also . . . journalists who covered the story, including Alexandra Gill and Rod Mickleburgh of the Globe and Mail, Sandra Thomas of the Vancouver Courier; Kate Taylor and Michael Posner in the Globe and Mail; Barbara Wickens in Maclean's magazine; CBC Radio's Paul Grant and Sheryl Mackay for their stories; Radio Canada for covering our November 10 awareness event, and to Kathryn Gretsinger and her producer Rosemary Allenbach, who broadcast Joy’s appeal to rescue her home on a Boxing Day broadcast of "Sounds Like Canada."
Thank you all.
