Obaasan's Boots by Janis Bridger and Lara Jean Okihiro

Charlotte and her mother, Masumi, travel from their home in Vancouver to Toronto to visit her grandmother. On the flight out of British Columbia, Charlotte's mother switches from her Japanese name of Masumi to her English name of Mary, something that both puzzles and annoys Charlotte. Charlotte who is half Japanese, lives with her father and brother in Vancouver. She also has family in Germany.

In her grandparents home in Toronto, Charlotte meets her many aunts and uncles and her cousins. Charlotte's cousin, Lou is a year and a half younger and the one she knows the best. Lou, like Charlotte and all their cousins, is half Japanese. She lives in an apartment with her mother, and visits her father and grandparents on evenings and weekends. Lou's Grandma Donnelly lives on a farm outside London, Ontario. 

Both girls have heard their Japanese family talk about the past, when Japanese Canadians were "evacuated" during the war and how they lost everything. In the dining room while eating pan fried salmon, sushi, snow peas with bacon and plain rice, the two girls listen as grandma notes that "...almost everything from back then is gone. Their house, our first home, all our things. It's all gone...lost." Lou knows more than Charlotte about what happened but not a lot. She doesn't know the story of her family's past, why they had to move or how everything was lost. During Lou's trip with her father, Koki (Richard) to British Columbia last year, she met family from all over the province and came to realize that this is where her Japanese grandparents are from. The next day Charlotte and Lou arrive at Grandma's house to help her with her garden which is behind her house. In the garden, Grandma begins telling the story of her family, and that of Charlotte and Lou's. 

Grandma's father came to North America to help build the American railway, while her mother came to Canada to earn money to send home to her family in Kumamoto, Japan where they had an orange farm. After meeting and marrying in Canada, her parents settled on Sea Island in the Frasier River. When Grandma lived there it was an island dotted with farms. Today it is an airport.

In 1928, and Hisa (Charlotte and Lou's grandma) and her sister Jeanne walk to school. Their village on the island is small and is both a fishing and cannery town. Hisa's mother works at the  Acme Cannery Company. Hisa's father wants to quit fishing and work for the lumber mill. 

By 1930, almost everyone in their village works in the cannery. Hisa's older brother Toshi works at the cannery, while Hisa, Jeanne, Isi and Sam all attend school. Tragedy strikes when Toshi falls ill and dies suddenly from appendicitis. His death devastates their family. Hisa's father tells her, "Shikata ga nai" or it cannot be helped. 

During the winter of 1930, Hisa's father sells his fishing boat and begins to work full time in the lumber industry. This means working far up the Frasier River and not seeing the family for long periods of time. However, there are not many jobs open to Japanese people as they cannot be doctors, lawyers, accountants, or work for the government.

In 1933, Hisa finally finishes Grade 8 and school. She won't be attending high school as there is not one nearby. Instead Hisa goes to live with the Bowers, to cook, clean and care for the children. Meanwhile with her parents both working, they are able to buy their first house in 1934 in Marpole in New Westminster across the river from Sea Island.

In the summer of 1939, still living at the Bowers, Hisa is introduced to Koichiro, the cousin of the lady from the Japanese Language School. Koichiro was born in the United States, but was sent to Japan to Hiroshima where some of his family still live, to attend school. He returned to New Westminster, to care for his mother and brothers and sisters when his father died.

By late 1940, Hisa and Koichiro are engaged and marry on a sunny autumn day. They move in with Koichiro's family in New Westminster. In New Westminster, there is a large Japanese community, with a Buddhist Church, a Japanese United Church, Japanese stores, and a Japanese language school. Koichiro and his brother Roy work in the lumber mills, his sister Masako has a dressmaking shop. In the spring Hisa plants a small garden of snow peas, beans and spinach from seeds her mother gave her.

Then in December 1941, with Hisa expecting their first child, they learn the Japanese army has bombed Pearl Harbor, the U.S. naval base in Hawai'i. Hisa, Koichiro and other Japanese Canadians in their community are worried it will be like 1907 again. At that time, nine thousand people stormed Chinatown and Japantown, beating people, looting stores and destroying homes. 

