Dear Editor,
My family lived in Richmond during the 1950s, a short 10 years after the end of the Second World War, and we were all aware of how our government had overreacted after the attack on Pearl Harbour and unjustifiably confiscated the property of Canadians of Japanese descent and sent them to internment camps for the duration of the war.
Aside from the injustice perpetrated on these Canadians many others were allowed to profit greatly from their misfortune.
Japanese-Canadian citizens were responsible for the evolution of a successful fishing industry in Steveston and contributed enormously to the creation of a viable and enriching multicultural society in Richmond.
Half of my classmates at the old Richmond High School and on the baseball teams I played on were of Japanese descent and these relative proportions represented life in this municipality.
I developed a love of Japanese architectural, aesthetics, philosophy, and culinary arts because of my exposure at an early age to Japanese traditions.
The newly-opened Japanese Fisherman’s Benevolent Society building houses a display that tells the story of Steveston’s Canadian-Japanese heritage, a story that should have been conveyed in such fashion to the citizens of Richmond long before this.
I hope that tourists and citizens alike will pause in their walkabouts through Steveston long enough to view the display and become more educated about this mostly ignored aspect of the community’s history.
Ray Arnold
Richmond
