Gracious!

Last month, I felt privileged to be a guest on the “Because Fiction” podcast with author Chautona Havig. Chautona’s insatiable appetite for stories and her unabashed enthusiasm for books made her easy to talk to. Although officially discussing my latest release, she had recently finished reading Rose Among Thornes (released in 2021) and we spent time on that as well.

What made Rose’s story especially poignant for Chautona was that, coincidentally,

Photo credit Manzanar National Historic Site

around the time she read the book, she toured Manzanar National Historic Site near her home in California. Manzanar War Relocation Center was one of ten camps where the US government incarcerated Japanese immigrants and Japanese American citizens during World War II. Canadians did the same here, as you’ll know if you’ve read my book or others. Many of my American readers were previously unaware that the Canadian government took the same action. Though I researched several of these camps, I did not have the opportunity to visit one.

Chautona told me that what struck her most while touring the site was not the primitive conditions under which internees were forced to live—the overcrowding, the lack of privacy, the injustice. What moved her was reading, over and over, the stories recorded by those who ran the camp, about how gracious and lovely the Japanese people remained throughout their incarceration. She said, “All I could think about was, if we put Christians in an internment camp today, would people say we were lovely and gracious? Eighty years later, would we be remembered for behaving graciously?”

Whoa. Loaded question.

How about you? Imagine yourself, born here in Canada but your parents immigrated from a country now suddenly at war with us. Forced to leave your home and most of your possessions, you don’t know when or if you’ll return. For three years, you share rustic barracks with strangers. The surrounding barbed wire fences and guard towers prevent you from leaving. You’re reminded that your countrymen who’ve been taken prisoner by your parents’ country of origin are being treated far worse than you. You should be thankful, you’re told.

Would your guards be impressed with how you exhibited the fruit of the Spirit we Christians are supposedly known for? (If you need a refresher, that fruit, according to Galatians 5, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.)

None of us knows how we would behave because we haven’t encountered this level of injustice. Perhaps that question can best be answered by how we respond when our “rights” are stepped on. When someone cuts us off in traffic. When we’re left out. When someone else gets the promotion or the contract or the last piece of dessert. When our parcel is delivered to the wrong address. When we’re required to pay too much tax. Or wear a face mask. Or wait in line.

If we can’t display patience and self-control in these smaller situations, how would we be remembered 80 years after our unjust incarceration?

Am I suggesting we shouldn’t stand up for what’s right? Of course not. But if we call ourselves followers of Jesus, we need to look at whose rights Jesus fought for. Always, it was for others. Not his own. Just the opposite, in fact. He willingly remained quiet under abuse, “like a sheep to the slaughter.”

I pray for the level of maturity that makes me become more gracious, like Jesus, each day.

Election Time Again

Last time we held a municipal election, I still worked at city hall and could meet the candidates as soon as they registered. I also attended the candidate forums to hear their platforms. Sadly, any candidate forums I’m aware of this year were scheduled for Wednesday evenings when I’m busy teaching a Creative Writing class at Red River College. (More on that in another post.) I will need to work a little harder to discover where the various candidates stand and how much experience they might bring to that big oval table in our council chambers.

I hope you’ll take the time to attend a forum or research the candidates and their positions so you can make an informed decision. Remember, you can vote for up to six councilors. If you’re unsure, you don’t need to check six. Better to vote for fewer councilors than to randomly select the name of someone about whom you know nothing.

However you make your selections, I do hope you vote and that you’re grateful for the privilege. This world still has far too many places where voting is not a given—or worse, where you’re forced to vote but the ballot features only one candidate’s name.

I felt tickled to receive some winning votes myself last month, in another arena entirely. You may recall hearing about, or maybe you’ve read, my novel Rose Among Thornes. This book has ties to the Portage la Prairie area and I’m so pleased to tell you it won a couple of Word Awards on September 17. With its theme of the Japanese Canadian internments during World War II, “Rose” won The Word Guild’s Debra Feiguth Award for Social Justice. For this particular award, organizers contact the winner ahead of time so they can use a virtual acceptance speech. Since it took me only about ten takes to achieve an acceptable video, I’m grateful it wasn’t live!

Debra Fieguth was a gifted journalist whose freelance work appeared in many Canadian Christian publications, including Faith Today magazine. She authored two books and co-authored several more. Her death in 2016 was mourned by many, including hundreds of refugees, immigrants and international students whom she helped, befriended, or welcomed into her home. I can’t imagine a better award to win.

But then The Word Guild floored me. “Rose” also came away with the award for best book cover, out of 13 nominations. I can’t take any of the credit since the cover was designed by Hannah Linder. You can see more of Hannah’s excellent work on her website, HERE.

