Nisei

Aiko Saita

Aiko Saita was a well-loved Nisei mezzo-soprano/contralto singer. Born in BC in 1909, Aiko grew up in Cumberland and dreamed of becoming a dentist. At the age of 14, she moved to Vancouver to attend high school, working for the dentist Dr. Miyake and his wife as a live-in maid and nurse for their children. […]

Yoshiko Godo

Yoshiko Godo was born in Haney, BC in 1940. Her family was interned in Tashme and their father was imprisoned in Angler. They were reunited in Geraldton shortly before the death of their mother. After the war, they lived in Emerson Manitoba, Winnipeg, and Lillooet BC. Yoshiko attended UBC obtaining a degree in Mathematics. She […]

Carol Oya

Carol Oya hails from Vancouver. She’s been singing pretty much all her life. As a kid, she loved to watch “Solid Gold” and mimic her idols, Olivia Newton-John and Sheena Easton. Like every good Asian parent, her mum forced her to take piano lessons from the age of five. She fondly remembers crying while doing […]

Mui-Ling Teh

Mui-Ling Teh is an artist, photographer, and poet of Japanese and Chinese descent. She produces art both traditionally and digitally; but at present she is best known for her miniature origami. Teh’s origami began as photography props, sometimes accompanied by her poetry. In 2014 she transitioned to exhibiting and selling her original creations in public. […]

Akiko Tsuji

Akiko Tsuji was born in Steveston in April 1930 and lived nearly her entire life in British Columbia as a Japanese-Canadian. She aspired to be a fashion designer from a young age and often found herself brainstorming and making dresses, coats, and skirts for family members. After getting married and having two children and two […]

Lillian Nakamura Maguire

Lillian Nakamura Maguire is a second-generation Japanese Canadian, new playwright living and retired in the countryside near Whitehorse, Yukon. Her first play, Hidden Memories was accepted by Ruby Slippers Theatre “Advance Theatre: New Works by Diverse Women” for reading at the 2017 Vancouver Fringe Festival, in partnership with the Fringe Festival and Equity in Theatre. […]

Henry Shimizu

Born Prince Rupert BC.. 1928 Removal March 1942 Internment New Denver, BC, 1942 to 1946 Moved to Edmonton. AB. University of Alberta. 1948; Graduate – Medicine 1954 Graduate – BSc.MD, 1954 Surgical residency 1955 to 1959, University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine Plastic Surgery residency 1960 to 1962, University of Pittsburgh Medical Faculty Certificate of […]

Mas Funo

Masatada Funo was born in Seattle, Washington to parents of Japanese descent. He is a long-time resident of Vancouver, British Columbia. A self-taught potter, Mas has been working with clay for 45 years. His distinctive boxes and sculptures are collected by admirers in Canada, the United States, Europe and Japan. Tea ceremony masters in Japan […]

Sukeo Mokujin Sameshima

Sukeo Mokujin Sameshima was born in 1915 in New Westminster, British Columbia. He went to be educated in Japan in 1921 and returned ten years later after completing junior high school. Although his experiences in Japan determined much of his personal outlook, the prairies, which he calls his ‘second home’, have influenced him deeply. He […]

June Fukumura

June Fukumura is a second generation Japanese-Canadian inter-disciplinary theatre artist with a BFA in Theatre Performance and a Certificate in Sustainable Community Development from Simon Fraser University. ​June is the Co-Founder of New(to)Town Collective an artist collective with a mandate to create new experimental works; provide ongoing accessible physical theatre training and experimental research workshops […]

Yoshie Bancroft

Yoshie Bancroft is an award winning actor and theatre creator based on unceded Coast Salish Land (Vancouver, Canada). Recent theatre: Exit, Pursued by a Bear (Globe Theatre), The Orchard (Arts Club), Griffin & Sabine (Belfry); JAPANESE PROBLEM (Universal Limited/Soulpepper); Home Is A Beautiful Word (Sum Theatre/Persephone); SHIT (Firehall), Lizzie in Pride & Prejudice (Chemainus Theatre […]

Yvonne Wakabayashi

Yvonne Wakabayashi (née Tasaka) was born in Vancouver in 1938 and spent her early childhood years during internment with her family in the tiny rural communities of Blind Bay and Notch Hill, British Columbia. Returning to Vancouver after the war, she continued her education which led to a Bachelor and Master degree in Education with […]

Lily Ide

Ritsuko Lily Ide was a popular Nisei singer in Vancouver in the late 1930s and early 1940s who performed at community dances and had professional singing engagements in eastern Canada. She passed away in Slocan in 1943.

Lily Washimoto

Lily Washimoto was a popular Nisei lyric soprano singer in Vancouver in the late 1930s and early 1940s. She performed at the 1939 Vancouver Folk Fest and was a featured soloist on the CBC’s broadcast of part of the program; in 1941 she could be heard on the CBC radio program Sanctuary on Sunday evenings. […]

Barb Miiko Gravlin

Barbara ‘Miiko’ Nishimura- Gravlin was born in Tashme, the largest of Japanese Canadian internment camps in B.C. At an early age, she became an abstract painter under mentors, Richard Gorman and Mashel Teitelbaum and Kazuo Nakamura. In 1965, she was the recipient of a Canada Council Travel grant in Painting for six months tenure studying […]