‘East of the Rockies’: Reliving Japanese-Canadian internment
It is July 4, 1942, months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. A 17-year-old girl named Yuki and her family leave their home in Vancouver for the last time.
Like thousands of other Japanese-Canadians, they are forced inland by the Canadian government under the War Measures Act to internment camps in eastern British Columbia.
This depiction of a dark chapter in Canadian history is the subject of “East of the Rockies,” an interactive, augmented reality storytelling app launched on March 1.
Yuki is a second-generation Japanese-Canadian girl, and her story — a 50-minute journey through memories and words — is narrated by her granddaughter Anne, who reads Yuki’s diaries in the present day. The characters are fictional, but the history is behind the tale is true.
“It’s not a novel, it’s not a documentary,” says Kogawa, pointing out that using an app for the story has both strong and weak points. “But it’s a presentation of a piece of history and I hope that it will be helpful.”
See the full story here: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2019/03/17/digital/east-rockies-reliving-japanese-canadian-internment/#.XI63Uy2ZMnU