During our visit to the rare books collection section of the library, I was reminded of rifling through my Grandfather’s old World War 2 memorabilia. Old postcards from his travels, letters he wrote back to his wife and children, and flyers and war propaganda. I always felt like I was time traveling when I was leafing through old papers. They have a certain smell to them, as if they’ve kept history within them via scent, and the scent carries old memories too. Looking through old documents, letters, and historical texts is especially interesting in this time period because we are closing the gap between handwritten historical accounts, and everything transferring over to digital copies. With the expansion of technology, the way that we create and record memories if often on digital platforms now. Written letters, printed document articles, and other personal, handwritten artifacts are becoming more rare. While thumbing through the pieces of historical texts and pieces of literature, you could feel the age within the papers. You could feel the thinning pages and see the stains, and wear and tear that comes with age. Often times there is a different and unfamiliar format to the writing, that is outdated or not used anymore. Physically being able to touch these old papers makes you feel very connected to the history that is written on them. It feels as though you have a deeper understanding of the material and the author.

With the rise of technology, we are getting less of these physical memories. Authors are more likely to type their work and email their drafts to editors than send them by mail. There is less physical evidence and history surrounding the writing of a book or the recording of an event. It was interesting to be able to get that close with Joy Kogowa’s writing process, especially since it felt so personal and was mostly in her own handwriting.  You typically don’t get to have that close of a look at a writer’s process, especially in their own handwriting with papers that were once at their own home. These artifacts helped change my understanding of the book’s place in Canadian history mostly with the historical documents that we got to examine during this visit. Looking at the political leaders responses to her notes was really insightful, and showed how poorly the Canadian government dealt with this situation. It showed a great lack of empathy within the government, and was shocking to think about the levels in which these decisions, about the Canadian Japanese population, had to go through to get passed and deemed proper. So many people had to conclude that it made sense to treat Japanese Canadians so poorly and with such disrespect. It indicates a huge lack of empathy among the government and majority, and reminds me of what happened in Nazi Germany, and with Japanese Americans as well.