War forced these Japanese Canadians into internment camps. Chance brought them to the same long-term care home
CBC
Leaning forward in her wheelchair to look over a massive photo album, Sue Kai delves into memories from decades ago. Kai, 96, and her son, Brian, pore over snapshots of her past, some dating back to the moment her life was irrevocably changed.
Kai was 16 years old, and living with her family in the downtown Vancouver home her father built with his own two hands, when it happened.
"One Sunday everybody is going crazy: 'Bomb bomb bomb bomb,'" said Kai. "I said, what's a 'bomb bomb bomb bomb?' Then they said 'Pearl Harbor.'"
From the name, Kai thought it was a fancy beach, not the American naval base in Hawaii that had just been bombed in a surprise attack by Japan on Dec. 7, 1941. But warnings from the people around her quickly told her that wasn't the case.
"Then I heard, 'Now, you better go inside because they're going to shoot you.'"
WATCH | These Japanese Canadians who were forced into WWII internment camps now live in the same long-term care home:
Shortly after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzine King ordered the internment of Japanese Canadians living in coastal B.C., citing fears of sabotage or co-ordination with Japan. Many of them had been born and raised in Canada.
Nearly 21,000 Japanese Canadians and their families were forced to leave their homes and livelihoods, and in many cases their, families. They lost most of their belongings and any sense of life they had known.
Kai is among several of the last generation of internment camp survivors who now, decades later, find themselves reunited at Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care in northeastern Toronto. After the Second World War, the federal government forced the interned Japanese Canadians to leave the country or re-settle further east in Canada. Many chose to move to Toronto, where they rebuilt their lives from scratch.
Some, like Kai, never spoke much with their children about what happened back then.
"There were times when my parents didn't want to talk about it and when that happened they spoke Japanese. Since I couldn't understand it, that was sort of hidden to me," Kai's son, Brian, explained.
Brian started interviewing his mother over the last few years to create a record of her past. But only recently has she revealed the depths of her anger and the degree to which the internment thwarted her life.
"I was mad. I was mad," she admitted. "I planned to go to university."
"I didn't realize that university was a possibility for her," Brian said, in surprise. "I guess because of the war I just knew she couldn't go, but the fact that she actually entertained thoughts of going is news to me."