If all that isn’t enough, judges shocked me again by declaring the other novel I released last year, The Last Piece, winner in the best contemporary fiction category. Since this story begins in the 1930s and works its way to the present day, I wasn’t even certain it would qualify as contemporary.

Did you know that YOU are part of this success? Writing this blog post every week forces me to keep practicing and growing in my craft. Each time you choose to read one, it’s like a vote of confidence and I thank you.

But, while exciting and encouraging, there’s something about winning that can also feel intimidating. “What will be expected of me now?” is a question commonly asked. “Will I measure up? Can I follow through? What if I disappoint?”

As long as you don’t allow them to paralyze you, those are good questions, whether running for office or running for recognition. Trust that those who voted you in had valid reasons to do so. Then work hard, listen well, and do your best. 

Lazy Farmers Don't Grow Sugar Beets

Ask almost anyone where sugar comes from and they’ll probably tell you the sugar cane. Obviously, they are not wrong. In fact, not until the 19th century did alternate sources of sugar become known.

One of these was the humble sugar beet, or Beta vulgaris. If you’ve ever worked a physically taxing job, multiply that effort by fifty and you’ll begin to grasp the difficulty of getting a sugar beet from seed to processing plant.

If you were a child of a migrant worker during the first half of the 20th century, you might be all too familiar with the whole process as you were forced to work alongside the adults in your family. Though it got you out of school by the end of April, you’d feel giddy to return in October after harvest. Long days in a hot field, bending over the entire time whether planting, thinning, weeding, or harvesting, would make a day in the classroom feel like a piece of cake.

Cake for which the world needed its sugar.

Each multi-germ seed was a tiny pod containing five or six separate beet plants. Once planting by hand was complete, it was time to thin the plants. Workers, on hands and knees, had to carefully pull out all but one tiny seedling without damaging the one left to grow. Monogerm seeds were not developed for use until 1967 and became the biggest breakthrough for this challenging industry.

Harvesting proved no easier. Many a finger was lost to the sinister-looking sugar beet knife, which came to North America with German and Russian immigrants. Here in Manitoba, farmers from across the southern half of the province manually unloaded their sugar beets into train cars which transported them to the Manitoba Sugar refinery in Winnipeg.

During World War II when cane sugar became difficult to import and rationing went into effect, the sugar beet industry thrived despite the intensive labor required. Among the laborers were many Japanese Canadians, relocated from their homes along the west coast to farms on the prairies to fill the gap left by young men off fighting the war. The industry would not have survived without the help of First Nations laborers, German prisoners of war, and the interned Japanese.

Though sugar beet farming eventually grew easier with the advancement of machinery, seeds, and irrigation systems, demand diminished as more economic and efficient sources of sugar took over.

The characters in my new novel, Rose Among Thornes, are subjected to the rigors of sugar beet farming during WWII. Much of my research came from a book called Sugar Farmers of Manitoba by Heather Robertson, loaned to me by Kelly and Cheryl Ronald who farm east of Portage la Prairie. Kelly used to raise sugar beets like his father before him. Bill Ronald served as president of the Manitoba Beet Growers’ Association.

One aspect I love about being a writer of historical fiction is how, every time I learn more about life in the 1940’s, I’m more grateful for modern-day conveniences. These hot summer days, I feel privileged to sit on a comfy chair in my air-conditioned home, describing for you the challenges of backbreaking work—as though I’d experienced it myself. While I hope we’re all learning to consume less sugar, I hope we’re also learning to appreciate the effort and history behind all the many, easy treats we enjoy.

Happy Labor Day!

Local Citizen Inspires Novel

 In 1942, a young girl named Osono and her family left her father’s farm in the Vancouver area to live in an internment camp in the interior of British Columbia—along with thousands of other Japanese Canadians. The children did not understand what was happening, only that their parents felt unhappy about the move. Born in Canada, the kids had no reason to think they were different than any other Canadians. They didn’t understand that Japan had dropped bombs on Hawaii, or how that act made them suspect. They couldn’t grasp that both American and Canadian governments had decided their parents could no longer be trusted. They were innocent of the prejudice all too prevalent in the world around them.

Internment Camp at New Denver, BC, 1943

Once in the internment communities, many of the children reported that they enjoyed the time as though they were off at summer camp. School and recreational activities were provided, and they spent plenty of time with other kids—all of whom looked like they did. While the kids knew that “somewhere, far away,” a war was being fought, it had little to do with them. The biggest downside was that, for many, their fathers were away, working in lumber camps.

