'They weren't just ordinary tenants': Exhibition shines light on Japanese-Canadian couple

Three University of Toronto students have collaborated with Campbell House Museum on a project thatincludes a month-long exhibition, which bringsto light a dark time in Canadian history.

The exhibition titled Redefining Home: A Story of Japanese Canadian Resettlement in Toronto follows the story of Harold and Hana Kawasoe, a young Japanese-Canadian couple who lived in Campbell House's attic from 1948 to 1951.

Harold was born in Victoria in 1916, andHanawas born in Vancouver in 1920. During the Second World War, theywere among 22,000 Japanese-Canadians that the Canadian government evicted from their homes, confiscating and selling most of their possessions. The couple lived in British Columbia at the time of the eviction in 1942.

Redefining Home follows the couple's story, including the support they received from employer, friend, and ally C.F. Wood, whose Hobbs Glass business operated below their attic rooms in Campbell House.

Liz Driver, director and curator at Campbell House Museum said people most often think of Campbell House in the colonial era, forgetting that the building has been part of Toronto's history for nearly 200 years.

She said the exhibit brings to light the slice of time shortly after the Second World War, when Hobbs Glass Co. shared the house with the Kawasoe family.

"They weren't just ordinary tenants. Their story was connected with a national story," Driver told CBC Toronto.

"I for one didn't know much about how Japanese-Canadians were received in Toronto during and after the Second World War, and I think it's really important to know how officials responded."

Driver said she "was quite shocked that the mayor [at the time] actually passed a bylaw to keep Japanese-Canadians out of the city and that Japanese-Canadians who wished to work and live in Toronto had to appeal to the mayor for permission or find allies to support them."

The Kawasoe family found an ally in Wood, and their son, Don Kawasoe, said recently that meeting the Toronto resident was "transformational" for his parents.

"I'm not sure what dad thought of the world at that point, but the fact that somebody gave him a chance to show what he was capable of, I think he took the most of that opportunity," Kawasoe told CBC News.

"That family was tremendously generous to dad and to all of us ...by providing accommodation here in Campbell House."

Kawasoe said there were times when his father was expected to do things beyond his job for Wood, but that he was always kind and generous.

"He would create opportunities for my dad. We got clothes from the Wood family; we got toys from the Wood family. They were tremendously thoughtful, compassionate people."

'Exposed to racism'

It was not all compassion and kindness forKawasoeand his sister.

"To some extent we were exposed to a bit of racism to the point where we felt uncomfortable. To some degree it felt embarrassing to be a visible minority, to be a Japanese-Canadian," he told CBC News.

"It was really about wanting to belong with friends in the neighbourhood and do things with neighbourhood kids, and our parents were good enough to let us do those things."

Kawasoe welcomed the exhibition and thanked the Campbell House management for preserving the place where his parents found refuge when they arrived in Toronto.

"The idea that a place where mom and dad had lived is actually being preserved and set up as a museum was pretty exciting at the time, although we weren't particularly involved," he told CBC Toronto.

"But I think to be able to come back to have a look at the attic where they used to livecertainly makes you think about the circumstances they lived in back when they were first married."

Redefining Home features photographs, documents and objects from the Kawasoe family, the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Montreal, and the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre in Burnaby, B.C.

On display is Harold's personal photo album, containing never-before-seen images of Japanese-Canadian life in internment camps, Ontario's labour campsand mid-century Toronto family snapshots.

The exhibition will also feature original art installations by Japanese-Canadian artists Lillian Michiko Blakey and Laura Shintani. Their work reflects on the Japanese-Canadian experience, following themes of resilience, loss, cultural adaptation, forgivenessand the idea of unspoken stories.

Redefining Home A Story of Japanese Canadian Resettlement will be on view at Campbell House Museum from March 1 to April 1.

The project is curated by Masters of Museum Studies candidates from the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information, Meghan Drascic-Gaudio, Hailey Grahamand Madeleine Howard.