Japanese drummers perform at last year's Powell Street Festival. Photo courtesy of the Powell Street Festival
The Powell Street area is particularly significant to Japanese culture in Vancouver. A site of bustling immigration from Japan decades ago, Powell St. remains the site of the Japanese Buddhist Temple, the Japanese language school, and the Japanese Hall.
The area is now home to individuals from assorted backgrounds, but remains natsukashii (a place of many memories).
Japanese culture in Canada dates back to 1877, and since that time, a rich and unique cultural history, particularly in Vancouver, continues to flourish.
The Powell Street Festival in 1979. Photo courtesy of the Powell Street Festival
Personal connections to the Powell Street Festival
Hanae Tsukada is an international student studying education at UBC. While all volunteers in the PSFS have diverse backgrounds, Tsukada feels that her background is distinctly unique.
She was born and raised in Japan but has lived in North America for the past 12 years. She has been on the board of PSFS since November of last year.
She was motivated to join the PSFS because she “wanted to learn how Japanese culture is interpreted, expressed, and carried on in Vancouver, who are behind those cultural activities, with what kinds of motivations and what kinds of sense of attachment to …Japanese culture.”
“My sense of belonging to Japan has been changing throughout my life in North America…I wanted to explore various ways in which…the piece ‘Japan’ plays a role in their sense of self and lives,” says Tsukada.
Lia Cosco, a Post-Graduate Research Fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, grew up in Vancouver and remembers going to the Powell Street Festival as a child.
After studying in Japan, she recently moved back to Vancouver and is pleased to be involved with the festival as a Vice President of the board for the PSFS.
“I was looking for a way to stay in touch with Japanese culture,” says Cosco.
“[The PSFS]… is very much connected to the history of Japanese-Canadians… Powell Street is the heart of the Japanese-Canadian community in Vancouver, so the festival was started there and it speaks to that history.”
The Powell Street Festival in 2009. Photo by Presley Perswaine, Flickr
The annual Powell Street Festival
The 36th Annual Powell Street Festival will take place August 4–5 in Oppenheimer Park and at surrounding venues. The festival incorporates Asian and Japanese-Canadian arts, culture and traditions.
Kristen Lambertson, General Manager and Programming Director of the festival, explains that the festival began in 1977, “the centennial anniversary of [the] first immigration…[as well as] the birth [year] of the Japanese community organization. Some of the issei (first generation immigrants from Japan) planted cherry blossom trees at Oppenheimer park at that time, too.”
When asked about the significance of keeping the festival at the same site with the same name , she says that “it is a hub of the Japanese community…[it’s] about coming back to a place that was once home.”
Lambertson adds that “there has been some talk of relocating…in the end, the community and Board decided it was important to stay there…it varies amongst the individual, but it still really speaks to a lot of people.”
The area, now diversely populated, is invited to join in the festivities.
“We don’t want to push people out. We respect the vitality of the downtown eastside and are happy to be a part of this vitality once a year…we get new citizens, ESL students, people with no Japanese background at all. But it’s part of their culture and their group [in Vancouver].”
In addition, Lambertson feels that the festival has been well-received by people who live on Powell Street.
“For the most part, we feel warmly invited… we try to be as approachable as possible,” says Lambertson.
To learn more about the Powell Street Festival or to volunteer for the event please visit www.powellstreetfestival.com.
With files from Kate Kovaleva
