Welcome back wonderful readers, I hope that your winter breaks went great, if you have not read my recent blog post, I recommend you do so. Not only might you learn something new, but you will also hear a bit about what my current project is.
The project that we just wrapped up is called “The Ology of Apology” (meaning the study of apology), and our driving question is: How can we create a public memory of past wrongs so that they are remembered, and not repeated in the future? We looked at three past wrongs enacted by the Canadian government: the Komagata Maru in 1914, anti-Chinese racism in the form of the Head Tax and the Anti-Immigration Act from 1885-1947, and the Japanese Internment during the Second World War.
We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go on six different field studies throughout this project. Being able to learn about what we are talking about in class by going to museums, cultural spaces, and by walking around the actual sites where these events have occurred made it easier for me to visualize what the victims and survivors were going through during those times, especially the quotes on the walls we saw at Nikkei Museum.
we were asked to create a concept, as well as a scale model, of a practical, contextual, and impactful memorial that would educate the public about one of the three acts of injustice that we studied.
We were put into groups, and then assigned topics from the three main events. My group was Keenan, Nate, Josh and me. Our given topic was Japanese internment camps during WWII. There were six groups, and three topics, so each group was competing against another group.
During all the trips, something we saw a lot in memorials was some kind of landmark, but we also wanted our memorial to be interactive, and one specific landmark my group had in mind was a statue, in the morning there will a garden accompanied with the statue providing scenery, but at night a bright light will be shown onto the status making a shadow. Our group had the idea to create a statue with a shadow that can be interpreted into many things but the status itself must have a meaning, we wanted to tell as much of a story as we could while remaining interactive, cultural, and historical.
My group wanted to tell the story of the hard times that Japanese people were faced with, and the wrongdoings of the Canadian government at the time. The shadow which is only visible during the night time is there to represent the resilience and the strength within every Japanese Canadian that was wrongly treated during World War II. It also shows the lengths to which the Japanese Canadian parents went to keep their children from suffering during this terrible time. The foot falling off the edge represents how close their lives were to falling apart for both the parents and children.
Overall, I am proud of my group, and how much work we were able to get done in so little time. Even thought our memorial wasn’t as attractive as the other groups, I felt that I gained a really good understanding of my topic, and the other topics that we learned about as well. And honestly if I was ever to pitch this to the city hall I don’t think I would pitch it any more different than this way it is. We were given the opportunity go around and and learn more about this event while other kids were stuck in their classroom reading textbooks, I think this project let me realize these special privileges I have.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this post please leave a comment and check out my other classmates post!
