A photo essay built around Yoshiko Tanaka’s kitchen table in Steveston, BC, the same table her family gathered around before and after their internment during the Second World War. The photographs trace four generations of hands, meals, and quiet resilience.
Who is Yoshiko Tanaka?
Yoshiko Tanaka was born in 1938 in Steveston, British Columbia. During WWII, her family was interned and relocated to a sugar beet farm in Manitoba. She became a schoolteacher and raised three children. This photo story centers on her mother's kitchen table, the one object the family kept through displacement.
Life lessons
“Home is not a place. Home is the table where your people gather. Protect that table.”
Songs
The soundtrack of Yoshiko's life
- 01
Kawa no Nagare no You ni · Hibari Misora
My mother played this record every Sunday. It means 'like a river.' Life flows, it changes, but it keeps going. That was my mother's philosophy.
- 02
Imagine · John Lennon
My daughter brought this home from school one day. We played it at the table and my mother cried. She said, 'That's what we wanted. Just to imagine a world where nobody takes your home.'
- 03
Sukiyaki · Kyu Sakamoto
The first Japanese song to reach #1 in North America. My father heard it on the radio and said, 'Maybe they'll see us differently now.'
Reflections
Leave a note for Yoshiko Tanaka's family
A space for family, neighbours and visitors. Every reflection is read by our team before it appears here.
No reflections yet, be the first to leave a note.
Keepsake
Take this story home
Typeset as a printable book: a cover, the photographs, the story in full, life lessons and songs, and a closing page with a QR code back to it here.
Letter or A4 · PDF
Handled with care.
Every submission is reviewed before publication. Memory House prioritizes consent, dignity, privacy, cultural respect, and the right to request corrections or removal.
