History Project

"History undocumented fades from memory but history documented lives forever!"

In 2010, the Edmonton Japanese Community Association (EJCA) Board, concerned about the loss of many early historians, decided to start a history preservation project by creating the EJCA History Project Committee.
In the beginning stages, the potentially mammoth scope of the project was narrowed and it was decided that, rather than writing a book about individual family histories, our objectives were: 

1. To gather, document and compile information about the history of people of Japanese ancestry in the Edmonton and surrounding area and to document the evolution of organizations and activities that supported those people.
2. To collect history-related documents and photographs.
3. To archive in a manner that makes these materials easily accessible to all interested parties. 

Then in 2013, a survey of Japanese Canadians and Japanese living in Edmonton was  conducted in order to obtain a "snap shot" of the Japanese community.
We hope that everyone will take the opportunity to peruse the information contained in the two reports. We think that the more you read, the more you’ll want to keep on reading!
Printed copies of the Reports, appendices and related documents are available at the EJCA Library. To view printed copies, please contact office@ejca.org. Online copies follow:

Phase 1 - Collect data including interviews, documents, and photos, January 2010 - March 2012 Phase 2 - Continue Data Collection, September 2012 - June 30, 2014 For online reports, please click the following links. History Project Report (June 2014) Appendix A Project Guidelines Appendix B1 View of Life - Interview summary 1 Appendix B2 View of Life - Interview summary 2 Appendix C Centennial Year of Japanese Canadian Appendix D Senior Interviews from newsletters Appendix E Sugizo Nakamura from "Heritage"

Phase 3 - Conduct a survey of the Japanese Canadian community (May 2013 - March 2016). The survey report has two sections: Part 1 - “Snapshots” of our community in 2013 Part 2 - Individual lives Final Survey Report published (May 2016) For online reports, please click the following link. Final Report (Second version: July 2016)