Pearl Hamaguchi’s Oral History from Broome
My name is Pearl Hamaguchi. I was born in Broome in 1940. I live in Broome. I’ve lived nowhere else. My grandmother on my father’s side, Yae Yamamoto, was Japanese. Yae was from Ichoda-mura (now part of Amakusa city), a village on Shimoshima Island, the largest of the Amakusa Islands
Read MoreSeptember 11, 2020
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My Life Story by Iseko Williams
My Life Story by Iseko Williams Background to this story Iseko Jenny Williams kept an occasional memoir of her life in Japan and Australia. Iseko’s interviewer and biographer, Hiromi Ogata, who interviewed her from August to September 2018, published the
Read MoreOctober 16, 2020
The first recorded Japanese in Australia: Steve Dawson’s family story
By Steve Dawson It is a privilege to be able to write about my family’s ancestral Japanese roots which trace back to Sakuragawa Rikinosuke, the first recorded Japanese immigrant to take up residence in Australia. Technically, this pi
Read MoreAugust 29, 2020
Story of Hasegawa Family by Andrew Hasegawa
By the time I was born in the early 1960s the long shadow of world war two was starting to fade. The 1950s and 60s saw wave after wave of immigrants arrive in Australia but almost no Asians or Japanese. The white Australia policy still prevailed and if the colour of my skin was anythi
Read MoreOctober 06, 2014
Jim McFarlane’s Nikkei Australian family history
All individuals featured in this article have been approached for permission to be named. My name is Jim McFarlane. My sister Coral and I come from a Japanese mother and an Australian father who met in Hiroshima during our father’s service in the occupation forces in 1952. Setsuko Nak
Read MoreApril 22, 2020
Akane Kanai’s Nikkei family
by Akane Kanai My mother, Yumiko, and my father, Masakazu, met in Sydney in the early 1980s. My dad had dreams of trying something different, separate from his large family in Nagoya; my mother had previously moved to Australia from Tokyo, with her first husband, a clever man named Jo
Read MoreAugust 28, 2020
Finding a balance between the two: Interview with artist Mariko Konno
by Timothy Kazuo Steains I recently interviewed the twenty-seven-year-old Nikkei artist Mariko Konno. We went to the same primary school, all those years ago: SJS or the Sydney Japanese School. It’s a Japanese international school in Sydney, and Mariko and I were in the interna
Read MoreDecember 12, 2017
Story of the Steains Family by Tim Steains
My name is Timothy Kazuo Steains, I am of Okinawan and white Australian descent, and am 26 years old. I was born in Australia and have always lived here. As a child I attended Konomi Yōchien, and the Sydney Japanese School. I speak conversational Japanese, and have a modest repertoire
Read MoreNovember 02, 2014
Internment Symposium March 2014
Civilian Internment in Australia during WW2 - history, memories and community heritage: this international symposium was held during Cowra's annual Festival of International Understanding March 6-16, 2014 in Cowra NSW.Keynote Speech by Dr Yuriko Nagata – Internment Symposium
Dr Yuriko Nagata’s keynote speech “The Legacy of Internment: shattered lives and lost communities” at Civilian Internment in Australia during WWII: history, memories and community heritage.
Introduction by Dr Keiko Tamura – Internment Symposium
Dr Keiko Tamura’s introduction at Civilian Internment in Australia during WWII: history, memories and community heritage.
Cowra Unveiling & Commemorative Ceremonies
On 9 March 2014, an interpretive board detailing the internment of Japanese and nikkei civilians during WWII in Australia was unveiled at the Japanese War Cemetery in Cowra, followed by commemorative ceremonies at the Australian War Cemetery,
Former civilian internees
of Tatura Internment Camps
Former civilian internees of Tatura Internment Camps gather at a symposium: Civilian Internment in Australia during WWII: history, memories and community heritage.
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