The following is the basic text of my
presentation to Vancouver City Council's Standing Committee on Planning
and Environment, November 3rd, 2005.

Hello Council members and guests

Thank you for receiving our request for a delay of demolition  for 1450 West 64th Ave, known as “Kogawa House.”

Thank you also to council for attending the Joy Kogawa Cherry Tree planting and ceremony that took place here on Tuesday.

Save Kogawa House committee is a local and national advocacy committee
in existence for two years since Kogawa House first came on the market.

We also thank the owner and representative, for working together with
us to seek a peaceful resolution and a win, win, win situation for all
parties involved.  The current owner of the house, the Save Kogawa
House committee, and the citizens of Vancouver, and throughout Canada.
 
It is our vision to purchase the house from its current owner and
transform it into a writers-in-residence centre, to give writers a
taste of Vancouver’s multicultural diversity.  This will give
special attention to writers of conscience, who can address human
rights issues like those that removed Joy and her family away from
their home to internment camps for the Japanese Canadians.

I am 5th Generation Vancouverite, my family has lived in Vancouver for
7 generations.  We suffered the racism of early Vancouver, and
paid the Chinese head tax, clustered in Chinatown for
protection.   After the Japanese Canadians were interned in
camps, we were all afraid that what happened to the Japanese-Canadians,
could happen to the Chinese too!  The experience shaped our
Asian-Canadian pioneer communities, and we tried to be good Canadians,
to integrate, and not cause trouble.

As I grew up in Vancouver, I have always related to the Japanese
Canadian experience as a shared Asian Canadian experience, due to
racism that lumped all Asians together.  But as my family
intermarried into the many other ethnicities of Vancouver, I have come
to understand that as Canadians, we are no longer two solitudes of
English and French, but inclusive of Scottish, Irish, First Nations,
Chinese, South Asian and Japanese culture.  Nor are we solitudes
at all, but one family that is intermarried to each diverse immigrant
group.

Kogawa House is not a Japanese Canadian issue.  It is a Canadian
issue.  Kogawa House is not just a Japane-Canadian Internment
Redress issue, it is a literary legacy for all Canadians.  By
truly embracing the stories of Joy Kogawa’s works and the story of
Kogawa House, we can truly say “never again” to a sorry episode in
Canada’s history.

I was on the inaugural committee for the Vancouver Public Library’s One
Book One Vancouver program, that introduced Vancouverites to Wayson
Choy’s “The Jade Peony”  The program made the book come alive
through many programs and events from May to September.

Since January of this year, I have been enthused by the idea that
Obasan could be the 2005 choice.  I wrote an article citing 20
reasons why Obasan was the best choice including:
1) Roy Miki stating that Obasan is the most important book written to understanding the Japanese Canadian experience;
2) that Quill and Quire named Obasan one of the most influential Canadian works of fiction;
3) that Joy was born in Vancouver and recieved the Order of Canada in 1986.

Obasan is a book that every Vancouverite should read.  

In September, Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop hosted the Ricepaper
Magazine 10th Anniversary Dinner, attended by councillors Roberts,
Woodsworth, and Sullivan.  And we celebrated Joy with a Community
Builders’ Award.

Joy is an author that every community should be so lucky to have.

I attended the Vancouver Opera world premiere of Naomi’s Road.  It
brought tears to my eyes, and I wrote a review.  It is the story
of two young children who were separate by their parents.  Their
aunt takes them on a vacation, and while on the train, they come to the
understanding that it isn't a vacation at all – they are going to an
internment camp.  During the next 3 years, they will be branded
enemy aliens, and they will never see their home again.

Naomi’s Road is an opera that every Vancouverite should see.

We would like to demonstrate our vision for Kogawa House, as a vision
for Vancouver, and for Canada.  We will share with you how we will
do this, and how writers and Canadians across Canada feel about this,
and we hope to touch your hearts and inspire joy in your lives for this
city we love.

I hope that we can say that Vancouver loves this book so much that we bought the house and we saved it.

Thank you.

Oh – one more thing….
Just as I arrived at City Hall today, house genealogist James Johnstone
gave me a house history of Kogawa House.  He just decided to do
this two days ago.  He found that it is one of the oldest houses
in Marpole, and lists all the owners to present.  This is just one
of the examples of how much this book and this house have moved people.

Thank you.

CBC French Television: films Save Kogawa House committee in action at City Council Nov 3

Great News today!

Just watched Radio Canada – French television
Our segment looks GREAT!

