12 Mar 2024
Posted by Sam Frederick 
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Title: “Tashme Women with Newborn Robert Banno.” Collection: Banno Family Collection. Repository: Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre. Accession Number: 2016.30.4.6.7. Year: 1943. Photo courtesy: Nikkei National Museum.
BURNABY — The Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre (NNMCC) is continuing work on our digitization project, Behind the Lens: The Okamura and Banno Families, thanks to funding from the British Columbia History Digitization Project and the Government of Canada Museum Assistance Program Digital Access to Heritage. This project will make accessible the photographs, paintings, and textual records of the Banno Family collection.
This month’s treasure is about a familiar face here at the centre. Robert Tadashi Banno was the founding president of both the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre and the Nikkei Place Foundation, actively involved in establishing both organizations and ensuring their success long into the future. A long-time supporter and volunteer with Nikkei Place, Robert served on the NNMCC board and as board president of NPF until his passing in 2020.
In 1942, before Robert was born, his parents, Mata and Edward Banno, were forcibly removed from their home in Vancouver and sent to Kaslo internment camp, while Mata’s mother and sister were sent to Tashme.
In an interview from NNMCC’s oral history collection, Edward Banno recalls how Mata wished to be with her mother when she gave birth to her first child. Mata travelled to Tashme and gave birth to Robert Tadashi Banno on March 9, 1943, the first child to be born in Tashme internment camp.
This photograph in the Banno Family Collection depicts Mata Banno and her mother, Misao Okamura, with newborn Robert, surrounded by many women from Tashme. It is a treasure in our collection as it offers a look at this celebratory and momentous occasion for the community.
Many records of Robert Banno’s childhood, accomplishments, and involvement with Nikkei Place will be available on our database when the Banno Family Collection is launched this spring.
Explore more from our collection at www.nikkeimuseum.org.
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