TO NAJC – July-August Update

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Dear friends,

We miss you and hope this note finds you regain some normalcy to your routines and that you and your loved ones are healthy and connected. We were pleased to present a trio of webinars in May and June in response to the constraints of the pandemic. All three can be viewed on our website at  www.torontonajc.ca/photos-video-2

The most recent, Burning Province was an emotional experience, a multi-generational safe space where in the midst of the urgent crises of Black Lives Matter our community came together to experience works of art by Julie Tamiko Manning, Matt Miwa and Michael Prior which transmute the pain of our particular experience into the artistic gold of universality.

The Bystander Intervention Training was notable for its insight into the psychology of the targeted person. While some methods suggest creating a ruse for dialogue as a distraction such as “I think I saw you at the library the other day?” this is not recommended as the targeted individual is under stress and a comment like this could create more confusion. Rather, first asking permission to engage and then beginning a conversation by asking if the individual has seen a certain movie is more grounding as a method of ignoring the perpetrator.

At our June Board meeting we discussed

anti-black racism by asking ourselves what influenced our attitudes. It was apparent that the values we were exposed to were quite varied and topics raised included other forms of discrimination such as homophobia and Antisemitism. We plan to host online events to begin community discussion and are considering as a first step a learn about and assess “unconscious bias”. Stay tuned.

Please check our website or Facebook page for regular events updates and watch for details of the September launch of the digital version of Japanese Canadian Redress: The Toronto Story.

Smile, hugs and love!

Lynn Deutscher Kobayashi

Bystander Intervention Training

Delivered cross culturally and trans-continentally

By: Les Takahashi

In recent months the COVID 19 pandemic has caused a rise in anti-Asian racism and specifically, public acts of harassment. In response, the Toronto NAJC hosted a webinar on Thursday, June 4th at 7:30 p.m. on Bystander Intervention Training given by Courtney Mangus of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).  This program normally given through in-person workshops was delivered by ZOOM making possible a cross-continental workshop with participants from across Canada and elsewhere.

The webinar attracted over 700 registrants, attendees, and requests for a copy of the 90-minute webinar which covered principles bystanders could follow in support of persons on the receiving end of verbal harassment. Key points in lending support to a person targeted by a harasser were to focus on the targeted person by approaching them; asking whether your presence was welcomed; speaking to that targeted person, not the harasser, in a calm supportive manner; talking to draw the focus away from the harassment; and if desired by the targeted person accompanying them away from the situation if it was on a bus or some other public setting. Meanwhile the supporting person would ignore the harasser to reduce the impact of the harassment.

There was cautioning advice that any support should not include verbal or physical engagement with the harasser, but some attention should be paid to whether the situation had potential to develop into a physical confrontation. If this were the case, the supporting person is not expected to engage physically which might escalate the severity of the harassment and endanger all concerned. From what Ms. Mangus was saying, it seemed that ignoring the harasser would, in most cases, diffuse the situation and give support to the targeted person. 

Later, in talking to others about the bystander training, I recognized that some of the same ideas are used in defusing a bullying situation and supporting a person who is being bullied. In that moment, a person targeted by a harasser is seen to lack equal status to the harasser. A bystander who lends gentle support is providing that targeted person power to withstand and ignore the verbal assault in the way one might ignore a pesky fly.

Of course, this is not a full description of the webinar. Some details have been missed and hopefully the information here does not misrepresent the presentation. Hopefully, this provides enough information to give a general picture. The CAIR bystander training is normally given to small groups who can engage in role playing to practice the processes. Despite the restrictions of the online event, the webinar taught us the basic tools to help others. It is a good demonstration of the resistance against racism shared by a variety of communities.

BLACK LIVES MATTER

The Toronto NAJC affirms our support for demonstrators and hope for their safety.

We denounce the violence perpetrated by those in positions of power, and long for their hearts to be moved for those harmed.

We lament our own complacency and complicity; for staying silent in times when we should have done more, and ask forgiveness from those whom we have neglected and harmed.

We speak from our own experiences of anti-Japanese racism in Canada from the day our people arrived as settlers and that we still experience today as Asian Canadians.

We commit to speaking out against all forms of racism, anti-black violence, and changing our own structures, our own anti-Black racism, and ways of being with one another.

We reject the racist status quo and commit to speaking against injustice because justice is what love looks like in public.

We call for increased funding to under-served communities and the re-structuring and re-imagining of law enforcement.

(with thanks to Kim Uyede-Kai and the Shining Waters Regional Council, The United Church of Canada)

“BURNING PROVINCE”

Poems, Poetry and Prose during a time of a pandemic and protests.

Where are my people? Past the cannery
sloughing into oceans and the maples
reddening shallows under the overpass,
you say, Its all water under the bridge.
So, I wonder which bridge.