We taped it! – now to digitalize and convert to a
webcast…  hmmm…. new technology….
I am having enough of a challenge working on the new weblog www.kogawahouse.com

Shots showed the house, Obasan cover, One Book One
Vancouver stickers, etc…

Short interviews with Todd, and Joy, pictures of
Ann-Marie, Diane Switzer, our lunch meeting at Kirin Restaurant with Marion Quednau, Jackie Byrn and my girlfriend Deb Martin.

And… it showed city councillors taking out their
wallets and donating immediately to the cause, led by
Councillor Raymond Louie's challenge for other councillors to meet his $100 donation.

Our committee worked well, and each speakers covered
their points, without any real overlaps.

Also this morning… CBC Radio had news segment with
interviews by Todd and Joy at 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30am.

All good work everybody!  Well Done!

Writing associations across Canada support preservation of Kogawa House

OUR VISION FOR KOGAWA HOUSE





The Save Kogawa
House Committee believes it can preserve that heritage by purchasing
the property from its current owner and converting the home into a
writers-in-residence centre. Ten writers associations representing
several thousand writers have endorsed our proposal and would select
members from their organizations to reside in the house for a period of
approximately one month each.



This is their vision of the house as well:

Brian Brett, Chair of the Writers Union of Canada:

“The Writers’ Union of Canada, representing over 1,500 professional
writers,  supports the effort to save Joy Kogawa’s childhood home
on 1450 West 64th Avenue in Vancouver from demolition, and would like
to encourage its conversion into a major writers centre for Canadian
and international writers.

Vancouver would greatly benefit by designating the Joy Kogawa House as
a literary landmark and establishing it as a writers-in-residence
centre in which Canadian writers and writers from abroad could write
first hand about our complex and evolving multi- and inter-cultural
society and how different values and traditions can peacefully
interact.”
 
Brian Busby, President of the Federation of BC Writers:

“The house at 1450 West 64th Avenue which Joy Kogawa and her family
were forced to leave during the relocation of Japanese Canadians is the
central image of her famous novel Obasan, one of Canada’s best-loved
works of fiction. The many groups now coming together to save it
(whether at its present address or at another location) is one of the
strongest yet most diverse such alliances we have ever seen rally round
a cause. The emerging consensus favours employing the house as a new
cultural centre that would highlight the contributions of Vancouver
artists from all backgrounds—not as a shrine but rather as a working
place and as a place for work to be seen. This vision includes having
the facility in operation well before the 2010 Olympic Games.”

Amela Simic, Executive Director of the Playwrights Guild of Canada, representing over 500 members:


“Playwrights Guild of Canada members add their support to the Kogawa
Homestead Committee in their struggle to preserve the house and turn it
into a writers' centre. We think that it would be a grave mistake to
allow the demolition of Joy Kogawa's home, which is an important
landmark for Canadian culture and Canadian history in general. A
vibrant writers' centre would put Vancouver on the map along with other
cultural centres, like Mexico City with its beautiful Casa del Escritor
or Dublin with its Irish Writers' Centre.”

Rosemary Patterson, President of the Vancouver Branch of the Canadian Authors Association:

“The members of the Canadian Authors Association, Vancouver Branch,
would like to add their support to the Joy Kogawa House Committee in
their efforts to prevent the demolition of Joy Kogawa’s former family
home and save it for a writers’ centre as a permanent Olympics benefit
for Vancouver and all of Canada.”

Gordon Graham, President of the Periodical Writers Association of Canada:

“The Periodical Writers Association of Canada was founded in 1976 and
currently represents more than 550 freelance writers across
Canada.  (PWAC) would like to offer its support to the proposal to
develop Joy Kogawa’s home into a writers’ centre.  Writers’
centres and retreats, such as the Pierre Burton House in the Yukon,
have proved to be extremely valuable to writers, which directly
contributes to the further development of Canadian writing. This in
turn reinforces our national cultural resources and hence our ability
to promote ourselves internationally at events such as the Olympics.”

Mary Ellen Csamer, President of the League of Canadian Poets:

“The League of Canadian Poets, representing over 730 professional poets
across Canada, supports the effort to save Joy Kogawa's childhood home
on 1450 West 64th  Avenue in Vancouver from demolition, and would
like to encourage its conversion into a major writers centre for
Canadian and international writers.

Just as Emily Carr’s home in Victoria and Pierre Berton’s in the Yukon
provide a unique sense of the physical space that helped to define
those artists, so this building forms an important part of our
collective cultural imagination. To create a writers’ centre would be
an appropriate and timely action, which would draw national and
international writers to the West Coast for cultural stimulation and
peaceful retreat.”

