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Michiko Midge Ayukawa, Hiroshima Immigrants in Canada, 1891-1941.

Article Excerpt
Michiko Midge Ayukawa, Hiroshima Immigrants in Canada, 1891-1941 (Vancouver: UBC Press 2008)

IN HIROSHIMA Immigrants in Canada, 1891-1941, Michiko Midge Ayukawa presents both a scholarly and an insider's view of the history of Japanese immigrants (Issei). As a second-generation Japanese Canadian (Nisei), Ayukawa examines this history as part of her efforts to learn more about her parents and the complex story of Issei experiences and attitudes. Her goal is to reconcile the previous histories written about Japanese Canadians as oppressed people who faced persecution with her memory of "a vibrant Japanese-Canadian community full of confident men and women." (xvii)

Ayukawa's nicely written study adds to a growing trend in scholarship on Japanese immigrant history in North America in its conceptualization of the Issei as a heterogeneous immigrant group, rather than a monolithic one. Even as she acknowledges shared aspects of the history of the Issei, including the impact of racism, she highlights differences based on place, gender, class, and generation.

She draws on her own family history,...