Nisei

Aiko Suzuki

Aiko Suzuki was a prolific and versatile artist whose work took the forms of textiles, acrylic and oil painting, or just painting, printmaking, installations, and even multimedia works and set design. She was also an art educator, curator, and a leader and mentor in the arts community: not the least of her achievements was the […]

Butch Watanabe

Jiro ‘Butch’ Watanabe was an accomplished jazz trombonist who played with numerous famous musicians and prominent large ensembles in Toronto and on various tours throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Born in Fraser Mills, British Columbia, Butch was separated from his family as a young man by the internment, with family members sent to different […]

Kiyoshi Izumi

Kiyoshi Izumi was a Nisei architect who spent most of his career in Saskatchewan, where he designed many notable buildings in the province, particularly during the 1960s, as part of his firm Izumi, Arnott, and Sugiyama. Born in Vancouver, Izumi graduated from Vancouver Technical School, and during the internment, studied at Regina College in Regina, […]

Noriko Kim Kobayashi

Noriko Kobayashi is a musician. She earned a M.A. degree in Ethnomusicology from the University of British Columbia, in addition to a B.A. in Music and Psychology from U.B.C. She also earned a music degree from Capilano College in classical voice studies and is also a published author on the subject of taiko. Prior to […]

Joyce Kamikura

Joyce Kamikura is a painter and print-maker. She was one of the first Canadians to be bestowed Signature Member of the National Watercolor Society (NWS – USA). She was also one of the first women to be given the top ranking title in the Federation of Canadian Artists as a Senior Signature Member (SFCA). Exhibitions […]

Stanley Fukawa

Stanley Toshinori Fukawa is a Nisei sociologist, community organizer, historian and writer. He organized the Mid-Island Japanese Canadian Society, affectionately called the ‘Seven Potatoes’ (nana imo) Society and served as the writer/editor/publisher of their newsletter. He also wrote numerous articles for and served on the editorial committee of Nikkei Images, the journal of the Nikkei […]

Teruo Adachi

Teruo (Terry) Adachi was born in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. Life took him to Tottori-ken, Japan (ages 6 to 10), Vancouver, B.C. (his teen years), Jackfish and Valetta, Ontario work/farm camps during the war and, finally, Toronto in 1942. He studied painting and drawing in Toronto at Central Tech and the Ontario College of Art […]

Takao Tanabe

Takao Tanabe is among the first wave of prominent Nisei Canadian artists, with a sixty-year painting career that still continues today. Born in Prince Rupert, BC to a fishing family, Tanabe was forcibly relocated away from the coast as a teenager, eventually ending up in Winnipeg, where he began his artistic studies. He went on […]

Teruko Kobayashi

Teruko ‘Terry’ Kobayashi was an art historian who wrote about Canadian folk arts. Born in British Columbia, she received her BA from the University of Toronto in 1966, and also attended the Ontario College of Education. She co-authored two books on folk art and furniture, published a number of articles in the 1970s and 1980s, […]

Grace Eiko Thomson

Grace Eiko Thomson, curator, historian and a social activist, was the founding director-curator of the Japanese Canadian National Museum, (now Nikkei National Museum) in Burnaby, BC. Born in Steveston’s Japanese Fishermen’s Hospital, she was raised in the Powell Street neighbourhood of Vancouver until her family was forced to leave in 1942. They settled in the […]

Jesse Nishihata

JESSE HIDEO NISHIHATA was a pioneer in Japanese Canadian documentary filmmaking. From 1966-1978 Jesse worked as a contract producer for the CBC-TV Public Affairs Department. During this time Jesse produced and directed numerous documentaries including such films as Watari Dori: A Bird of Passage (1973). Watari Dori uses Jesse’s own family history as a framework […]

Toshiko Yoshikawa

“Toshiko Yoshikawa (maiden name Kodama) was born in 1920 on the family owned strawberry farm in Mission B.C. She departed for Hiroshima Japan with her father just prior to the start of the Pacific war. Yoshikawa’s love of ikebana (flower arrangement) started while living in Japan when she asked her husband for permission to take […]

Roy K. Kiyooka

One of the first Japanese Canadian artists to achieve prominence on a national and international scale, Roy Kiyooka began his art practice as a painter, later turned his focus to poetry and photography, and engaged in a variety of trans-disciplinary, experimental, and community-building work in the Canadian arts scene. A Nisei, Kiyooka was born in […]

Muriel Kitagawa

Tsukiye Muriel (nee Fujiwara) Kitagawa was born in Vancouver on April 3, 1912 and was raised primarily in New Westminster. She graduated from Duke of Connaught High School and briefly attended UBC. Working with other Nisei anxious about their futures as full-fledged Canadians with the right to vote and work in any profession, Kitagawa helped […]