<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2600.0" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dear Friends,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I have become heavily involved with trying to
preserve Joy Kogawa's family home, featured in <EM>Obasan</EM>, from which she
and her family were forcibly removed under the War Measures Act in
1942.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Please see the </FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Joy Kogawa Homestead website</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="http://kogawa.homestead.com">http://kogawa.homestead.com</A> for
background information and photographs. A statement of aims of the Kogawa
Homestead Committee follows below for your reference.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><BR></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>The Kogawa
family home in Vancouver was sold today. The new owner wants to
renovate the house and rent it out. There is little to prevent the home
from being protected from demolition down the road unless Vancouver City
Council designates the house as historic and compensates the owner for such
heritage protection designation, which would reduce its resale value.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Terry Brunette, the City Heritage Planner, is
presenting the case for preserving the Kogawa house as a cultural heritage
centre to the Vancouver Heritage Commission at 1 pm on Monday. </FONT><FONT
face=Arial size=2>The hope is that with a strong show of support, the
City of Vancouver can assist with the purchase of the Kogawa house on an interim
basis. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>As per my message to Terry Brunette below, I
am making a personal commitment to help make Joy's lifelong dream come
true. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I invite you to join me as you are able. Together,
these pledges of support may convince the Vancouver Heritage Commission and
Vancouver City Council that there is sufficient public support to preserve the
home. Please email your pledges to Terry Brunette at</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="mailto:terry_brunette@city.vancouver.bc.ca">terry_brunette@city.vancouver.bc.ca</A> and
copy the mayor Larry Campbell at <A
href="mailto:larry_campbell@city.vancouver.bc.ca">larry_campbell@city.vancouver.bc.ca</A>
and councillors</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Jim Green <A
href="mailto:jim_green@city.vancouver.bc.ca">jim_green@city.vancouver.bc.ca</A> and
Ellen Woodsworth</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A title=ellen_woodsworth@city.vancouver.bc.ca
href="mailto:ellen_woodsworth@city.vancouver.bc.ca">ellen_woodsworth@city.vancouver.bc.ca</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Tax deductible receipts will be available through
the Vancouver Heritage Foundation and the Vancouver Foundation. Both have
offered their services to process such receipts. I believe that together we can
really make this happen. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Best wishes, </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Anton Wagner</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Secretary, Joy Kogawa</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Homestead Organizing Committee</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>416-863 1209</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=awagner@yorku.ca href="mailto:awagner@yorku.ca">awagner</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=terry_brunette@city.vancouver.bc.ca
href="mailto:terry_brunette@city.vancouver.bc.ca">Terry Brunette</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A title=larry_campbell@city.vancouver.bc.ca
href="mailto:larry_campbell@city.vancouver.bc.ca">larry_campbell@city.vancouver.bc.ca</A>
; <A title=jim_green@city.vancouver.bc.ca
href="mailto:jim_green@city.vancouver.bc.ca">jim_green@city.vancouver.bc.ca</A>
; <A title=ellen_woodsworth@city.vancouver.bc.ca
href="mailto:ellen_woodsworth@city.vancouver.bc.ca">ellen_woodsworth@city.vancouver.bc.ca</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Friday, November 14, 2003 8:34 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Financial Commitment to Saving Joy Kogawa Home</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT
face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Terry Brunette</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>City Heritage Planner</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>City of Vancouver</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>604-871 6467</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Dear Terry,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Thank you for presenting the case for preserving the Joy Kogawa family home
in Vancouver as a heritage and cultural centre to the Vancouver Heritage
Commission on Monday.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I strongly support this drive to preserve the Kogawa homestead and hereby
personally commit $1,500 towards this cultural heritage preservation
effort.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Sincerely,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Anton Wagner</DIV>
<DIV>Anton Wagner Productions </DIV>
<DIV>201 Sherbourne St. Suite 2306</DIV>
<DIV>Toronto, Ontario M5A 3X2</DIV>
