{{Short description|Japanese-Canadian educator and activist}} '''Hide Hyodo Shimizu''' {{Post-nominals|country=CAN|CM}} (1908–1999) was a Japanese-Canadian educator and activist. She was an advocate for Japanese-Canadian rights and enfranchisement, and during World War II she established and operated schools for Japanese-Canadian children in internment camps. Shimizu was later awarded the Order of Canada for her work.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hide Hyodo Shimizu |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/hide-hyodo-shimizu |access-date=2024-06-03 |website=www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca |language=en}}</ref>
== Early life == Hide Hyodo (later Shimizu) was born in 1908 to Hideichi and Toshi Hyodo in Vancouver, British Columbia.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|title=100 Canadian heroines : famous and forgotten faces|last=Merna.|first=Forster|date=2004|publisher=Dundurn Group|isbn=1550025147|location=Toronto|pages=237–238|oclc=57491512}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/sgc-cms/histoires_de_chez_nous-community_memories/CM_V2_Apps/ui/remWindow.php?remID=72508&remP=/sgc-cms/histoires_de_chez_nous-community_memories/hdcn-cm/ADSW/0001/text/&remEx=School+Yard+Memories&lg=English|title=School Yard Memories|website=www.virtualmuseum.ca|access-date=2017-11-03}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite news|url=http://www.torontonajc.ca/2014/02/16/hide-shimizu-memorial-scholarship/|title=Hide Shimizu (née Hyodo) Memorial Scholarship|date=2014-02-16|work=Toronto NAJC|access-date=2017-11-03|language=en-US}}</ref> Her parents, Hideichi and Toshi Hyodo, had emigrated from Uwajima, Japan, and Hide was the first of their eight children.<ref name=":4" />
Shimizu studied at the University of British Columbia for a year, but transferred to a teacher's training school after tuition fees became too high.<ref name=":1" /> In 1926, Shimizu became one of the first ''Nisei'' (second-generation Japanese-Canadians) to earn a teacher's certificate.<ref name=":4" /> She began teaching a grade 1 class of Japanese-Canadian students at Lord Byng School in Steveston, B.C., a task she found challenging at first, because the students were fluent in Japanese – a language that Shimizu herself didn't know.<ref name=":1" /> She continued to teach at the school until 1942.<ref name=":4" />
== Advocacy ==
=== Enfranchisement === In 1936, when the Elections and Franchise Acts Committee in the House of Commons was debating whether or not to extend voting rights to Asian immigrants and their descendants, Shimizu was asked by the Japanese Canadian Citizens League to join a small delegation travelling to Ottawa. Shimizu and her three companions each gave a short presentation to the committee in support of enfranchisement. The committee did not end the franchise ban, however, and the delegation returned home disappointed.<ref name=":4" />
=== World War II === In 1941, the Canadian government began requiring all Japanese-Canadians older than 16 to register with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Shimizu's parents were forced to give up their land and house.<ref name=":4" />
When Japanese-Canadian families were moved into detention camps, their children were pulled out of school. In response, Shimizu recruited 120 Japanese teachers – many of them young high-school graduates or students themselves – and proceeded to train them in preparing and delivering school assignments. Working under the supervision of the British Columbia Securities Commission, Shimizu established a system of schools for approximately 3,000 Japanese-Canadian children within the internment camps, sending her newly-trained teachers to all the different camp locations.<ref name=":4" /> The schools operated out of small shacks that held only 20 students, and they used discarded textbooks donated by the Vancouver School Board.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.japanesecanadianhistory.ca/Chapter4.html#a75|title=The Politics of Racism: Chapter 4: Exile|last=Sunahara|first=Ann|website=www.japanesecanadianhistory.ca|access-date=2017-11-04}}</ref> Shimizu visited the camps herself every month, commuting between Steveston and Vancouver, even as she was obliged to keep to a strict 9 pm curfew every night.<ref name=":4" />
== Post-war work == After the war, Shimizu moved to Toronto. In 1948, she married Reverend Kosaburo Shimizu, a widowed United Church minister with four children of his own.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":4" /> They lived together until Reverend Kosaburo's death in 1962.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://bayviewunitedchurch.ca/images/25anniv5-13.pdf|title=Reverend Kosaburo Shimizu|website=Bayview United Church|page=8|access-date=2017-11-04}}</ref> Shimizu continued to play an active role in her community, and she lobbied the government to provide compensation for the harms done and property seized from Japanese-Canadians during the war.<ref name=":4" />
In 1982, Shimizu was awarded the Order of Canada for her efforts to provide education for Japanese-Canadian children in internment camps.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=http://archive.gg.ca/honours/search-recherche/honours-desc.asp?lang=e&TypeID=orc&id=1547|title=Order of Canada|last=Services|first=Government of Canada, Office of the Secretary to the Governor General, Information and Media|website=archive.gg.ca|access-date=2017-11-03}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.genealogiequebec.com/necro/obituary/HYODO-Hide-532754|title=Hide HYODO|last=ON|first=The Citizen, Ottawa|website=www.genealogiequebec.com|access-date=2017-11-03}}</ref><ref name=":4" />
Shimizu died in Nepean on August 22, 1999, aged 91.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" />
== Legacy == In 1993, Shimizu was included in a list of women recognized by Status of Women Canada as having contributed to Canada's history and development.<ref name=":2" /> A few years later, at the Lord Byng School, school officials dedicated a traditional Japanese rock garden in her honour.<ref name=":4" />
The Greater Toronto Chapter of the National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC) and the Hastings Park Foundation now jointly offer a scholarship for Japanese-Canadian students in memory of Hide Hyodo Shimizu.<ref name=":2" />
== References == {{Reflist}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shimizu, Hide Hyodo}} Category:1908 births Category:1999 deaths Category:Members of the Order of Canada Category:Japanese-Canadian internees Category:Canadian women activists Category:Canadian women educators Category:20th-century Canadian educators Category:Activists from Vancouver Category:20th-century Canadian women educators