Tashme Project: Living Archives
November 15th, 2018The Tashme Project: The Living Archives is a play presented at Montreal’s Centaur Theatre. This play will serve to tie into a section of our Social and Economic History: The Family course which deals with families on the margin and under threat. The class has looked at various groups of individuals in the past whose family experiences were anything but pleasant, safe, and stable. Various cases of government-led family separation, marginalization, etc. contributed to such difficulties and this play will reveal the struggle on the part of Japanese Canadians during WWII to maintain family. The play showcases the voices of those who survived the horrible internment of the Japanese in Canada during the Second World War, more specifically the voices of the children.
Project Update
This play provided students with the opportunity to not only acquire knowledge, but to get a deeper and emotional understanding of the topic. It also helped student to experience history outside of the classroom and the school setting. The students reflections about the play reveal that it will likely have a lasting impression.
In addition, once in the class students worked in teams to compare and contrast the experience of the Japanese with the experience of other groups. Students looked at not only the direct experience of various families on the margins, but also the root causes of these families' struggles (fear, discrimination, abuse of power, etc.).
