Kizuna 2020: Bondade e solidariedade nikkeis durante a pandemia da COVID-19

El fútbol siempre te da segundas oportunidades. Pierdes un domingo, pero el próximo puedes ganar. El tiempo no es un activo para dilapidar en lamentos, sino para prepararte con el objetivo puesto en superar el siguiente desafío. Así es, grosso modo, cómo lidia con las cosas el periodista Roger Gonzales Araki. 

Como para millones de personas en todo el mundo, la pandemia de coronavirus fue un nocaut para él: tuvo que cerrar el negocio familiar de karaoke.

Sin embargo, Roger supo levantarse y lo que comenzó como un fulminante revés se convirtió en la oportunidad de jugársela por entero por …

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Just as it is so sad to hear news of the passing of another Nisei, it is heartening to learn of more and more Japanese Canadian community members in the arts who are coming of age and making their presence known when we need them most.

I got to know Hiroki Tanaka’s father, Yusuke (Toronto), born in Sapporo, when I was at the beginning of my own quest in the early 1990s. Yusuke was the acoustic guitar strumming Japanese editor for the Nikkei Voice newspaper. I remember our first meeting, pulling my Getaway camper van in …

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As we approach the second anniversary of Covid, I am conscious of the fragility of these times that we are living through: the new Omicron variant of Covid, eco-disasters in British Columbia (flooding and landslides after a summer of wildfires) and, yes, Covid numbers are climbing again across Canada. It’s time again to take yet another deep breath…

In this part, we’re celebrating the artistry of cellist Rachel Mercer (Ottawa, ON) and dancer Mayumi Lashbrook (Toronto, ON), younger members of the Japanese Canadian community, each of whom is mixed race and with different relationships with their …

Ya nos vamos por los dos años de pandemia y aquellas primeras semanas de confinamiento, cuando la gente aplaudía desde sus casas a los trabajadores de salud por su extraordinario trabajo e ingenuamente se decía que de esta nefasta experiencia saldríamos mejores personas, más unidos y solidarios, parecen tiempos de una vida anterior.

Hoy, con países ricos que acaparan vacunas mientras surge una nueva variante en África, millones de personas muertas y multitudes que rechazan las mascarillas o vacunarse a pesar de que salvan vidas, a nadie se le ocurre proclamar que vamos a salir mejores de esto.

¿Qué nos …

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After rereading the responses from this chapter’s featured artists from British Columbia, one issue really stands out for me: Canada’s vast geography and how we are divided into two solitudes—east and west—a lasting legacy of the internment.

Vancouver, BC, where our Japanese Canadian story begins, is about 5000 kilometers, a five-day drive, due west from Oakville, Ontario, where I sit now.

As a Toronto-born Sansei, my BC-born parents lived in New Westminster and Vancouver. Growing up, I learned snippets about their lives in Slocan (grandfather Hayashida died there), Bayfarm, Strawberry Hill (Ibuki farm), and Middlechurch, Manitoba, …