Burnaby grandmother target of racist abuse in Home Depot parking lot

BURNABY (CityNews) — Another troubling racist incident in Metro Vancouver, this time in Burnaby where an 84-year-old Asian woman was verbally attacked.

Kayoko Nomura was out to get her license renewed, when she missed her turnoff and had to turn around at the Home Depot in Burnaby. She was waiting for another vehicle to finish parking, when an impatient driver pulled up, who Nomura describes as a middle-aged white man with long hair.

“As soon as the other truck finished parking, that other truck, we started to proceed and then he stops next to my car, rolls down his window, and starts shouting profanities and racial slurs. The word ‘bitch’ came out too at some point,” she says. “He told me to go back where I came from.”

Nomura was born in Ocean Falls, B.C. and she is no stranger to racism. During the Second World War, Nomura’s family lost everything during the Japanese Internment, where the Canadian Government detained thousands of Japanese-Canadians at the PNE grounds at Hastings Park.

“I’ve been through this racial thing before. But I think it’s even worse now than it was then,” she says.

“I hope for, not my generation because we all knew it, and we’ve gone through it, and we’ve always tolerated it. But for the future kids, I hope it gets better, I really do. I hope it gets safer for them.”

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Research from StatsCan shows that Asian-Canadians have reported an increase in racial harassment during the COVID-19 pandemic. And Nomura’s experience is yet another dismaying incident in the Lower Mainland.

Nomura’s granddaughter, Aliya Boulanger, says she is dismayed by what her grandmother was subjected to.

“It’s scary. I don’t want my loved ones going out into the world and experiencing this. I don’t want my grandmother to potentially have to fend for her physical safety in a home depot parking lot,” she says.