One of Vancouver’s longest-running festivals has a new leader two years ahead of its 50th anniversary. The Powell Street Festival Society board has appointed Sophie Yamauchi Latimer as executive director, which puts her in charge of the city’s premier festival celebrating Japanese Canadian arts and culture.
Yamauchi Latimer is on the board of the Canadian Museums Association. In her most recent positions, she worked as outreach and engagement coordinator for the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden and board administrator with the Chinese Canadian Museum Society of B.C.. She has also been a conservation technician, interpreter, and visitor-services rep with the Museum of Vancouver.
“It is a profound honour to step into this leadership role with the Powell Street Festival, an organization that has deeply shaped my Japanese Canadian identity,” Yamauchi Latimer said in a festival news release. “Built on a foundation of cherished memories—from childhood moments of stick balloons and Tanko Bushi to volunteering at the salmon BBQ during university—I now approach this position with great care and enthusiasm. I look forward to leveraging my arts management experience to steward the festival’s next chapter, working alongside our exceptional team and dedicated volunteers to ensure its continued growth and impact for generations to come.”
Yamauchi Latimer has a master of arts degree from Queen’s University, where she specialized in arts leadership. She also has a UBC bachelor of arts degree, majoring in anthropology (museum studies).
Moreover, Yamauchi Latimer has deep roots in the Japanese Canadian community. Her great grandparents, Takao and Yuki Horiuchi, lived on Clark Drive in Vancouver where her grandmother, Kuniko (“Connie”) Yamauchi was born in 1930, according to Kuniko’s 2022 obituary. Takao was a railway foreman and Yuki was a homemaker.
Following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, about 22,000 Japanese Canadians were detained and their assets were confiscated. Most were incarcerated in camps in the B.C. Interior whereas others were sent to other provinces to work as farm labourers.
The obituary notes, however, that the Horiuchis “evaded the detention camps by obtaining subsistence labour on a ranch near Vernon, B.C.” Kuniko later met Henry Yamauchi, an army cadet, and they eventually married in 1955.
Their only son, Ron Yamauchi, is a Vancouver writer, musician, and actor who appeared in the Emmy Award–winning Shōgun FX miniseries. Earlier this year, he wrote a thought-provoking article in the Tyee about how this experience revealed parts of himself that he “didn’t expect to meet”.
Ron Yamauchi is Yamauchi Latimer’s father, which means that Yamauchi Latimer is Yonsei (fourth-generation Japanese Canadian).
Morita introduced Paueru Gai Mashup Dance
Yamauchi Latimer succeeds Emiko Morita, who stepped down this year after 10 years as executive director of the Powell Street Festival Society (PSFD). During her tenure, the festival retained its strong commitment to the arts while also engaging in more community outreach.
For example, during the pandemic year of 2020, Morita launched the Paueru Mashup Dance to bring people together and remind them of the history of the neighbourhood known as Paueru Gai (the Japanese translation of Powell Street).
“I discovered PSFS’s commitment to Paueru Gai—the historic Japanese Canadian community in the Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside—is the society’s strength and vitality,” Morita said in the news release. “Through our arts programming, I gained access to my cultural heritage and discovered community beyond expectation. I’m truly excited to be passing the stewardship of this beloved cultural institution to Sophie and look forward to witnessing and experiencing our community’s next chapter.”
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