Vancouver's Japanese Canadian Community

Powell Street is seen in its earliest days before its many Japanese Canadian residents moved in and made their mark on the neighbourhood. It was always a staging area for the Dominion Day (Canada Day) parade; here, people can be seen readying a float for the procession.

A view of Hastings Mill from Powell and Jackson Streets. The sawmill was the first European settlement in what was to become Vancouver, and many early Japanese immigrants to Canada found work here. They settled in the working class neighbourhood around where you are standing. Japanese-born immigrants to Canada were known as Issei, while their Canadian-born children were Nisei. All Canadians of Japanese descent are called the Nikkei.

The crowds here have gathered for the funeral procession of a prominent member of the Nikkei community. They are standing in front of the Powell Street United Church, which has since been replaced by the Buddhist Church. At the time, this church was a major hub for the Nikkei community. The homes at the right are still standing.

A baseball game on the Powell Street Grounds, today's Oppenheimer Park. Many Nikkei took to baseball like fish to water, and the legendary baseball team, the Asahi, made this park their home field. Renowned for their daredevil baseball style, throughout the late 20s and 30s the Asahis were the most popular baseball team in the province. They were also the subject of a major Japanese movie in 2014.

This was the headquarters of the Tairiku, the second of eventually four Japanese Canadian newspapers in Vancouver. When the Nikkei were interned in 1942, 70 men hid from the police here before surrendering and being exiled to the interior.

A view down Powell Street in the 1920s shows it to be a much busier commercial street than it is today. For Japanese Canadians, this neighbourhood was a place where they could regain a sense of home in a hostile world.

The Fuji Chop Suey restaurant was one of Vancouver's most popular restaurants in the 1930s. A Japanese take on Chinese cuisine, this was but one of the over 500 Japanese Canadian businesses that sprouted up in this nieghbourhood.¹

Crowds watch Japanese Canadian women and girls in traditional clothes taking part in a parade down Powell Street. While the first wave of immigrants from Japan were predominantly men, many women soon joined them and had children, creating a well-balanced community.

Two Nikkei cross the street by a lightpost emblazoned with the Union Jack. All the way up to 1942, the Nikkei made strenuous efforts to show their loyalty to Canada and the Empire. It did them little good.

The former site of a Japanese Canadian business, boarded up and put up for resale after the occupants had been "evacuated" to internment camps in the interior after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.

The abandoned Nippon Club, a social gathering place for Japanese Canadians, was shuttered in the spring of 1942. It would be an understatement to say the war against Japan was going badly in the opening months, and fears of a Japanese invasion supported by Nikkei "fifth columnists" rose to a fever pitch.

The former site of the Japanese Language School, or Nippon Kyoritsu Go-Gakku School. It was shut down in the spring of 1942 when the NIkkei were rounded up and allowed to take one suitcase with them to the internment camps. Everything else—homes, businesses, cars, furniture, clothes—was auctioned off at bargain basement prices.

This is the Japanese Hall and Language School, the centre of community life in the 1930s. It was the only piece of property ever returned to the Nikkei after the war. During the war, the Nikkei were dispersed across the rest of the country and discouraged from ever returning to British Columbia, which they were only legally allowed to do in 1949. It's hardly surprising that few ever did. Vancouver's Japanese Canadian neighbourhood was dead.