Hybrid Meeting - Racism by Aki Horii

Hybrid Meeting 

Look forward to meet everyone in person, dim sum and noodle lunch $30/person. RSVP to Suna president@richmondrotary.com. If you cannot make it, join Zoom

12 noon - social, 12:15pm - meeting starts, 12:20pm program, 12:30pm lunch being served

​ZOOM ID - 604 778 0162 | Password - 202020

https://zoom.us/j/6047780162?pwd=WjdCUWd5N1FyWnVicFI5M3FhSUZ6dz09

Hybrid Meeting - Racism by Aki Horii

Aki Horii was born in 1931 in Vancouver. 

“As a child aged 10, I thought I was a Canadian. I was born in Vancouver, and we were being patriotic. But suddenly the war breaks out with Japan, and we’re different.”

Growing up in Japantown, Horii had never experienced racism. “I never heard the racist term Jap against us, because we grew up with Niseis (second-generation Japanese born in Canada),” he said.  But this changed when Japan bombed Pearl Harbour on Dec. 7, 1941, and “the next day we all had to quit school.”

Horii’s family ended up in a “self-supporting camp” across the Fraser River from Lillooet. Racist attitudes softened after a couple of years, and Horii was able to attend high school in Lillooet.

He attended UBC for a year, being the older son, he had to drop out to work to help the family. He returned to UBC in the 1960's and earned his MD degree, he had practised for 48 years as a family physician in Vancouver.