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Essays about the remarkable history of Vancouver's Powell Street Festival and the proud Japanese Canadian community behind it
Paueru Gai, the Powell Street neighbourhood in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, was a place of early settlement and forced removal for Japanese Canadians during the shameful years of internment in World War II. But Paueru Gai is also a site of regeneration: Since 1977, a diverse array of people gathers every August in Vancouver's Oppenheimer Park and the surrounding neighborhood to honor and celebrate Japanese Canadian history, art, and culture. Powell Street Festival is an act of empowerment that defines and redefines Japanese Canadian identity.
In Return to Paueru Gai: Fifty Years of Vancouver's Powell Street Festival, essays, photographs, archival images, and a chronology articulate the festival's crucial role in uplifting Vancouver's Japanese Canadian community and affirming its place in the history of the city. From taiko drumming and sumo wrestling to community food vendors and human rights advocacy, the festival and the people who make it happen come brilliantly alive in this wide-ranging, vibrant book.
Essay writers include Musqueam Elder Mary Point, the seniors of Tonari Gumi (the Japanese Community Volunteers Association), cultural worker Julia Aoki, journalist Charlie Smith, writer Angela May, and members of the Japanese Canadian Art and Activism Project.
Full color throughout.
"A 50-year anniversary book could simply serve as a commemorative collectible, but Return to Paueru Gai is so much more than that—it chronicles the ongoing evolution of the diverse communities of people who share Japanese ancestry, history, and cultural artistic connections. It shows us the passion, the heart, and the political commitment to both memory and change. This book blazes a trail toward the future."
—Hiromi Goto, author of Shadow Life
"The Powell Street Festival has been central to my life since it began. I always see it as coming home, where my parents started, where my brother grew up. I'm happy there's a commemorative book to demonstrate to the world how I feel. Fifty years later, it is going strong. May it go on forever."
—Terry Watada, author of Hiroshima Bomb Money
"A joyous and raucous celebration of community, culture, and resilience, Return to Paueru Gai is a living history built on powerful stories, shared experiences, and a commitment to social justice, just like the beloved festival it documents."
—Margaret Gallagher, journalist
Emiko Morita (she/her) is a third-generation mixed-heritage Japanese Canadian arts administrator and was the executive director of Powell Street Festival from 2015 to 2024. Previously, she worked in the publishing industry as marketing director at Douglas & McIntyre, leading marketing campaigns for national bestsellers; as special sales manager at Raincoast Books; and as the BC rep for the Canadian Children's Book Centre.