The history of the Japanese minority in Canada constitutes a story of the people who were regarded as enemies. Experiencing war, "uprooting, incarceration, and dispersal" (Adachi 2006: 126) in Canada is an essential part of their psychological and social identity. Nonetheless, the attitude of the Issei, who lost everything they had, is considered to be a unique behaviour based on the traditional values ingrained in their minds. As Adachi points out: “The lack of aggressive behaviour and high dependency was part of the enryo (restraint) or gaman (perseverance) syndrome which explains much of Japanese behaviour. Not to conform was really unthinkable, for it meant cutting oneself off from the emotional security of identification” (Adachi 1976: 225). Although Canadian government imposed silence by confiscating radios and interfering with communications among Japanese Canadians (Kella 2000: 185), the response of the Japanese Canadian minority, in particular of the Issei, has been associated with Japanese concepts of shikata ga nai (it can't be helped), gaman (perseverance), and Japanese stoicism.
In Japanese Canadian literature, especially in the works written in the 1980s and the 1990s, the Issei are portrayed as wataridori (migratory birds) and as “silent sufferers” (Aunt Ayako, Uncle in Kogawa’s Obasan) who refer to Japan as their “country of the heart” (Mary Kiyoshi Kiyooka). I have noted, however, that writers who did not go through the experience of the internment often move away from portraying the Issei as "model citizens" or "perfect victims". Thereby, the purpose of this talk is to show how one of the Japanese Canadian writers, Terry Watada, banishes stereotypes and portrays the Issei “with full agency” in his novel Kuroshio: The Blood of Foxes (2007. In his work, Watada explores the lives of the first generation and portrays Japanese Canadian pioneers as brave immigrants who speak freely, exercise their powers (Liu 2016: 172), and fight for justice.
Bibliography
Agnew, Vijay. 2005. Diaspora, Memory and Identity: A Search for Home. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Adachi, Ken. 1976. The enemy that never was: A history of Japanese Canadians. Toronto: McClennand & Stewart.
Adachi, Nobuko. 2006. Japanese Diasporas: Unsung Pasts, Conflicting Presents and Uncertain Futures. London: Routledge.
Adachi, Nobuko. 2010. Japanese and Nikkei at Home and Abroad. New York: Cambria Press.
Laver, Michael S. 2011. The Sakoku Edicts and the Politics of Tokugawa Hegemony. New York: Cambria Press.
Lebra Sugiyama, Takie. 1984. Japanese Women: Constraint and Fulfillment. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Liu, Zhen. 2016. A Liberating Inheritance: Chinese Canadian and Japanese Canadian Literature in English, 1970s-2000s. [Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Strathclyde, Glasgow.].
Kella, Elizabeth. 2000. Beloved Communities: Solidarity and Difference in Fiction by Michael Ondaatje, Toni Morrison, and Joy Kogawa. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis: Uppsala.
Watada, Terry. 2007. Kuroshio: The Blood of Foxes.Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.
Watada, Terry. 2013. The Sword, the Medal, and the Rosary. Toronto: HpF Press.