(From the poem Richmond, by Michael Prior)

On Tuesday, June 23rd, the Toronto NAJC hosted a webinar featuring Michael Prior, a poet, and the actor/playwright team of Julie Tamiko Manning and Matt Miya, who read from their recent works and then took part in a discussion moderated by Toronto author Kerri Sakamoto. We were pleased to know that in bringing this talented trio together we were introducing Julie and Matt to Michael and vice versa, for the first time. The discussions that ensued in planning the event, and the success of the evening lead us to believe that friendship and potential creative partnerships can be expected. 

Kerri Sakamoto is a well-known Toronto writer whose most recent novel “Floating City” won the 2018 Japan-Canada Award for Literature and follows on the success of “One Hundred Million Hearts” and “The Electrical Field. Of Julie, Matt and Michael she said, “My time spent with the book (Burning Province) has been such an embodied experience. I felt a familiar ache and anxiety in the heart but also a sense of bittersweet communion and commonality. I felt the same intense tangle of emotions when I saw “The Tashme Project”. There was the pain and pleasure of recognition and familiarity. The authenticity and the painstaking fidelity to the nisei spirit and sensibility was so artistically rendered.”

Michael read from his latest book of poetry, “Burning Province” and Julie and Matt performed readings-in-character by from their play “The Tashme Project”.  The powerful words of Michael’s poetry reflect his discovery of Japanese Canadian displacement from his Japanese grandmother of whom he said, “I was very close to her. She was like a mother to me, and while I was writing this book she passed away, so this is an elegy for her.”

“Once I watched her feed sugar to a honeybee with a spoon. Silver coins she couldn’t afford slipped from her hand to mine.” (From the poem “My Pronunciation Was Wrong”)

Julie and Matt performed excerpts from The Tashme Project which was based on their personal interviews with Nisei who had been interned. Their portrayals had the cadence and accent of nisei characters and captured the anguish, hardship, trauma, and conflicting emotions of those caught in the turbulence of forced evacuation, exile and imprisonment. Their selections included a scene where a memory surfaces of being singled out, along with another student as Japs by a high school history teacher at Central Tech. “How can you forget, even if it’s 60 years, how can you forget!”

After the readings Kerri led an insightful and wide-ranging discussion in which each disclosed how the process of creation has deepened their understanding of their heritage and strengthened their feeling of “connectedness” to the community and how the personal, in these times of crisis is intimately connected to the political.

The 75 attendees enjoyed pre and post event slides of community landmarks and a few familiar and contemporary Japanese songs which enhanced the experience of community. Hearing the voices of  younger generation who understand that they stand on the shoulders of their elders and are using their considerable talent to embody love and respect for parents, grandparents and the Japanese Canadian community, was a powerful experience that moved many in attendance to tears.         

Michael Prior is a yonsei, a BC native, a graduate of University of Toronto and Cornell University and now, an assistant professor at Macalester College in St. Paul Minnesota.  His poetry has earned many awards and appear in numerous publications.  His first book of poetry, “Model Disciplines” was recognized by the CBC as one of the best of the year.  “Burning Province”, his second book of poetry was released this spring. 

“My time spent with the book has been such an embodied experience. I felt a familiar ache and anxiety in the heart but also a sense of bittersweet communion and commonality. I felt the same intense tangle of emotions when I saw “The Tashme Project”. There was the pain and pleasure of recognition and familiarity. The authenticity and the painstaking fidelity to the nisei spirit and sensibility was so artistically rendered.”

In addition to writing, Kerri Sakamoto has a strong interest in visual arts and has published articles and essays on visual artists.  She is a Sansei, residing in Toronto and has been a visiting scholar at University of Toronto and juror for the Toronto Film Festival.    

Julie Tamiko Manning has played numerous roles in plays ranging from the contemporary to Shakespeare. She is an award-winning actor and playwright. Her first play, “Mixie and the Halfbreeds”, a play about mixed identity in multiple universes, was co-written with Adrienne Wong and is on the list 49 Plays by Women of Colour. Her second play, “The Tashme Project: The Living Archives”, co-created with Matt Miwa, is a verbatim performance about the Japanese Canadian internment camps told through the childhood memories of community elders. (www.thetashmeproject.com)

Matt Miwa is a bilingual theatre, performance and video artist based in Ottawa He works to build bridges and collaboration between cultural communities. He is the author of an article called  “Revitalizing Japanese Canadian Identity” where he says, “Internment was a defining collective experience, yet the ways in which we do or do not remember it remain at odds between generations”.

Despite the gap, there is love.

(Read Matt’s Essay at   www.intermissionmagazine.ca/author/matt-miwa)