My name is Sarah Rempel and I have lived in Abbotsford for almost five years as a student, first at CBC and now at UFV. For one summer I returned to my home on Vancouver Island to work at the Cumberland Museum and Archives where I was first introduced to the rich history and culture of Japanese Canadians in British Columbia and listened to firsthand accounts of the displacement. Shocked that until then I had learned little of this devastating event in my country’s past, my hope was to take time in the future to learn about and contextualize it further.
When given the opportunity to research education in the Fraser Valley, through UFV’s History 440: History for the Web, I immediately began to wonder how this correlated with Japanese Canadian experiences. So in the midst of a pandemic I took a journey into the past of my neighbourhood.
I acknowledge that I researched, wrote, and inhabit this land as a descendent of immigrants, and also am an embodiment of white privilege, but I humbly present these archival findings to the public and hope that it will awaken curiosity to further explore and remember the stories of Japanese Canadians.