Letter of support for Kogawa House from:
Mary Ellen Csamer, President for The League of Canadian Poets:
Dear Mr. Harper,
I am writing to you on behalf of the League of Canadian Poets, the professional organization for poets in Canada, and our 700 members to ask you to meet with your Heritage minister to see if anything can be done by your government to save the Joy Kowaga House from demolition.
As I’m sure you will agree, the treatment of loyal Canadians of Japanese descent during World War II, is a dark stain on our history. Please help us show the world that the Canada of the 1940’s no longer exists. I’m sure you celebrate as I do, our tolerant, multicultural nation which is a beacon of hope to the world in these days of religious and racial extremism.
What more fitting way to say who we are now than to collectively help save the childhood home of one of Canada’s great writers? Like with so many other families, this house should never have been taken from the Kowaga’s.
Joy has tried to buy it back over the years without success. I wish you could have been in Toronto in March to hear her speak so movingly of the cherry tree in the back yard. Her words brought tears to my eyes because I have a home I love and would be so wounded to have it taken from me.
Mr. Harper, you strike me as a man of conviction as well as a family man. What could be truer to our shared family values than to save this one house that represents so much?
Would the government consider expropriation in this case as a once-only statement to all Canadians that what was done in their name was wrong?
Or would you work with your Heritage minister to find the funds to help us buy back this home? It is such a little amount of money in the scheme of things. If this house falls to the wrecker’s ball on your watch, Sir, I believe we will all be poorer. And yet, you could make a statement, heard round the world about tolerance and the meaning of home by finding special funds to help the committee save the house.
Canada’s poets are respected around the world. We dream and envision, we create and speak of and to the miraculous freedom of our culture.
The League has joined this struggle along with all the other national writers’ organizations of Canada because we know our dreams lead us to great accomplishments if we have the courage and the will to dream what some call impossible.
I know there are many logical reasons why not to do this. This is only one reason you should do it. Because it is the right thing to do.
Very respectfully yours,
Mary Ellen Csamer,
President
The League of Canadian Poets