Abstract: For much of the twentieth century, military commemoration operated in a context of pan-Canadian remembrance. This emphasis overlooked the groups outside the mainstream that pursued their own goals through military service and commemoration, which sometimes differed from and challenged the hegemony of national collective memory. A case in point is the Japanese Canadian War Memorial in Vancouver and its intersections with the military service of Masumi Mitsui and other Japanese-Canadian soldiers of the First World War. After the war, the Japanese-Canadian veterans fought for the right to vote in provincial elections, which they eventually secured in 1931, thereby becoming the first Asian Canadians to attain the franchise in British Columbia. The veterans' wartime service could not prevent anti-Japanese-Canadian sentiment before and during the Second World War, leading to the seizure of their properties and their forced removal from the coast. The article foregrounds Mitsui's return to Vancouver in 1985 as the honoured guest in a ceremony to relight the lantern at the Japanese Canadian War Memorial. Drawing on insights of the philosopher of history Walter Benjamin, this history is approached in light of Benjamin's account of storytelling traditions and the ‘now-time’ of historical agency.