Nikkei Centre officially opened on September 22, 2000 in a beautiful multi-use facility in Burnaby, BC, conceptually designed by renowned Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama. The term Nikkei translates as “of Japanese descent.” Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre is an incorporated non-profit and charitable society which is community-based and primarily volunteer-run.

Our mission is to preserve and promote Japanese Canadian history, arts and culture through vibrant programs and exhibits that connect generations and inspire diverse audiences.

Nikkei National Museum produces several exhibits each year (balancing historical content with traditional and contemporary art) and collects, preserves and makes accessible archives, art and artifacts related to Japanese Canadian heritage. Currently the collection includes more than 3000 photographs, 350 oral history recordings, over 25 metres of archival and textual materials, and 1000 artifacts. The collections are accessed by scholars and community researchers on a regular basis. Each year, over 1000 students participate in our educational programs.

In addition to public programs and exhibits, Nikkei Centre provides community services, weekly cultural programs, produces several publications, and makes our facilities available for public use and special events. We are a well-known “boutique”-style rental facility for weddings, parties and corporate meetings.  Nikkei Centre serves all Japanese Canadians across the country, and is an important resource for other communities to learn about the Japanese Canadian experience.

Nikkei Place is the legacy of over 100 years of Japanese presence in Canada, helping to connect our past with future generations of Canadians.

Craig Ngai Natsuhara, President

Nikkei Centre was built as a community project to remember and honour the perseverance of the first generation of Japanese Canadian immigrants. Although 70 years have passed since the internment during the Second World War, the effects of displacement continue to resonate within the community and subsequent generations. The Japanese Canadian population is scattered across the country, and the community has the highest intermarriage rate of any ethnic group in Canada (almost 95%).

MEDIA RELEASE for logo – FINAL

The Japanese immigrants who arrived in the North American West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries included people with historical ties to Japan’s outcaste communities. Andrea Geiger examines the history of these and other Japanese immigrants in the United States and Canada and their encounters with two separate cultures of exclusion, one based in caste and the other in race.

Andrea Geiger’s book Subverting Exclusion: Transpacific Encounters with Race, Caste, and Borders, 1885-1928 will be available at the event.

Geiger reveals that the experiences of Japanese immigrants in North America were shaped in part by attitudes rooted in Japan’s formal status system, mibunsei, decades after it was formally abolished. In the North American West, however, the immigrants’ understanding of social status as caste-based collided with American and Canadian perceptions of status as primarily race-based. Geiger shows how the lingering influence of Japan’s strict status system affected immigrants’ perceptions and understandings of race in North America and informed their strategic responses to two increasingly complex systems of race-based exclusionary law and policy.

Andrea Geiger is assistant professor of history at Simon Fraser University.

REVIEWS of Andrea Geiger’s book Subverting Exclusion: Transpacific Encounters with Race, Caste, and Borders, 1885-1928

“Examining the tangled convergence between North American racial prejudice and the Japanese denigration of outcastes, this book is strikingly innovative and intensely thought-provoking. Andrea Geiger’s work sets a model of historical research and analysis practiced as an extraordinary—and courageous—art.”—Patty Limerick, author of The Legacy of Conquest

“This is a deeply researched, well written and also deeply felt book that will become an important text on Asian American history in North America. The author has a sensitive, knowing stance toward her material that is much superior to a lot of the literature in Asian American history.”—Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago

“Refusing historiographical silences and caricatures of homogeneity and stasis, Subverting Exclusion insists upon the diversity and movement of Japanese migrants in a trans-Pacific, transnational world. In the process, this superbly conceived study succeeds in rendering its subjects as emphatically human.”— Gary Y. Okihiro, author of Pineapple Culture: A History of the Tropical and Temperate Zones

“Elegantly written and deeply insightful, Geiger deftly combines an understanding of the law and racial formation and has offered a truly transnational history that blends Asian, Asian American, and broader issues of American immigration history.”—K. Scott Wong, Williams College

Celebrate Spring 2012_vendor application PDF

Celebrate Spring 2012_vendor application Word

contact Nichola Ogiwara with any questions. 604.777.7000 ext 109

茶道クラブ    2月8日(水)　午後1時半～
今回は茶道の結びについて境野先生よりお話があります。
ご予約は604-777-7000　もしくは　 info@nikkeiplace.org まで　2月7 日午前中までにご連絡ください。

Tenugui
Design Excellence in Japanese Daily Life
January 13 – March 24, 2012
TENUGUI are towels made of bleached cotton, approximately 34 cm wide and 90 cm in length. The word literally means “a hand-wiping cloth.” Tenugui were used for a remarkable number of purposes not only for wiping and cleaning, but also for wrapping and wearing, and even as advertising tools.
To meet the various needs of special occasions throughout the four seasons and the individual personalities of each owner, the Japanese developed a wide range of designs on the surface of the cloth. Some are elaborate while others are transparently simple. With over two hundred towels on display, this colourful exhibition demonstrates the endless creativity in Tenugui.
Co-presented by The Japan Foundation. Presented in association with Kamawanu Co. Ltd., Tokyo.
Sponsored by Kikori Japanese Antiques, The Deux Mille Foundation, and Listel Hotel.
Media sponsor: Vancouver Shinpo

Public Programs
Free admission. Everyone is welcome.

Friday, January 13, 11am-5pm
Tenugui sale

Saturday, January 14, 2pm
Talk by Mr. Kazuhiro Kato of Kamawanu Company

Saturday, Janaury 14, 4-6pm
Opening reception and Tenugui sale