Lesser-Heard Truths: Lived and Told Stories of a Japanese Internment Survivor

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Three
  In Roundtable Session: Multiculturalism and Diversity Education (Table 14)

Abstract

Narrative inquirers understand that in lieu of a single truth, there are multiple realities and that experience is socially constructed and is shaped by time, place, and relationships. In this study, a narrative understanding of displacement is taken up in relation to coming alongside a Japanese internment survivor, Dr. Hiroto. The authors attend to his truth and experience of internment in Canada and the lingering reverberations. We inquire into Hiroto’s stories of experience as a young child, youth, and adult in a time of war and strife. (Re)visiting stories of identity and displacement nested within familial, intergenerational, cultural, and national narratives enabled us to metaphorically travel to Hiroto’s worlds and collectively (re)imagine more just and equitable ways of being.

Authors

• Simmee Chung, Concordia University - Edmonton
  Presenting Author

• Jinny Menon, University of Alberta
  Presenting Author

• Lynn Butler-Kisber, McGill University
  Presenting Author