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8-13-2014
A few days ago, I was lost and alone in the Downtown Eastside. I was headed for the Powell Street Festival. The map showed it was within walking distance from Waterfront Station, but somehow I got mixed up and wandering off course. It was a bright Sunday afternoon and I knew eventually I’d find a main street to orientate myself, so I used it as an opportunity to try to understand what it would be like to live in this rundown area.
“Live here” takes on a new context when you consider that nearly 2000 people in the Downtown Eastside are homeless. Imagine how different life must be. How do you have sense of stability when you don’t know where you’ll sleep at night? How do you hope to get a job when you have no safe place to leave all your belongings crammed in a shopping cart? How do you carry on normal hygiene routines without access to a private washroom? How do maintain a sense of dignity when everyone looks down on you?
This last question is what drew me to the event. A co-worker mentioned that he was helping to organize the Powell Street Festival and it was running into major challenges due to the tent city which had sprung up in Oppenheimer Park. I didn’t know much about either the festival or the protest until he explained. The festival showcases Japanese Canadian culture. It was held in Oppenheimer Park for the past 37 years as this neighbourhood once was the social and economic hub for the 22,000 Japanese Canadians in the Lower Mainland before WWII. It’s an exuberant celebration of culture and a serious reminder of the importance of understanding history.
The protestors set up camp in Oppenheimer Park hoping to draw attention to the plight of homelessness and inferior housing in the area. Initially, the City of Vancouver took a hard-line stance and tried to evict the protestors. This caused a bit of media attention and led to a stalemate. Instead of leaving, more protestors joined the cause. As the date of the festival drew closer, the organizers worried.
What was clear was that they would not call for the expulsion of the people in the tents. They issued a statement, “We acknowledge and respect the concerns of the homeless and community residents in the Oppenheimer Park area, located on unceded Coast Salish territory. For this reason, the Powell Street Festival Society will not use the area of Oppenheimer Park where the protest is taking place and do not support the removal order or the threat of removal of residents in the park in any way.”
You see, one of the reasons for holding the festival is as a reminder of the forced removal of all people living in Canada with Japanese ancestry to internment camps in 1941. Due to the attack on Pearl Harbor, every Japanese Canadian was suddenly declared an enemy. The only thing that mattered was race. If you were of Japanese heritage, you were dangerous and subversive. All assets, including businesses, equipment, houses, cars and bank accounts were seized by the government. People had to evacuate with only what they could carry. Everyone was detained - rich and poor, young and old, new immigrants and long-timers, every last man, woman and child of Japanese descent was suddenly homeless. Stripped of their homes, jobs, and dignity.
The Powell Street Festival is a big deal to the Japanese community. It takes energy and commitment to keep something running for nearly four decades. It symbolizes hope and recovery. The organizers were determined. They arranged to have some street closed off so that it could be a block party. Things were not quite the same as before, but the festival was successful.
I was also successful in finally finding it. I turned a corner and there it was. I saw a sumo match, a tea ceremony, a fusion concert. I walked through the area again, this time led by an elderly tour guide. Ray brought the bleak neighbourhood to life. He reminisced about his childhood living here before the war. At each building he cheerfully spoke about the people who ran the business or lived in the home. It wasn’t until the end of the tour that he spoke about his internment. His tone was somber and he reluctantly described the appalling details, showing no bitterness or anger. He clearly preferred to concentrate on the good times and on how people, especially his mother, managed to create a new sense of home during a horrendous time. His people understood being homeless, which is why they stood in solidarity with the protestors. He knew due to his own experience that no one should be lost and alone. Everyone deserves a home.
Working at UBC has explained Zainab Dhanani’s cultural understanding in ways she never imagined. She can be reached at z_dhanani@yahoo.ca
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