Working with Japanese Canadian youth to build belonging through art, activism and intergenerational dialogue

Posted on May 27, 2026
Categories: Faculty, Izumi Sakamoto, Research

Izumi Sakamoto poses for a photo with 7 members of her research team

Research team members, Left to right: Ai Yamamoto (current MSW student & Youth Researcher), Izumi Niki (FIFSW MSW graduate, research coordinator & current PhD student in sociology at U of T), Grayson Lee (advisory board member), Associate Professor Izumi Sakamoto, Momo Ando (FIFSW MSW graduate & research coordinator), Sofia Callaghan (Youth Researcher), Viveka Ichikawa (current PhD student), and Boomba Nishikawa (Youth Researcher)

The forced incarceration of more than 22,000 Japanese Canadians during the Second World War tore apart families and friends, disrupted the transmission of language and traditions, destroyed livelihoods, and dispersed people throughout the country and beyond.

Generations later, young Japanese Canadians find themselves struggling with their cultural identity and sense of belonging.

New research led by Izumi Sakamoto, an Associate Professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, is examining how art, activism, and intergenerational dialogue can help this community challenge traditional understandings of identity and community, forge stronger connections, and build a more inclusive future.

Conducted in partnership with Japanese Canadian youth, the two new community-based, participatory research projects build on the outcomes of Sakamoto ‘s previous research, which examined how Japanese Canadian Youth engage in art and activism to reconstruct cultural identity and community.

“Art can be practiced for catharsis, healing, and identity exploration, but also for activism,” says Sakamoto, who founded the Japanese Canadian Arts and Activism Project (JCAAP). “It allows people to claim or reclaim their sense of self and to be seen and heard.” (Follow JCAAP on instagram @_jcaap.)

The generational impact of wartime internment, dispossession and dispersal

The impact of forced removal, expulsion and internment in the wake of World War II spans generations. When the war ended, Japanese Canadians who had been incarcerated weren’t permitted to return to British Columbia for four more years, leaving the once closely connected communities scattered. In the decades that followed, rates of interracial marriage rose significantly to nearly 80 per cent, shaping a community that now includes multiple generations of people with mixed heritage.

Izumi Sakamoto and community activist Connie Kadota at the Powell Street Festival, 2025

In addition, now one third of Canadians of Japanese origin are post-war immigrants from Japan, adding another layer of diversity to the community. “Taken all together, Japanese Canadian identity and culture get complicated,” says Sakamoto, herself a new immigrant from Japan who has been learning about the rich and complex history of the Japanese Canadian community from community leaders and organizations for the past ten years.

Between 2023 and 2025, Sakamoto and her research team spoke with 90 diverse Japanese Canadians to explore their thoughts on cultural identity and the strategies they have used to reconstruct and reimagine their communities. While many described uncertainties about their cultural identities, youth in particular reported a sense of disconnection from Japanese cultural practices and community spaces. Their identities were further complicated by the transnational stereotypes of Japanese culture imposed on them by non-Asian peers and dominant society in general.

“Young Japanese Canadians are even more diverse than previous generations. Between those with a family history of internment and those whose families immigrated post war two to three generations ago — and given that most Japanese Canadian youth have mixed heritage — their identity formation has been especially complex,” says Sakamoto. “They talked about not feeling ‘Japanese enough’ in some Japanese Canadian contexts and said it’s like they must prove the authenticity of their identities if they don’t speak the language or know their full family histories.”

Sakamoto’s research found that Japanese Canadian youth developed ways to counter internal and external challenges to their ‘Japaneseness,’ including telling family stories through various art forms, becoming knowledgeable about Japanese Canadian history, and participating in activities that mix art and activism, such as Taiko drumming.

As part of JCAAP’s ongoing work, the team highlights exemplary activism by Japanese Canadian elders through platforms such as Instagram, website features, and academic publications. A recent example includes a co-authored manuscript by Sakamoto alongside team members Lisa Toi (youth researcher) and Izumi Niki (research coordinator), about the decades-long contributions of FIFSW alum and international anti-nuclear activist, Setsuko Thurlow.

