CHURCH CONTAINS ARTIST’S ROOTS
Seven decades of Yukon musician’s family can be traced to E. Cordova Street institution
When she appears at the 40th Annual Powell Street Festival this weekend, alt-folk artist Diyet will be hanging in the family ’hood.
It’s a long way from her home in Burwash Landing, Yukon. But the Southern Tutchone, Tlingit, Scottish and Japanese musician can trace her lineage back to Saint James Anglican Church, at 303 E. Cordova St.
“Before the Second World War, my Japanese-Canadian grandmother and her family were a part of the congregation, and there is 70 years of family history tied up in it,” said Diyet. “My husband and I were married there and so were many other family members. Of course, that all ended with the internment.”
During the Second World War internment, from 1942 to 1949, Canadian-born citizens with Japanese heritage had their belongings and livelihoods expropriated and they were shipped off to camps.
Fortunately for Diyet’s grandmother, her faith and prodigious musical gifts kept her from the worst of it, and the nuns at the cloister across the street from St. James sent her on a train to Toronto to go to a missionary school.
“She was able to study music and get an education,” said Diyet. “Although she didn’t talk about it often, I think that they passed her off as Chinese. Aside to that story is that the family who took her in when she was there was former governor general Adrienne Clarkson’s family.”
Stories like this or that of the championship baseball squad Vancouver Asahi, are a key part to the founding of the Powell Street festival in 1977 on the centennial of the landing of Japanese sailor Manzo in New Westminster in 1877. Through upheavals such as the 1902 race riots and more, the Japanese-Canadian community flourished in the Powell Street area. The annual festival keeps the memories alive and showcases the future. It has also expanded to include First Nations and other groups associated with the area. Artists such as Diyet bring it full circle.
“When I lived down there I was in North Vancouver, but I always spent time in the area because that Downtown Eastside community really reminds me of my life in the North, in a tight-knit community that looks out for one another,” said Diyet.
Diyet likes her set lists to reflect the event and she is planning on selecting songs about togetherness and community from her records, with a few new ones as well.