Events move quickly from this point on. The next day all Japanese fishing boats are seized, Japanese schools are closed, and Japanese newspapers shut down. At night lights must be turned off or windows covered with thick black paper. "The lantern at the Japanese War Memorial in Stanley Park was extinguished soon after the bombing, the loyal sacrifice of the Japanese soldiers forgotten."

Before Christmas, anyone of Japanese heritage must register as enemy aliens. In the New Year of 1942, "all men of Japanese origin between eighteen and forty-five years old has to move to labor camps away from the coast." Hisa, pregnant, wonders "What will I do without Koichiro? And what will happen to my brothers? Or Roy, the gentle soul who likes to sing and feed the stray black cat...." And then the Canadian government orders everyone of " the Japanese race" including, women, children and the elderly to be "evacuated". 

Expecting her first child, Hisa and her family along with thousands of other Japanese Canadians wonder what this will mean. What will happen to their homes and businesses? What will happen to their sons and husbands and grandfathers? Will their family be separated? When will they be able to return home?

Discussion

Obaasan's Boots tells the story of one Japanese Canadian family's experience during World War II. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in December of 1941, Canada moved quickly to declare any person of Japanese heritage as an "enemy alien" and to remove all of their rights to property, employment and to incarcerate them in internment or prison camps.

Cousins Janis Bridger and Lara Jean Okihiro had heard bits and pieces of their family's story during World War II during family get-togethers, but the cousins never really asked questions about the past. When they did, they were told, "Shikata ga nai" or it cannot be helped. Bridger, now a teacher-librarian grew up on the West Coast, apart from her beloved grandparents who had moved away from the West Coast and lived in Toronto. When their grandmother, Hisa Okihiro passed away in 2019, they realized the opportunity to hear her story was lost and might be forgotten, so they set out together to uncover that story by sleuthing through family documents, photographs, archives and directories. What they found was a story of determination, resiliency, and courage in the face of discrimination, injustice, and fear. 

Their research began with the  discovery of  Koichiro and Hisa's wedding guest book. With help from the New Westminster Museum and Archives, they searched censuses and city directories to map their family's past. It was a 1983 newspaper article by Koichiro in The Canada Times that shed light on their family's experiences during the Second World War.

Faced with forced expulsion from their homes in 1942, Koichiro and other Japanese-Canadians formed a group called the New Westminster and District Japanese Housewives Association. Koichiro was secretary of the group whose purpose was to advocate on behalf of their community. In a letter written by Koichiro and  four other men of the Association to local Japanese Canadian families, he outlines what they were experiencing. The five men and five women of the Association advocated for keeping families together and to that end, have them move to an old gold rush town named Kaslo, rather than the dirty, smelly stables of Hastings Park where many other Japanese Canadians were being held.

In Obaasan's Boots, Hisa Okihiro tells her granddaughters  Lou and Charlotte what happened to her as young wife and new mother as the Japanese Canadian community of New Westminster were declared enemy aliens, stripped of their property, their civil rights, due process and incarcerated. Hisa's narrative is interspersed between Lou and Charlotte's thoughts about what their beloved grandmother is telling them. 

The novel describes scenes that are especially heartbreaking: the Ishii family being forced to leave their home immediately when police showed up during dinner and their last views of their home being the still-warm dinner on the table and people breaking into their home stealing their possessions. Koichiro tells Hisa that he was told their son, Koki must have a  "Canadian name" (he chooses Richard as it is the name of an English king), register their property and entrust all their property and bank accounts to the government with no proof of ownership.  

It is heartbreaking to read how Hisa must choose between her prized possessions like their family photo albums and her wedding dress, and more practical items like her sewing machine. After learning what happened to the Ishii family,  Hisa and Koichiro hide their possessions in their home in built-in bookcases and plaster over them and leave other things stored at the Japanese Language School or the Buddhist Church where they hope they will be safe. As it turns out, the government sells off almost everything, including their home, without their permission. 

