Memories of Our Past: A Brief History and Walking Tour of Powell Street

The research for this book began about ten years ago, when I embarked on a project to investigate the history of Japanese immigration to Canada. After a decade of travelling through Japan and Canada, talking to countless Issei (first generation immigrants) and their descendants, sifting through

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dusty old files and sitting hunched over a computer terminal for hours on end, there is beginning to emerge a remarkable story of the women, men and children who came from Japan to Canada with hopes of changing and bettering their lives. The project has now far exceeding my earlier expectations. The data include information on more than 30,000 individuals, representing the first generation of most of today's Japanese-Canadian population. Fortunately, technology has kept up with data acquisition, and there is a computerized data base containing more than 40 megabytes of information, a historical record that is both powerfully evocative and easily accessible. Thanks to a grant from the Japanese-Canadian Redress Foundation, that data base has recently been made accessible to the community, and can be used by other researchers as well as those wishing to trace their family histories.

This short book is a first attempt to make this rich archival legacy available to the community. Its goals are to capture the significance of Powell Street before the forces of development change its present contours beyond recognition, and to share with readers my sense of connection to the lives and pasts of those who traversed Powell Street in earlier days. For those who are frustrated by the brevity and the lack of documentation, more detailed, academic works will follow, including a forthcoming book on Japanese immigration to Canada entitled "Vancouver Interlude" ...'

(Abstract from Preface by Audrey Kobayashi)

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