“It’s a big challenge,” confessed Todd [Wong], 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.
In the photo above: Ann-Marie Metten, Joy Kogawa, Todd Wong holding “Obasan Cherry Tree Day proclamation”, David Kogawa (original image by Deb Martin.)