Harry was born in Cumberland, a mining town on Vancouver Island, in 1921. His parents had come to Cumberland from Japan in order to run a Japanese language school for the children of Japanese immigrants living there. Because he was born in Canada, Harry was a Nisei, or second-generation, Japanese Canadian. This fact dramatically altered the course of his life in 1942, when the Canadian government ordered all people “of the Japanese race”, regardless of citizenship, to leave the west coast of Canada with only what they could carry. Harry, who was living in Vancouver at the time and planning to go to university, never forgot the way he and his family were treated at the hands of his government.

With footage used with permission from Susanne Tabata and Jeanette Scott. All footage remains the property of its respective owners.