REMEMBERING KEN ADACHI

Toronto Star Photograph Archive, Courtesy of Toronto Public Library

REMEMBERING KEN ADACHI (1929-1989) The Toronto NAJC is thrilled to announce the creation of a directory of researchers with a working title of:

THE KEN ADACHI DIRECTORY OF JAPANESE CANADIAN RESEARCHERS

Attendant to this directory will be a listing of works on Japanese Canadian history. The goals and objectives of the Directory will be the subject of discussion at a Symposium hosted by the Toronto NAJC this summer. Our advisory group include researchers from academic institutions in the East and West and Board members including Fabiano Takashi Rocha, Japan Studies Librarian at the University of Toronto Libraries. The materials of the Toronto NAJC and associated individuals have been given special consideration for their significance to Canadian history and are being archived at U of T.

The Adachi family were early arrivals to Ontario, part of a group that worked on Premier Mitch Hepburn’s farm, and included the Moritsugu family. Ken Adachi was for a time the Editor of the New Canadian and along with Joy Kogawa and Frank Moritsugu, was a founding Editor of the Nikkei Voice, launched in 1987 by Wes Fujiwara, former Toronto NAJC President.

Adachi’s seminal work The Enemy That Never Was, begun in the 1950s was given direction and an urgency to complete, by Roger Obata and George Tanaka of Toronto. Roger Obata was the National Chair of the Japanese Canadian Centennial Committee and has noted that the book barely made it to press in time for a big banquet in May of 1977 which launched the Centennial. This first history of Japanese Canadians is an exhaustive work done at time when many government records were not yet available to the public.

To learn more about this project email communications@torontonajc.ca