Youth-led knowledge mobilization

Izumi Sakamoto (right) and OCAD University professor Emma Nishimura at Nishimura’s 2023 exhibition, ‘Rememory: Echoes & Archives’ at United Contemporary art gallery

Sakamoto’s new research project, funded by a SSHRC Connection Grant, will share her and her team’s earlier research findings on identity through an arts-based workshop for youth. Japanese Canadian youth working in partnership with the researchers will co-lead these events, where the aim is to spark discussion and arts-based responses to the research.

The researchers will also present their results at intergenerational forums. “We want to highlight the similarity of identity struggles among people of different ages,” says Sakamoto.

The researchers will survey participants before and after the workshop and forums to see if they gain a stronger sense of belonging in the community. The project will also explore the impact of having multiple identities — mixed-race, queer, trans, neurodiverse and more — on Japanese Canadian young people’s sense of belonging in their communities.

Mapping belonging

In the second, longer-term project, supported by a SSHRC Insight Grant, the researchers will address a major knowledge gap related to Japanese Canadian youth. “There’s no national demographic data on this group, and we still know very little about how they build community and cultural identity,” says Sakamoto.

The first step will be a country-wide survey of Japanese Canadian youth. The results will help inform decisions on what future support policies and community programming are needed for this group, and where.

In the next stage, Japanese Canadian young people will participate in workshops with artists, archivists and the Heritage Department of the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, one of several community research partners.

“The youth will have the chance to explore oral histories, contemporary artistic works like podcasts and magazines, and older archival material as a way to create new cultural memories and a broader definition of Japanese Canadian identity,” says Sakamoto.

To ensure they have an awareness of Japan’s imperialist history when they lead any discussion on Japanese Canadian identity, the project’s youth research partners will take anti-colonial and anti-imperial workshops led by Korean Canadian community organizer and scholar Grayson Lee.

In the later stages of the project, the researchers will bring together large groups of Japanese Canadians from across the generations and different immigration cohorts to collaborate in storytelling forums online and in person.

Building strong, inclusive cultural identities

Each of the projects will result in public resources such as videos, social media campaigns and a multimedia story archive for further knowledge-sharing within the larger Japanese Canadian community.

Yet the research has applications far beyond this community as well, says Sakamoto. “The erosion of cultural and historical ties is a growing concern for diasporic groups across the world,” she explains. “The experiences of JapaneseCanadian youth provide critical insights into cultural continuity and belonging while forging a more expansive identities inclusive of mixed heritage, LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, and disabled youth who may not have seen themselves reflected in the common Japanese Canadian representations.”

In the end, she says, the research is about helping people find ways to move forward with a strong cultural identity, despite a disjointed past or present. “We’re building the tools that will create more inclusive, more authentic, and more robust communities that can look to the future with a hope rooted in kinship.”

“In the context of Asian Heritage Month, this research serves as a celebration of Asian resilience by honouring histories of survival while uplifting the joy, creativity, art, and community-building that define Asian Canadian life today.”

By Megan Easton

Organizational collaborators in Sakamoto’s ongoing program of research include: the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (Toronto), Powell Street Festival Society (Vancouver), Tonari Gumi – Japanese Volunteers Association(Vancouver), and the Young Japanese Canadians of Toronto.

Research team members who have collaboratively helped create the direction of the project include current and past FIFSW students, Ai Yamamoto (current MSW student & Youth Researcher), Momo Ando (FIFSW MSW graduate & Research Coordinator), Izumi Niki (FIFSW MSW grad, and PhD candidate in Sociology at U of T), Manaal Syed (FIFSW PhD graduate and current Assistant Professor at Renison University College at the University of Waterloo), Viveka Ichikawa (FIFSW MSW graduate, FIFSW PhD candidate, and incoming Assistant Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University), Yanusha Yogarajah (FIFSW MSW graduate), Yahan Yang (PhD candidate), Kennes Lin (FIFSW MSW graduate), and XJ Ng (FIFSW MSW graduate), among others.