Welcome to Historic Joy Kogawa House

Google Alert for: kogawa house - September 14

in the city UPCOMING EVENTS inthecity@westender.com

Vancouver Westender - BC, Canada
... Homecoming: The Save Kogawa House Committee and the Land Conservancy host a fundraiser and the first public tour of the Joy Kogawa House (1450 W. 64th) on ...

Joy of history
Georgia Straight - Vancouver,British Columbia,Canada
... racial discrimination. The open house happens on Sunday afternoon (September 17), with Kogawa herself in attendance to sign books.

A Writers Literary Landmark and Writers-in-Residence Centre for Vancouver

The following is a message from Anton Wagner, of the Save the Kogawa Homestead Committee:

Dear Todd,

Thank you for the great article "How important is saving Kogawa House? What other literary landmarks are in Vancouver?" on the http://www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com website.

I totally agree with Alan Twigg's suggestion to Ann-Marie that we also focus our campaign to save Joy's former home on Margaret Atwood's recognition of Vancouver's cultural desert of literary landmarks. As Alan writes in his entry on Pauline Johnson in the BC Bookworld Author Bank, "The Pauline
Johnson memorial in Stanley Park, above Third Beach, is the only literary monument erected in Vancouver for a Canadian writer during the 20th century."

Johnson died in 1913.

Other provinces and much smaller towns have established and supported such literary landmarks and a few writers-in-residence programs:

The Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism maintains the Margaret Laurence House in Neepawa as the Manitoba Provincial Heritage Site No. 25
http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/hrb/prov/p025.html

In St. Boniface the non-profit corporation La Maison Gabrielle Roy Inc. operates the Gabrielle Roy House as a museum for the Franco-Manitoban writer with project grants from the federal, provincial and municipal governments and corporate, foundation and individual donor support. To date 105 women and 37 men have donated $1,000 each to the House.
http://www.maisongabrielleroy.mb.ca

In Eastend, Saskatchewan, the Eastend Arts Council owns and operates the Wallace Stegner House as a writer/artist's residence. Rent is $250 a month, including all utilities. The furnished house, built in 1916, contains a kitchen, dining, living room, study, two bedrooms and a bath and can accommodate two adults and one child. The house is funded in part by the Saskatchewan Heritage Foundation, the Writers' Development Trust, provincial, federal and civic government grants, and individual donations.
http://www.dinocountry.com/stegner_house.html

In Dawson City, the Yukon Arts Council and the Klondike Visitor's Association and the Dawson City Libraries Association operate the Berton House Writer's Residence Retreat. Initiated by Pierre Burton in his former boyhood home, the Writer's Residence Retreat enables professional Canadian writers to
write in the remote Northern community free of charge.

One item of great interest in your
http://users.yknet.yk.ca/dcpages/bertonhouse/story.html link is the last April 2001 item on that page, "Canada Council to support Berton House writers." It reports a grant of $100,000 from the Canada Council over a three-year period to the Berton House Writer's Retreat Society to enable four Canadian or
international writers to be in residence in the house for three months each, with a monthly fellowship of $2,000 and travel cost assistance. This would be a great precendent for us in seeking financial operating assistance from the Canada Council.

But again, no such writing centre and literary landmark exists in
Vancouver.The Federation of BC Writers operates a small writing cabin, gifted by George Fetherling, the Horsefly Manor Writers Retreat on Quesnel Lake in the Cariboo.
http://www.bcwriters.com/horsefly/

Lorna Crozier has informed us that the Haig-Brown House in Campbell River, operated by the non-profit conservation organization, the Haig-Brown Institute, has just opened its doors to writers, with Don McKay being the first writer-in-residence. http://www.haigbrowninstitute.org
 
Vancouver, one of Canada's most dynamic cities and our gateway to the East, needs a writers-in-residence centre as has been proposed for the Joy Kogawa House so that Canadian and international writers can observe and write about the unique evolving multi and intercultural society that is developing
in Canada.

Anton Wagner

Vancouver Heritage Foundation accepting donations for Kogawa House

A Donations page for Kogawa House has now been set up through the Vancouver Heritage Foundation.
http://www.vancouverheritagefoundation.org/Kogawa.html

A short story about the history of the house and the efforts to save it is listed

Vancouver Heritage Foundation
844 West Hastings Street Vancouver BC V6C 1C8

604-264-9642
email mail@vancouverheritagefoundation.org

The following is the basic text of my presentation to Vancouver City Council's Standing Committee on Planning and Environment, November 3rd, 2005.

