ABSTRACT
The first Japanese immigrant is believed to have arrived in Canada in 1877. Before the end of the nineteenth century, Canadian passenger ships regularly plied the transpacific route, bringing nearly 5,000 Japanese immigrant workers to Canada. Some of these Japanese remained in Canada to try and create a better future for themselves, their families, and descendants. Their history may be divided into two periods, with the outbreak of World War II on December 7, 1941, as the dividing line. The first is, by and large, the history of the issei (those born in Japan who immigrated as adults), and is “above all, a history of a racial minority struggling to survive in a hostile land” (Ichioka 1988: 1). I will present a brief history of Japanese Canadians and explore why they have been seen as “quiet.” I will do so by looking at the extraordinary wartime diary of a rather ordinary issei woman, Kaoru Ikeda.