Constance Rooke, President of PEN Canada:

“PEN Canada supports with immense enthusiasm the idea of turning Kogawa
House into a writers’ centre, and of making this venture a central
piece of legacy of the [Olympic] games. Certainly, we would make
extensive use of this resource. We would use it, for PEN Canada’s
allotted time, to house writers-in-exile, brave men and women who have
fled oppression in their own countries and sought refuge in Canada. We
work very hard to find short-term positions for these writers in
universities and libraries and so on, all across Canada, in order to
help them find their feet in a new country, and accommodation is always
a big part of the challenge we face. You have an opportunity here to do
something of historical importance: a chance to turn threatened
destruction into a very public gesture of preservation, reparation, and
new life.”

Jim Wong-Chu, Executive Director of the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop:

“Joy Kogawa is a pioneer for Asian Canadian literature, and we
recognized her with the 2005 ACWW Community Builders Award. Joy’s works
and legacy brings us closer together as Canadians, learning to overcome
our challenges and diversity. It is important to save Kogawa House as
both a literary and historical landmark. Asian Canadian Writers’
Workshop supports the preservation of Kogawa House, and the creation of
a writing centre.”     


Alma Lee, Founding Artistic Director, and Hal Wake, Incoming Artistic
Director, of the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival:

“We understand the historical and cultural significance of this
house as part of Vancouver’s literary heritage and believe that all
efforts should be made to save it from the wrecker’s ball.”

Sylvia McNicoll, President of the Canadian Society of Children’s
Authors, Illustrators and Performers:

On behalf of the members
of CANSCAIP I would like to offer our recommendation and support that
Joy Kogawa’s house be saved from demolition and be converted to a
writer’s retreat.”

Joan Andersen, Chair of the Vancouver Public Library Board:

VPL was honoured to declare Obasan as this year’s One Book One
Vancouver. The community’s positive response to both the book and Joy
has been most gratifying. Joy has spoken of the importance for her of
her first Vancouver home in public meetings and in the media throughout
the summer. The VPL Board understands the symbolic importance of this
modest house in the history of Vancouver, British Columbia and Canada
as well as its significance in Canada’s literary heritage. The
Vancouver Public Library Board supports in principle the campaign to
delay the demolition of the house with the hope of saving it and
converting it to a public use.”


James Wright, General Director, Vancouver Opera:

“Please accept this letter as support in principle from Vancouver Opera
to help exercise a ‘stay of demolition’ of Joy Kogawa’s childhood home
in Vancouver. We were honoured and delighted to receive Joy’s
permission to adapt Naomi’s Road into an opera for young people, which
is currently touring in schools across the province.  In its
premiere four-performance run at the Norman Rothstein Theatre, before
audiences composed mostly of adults, it was a huge hit. We at Vancouver
Opera appreciate the historical and cultural significance of this house
and believe that all efforts should be made to save it from the
wrecker’s ball.”


Tamsin Baker, Lower Mainland Regional Manager of The Land Conservancy:

“TLC would like to express our support towards the efforts to secure
the site and building in perpetuity.  TLC is a provincial land
trust working to protect BC's places of natural and cultural
heritage.  There are many benefits for the community that come
from the conservation and long-term management of important heritage
places. TLC would be willing to possibly provide support to the
community in securing the Kogawa home if the extension to delay the
demolition of the house is granted.”


Henry Kojima, President of the National Association of Japanese Canadians:

“The National Association of Japanese Canadians strongly supports the
retention of the Kogawa House.  The proposed international
writer-in-residence centre in Kogawa House would, indeed, be an
appropriate acknowledgement of our nation’s past, as well as be a
fitting tribute to the importance of Canada’s multi-cultural society
today. We respectfully urge Council to order a temporary protection of
the property for 120 days in order that sources of funding can be
pursued to purchase the home.”

Fred Yada, President of the National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre:

“To the Japanese Canadian community and to Canada, Joy's stories have
captured an important aspect of Canadian history, her contribution has
enriched Canadian literature, and she has told a story of many of our
people with dignity and grace. Most importantly, through her, Canadians
have gained awareness and
appreciation for harmony, acceptance, understanding and cultural
exchange. We believe that her work, and that a centre dedicated for
writing, will be a legacy for all Canadians, today and for the future.”

The Save Kogawa
House Committee thanks the current owner of the 1450 West 64th Avenue
property for giving us the opportunity to mobilize this extensive local
and Canada-wide support to raise the funds and purchase the house as a
writers centre.