Hello Council members and guests

Thank you for receiving our request for a delay of demolition  for 1450 West 64th Ave, known as “Kogawa House.”

Thank you also to council for attending the Joy Kogawa Cherry Tree planting and ceremony that took place here on Tuesday.

Save Kogawa House committee is a local and national advocacy committee in existence for two years since Kogawa House first came on the market.

We also thank the owner and representative, for working together with us to seek a peaceful resolution and a win, win, win situation for all parties involved.  The current owner of the house, the Save Kogawa House committee, and the citizens of Vancouver, and throughout Canada.
 
It is our vision to purchase the house from its current owner and transform it into a writers-in-residence centre, to give writers a taste of Vancouver’s multicultural diversity.  This will give special attention to writers of conscience, who can address human rights issues like those that removed Joy and her family away from their home to internment camps for the Japanese Canadians.

I am 5th Generation Vancouverite, my family has lived in Vancouver for 7 generations.  We suffered the racism of early Vancouver, and paid the Chinese head tax, clustered in Chinatown for protection.   After the Japanese Canadians were interned in camps, we were all afraid that what happened to the Japanese-Canadians, could happen to the Chinese too!  The experience shaped our Asian-Canadian pioneer communities, and we tried to be good Canadians, to integrate, and not cause trouble.

As I grew up in Vancouver, I have always related to the Japanese Canadian experience as a shared Asian Canadian experience, due to racism that lumped all Asians together.  But as my family intermarried into the many other ethnicities of Vancouver, I have come to understand that as Canadians, we are no longer two solitudes of English and French, but inclusive of Scottish, Irish, First Nations, Chinese, South Asian and Japanese culture.  Nor are we solitudes at all, but one family that is intermarried to each diverse immigrant group.

Kogawa House is not a Japanese Canadian issue.  It is a Canadian issue.  Kogawa House is not just a Japane-Canadian Internment Redress issue, it is a literary legacy for all Canadians.  By truly embracing the stories of Joy Kogawa’s works and the story of Kogawa House, we can truly say “never again” to a sorry episode in Canada’s history.

I was on the inaugural committee for the Vancouver Public Library’s One Book One Vancouver program, that introduced Vancouverites to Wayson Choy’s “The Jade Peony”  The program made the book come alive through many programs and events from May to September.

Since January of this year, I have been enthused by the idea that Obasan could be the 2005 choice.  I wrote an article citing 20 reasons why Obasan was the best choice including:
1) Roy Miki stating that Obasan is the most important book written to understanding the Japanese Canadian experience;
2) that Quill and Quire named Obasan one of the most influential Canadian works of fiction;
3) that Joy was born in Vancouver and recieved the Order of Canada in 1986.

Obasan is a book that every Vancouverite should read.  

In September, Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop hosted the Ricepaper Magazine 10th Anniversary Dinner, attended by councillors Roberts, Woodsworth, and Sullivan.  And we celebrated Joy with a Community Builders’ Award.

Joy is an author that every community should be so lucky to have.

I attended the Vancouver Opera world premiere of Naomi’s Road.  It brought tears to my eyes, and I wrote a review.  It is the story of two young children who were separate by their parents.  Their aunt takes them on a vacation, and while on the train, they come to the understanding that it isn't a vacation at all - they are going to an internment camp.  During the next 3 years, they will be branded enemy aliens, and they will never see their home again.

Naomi’s Road is an opera that every Vancouverite should see.

We would like to demonstrate our vision for Kogawa House, as a vision for Vancouver, and for Canada.  We will share with you how we will do this, and how writers and Canadians across Canada feel about this, and we hope to touch your hearts and inspire joy in your lives for this city we love.

I hope that we can say that Vancouver loves this book so much that we bought the house and we saved it.

Thank you.

Oh - one more thing....
Just as I arrived at City Hall today, house genealogist James Johnstone gave me a house history of Kogawa House.  He just decided to do this two days ago.  He found that it is one of the oldest houses in Marpole, and lists all the owners to present.  This is just one of the examples of how much this book and this house have moved people.

Thank you.

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!