Fonds reflects Minoru Kudo’s involvement within the Japanese Canadian community both before and after World War II as well as the Kudo family’s experience of forced removal and its impacts on their lives moving forward. If offers insight into the actions taken by the British Columbia Securities Commission during the process of the forced removal of Japanese Canadian families from B.C. and the advocacy work of Japanese Canadians, as individuals and through groups such as the National Association of Japanese Canadians, to receive redress following the end of the war, both through the The Royal Commission on Japanese Claims(the Bird Commission) and outside of it. In addition to these materials, the fonds also illustrates the work of younger generations of Japanese Canadians to uncover and reconnect with their history. The fonds contains research files from the Kudo family, who worked to document and bring together recollections of the Mission City Japanese community as it existed before the war and where families were for forcibly removed to during it, as well as the Kudo family’s history specifically. A significant portion of the fonds is the translation work done by Kathleen Merken on Minoru Kudo’s diaries.
The materials are arranged into three series, reflecting the different time periods and purposes in which the documents were created. The Minoru Kudo diaries and correspondence series contains the original diaries and correspondence of Minoru Kudo as well as photocopies that were made by Kathleen Kudo for reference and preservation purposes. The translations series contains records relating to the translation of the diaries by Kathleen Merken, research files were used to add context to the translations, and the translations themselves. The family records series contains genealogical research files, files documenting the deaths of various members of the Kudo family, and some personal records of Kathleen Merken that speak to her academic history and work.