Groups Hope to Save ‘Obasan’ Author’s Childhood House
With less than a month to go, $1.25 million needs to be raised to preserve the home where renowned author Joy Kogawa spent her childhood.
Peering over the white picket fence that encircles the simple, wood-framed house, renowned Japanese Canadian author and poet Joy Kogawa instantly recognizes the front door from her childhood memories and a cherry tree, now much taller, that still blossoms in the backyard. After more than six decades, Kogawa feels like she is finally back home.
Until the age of six, this small bungalow located on West 64th Avenue in Marpole, Vancouver was home for Kogawa, her older brother Timothy and their parents. A bustling household, sunny views from the front windows, and a backyard peach tree are what Kogawa, 71, remembers of her time here and are chronicled in her award-winning novel “Obasan.”
But as in her famous novel, real life changed abruptly for Kogawa after Pearl Harbor when the government evacuated all Japanese Canadians on the West Coast to internment camps. Kogawa and her family were sent to Slocan City, British Columbia and after the war the family eventually settled in Toronto.
In 2003 Kogawa made her way back to her childhood home but her reminiscences were interrupted by the red “For Sale” sign on the house’s front lawn. Although a sale was avoided at the time, the current homeowners are seeking a demolition permit to build a larger house on the property. Now community groups are rallying to save the house.
“It was my paradise, not just a house,” said Kogawa from her daughter’s home in Vancouver. “All the time we were in Slocan, I was waiting to go home. But the life we had was destroyed and I didn’t go home. I went from home to hell.”
“But the dream is still alive,” said Kogawa. “This little house can be a living, acting presence in the world. People need to understand … the complexity about the house needs to stay alive.”
The Save Joy Kogawa House Committee has joined with The Land Conservancy of British Columbia to ensure that Kogawa’s childhood home is preserved and that the stories of the internment continue to educate the Canadian public. The groups hope to purchase, renovate, and preserve the home that was built in 1913. They also hope to create a residence for writers of conscience to create new works focusing on human rights.
The groups have until April 30 to raise $1.25 million towards these efforts after the owners agreed to extend a 120-day stay of demolition that was approved by the Vancouver City Council late last year. Committee members are now spreading the word nationally and internationally to make sure they can raise the funds by the deadline.
“This home is of national importance. Joy Kogawa is one of Canada’s most important authors,” said Bill Turner, executive director of The Land Conservancy. “This house will serve as a way for Canada not to forget the mistakes it has made because we don’t want to see it repeated.”
“Joy Kogawa is a major literary figure. She is Canada’s Amy Tan,” said Todd Wong, a committee member and arts activist in Vancouver. “We have very few literary landmarks and we felt this was a perfect fit for Vancouver.”
Kogawa and her family were part of the 22,000 Japanese Canadians — more than 75 percent were Canadian citizens — who were forcibly interned during World War II. Family property and homes were auctioned off by the Canadian government and after the war Japanese Canadians could not return to the West Coast until their rights were restored in 1949.
Many believe the Kogawa House will serve as a living memorial to the historic experiences of the Japanese Canadian community from internment to the historic redress fight in the 1980s.
“It’s a moral issue. The house is a symbol of a great injustice that occurred,” said Anton Wagner, a documentary filmmaker in Toronto who got involved with the efforts after a friend introduced him to Kogawa. “Canadians aren’t good at remembering history. We want to make sure this doesn’t happen in Canada again.”
“The experience of Japanese Canadians was worse than Japanese Americans … Canada really wanted to destroy the community,” said Kogawa. “What happened to all of us is something we shouldn’t forget.”
An Order of Canada recipient, Kogawa’s novel “Obasan” has won numerous awards including the Canadian Authors Association Book of the Year Award. And writers groups from across the country have rallied behind the current fundraising efforts including the Writers Union of Canada, PEN Canada and the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop.
Kogawa’a novel was the first to tell the Japanese Canadian internment story and she believes many more stories of injustice have yet to be written. It is Kogawa’s hope that through the House’s writers in residence program, writers who would otherwise be prevented from telling their stories in their home countries will finally be able to put pen to paper.
“It will be a place for writers to think, reflect, and write stories,” said Kogawa. “If writers from other countries can come and tell us their stories, and if we can shine the light of truth so that strangers can become friends, we can bring hope and healing into the world.”
“Joy Kogawa is the North American Nikkei community’s Zora Neale Hurston. She’s able to evoke the rhythm of Nikkei life — in dialogue and description,” said author Naomi Hirahara. “She was one of the early novelists to write honestly about the World War II incarceration experience; she, I think, gave Nikkei writers permission to dive into dangerous and personal waters.”
The Save Joy Kogawa House Committee and The Land Conservancy hope to request historic status for the house once they are able to purchase the property. An emergency request for $350,000 from the federal government has been submitted with no reply yet but the committee has so far raised close to $200,000.
They are hopeful that recent national and international exposure to their efforts will propel their fundraising efforts. Committee members believe they will reach the target goal but say their efforts will continue even after the deadline.
“The preservation of Joy Kogawa’s childhood home would be a final statement that the Nikkei have a vital history in North America — we cannot be uprooted again,” said Hirahara.
“The home speaks to our history. It symbolizes what happened to the Japanese Canadian community in the 40s,” said Henry Kojima, president of the National Association of Japanese Canadians. “Everyone feels it’s a positive thing.”
Kogawa has been traveling the country helping in the fundraising efforts and is looking forward to seeing the house preserved so she can get back to writing. She is currently working on the third novel in the “Obasan” series.
“If the campaign succeeds it will be a great relief to me. I can get back to my writing,” said Kogawa with a chuckle.
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