It's heartbreaking to learn that all their "furniture stored in the basement of the Buddhist Church was chopped up for firewood less than a year after we left...I think of the beautiful dining room table where I served futomaki to family in our home in New Westminster after our wedding. The curio cabinet where we displayed out tea set from Koichiro's aunt in Japan and other pretty trinkets.These things that made up our lives. Firewood?"

After all of this, Hisa and her family along with her New Westminster community are sent to Kaslo, an old gold rush town, leaving behind almost everything they own. Despite this, Hisa and many of her community find the resiliency and determination to try "to live with purpose" as Hisa describes it. Hisa begins gardening with the help of a kindly neighbour in Kaslo and the Japanese Canadians demonstrate their remarkable resourcefulness and determination by forming schools for their children, and many different clubs. Hisa also comes to see the beauty in Kaslo, noting the calming blue of Kootenay Lak, "its shores sprinkled with wild pink sweet peas and indigo chicory flowers."

One interesting aspect of Hisa's narrative is the reaction of the Japanese Canadians to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not many historical fiction novels about the internment of Japanese Canadians explore this aspect of the war. Koichiro's family along with aunts and uncles, lived in Hiroshima. Hisa and Koichiro learn that Hiroshima is "completely flattened". When Japan finally surrenders, and Canadians celebrate, Hisa along with other Japanese Canadians are devastated. "But to me, it felt like people were celebrating the deaths of thousands of people. Of Koichiro's family..." At the time, many people felt that the dropping of the atomic bombs was justified. However, with the passage of time, that decision has been called into question, given the tremendous devastation and deaths the bombs caused.

In many respects, the treatment of Japanese Canadians during World War II is reminiscent of the treatment of Indigenous Canadians by the Canadian government and by Canadians. In their Authors' Note at the back Bridger and Okihiro write "We hope remembering this history will help us all be more accepting and work to prevent injustices in the present and future. This is especially important because the treatment of Japanese Canadians during the war is not the only example of those in power in Canada abusing people's rights. We think of the Chinese Head Tax, the Komagata Maru, the demolition of Africville, and most notably, the treatment of the Indigenous Peoples across the land we now call Canada."

Obaasan's Boots offers two perspectives on the Japanese internment: from the Japanese Canadians through Hisa Okihiro's narrative and from the perspective of a younger generation looking back on the history of this event, through Lou and Charlotte's narratives. The authors have these young Canadians posing questions and reactions to Hisa's story that might be asked today.

Hisa's stories cause Charlotte to re-examine her views on her mother using her Japanese name. "I complain about her Japanese name because all I want to do is fit in." Listening to her grandmother's stories makes her wonder why she doesn't have a Japanese name. And later on, she reconsiders that "Maybe Mom chose to use her Japanese name because she finally could. Maybe she's called Masumi because she wants to honor her family, who suffered so much and didn't have a choice. Maybe choosing her Japanese name is her small way of showing hope. That hearing her Japanese name will make other less common names more accepted as well...And I haven't been very kind to Mom. Masumi, I think is a beautiful name."

For Lou, having to move between the homes of her mother and father is challenging, but learning how her grandmother was able to adapt to living in Kaslo makes her consider that maybe she "...can make things meaningful and comfortable in each place for myself." 

For both Charlotte and Lou, their grandmother's stories lead them to ask many questions. Lou questions how "Canadian citizens - be forced to live in barns with no toilets or showers, and to eat terrible food?" Charlotte wonders "What would happen if these stories were never told? People silenced, the past forgotten. Would something like this happen again? To a different group of people? In another place or time?"

Obaasan's Boots is a poignant, short novel that successfully brings the reality of the Japanese internment to young readers and asks them to seriously think about what happened over eighty years ago and to consider how would they have responded? With fear? Or with understanding and love like that of Mrs. Beck?

The authors have included several black & white photographs, a Historical Timeline, and a Glossary.

Readers wishing to know more about the internment of Japanese Canadians are encouraged to check out the Landscapes of Justice: The Dispossession of Japanese Canadians (https://loi.uvic.ca/narrative/#)

Book Details:

Obaasan's Boots by Janis Bridger and Lara Jean Okihiro
Toronto: Second Storey Press    2023
160 pp.