<DIV>416-863 1209</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>THE JOY KOGAWA HOMESTEAD COMMITTEE</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Aims and Objectives:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The aim of the Joy Kogawa Homestead Committee is to prevent the destruction
of the Kogawa family home at 1450 West Sixty-fourth Avenue in Marpole,
Vancouver, between Granville and Cartier Streets, and to have the house
designated as a historic site and converted into a cultural centre. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Joy and her brother Timothy Nakayama and their parents moved from Kitsilano
to the Marpole house in the mid-1930s. In 1942, under the War Measures Act, the
federal government seized the family home as well as the property of 21,000
other Japanese-Canadians. Along with thousands of others, Joy's family was
forcibly evacuated by the Canadian government and interned in the silver-mining
"ghost town" of Slocan City deep in the mountain forests of the Kootenays. The
government's "Custodian of Enemy Alien Property" auctioned off the homes, farms,
fishing boats and other property of Japanese-Canadians seized during the Second
World War at rock bottom prices. At the conclusion of the War in August of 1945,
thousands of Japanese-Canadians were deported to Japan. Joy's family was
uprooted again and relocated further from the coast--"East of the Rockies"--to
Coaldale, Alberta, where they lived among the Japanese-Canadian sugar beet
workers. Restrictions on travel for Japanese-Canadians were not lifted until
1949.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The loss of the Kogawa home, and the suffering caused by the forced
evacuation and internment of Japanese-Canadians is movingly told in Joy Kogawa's
classic Canadian novel Obasan and its adaptation for younger readers, Naomi's
Road. In her second novel, Itsuka, Joy Kogawa chronicled the struggle by
Japanese-Canadians to win government compensation for their loss of property,
disenfranchisement, detention, restriction of movement and loss of their
democratic rights. Joy's Obasan, and her own active participation in this
redress movement with the National Association of Japanese Canadians, were
instrumental in winning government compensation in 1988.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The small house confiscated from Joy Kogawa's family in 1942 has
miraculously survived but is now up for sale and may be razed by a new buyer
wishing to build a larger house on the property. Joy's childhood home in
Vancouver could be what the Anne Frank House is in Amsterdam. It could provide
educational background to its visitors as well as being a reminder of a time in
history that we want to ensure is never repeated. History is fragile and always
in danger of being rewritten or forgotten. In preserving the Kogawa home, we can
teach future generations about the suffering perpetrated by our society in
dispossessing and disenfranchising vulnerable minorities. As Joy's brother, the
Rev. Timothy Nakayama has written, "Can the house where we once lived now become
a place to learn about freedom and human rights? Our experiences as people of
Japanese ancestry in North and South America need to be known so that these
tragedies may not be
repeated."<BR> <BR>The availability of
the Kogawa home provides a wonderful opportunity for the city of Vancouver, the
province of British Columbia, and the federal government to take immediate
action to ensure that this house will be preserved as a historic site for all
Canadians. If this one home, out of all those taken away from Japanese-Canadians
during the dark period of internment, could be returned to all the people of
Canada, the act would be symbolic and powerful indeed. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Joy Kogawa's home should be recognized as a heritage site so that it can
provide a strong symbol of what so many families lost. It is a lesson about the
insidiousness of racism, a lesson that Canadians must face in the light of day
so that our vision of a harmonious multi-cultural society has a chance to be
fulfilled. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>What an extraordinary gift it would be to the people of Canada and to
visitors from around the world to have the house that Joy Kogawa lived in before
her family was sent to the camps in World War II restored as an historic site.
School children could visit this site and learn more about our country's history
and the dark side of that history. Adults, too, who may have forgotten what
happened to the Japanese-Canadians at this time, could hear the story again and
be reminded of how vulnerable our freedom is, how easily it can be taken away,
how carefully, how tenaciously we need to care for it. And all of us, including
foreign visitors, could see first hand one of the great strengths of our
democracy--in the fearless witness to the truth, however dark that truth may
be.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The significance of the Kogawa home in Canadian history and literature
makes it essential that the government designate the house as a historic site
for all Canadians. For hundreds of moving public expressions for the need to
save the Kogawa home, please visit the Joy Kogawa Homestead website <A
href="http://kogawa.homestead.com">http://kogawa.homestead.com</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR> </DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>