Film about Japanese Canadian pastor highlights mental health struggles of wartime internees

Kiyoko Judy Hanazawa remembers her father as a dedicated fisherman who cherished his children but rarely discussed his past.

Later, she and her sister discovered their parents were among more than 22,000 Japanese Canadians forcibly relocated to internment camps across the B.C. Interior during the Second World War.

"My mother let out some facts of the past, but even when we talked to her, she said, 'You know, that's a time in the past — it's better to just let it go and forget it," said Hanazawa, 76.

Hanazawa says it was common for those who experienced internment and wartime racism not to discuss their past with younger generations in order to preserve their honour, choosing instead to channel their emotional pain into hard work and perseverance.

Hanazawa, along with other descendants of internees, is part of a documentary exploring that past through the previously untold story of Rev. Kyuichi Nomoto, a pastor whose mental health seriously declined during his internment.

According to the 23-minute film Nomoto: A B.C. Tragedy, directed by first-time filmmaker Chad Townsend, the pastor was one of the first Japanese people to graduate from the University of British Columbia. 

Around two years after his internment in New Denver in the West Kootenay region, Nomoto was diagnosed with schizophrenia and transferred to the Essondale Mental Hospital in Coquitlam, B.C., where he died at the age of 44 on June 30, 1944, due to bronchopneumonia.

Since its premiere in Nelson, B.C., last September, the film has been screened at other B.C. film festivals in New Westminster and Kaslo, and is now set for a screening in New Denver on Wednesday.

From UBC graduate to internee

Nomoto came to Canada to study with sponsorship from the Vancouver Japanese United Church. According to UBC records, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in philosophy and a minor in economics in 1932. Two years later, he completed his theological studies at UBC's Union College.

Upon his ordination in New Westminster in 1934, he became a pastor at the Japanese United Church in the Steveston neighbourhood of Richmond, south of Vancouver.

Along with other Japanese Canadians, his life was upended in January 1942 when the federal government issued the evacuation order for Japanese Canadians from B.C.'s coastal regions after Japan's invasion of Hong Kong. In May 1942, Nomoto left Steveston for New Denver.

Letters show mental decline

The documentary heavily relies on archived documents from the United Church of Canada (UCC), including letters from Nomoto and other Japanese pastors, which were addressed to Rev. W.P. Bunt, the superintendent of the denomination's home missions board in Vancouver. 

These documents reveal that most of Nomoto's communications to Bunt were monthly reports on his work in New Denver and other internment camps across the Interior, all written in a polite and optimistic manner.

However, over time, Nomoto's correspondences changed.

On April 13, 1944, he complained to Bunt about insufficient reimbursement for travel expenses and made harsh accusations against other Japanese pastors, labelling them as "thieves" misappropriating church funds.

Rev. Takashi Komiyama, a pastor from the United Church in Slocan, south of New Denver, wrote to Bunt two days later, informing him that Nomoto had delivered unprecedented "bitter attacks on Buddhism and Buddhist priests" during a Good Friday sermon. Then, on Easter Monday, he "attacked the church treasurer" while discussing expense claims.

Three days later, Nomoto's wife Kiku wrote to Bunt saying that, on the recommendations of his doctor and police, Nomoto had been transferred to Essondale Mental Hospital, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Hanazawa says she believes Nomoto's mental breakdown was likely a result of enduring the dehumanizing experience of internment while providing counselling to other internees.

"It's a very tragic story to see that somebody who wanted for much of his life to serve the community, to serve others and to be there for others could suffer his own decline and then die [in a mental hospital]," she said.

A pastor's burden

Chad Townsend's journey toward making the documentary began when he delved into the UCC's archival materials to explore the history behind New Denver's Turner Memorial United Church.

He had purchased the vacant heritage building in 2014 with the intention of repurposing it as a second home.

After discovering it had been Nomoto's workplace and reading the pastor's letters in the church archives, Townsend says he found himself empathizing with his plight and felt a calling to share his story.

He believes Nomoto would have felt a deep responsibility to care for his camp's community.

"[Nomoto] was also a social worker [and] a counsellor fulfilling all of these roles to a community, and [bearing] the burden of trying to answer for events that would have been incredibly difficult to explain by anything other than racism at that time, and trying to keep people optimistic," Townsend said.

His documentary received a grant of $4,500 from the National Association of Japanese Canadians Endowment Fund in 2020.

Intergenerational trauma

Blair Galston, a UCC archivist who assisted Townsend's research, emphasized the importance of consulting with Japanese Canadian communities while making the documentary.

"The general feeling [from the communities] was that we should shine a light on what happened, and that knowledge and information lead to understanding and can help erase some of the shame that went with hiding the information in the first place," he said.

Hanazawa says shame is a powerful deterrent when it comes to discussing emotional traumas. In extreme cases, she says, these traumas experienced by internees manifest as domestic violence and alcoholism, which can have intergenerational effects on Japanese Canadian families.

She says, however, that Japanese Canadians are beginning to form peer support groups and sharing circles where they can openly discuss the intergenerational traumas they have endured.

"I'm very gratified that there's much more of an openness and willingness to seek that kind of support for our mental health," she said.