I was so happy to take part in the Women in Art Show put on by the Abbotsford Art Council. This year there were two spaces for the exhibition which included the Kariton Art Gallery and Open Space in downtown Abbotsford. There were so many fantastic pieces!
My work “Half Japanese” was part of the show.
The following is my artist statement for the work:
The Canadian government forced the removal, dispossession, and incarceration of Japanese Canadians en masse, forever changing lives both in the 1940s and for many generations to come. Japanese Canadians are the most intermarried race in Canada, not by choice, but because the government purposely worked to slice, chop, and cut away our communities.
I remember as a kid and learning about fractions and trying to figure out exactly what my racial background was. If there was an exact formula, should I be half Japanese and half White? What does that look like?
Throughout my life, people want to know what my race is. Strangers have come up to me to ask (which I recommend not doing). I found when people wanted to know my background—they did not want to know that I have Irish and Scottish roots. They would keep digging…for the “other” roots. I would say I am Japanese Canadian, and then they would want to know how much. So, I would say my mother is Japanese Canadian—and they’d be like, so you are half Japanese.
Slice. Chop. Cut. It’s an uncomfortableness to be in an instant reduced to half. I am proud of my heritage, but there is something off-putting about the social interaction of getting publicly halved. Then there are questions about how Japanese versus White are you? I am fourth generation Japanese Canadian and lived in towns with very few Japanese Canadians. There were many Japanese Canadians that once lived in the Fraser Valley, a third of Mission schools were Japanese Canadian. There were Japanese Canadian neighborhoods, Japanese schools, Japanese Canadian community events and holidays practices. Those no longer existed when I grew up here. My existence is a reminder of how the past is present. How my culture and community were cut away. This painting represents my pride in my roots, but also of the blank spaces, the loss of Japanese Canadian culture and community.
