Terrain of Memory

A compelling story about a community that builds a memorial to collectively remember its experiences of political violence in order to rebuild relations of trust and understanding across social and intergenerational divides.

This book explores how Japanese Canadians living in an isolated mountainous valley in the province of British Columbia worked together to transform the village where they lived for over fifty years from a site of political violence into a space for remembrance.For communities who have been the target of political violence, the after-effects can haunt what remains of their families, their communities, and the societies in which they live. Terrain of Memory tells the story of the Japanese Canadian elders who built a memorial in 1994 to mark a village in an isolated mountainous valley in British Columbia with their history of internment. It explores memory as a powerful collective cultural practice, following elders and locals as they worked together to transform a site of political violence into a space for remembrance. They transformed a valley where once over 7,000 women, men, and children were interned into a pilgrimage site where Japanese Canadians can mourn and also pay their respects to the wartime generation. This is a compelling story about how collectively excavating painful memories can contribute to building relations across social and intergenerational divides.