“Honest and insightful, a testament to Japanese Canadian resilience.” — KERRI SAKAMOTO, author of Floating City
When the North American dream meets traditional Japanese conformity, two cultures collide.

Does the past define who we are, who we become?

In April 1942, Suzanne's mother was an eight-month-old baby when her family was torn from their home in Victoria, B.C. Arriving at Vancouver’s Hastings Park, her family bunked in horse stalls for months before being removed to an incarceration camp in the Slocan Valley. After the Second World War, forced resettlement scattered Japanese families across Canada leading to high intermarriage rates and an erosion of ethnicity. Loss of heritage language impeded the sharing of stories, contributing to strained generational relationships and a conflict between eastern and western values.

This memoir and fourth-generation narrative of the Japanese Canadian experience bridges the individual and collective to celebrate family, places, and traditions. Steeped in history and cultural arts, it shows us how a community triumphed over adversity to rebuild their lives and make lasting contributions to the Toronto landscape.

Suzanne Elki Yoko Hartmann is an editor and the author of a children's book, My Father’s Nose. Her work reflects her roots as a fourth-generation Japanese Canadian with German ancestry, and explores cultural memories, meaningful coincidences, community, and identity. She lives in Toronto.

Suzanne Elki Yoko Hartmann's profile page

This most insightful memoir reveals our most human desire to belong to a community fractured and spread out by the traumatic events of the Second World War.

Sally Ito, author of Heart’s Hydrography and The Emperor’s Orphans

Honest and insightful, a testament to Japanese Canadian resilience.

Kerri Sakamoto, author of Floating City

While telling her family story, Suzanne Hartmann explores displacement, belonging, and race, and celebrates the struggle to preserve a Japanese presence in Canada. This lively story makes a significant contribution to the cultural conversation.

Ken McGoogan, author of Shadows of Tyranny

The Nail that Sticks Out is at once a touching portrait of the unique experience of Japanese Canadians while beautifully speaking to the larger narrative of intergenerational love and hardship that echoes through the experience of all immigrant communities.

Lara Okihiro, author of Obaasan’s Boots

A warm, touching memoir, full of insights that reveals a part of Canadian society rarely talked about in literature and in general.

Terry Watada, author of Hiroshima Bomb Money

The Nail That Sticks Out weaves together compelling community research and heartfelt family history to offer a glimpse into Japanese Canadian community amidst a legacy of uprooting, displacement, and in-betweenness. Navigating the uncertainty of both the past and the future, Hartmann's magnetic writing is a compass for those looking for markers of memory, resilience, and hope.

Leanne Toshiko Simpson, author of Never Been Better

With insight and integrity, Hartmann deftly weaves light and dark threads of personal experience, family lore, and Japanese Canadian history into a handcrafted kimono that captures the beautiful imperfections of life.

Raymond K. Nakamura, cartoonist and author of Peach Girl

Richly textured, illuminating, and poignant. As Hartmann re-assembles the shards of her family’s past and her coming of age, the joinery, like kintsugi, is transformational.

Lorri Neilsen Glenn, author of The Old Moon in Her Arms