In 2 or more generations, the Chikamori family will end up hakujin (white). You won't be able to tell us apart from the average Joe Smith running around Canada. That's provided my sons do not marry a Japanese girl to preserve the Asian-ness of the family name. My daughter Storm will end up making her own family with a man and become a part of their family whether she marries a Japanese man or someone from a different race. Am I one to dictate who they marry? No, I am not. The Chikamori family may be an old Japanese name, one of the more uncommon ones and one that has prided itself on staying relatively homogenized in Japan, however time marches on and as such we evolve into a more blended family (at least in Canada and the United States)
How does it make me feel? Well...the maternal (my estranged mother) side of this family (the Mimoto end) went through the internment. It pretty much destroyed the cohesiveness of the Japanese-Canadian community. The general concensus of the Japanese-Canadian population was to assimilate fully into Canadian society and that meant "intermarriage": that way, they would never be hurt again. As the first blended generation of my family - as a sansei, who married a young woman of Irish-Italian descent, having had four children, it has been an eye-opening experience. My kids look hapa, though they overwhelmingly bear a marked appearance to me, their skin tone is much lighter. Whereas I am a rich beige in skin coloring, my kids share their skin-tone coloring with my wife. Their facial bone-structure is similar to mine. Their eyes are much like mine, but their eye-shade is much lighter. My daughter's eye color is hazel where as mine is a dark, dark brown almost obsidian black.
So how do we preserve our Japanese culture while living in Canada? That's the hard question. Of particular note, since Pauline Marois' legislation in Quebec (which got soundly rejected with the defeat of her Parti Quebecois in the Quebec by-election by the Quebec Liberals which formed a majority government), culture has been a hot-topic recently. And it is a hotbed of resentment between all involved in cultural preservation. Simply put, there is no Canadian culture, per se. North America, frankly is a land of immigrants. What culture is present was brought over over 400 years ago. The Voyageur culture was brought over from France. The English-speaking populace's culture was brought over from Britain, Ireland and other Celtic countries. And each culture that has come over since has brought over their own brand of culture and all of that mixed together with a bit of sugar and salt makes up what passes for Canadian culture as a great big mixed pot of goulash (sorry, Hungarians!). So we as a mixed family have to preserve our Japanese culture by participating when we can, in the Powell Street Festival; by hanging out at the Nikkei Cultural Center in Burnaby, BC. (or in Toronto if you live in that area) and/or making sure that holiday customs are celebrated in our home. To preserve the Japanese-Canadian culture, you have to be a part of the Japanese-Canadian community; to make a connection to those who do remember the cultural values brought over from the old country.
So as far as my opinion is concerned - Do I care that my family will end up looking entirely white in several generations down the road? The answer to that would be a resounding no. The only thing I care about is that they remember where their roots came from. Embrace the future, but remember your past. And as far as the injustices were concerned with respects to the Internment, during the Second World War? Shikata ga nai. There is no positive ending to making noise about the Internment. Deru kugi wa tatakeru.
