Shop – TONARI GUMI – Japanese Community Volunteers Association

Spirit Of The Issei

The Story of Tonari Gumi

A young woman, a self-described "island girl," attends a series of gatherings over three years in Vancouver and is drawn into the narrative of how an upstart group of Japanese immigrants joined forces with Canadian born third generation Japanese Canadians to re-energize a community still reeling from the aftershocks of the forced removal and internment of the 1940's. She encounters the legacy of Jun Hamada, founder of Tonari Gumi, who despite his own failing health, created a space that functioned as a sanctuary for the Issei and a site for regeneration and renewal for the whole community.

The memories of a vibrant pre-war community alternate with the gritty present-day tour of the skid road that Powell street has become. The narrative is richly permeated with the joy of the Issei, the first generation elders, on their out-trips from Tonari Gumi, as they filch loaves of bread, rollick through monastery gardens and burst into song after planting cherry blossom trees in Oppenheimer park. The beauty and dignity of the Issei is stunningly captured in a 22-page series of black and white photographs from community photographer, Tamio Wakyama.

This book offers an intimate and lyric telling of events from inside the flux of history and concludes with Hanako immersing herself and her infant daughter in the present day activities and programs of Tonari Gumi.

This post is also available in: 日本語 (Japanese)