Meanwhile, here in Manitoba, farmers were overwhelmed because so much of our workforce had joined or been drafted into military service, leaving farms without laborers to bring in the harvest. The Canadian government decided it could solve two problems by offering the Japanese Canadians the opportunity to come to Manitoba to work on farms. The incentive was that they could keep their families together. To Osono’s parents and many others, it sounded like a better alternative in a horribly confusing time. They’d already lost their homes, property, businesses, and dignity. How could this be any worse?

Osono remembers making the long trip by train and how she had no desire to work on a farm or be separated from her friends. She recalls her dismay at seeing miles and miles of “nothing.” Her family ended up on the Tully family’s sugar beet farm near Oakville, Manitoba. What Osono could not possibly have known is that Mr. Tully endured ridicule from neighboring farmers for taking so many of these workers. Or that she would eventually elope with one of the Tully sons. Or that doing so would cause a major scandal in the community. Or that the birth of her twin boys would restore peace and bring the families together.

By the 1970s, younger Japanese Canadians, most of whom had been sheltered from the reasons behind the move to Manitoba, began uncovering the truth of their family history. More than 22,000 Japanese Canadians had been forced into this situation, and returning to their former lives, even after the war ended, had become impossible. Their properties had been sold to cover the cost of their own internment and relocation.

In 1988, after years of negotiations, the Japanese Canadian community received an apology from Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and a redress entitlement of $21,000 for each individual who had been relocated during the war. Many used the funds to send their children or grandchildren to university, reversing the cycle of poverty they’d been thrust into because of their government’s choices. Osono’s story inspired me to do more research and write a novel about a young girl named Rose. In the book, the farmer’s son is simultaneously imprisoned in a Japanese P.O.W. camp, further complicating the colliding of their separate journeys. I’m pleased to announce that Rose Among Thornes releases July 31 for Kindle and August 31 for everything else. It’s available now for pre-ordering anywhere you buy books.

Another Canadian Hero

On October 19, 1920, Isaac ‘Ike’ Friesen was born on a farm in the Russian Ukraine. While Ike was still an infant, his father died, leaving his mother to run the farm in the middle of the Bolshevik Revolution. Mrs. Friesen sold the family farm and fled to Manitoba. Ike attended a four-room school where he completed grade eight before becoming a farm laborer to help support his mother. He briefly tried working on a sugar beet farm, but joining the armed forces seemed a better option.

He took basic training as a member of the Eighteenth Manitoba Reconnaissance Regiment at Shilo and was later recruited by the Winnipeg Grenadiers.

When Prime Minister Churchill requested that Canadian troops be sent to defend the British colony of Hong Kong, Ike and other members of ‘C’ Force from the east traveled across Canada by CPR troop train, arriving in Vancouver on October 27, 1941. From there, he sailed on the New Zealand Liner, the AWATEA. After brief stops in Honolulu and Manila, they arrived in Hong Kong on November 16. On arrival, all troops were quartered at Nanking Barracks, Sham Shui Po Camp, in Kowloon.

Many of the soldiers reported that their first three weeks felt like a holiday, except for practice drills in readiness for a Japanese attack. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, the Battle of Hong Kong commenced. Ike and the others found themselves thrust into a conflict for which they were ill prepared. On Christmas Day, the Allies surrendered. The Japanese Imperial Army took captive the surviving Canadian soldiers. Ike ended up back at the now decimated Sham Shui Po camp and was later transferred to another POW camp in Japan.

In an interview with Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) years later, Ike described some of his experiences.

“If you didn’t want to do what they wanted you to do, they’d make you stand to attention and beat you up and give you a rifle butt in the side of the face or right in the middle of your face at the front. I got my teeth knocked out here with a rifle butt.

“I picked up the language quite well. I could communicate with them by this time. One day they picked on me for some reason and I kind of resented that and let them know. The guy marched me in front of a big boulder … and he bat me in the face with his fist. And then every time I would jar back or get off balance and step back, two other guards would push me toward the rock again. And if I didn’t move, I’d feel the bayonet in my back. So I got beat up pretty bad that day. The guys had to help me back into camp.”

After four years under such conditions, Isaac Friesen joined the ranks of survivors who returned to Canada. He passed away at the age of 80 in 2001. His niece, Anita Gemmell, is a friend of mine. I “stumbled across” Isaac’s story one Remembrance Day when Anita posted a tribute to her Uncle Ike’s memory. I happened to be in search of stories like his for a book I was writing. I’m pleased to tell you that novel, Rose Among Thornes, releases later this summer and is now available for pre-ordering in print and eBook form, from almost anywhere you order books. 

The Battle of Hong Kong monument in Ottawa