The Key to Climbing Out of Poverty

In his book, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, Peter Temin writes that “escaping poverty requires nearly 20 years with nearly nothing going wrong.”  He continues, “And how is one to move up from the lower group to the higher one? Education is the key.”

My parents taught me and all of my siblings that education was the way out of poverty.  And we grew up poor.

In 1942 the Canadian government declared all Japanese and Canadians of Japanese descent living in Canada enemy aliens under the War Measures Act.  This meant that the government had declared its own citizens enemies of the state. The government seized all property and rounded up all Japanese-Canadians to be sent to internment camps.  I was three months old when our family was taken to the camps and I spent the first seven years of my life inside various camps.

Initially during the internment, my mother and father thought they might go back to Japan since the government was paying the fare for people to return there. So they moved with thousands of others to Tashme, a small town in central British Columbia.  Tashme was the gathering place for those families who had decided to return to Japan.  While there, they had second thoughts.

There were compelling reasons for returning to Japan – returning to familiar surroundings, speaking Japanese, being close to family. Despite these reasons, my parents thought that we children would have a better life in Canada and better access to education. So like many first generation immigrants, they sacrificed their comfort for their children’s future.  They chose to live in a foreign land in poverty.

After the internment, for the vast majority of Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Canadians who remained in Canada, it was a life of poverty, and included manual labour, minimum wages, and discrimination.

My father worked as a logger when he first emigrated to Canada from Japan and, after the war,  he got a job in the saw mill.  When a job on the  Canadian Pacific Railway became available, my mother encouraged him to take it as it was more reliable and steady.  My Dad eked out a living and was able to save enough money to plant a garden, adding different vegetables and fruit trees every year.

My mother’s full time job was to look after us seven children.  She cooked, canned, sewed, knitted and kept track of every penny spent by writing each purchase down in a journal.  They performed miracles with the minimum wage that Dad earned.  They were able to save enough to buy the house we grew up in!  It had been an office and Dad and the boys built on two rooms for our bedrooms with salvaged lumber.

The single minded drive and the sacrifice of my parents was obvious to all of us.  Without complaint, my mother took in laundry (5 cents a shirt, starched and ironed) so we each could have an ice cream cone (5 cents) every day during the summer.  Yet as children, we never thought we were poor.  We had nice clothes and shoes to wear, good food to eat and school supplies. The fact the three girls shared one bedroom and the four boys shared the other was “normal.” 

And toys? Who needed toys? Like all children, we were creative and used what we had; we played in the woods with leaves as plates, rotten tree wood as “meat”, tree stumps as tables.

And so in our family, without knowing it, we grew up poor.  And it was ingrained in us at an early age that education was the key to leading a successful life.  Education was our first priority as children. We grew up living by a number of spoken and unspoken rules that reinforced the value of education.

1. Education and school work came first.

My Mom and Dad understood this. We were encouraged to learn English. One of the costs of that decision was that we didn’t retain any Japanese (this is a common legacy of the internment).  And so, we all became fluent in English.  Our education came above all else. There was no question about homework.  Everyone did it without complaint and nothing got in the way.  After chores, we would sit around the kitchen table doing our homework, the older ones helping the younger ones.  I remember one day my older brother lying on the couch with a textbook on his head.  When I asked him why he wasn’t studying, he said he was learning by osmosis!

2.  Education was our job, not our parents’.

Our Mom and Dad never went to school to talk to the teachers.  When it was time for parent-teacher conferences, they ignored the invitations.  School was OUR job.  They expected us to do it and do it well.  And we did!  They saw no need to get involved. Their job was to feed and clothe us, and to provide an environment for us to do our job.  Our job was to go to school and give it 100% of our attention and effort. Setting expectations and enabling us to succeed made it possible for all seven of us to graduate from high school.

3.  Older siblings set an example that made life easier for those who followed.

We were known at school for excelling in academics. My older brother and sister topped their classes consistently.   I remember when I went to school, one of the teachers, Mr. Olson, said to me that there were high expectations of me as a Gyoba.  I didn’t disappoint!  I was always first or second in my class throughout high school.  Mr. Olson also asked me if I had any younger brothers and sisters.  When I told him there were four more, he said, “Good.  I look forward to them attending Hope High School.” And every single one of them also did well in school.

4. Keeping the expectation alive and front of mind helped.

Our Mom always said that it was important that we do well at school and that was essential for us to be able to have a secure future.  She was right. We all went on to higher education.  Six of seven went to University, with four of us completing degrees.  My older sister graduated top in the province from the University of British Columbia with her degree in nursing.  My younger sister and I got our degrees in Education. In middle age, I got my MBA. My youngest brother got his degree in mining engineering.  The other three boys excelled in their career choices – auto mechanics, carpentry and electrician/refrigeration. They went to British Columbia Institute of Technology.

5.  Prioritizing education was then passed to the next generation.

The emphasis on education was highly engrained in all of us and we passed on those lessons about the importance of education to all of our children. All of our children have completed higher education and have well-established careers.  My four children all having university degrees – three with multiple degrees, one with a PhD.  All of my siblings’ children – my nieces and nephews – have also completed post-secondary education and are contributing members of society. What a legacy for my Mom and Dad!

As I reflect on Temin’s findings that escaping poverty takes 20 years and education is the key, I find this consistent with my experience.  I took 20 years to finish school and get multiple degrees. I was able to land reliable jobs and was earning more than my father by the time I was 18 years old.

Now as I sit in my mortgage-free home, financially secure in my retirement, the contrast between my life now and the tiny house I grew up in is striking.  And I know that this life has only been possible because of the sacrifices of my parents and the deeply engrained lessons they gave me and all of my siblings about the importance of education.  I’m so grateful for their sacrifices, work ethic, and for teaching us about the value of education.  Thank you Mom and Dad!

So education was the key out of poverty – at least for me.

We would love to hear your comments below this article and your stories about whether education was your stepping stone out of poverty!

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