| biography | Gengo (Jack) Nishimura (1910-1982) and Yuki Nishimura (nee Saiki) (1915-1949), were Vancouver born Nisei. Genjo's family was from “Shiga-ken” and Yuki's family was from “Fukuoka-ken”.
Before the war, Gengo, Yuki and their son James (Jim) Nishimura lived in the Fairview area of Vancouver where Jack had a dry-cleaning establishment. Jim attended the Japanese kindergarten run by the United Church of Canada in Fairview.
There is a certificate of promotion to public school belonging to Jim which was signed by Helen R Hurd, the principal and the teacher, Isabel Montgomery, dated June 1942 in the collection. At this time, the family left Vancouver, BC by train to Hope, BC. From Hope, they had to ride on the back of a truck to Tashme, BC; an internment camp.
The family only had a few suitcases and a large steel trunk. The family was assigned to live in the last house at the end of 9th Avenue. The community bathhouse was across the street from the house and as a child, Jim remembers it being very noisy with people going to the bathhouse on the wooden sidewalk with their wooden geta (Japanese slippers).
They had a young lady teaching Japanese class in the family's house after English class. Jim remembers there were two outhouses behind their house with four doors and another outhouse to the side of them. (He believes two families shared one unit.) Each house had a small garden plot to grow vegetables. They were not allowed to fish or hunt in the area.
They went to watch baseball games in the summer. There was a large Boy Scout troop and occasionally they would march down the street carrying lanterns.
The Nishimura's moved out of Tashme around 1945 to a place called Brookmere, BC where Jack was asked by Mr Gillis, a sawmill owner, to gather other families who wanted to work at the mill. Some of the people who went were Kazuta, Miyazaki, Yasunaga, Mori, Otsu, Ishikawa, Hayakawa, Iwanaka, Murata, Kaniyama and Yoshikawa.
Jim did not experience any racial discrimination in Brookmere, perhaps because most students were of Japanese decent. The students never heard anything about the war between Japan and Canada as nobody spoke about it - at least to the children.
They were treated well by everyone who lived in Brookmere. They went fishing, swimming and horseback riding in the summer. There were about 1500-2000 sheep from Douglas Ranch by Aspen Grove that came by the Nishimura house in the spring and back in the fall. The owner of the sawmill treated all of the workers well. The Nishimura's house in Brookmere was a lot warmer than the one in Tashme and it had more rooms as well as its own private outhouse.
Harold Sato’s dad worked for the CPR and their family arrived in Brookmere before the Nishimuras. Some families would make extra money by peeling the bark off the pine trees for mine poles, which were about 6 ft long and 6 inches in diameter.
After the sawmill closed in Brookmere, Jack went to Tulameen and met with the mill owner, Grant Squelch, who asked Jack to bring his family and any friends who may want to work at his sawmill. About six families came with the Nishimuras, while some went to Merritt, BC and others from Tashme moved east of the Canadian Rockies or to Japan.
The Nishimuras were treated well by Mr Squelch and were given a nice log home with four rooms. Jim recalls it being like a mansion compared to the previous two houses. It had a sawdust burning stove inside which had a hopper on the side that they filled at night which kept them warm until morning. The sawdust was delivered free from the mill - no more chopping wood. The rural school was from grade one to eight and had only about twenty-five students.
In the summer, they spent most of their time at Otter Lake which was about a mile away. Their biggest trip was into Princeton, BC once a month to watch a movie. The trip was about eighteen miles but it took them over one and a half hours by the only taxi in town; a model T Ford.
The sawmill workers would take the taxi to the beer pub in Coalmont on the weekends which was only five miles away.
On July 1st, all the Japanese families got together for a picnic at the Similkameen River. Summers were busy with fishing, hiking, horseback riding and hunting. Jim had a 22 semi automatic rifle and hunted grouse and pheasant. Every Thanksgiving, the Nishimuras entered the turkey shoot that was held at Mr Rabbit’s farm. The Japanese Canadian men Jim knew were Elmer and David Mori, Jim Nishihara and Mickey Yasunaga.
Jim played mostly with the white boys and was treated equally with no racial slurs. During the winter there were ski hills and the lake turned into one big skating rink. The Canadian Pacific Railway trains would come to the lake and workers would cut blocks of ice and load them into the box cars. Sometimes the Nishimuras would take the train into Princeton, BC.
The saddest moment of Jim's life was coming home for lunch and being told that his mother had passed away at the Princeton Hospital on April 5, 1949. She was only thirty-four years old; Jack was thirteen, his sister Jane was eleven and his two younger brothers, Kenny and Yoshiyaki (Chaki) were seven and five so they did not remember very little. Jim's mother was giving birth and had some complications. The regular doctor was away on a call so the intern was the only medical person on duty. Jim often thought that had the Nishimura family lived in Vancouver, his mother might have survived. His baby sister Esther, however did survived.
Consequently. all five of the children lived with the Hughes family where Mrs Hughes looked after them as well as her own three children. After the Tulameen sawmill closed, Jim's father went to Penticton, BC to look for a job at a sawmill and the owner asked asked him if there were any other Japanese families willing to work at his mill.
The Nishimuras stayed with the Hughes family for about two or three months and then they moved to Penticton, BC. Only the Mori family went to Penticton and the Nishimuras stayed with them and lived in the sawmill owner's big home.
At this point with four young children, Jim's father, Jack, had no choice but to give up Jim's baby sister Esther for adoption to a Japanese couple in Lethbridge, AB. The Nishimuras went to visit her when she was eighteen years old and had a great reunion. Esther has since married with a family of two sons and lives in Richmond, BC.
