JC Legacies at the Powell Street Festival

Japanese Canadian Legacies congratulates the Powell Street Festival on another successful festival, held August 2 and 3 in Oppenheimer Park and the surrounding historic Powell Street neighbourhood. We were honoured to once again participate in this long-standing grassroots event that links generations through arts and culture, dialogue, and historical connections. 

This year, JCLS welcomed a steady stream of community members to our two tents in the south west corner of the park where staff and volunteers were able to provide updates on our work serving community. 

An entire tent was devoted to the Japanese Canadian Monument Park. Large panels featured renderings of the Monument wall and park final design, showing for the first time the full scope of the project. Full size renderings of the first two wall panels from south Vancouver Island, including Salt Spring and Mayne Islands, attracted particular attention from Descendants and Survivors alike. 100 of these granite panels, measuring three feet wide by seven feet tall, will stretch the length of the park, etched with the names of over 22,000 Japanese Canadians displaced from the west coast in 1942. The names will be grouped according to where people were living in 1942 and will be searchable via an online database researched and digitized by the University of Victoria from primary source documents. The wall will also include the names of 3,000 children born after uprooting. 

Another tent was devoted to the rest of the work we are engaged in, including the Community Fund, BC Heritage Sites, and Education. We thank everyone for the many powerful conversations that took place over the weekend. In speaking to community members of all generations from across the country we are reminded of the many threads that run through our community and our deep roots in this province. We look forward to reconnecting at the 50th Anniversary Festival next August 1 and 2, 2026. 

Okage sama de.