30 Nov 2023
Posted by Deanna Cheng 
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Bailey Irene Midori Hoy dressed in a white kimono during a recent trip to Kyoto, Japan in May. Hoy is one of the two first graduate students to receive support from UBC’s Japanese Canadian Students of 1942 Fund. Photo courtesy: Bailey Irene Midori Hoy.
VANCOUVER — Bailey Irene Midori Hoy is one of the two first graduate students to receive support from the Japanese Canadian Students of 1942 Fund by the University of British Columbia (UBC). The other recipient is Nicole Yakashiro.
The university created the fund to champion community-based research, preserve historical materials and the stories of Japanese Canadian elders for future generations, and support current students whose work furthers the fields of Japanese Canadian studies. The fund is part of the university’s May 2012 acknowledgment of its unjust and unfair treatment of 76 Japanese Canadian students removed from the university and the West Coast in 1942.
Hoy’s work is currently in the research phase. Her master’s thesis focuses on queen pageants and beauty contests in the Japanese Canadian community from the 1940s to the early 1950s. Her definition of this mostly undocumented history ranges from traditional May Day festivals to standardized high school voting competitions to the typical Americanized beauty pageants.
In her previous paper “‘Joo wo dare?’ Who is the Queen?”: Queen contests during the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, Hoy estimated that 7.5 per cent of temporary camps and 80 per cent of long-term camps in America participated in beauty contests during the internment. Hoy said there’s even less information for the Canadian equivalent but has found some evidence of these events in Canada.
A screenshot of Hoy from an educational video she filmed for the Nikkei National Museum. Photo courtesy: Bailey Irene Midori Hoy.
So far, she has come across one master’s thesis on May Queen contests in New Westminster, B.C., where most of the photographs available were taken by Japanese Canadian photographer Paul Okamura. Hoy also found a 1944 photo of a May Queen in Tashme, one of the internment sites, in a database while on her work break at the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre this summer.
“I had never seen a picture like that before, of any sort of queen during the war and [the later] years,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it. For the first time, that was concrete proof [of] this hunch I had that they existed. It actually happened.”
As Hoy continued searching, more photos of queens started showing up. Lemon Creek, another internment site, also held pageants.
With the funds, the Yonsei student is able to travel to several internment camp sites in B.C. and conduct research which includes painstakingly reviewing high school yearbooks and photo and newspaper archives from the wartime era.
This research builds upon Hoy’s passion for studying beauty and fashion. “My work is all connected by the concepts of feminine beauty, but I really think what it’s connected to is who gets the power to tell the narrative and what that power means for everyday people’s lived experiences.”
Soft power is one of the concepts she explores through her work. Hoy generally defines soft power as the influence a country can exert on the rest of the world through non-military means.
“Primarily, that’s through exportation of culture and an exploitation of cultural ideals,” she explained.
In her paper on Japanese American queens, Hoy said, “Presentations of beauty were a way for women in camps to assert agency over how they should be viewed.”
In contrast, hard power is more visibly documented in things such as sanctions and military embargoes. Soft power is less visible and is what interests her. Hoy believes her definition of soft power will change over time as she dives further into her research.
Her academic supervisor, Dr. Laura Ishiguro, is particularly excited about Hoy’s interest in gender, women and girls in material culture, and beauty and culture.
“She has incredible energy and drive to do historical research that really helps us understand the mid-20th century history of Japanese Canadian people in new ways.”
Hoy’s current approach opens up new possibilities for how we think about their meanings and significance in people’s lives and Canada more broadly, said Ishiguro.
Hoy in a kimono at age five or six. Photo courtesy: Bailey Irene Midori Hoy.
Hoy’s goals with her research are to help heal and encourage communication between generations and make information more accessible to the Japanese Canadian community. Ishiguro respects how Hoy’s work is propelled by her personal, familial and community commitment to researching history that matters to the Japanese Canadian population.
“How she talks about her research and her family and what’s driving her in this, this is the work she’s doing because it matters, not just because it’s an intellectual exercise,” Ishiguro said. “For me, that combination of original questions, drive, and commitment is a really powerful combination.”
Hoy has a personal family connection to the fund. Her great-uncle Fred Yoshihide Sasaki was a UBC commerce student before the internment derailed his life in 1942.
Sasaki finished his studies by correspondence and stayed in contact with his professor E. H. Morrow. Sasaki was one of the 76 Japanese Canadian students who received an honorary degree in May 2012 after UBC acknowledged the unjust treatment of the students. Sasaki is also a founding member of Momiji Health Care Society in Toronto.
“Uncle Fred encouraged my interest in Japanese Canadian history,” Hoy said. “He gave me my first oral interview when I was 14 years old. My mom recorded it. He treated me seriously.”
Her family has repeatedly said that receiving this funding is a “full circle” moment, connecting Hoy with Sasaki again.
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