The Japanese Canadians were allowed to return to the West Coast in 1949 and Jack's father returned to Vancouver to look for work in April, 1950.
Two months later, the Nishimura children joined him and stayed with the Iwata family at the Hotel Roosevelt. After living with the Iwata family for two to three months, they moved to an apartment at 430 E Cordova Street in Vancovuer which was in front of Powell Street grounds.
Jim and his siblings Jane and Ken attended Strathcona School, whereas Jim's youngest brother, Chaki, went to the Catholic kindergarten run by the Franciscan Sisters. However after a week of crying everyday at kindergarten, Jim's father felt sorry for Chaki so he asked the principal of Strathcona School if Chaki could go to school with his brothers and sister which the principal consented to. (There were not many Japanese Canadian students at the school at that time and Jim had a few fights when he was called a “Jap”).
Later on, Jim befriended a couple of white boys with whom he played soccer, baseball and boxing. The Japanese Judo Club started at the Japanese Language School in the early 1950s and Jim met many Japanese Canadians taking judo. He also helped create the Japanese Nisei Teenage Club which held dances and lessons at the Japanese Language School.
In addition, the Japanese Canadian Citizens' Assocation (JCCA) organized ballroom dances at the Hastings, Peter Pan, Arlington and Pender Auditoriums which brought many Japanese Canadian’s together of all ages. Jim thinks he still has his membership card. These events brought more Japanese Canadians together. Many attended the Japanese Language School which taught students the basic “hiragana” and “katakana”and some “kanji”, as well as learning to speak better Japanese.
Jim joined the Vancouver 2nd Scout Troop which held their meetings at the First United Church at Hastings and Gore Avenues in Vancouver, BC. with Scoutmaster Lambert.
Jim still remembers going swimming at Crystal Pool in English Bay with the scout troop and was denied entry because he was Japanese. The others came out and asked the ticket person why Jim was not allowed in and when they were told why, the troop asked for a refund and they all walked out, which made Jim's day. His scoutmaster was a very fair person who treated everyone equally.
In the early 1950s, more Japanese families moved into the Powell Street area such as the Kazuta, Uchida, Kamiya, Kagetsu, Nishi, Kunimoto and Sato families. Powell Street also had many Japanese businesses that served the community.
After Jim left Strathcona School in grade eight, the Nishimuras moved into an apartment at Cordova and Heatley Street in Vancouver, BC.
About a year later, Jack was able to bring his mother over from Japan with special assistance fromt he local MLA; Mr Paul Martin. This was a great help for Jim and his sister who were in their early teens. Jim started high school at Vancouver Technical School on Broadway Street in Vancouver,bc. He caught the street car on Hastings Street which took him to Commercial and Broadway and then he transferred on to the Broadway bus to school.
His classes consisted of all boys taking woodworking, electrical, sheet metal work, printing and drafting courses.
Jim's first summer job was strawberry picking in Richmond, BC at age of fourteen. He would catch a bus on Powell Street in Vancouver which would then pick up other Japanese workers along the route.
The following year, George Iwata and Jim picked strawberries and put up bean poles at Mr Katsumoto’s farm in Aldergrove, BC. They would often go down to the Ishikawa family’s house to have a Japanese bath.
Another summer job Jim had was working as a laborer for Hirano Construction in West Vancouver building houses. He would catch the West Van blue bus with Mr Mike Oikawa who was a carpenter. Jim also remembers working with Kaz Tasaka and Mr Shimizu in construction. Mr Hirano also put on Japanese movies at the Olympia Theatre on Hastings Street in Vancouver.
One of the best summer jobs Jim had was working for the Canadian Fishing Company at the foot of Gore Street in Vancouver, which helped pay for his education. He met a lot of Japanese Canadian students there and Mr Kamikura, Jim's foreman, looked after most of the Japanese Canadian workers. He would let his workers know when to start the each morning and roughly how many hours a day they would work, Jim considered this fair. Workers were paid $1.35 per hour and after eight hours, they would be paid time and a half. Some days workers had to work fourteen hour shifts. They were paid cash on pay day which Jim thought was great. He remembers going to the Sun Peking Restaurant on Powell Street and eating the best soba noodles in town.
After graduating from Vancouver Tech with fellow Japanese Canadian students Ruby Okano and Louie Hori, Jim moved to 2682 Franklin Street in Vancouver, BC which was their first detached home. Their neighbors on one side were the Naganos and on the other side were the Yanos and the Inamasus.
Jim's father was working in partnership with Mrs Iwata and her sons, Art and Sid at Perfect Cleaners, located at Hastings Street and Clark Drive in Vancouver. They did dry cleaning for twenty to thirty press shops; many being Japanese owned. Jim recalls a few shop owners such as: Mori, Tahara, Tasaka, Otani and Ukai.
Jim began his first job in 1956 after graduating from Vancouver Tech in 1954. He worked for Tessler Bros., a dry cleaning supply firm.
Jim married Yoko Hayashi in 1961 and had three sons, Derek, Todd, and Neil. He worked at Tessler’s until 1972 and then worked for Harrison & Crosfield in the same line of business until 1991. Jim also worked at George Wertman, BC Specialties, and lastly at Prairie Distributors until he retired in 2001. Jim now has a part-time job marshalling at Langara Golf Course which allows him to take trips to Las Vegas.
- Taken from an article written by Jim Nishimura for Nikkei Images in 2013.
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