Sakura in the Land of the Maple Leaf: Japanese Cultural Traditions in Canada (review)

Although it was not published until 2007, Sakura [Cherry tree] in the Land of the Maple Leaf consists of research, mainly field work, done in the mid-1970s by three scholars: Carlo Caldarola, an Italian specialist in folklore; Misturu Shimpo, a Japanese scholar with a special interest in Japanese-Canadian studies; and K. Victor Ujimoto, a sociologist at the University of Guelph. Caldarola worked in southern Alberta; Shimpo, mainly in the fishing village of Steveston near Vancouver; and Ujimoto primarily at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Don Mills, part of Metropolitan Toronto. Book-ending these studies are short introductory and concluding essays by the editor, Ban Seng Hoe.

The essays are, as Hoe notes, a “snapshot” in time. The investigations occurred at a significant period for Japanese Canadians. By 1975–76, the community had largely reconstituted itself after the Second World War, was about to celebrate the centennial of the arrival of the first Japanese immigrant to Canada, and was beginning the reflections on its history that led to the Redress Settlement in 1988, the apology and compensation from the Canadian government for its treatment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.

Shimpo’s essay on greater Vancouver sketches the pre-war history of the Japanese in Canada and the discrimination they faced. He observes, too, that the prewar Japanese Canadians did not have a monolithic society. Some thought they should seek to integrate with the larger community; others desired to preserve their Japanese identity. Moreover, in their stratified community, labour bosses and merchants often took advantage of workers whose knowledge of English was limited.

Whereas Shimpo focuses on historical Vancouver as well as on cultural practices there in the 1970s, Ujimoto and, especially, Caldarola, have as much to say about the fine arts in Japan and about Buddhism as they do about the Japanese in Toronto and Alberta. The information they provide such as the techniques of Sumi-ye, the art of ink painting and of ikebana—flower arranging—is a useful introduction to Japanese culture. Yet, neither in Alberta nor in Toronto did more than a handful of individuals practise such arts that are part of Japan’s rich heritage. With limited exceptions, the fine arts did not do well in crossing the Pacific, but whether this was a phenomenon dating from the time of the first immigrants or whether it resulted from the uprooting of the war and generational change is not really explored. Generational change, however, explains why Caldarola and Ujimoto could record elderly Issei telling folk tales from Japan but found that their Canadian-born descendants, with their limited knowledge of the Japanese language, had little knowledge of these stories.

A few traditions such as the practice of honouring the dead at the annual O-Bon festivals, the making of mochi or rice cakes for New Year’s festivities, and the planting of gardens do persist. Families, even those who spoke English, ate Japanese food, though not exclusively, and less frequently than Japanese speakers. The Buddhist Church, through the celebrations of religious feasts and rites, especially relating to funerals, also preserved aspects of Japan’s culture but, as Shimpo reports, it also adapted to the Canadian environment by such means as building churches, not temples, and by substituting Buddha for Jesus in Christian hymns. Shimpo reveals that over 80% of the respondents to his survey in Steveston identified with Buddhism but does not indicate the percentage of Japanese Canadians who were Buddhists or the representativeness of his sample.

Caldarola found that some Sansei (the third generation, the grandchildren of the original immigrants) in southern Alberta denied their Japanese origins; Shimpo quotes a Sansei in Vancouver who said that the third generation does not “feel Japanese” but who urged the Nisei (the second generation, the children...