Japanese Internment & Redress

Source: http://www.japanesecanadianhistory.net/GuideExcerptsForSo

cialStudies11.pdf

Background• Manzo Nagano 1877• Pacific Coast: farms, fishing,

mining, sawmill• racism• Vancouver riots, 1907 (see

docs)• Legalized racism: vote;

professions; wages• BC politicians (except CCF)

catered to white supremacists

• Japanese ghetto (Japantown)

• Issei & Nisei

http://www.az.emb-japan.go.jp/image/sakura.jpg

http://vancouvermovingtheatre.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/jnmc_big.jpg

• Vancouver riots 1907

WWII• War Measures Act• West Coast a

“restricted area”• Families split: fathers

to BC/Alberta, mothers to Greenwood, Slocan, etc

• Sugar beet farms• “Custodian of Enemy

Alien Property”• Japanese pay for their

own internment; movement restricted; mail censored.

http://www.ccrh.org/comm/moses/phoarch.html

As WWII draws to a close...• Japanese-Canadians have

the option:• be loyal and move east of

the Rockies OR• “repatriate” to Japan• Prime Minister Mackenzie

King August 4, 1944:“It is a fact that no person

of Japanese race born in Canada has been charged with any act of sabotage or disloyalty during the years of war.” http://www.ncrr-la.org/campaign.html

Post-War• April 1949 restrictions lifted:

Japanese given full citizenship rights and can vote.

• Right to return to BC• (no homes to return to)• “Today, most sunsei [3rd gen.]

know little of their cultural heritage and their contact with other Japanese outside their immediate family is limited. The rate of intermarriage is very high – almost 90% according to the 1996 census.”

• So what???• Source:

http://www.japanesecanadianhistory.net/GuideExcerptsForSocialStudies11.

http://www.jccc.on.ca/heritage/five_gen/exhibit/04.html

Redress• January 1984, National

Association of Japanese Canadians seek an acknowledgement of:

• the injustices endured during and after the Second World War;

• financial compensation for the injustices;

• review and amendment of the War Measures Act and relevant sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, so that no Canadian would ever again be subjected to such wrongs

Apology• “I know that I speak for

Members on all sides of the House today in offering to Japanese Canadians the formal and sincere apology of this Parliament for those past injustices against them, against their families, and against their heritage, and our solemn commitment and undertaking to Canadians of every origin that such violations will never again in this country be countenanced or repeated.”

• Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s remarks to the House of Commons, Sept. 22, 1988

• http://archives.cbc.ca/on_this_day/09/22/