At What Point do we Become Canadian? Do we Ever Lose our Ethnic identity completely? The Japanese-Canadian community is one of the smallest ethnic communities in Canada. And yet its 66,000 members form a visible minority. In 1988 the redress of injustices to citizens interned during World War II marked the end of a long fight that had united Japanese Canadians. The community has sensed a weakening of ties ever since.

The Nisei, or second generation of Japanese Canadians who lived through the war, have scattered across the nation. Their children, the Sansei or third generation, have been fully integrated into mainstream society. As Tomoko Makabe discovered in her interviews with thirty-six men and twenty-eight women, the Sansei don't speak Japanese, they don't marry Japanese Canadians, and they're pretty much indifferent about being Japanese Canadian. Many are upwardly mobile: they live in middle-class neighbourhoods, are well educated, and work as professionals. It's easy to speculate that the community will vanish with the fourth generation. But Makabe has some reservations. Ethnic identity can be sustained in more symbolic ways. With support and interest from the community at large, aspects of the structures, institutions, and identities of an ethnic group can become part of the dominant culture. In the end, it may be non-Japanese Canadians who need this group and encourage it to carry on its traditions.

The Canadian Sansei is as much a reflection on history, culture, and identity in general as it is an account of third-generation Japanese Canadians. Makabe's explorations cut a path to discovery for every ethnic group in Canada and throughout the world.