Japanese Internment in Canada

The core of the Japanese experience in Canada lies in the shameful and almost undemocratic suspension of human rights that the Canadian government committed during World War II. As a result, thousands of Japanese were uprooted to be imprisoned in internment camps miles away from their homes. While only a small percentage of the Japanese living in Canada were actually nationals of Japan, those who were Canadian born were, without any concrete evidence, continuously being associated with a country that was nothing but foreign to them. Branded as "enemy aliens", the Japanese Canadians soon came to the realization that their beloved nation harboured so much hate and anti-Asian sentiments that Canada was becoming just as foreign to them as Japan was. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Canadians lost almost everything, including their livelihood. Their dignity as a people was being seriously threatened. Without any proper thought, they were aware that resistance against Canada's white majority would prove to be futile. Racial discrimination had its biggest opportunity to fully reveal itself while the Japanese silently watched the civil disdain take action, the time slip by throughout the evacuation and internment, and their daily lives simply fall apart at the seams.

The term "Canadian" offered no redemption as the Japanese Canadians were involuntarily regarded as potential treats to national security by their own fellow citizens. In a country they knew only as home, the "yellow" race was a culture many felt they could never accept with open arms. In essence, as the prejudice impelled the Japanese to enclose themselves in a separated society, they were decidedly doomed to remain a permanently alien, non-voting population. As visible minorities, the Japanese were easy targets for discrimination in every social aspect of their lives. In 1907, a race riot took place in a district called "Little Tokyo" in Vancouver. There, an estimated five thousand racist Canadians sought to destroy the homes and stores of the Asian community. By 1928, W.L. Mackenzie King proposed that one hundred fifty Japanese immigrants be permitted to enter Canada each year to prevent future mishaps. The bombing of Pearl Harbor was merely a trigger point for the public distaste to truly emphasize itself. With such close relations with the United States, Canadians feared that Japan would also attempt an assault against them. It was naively assumed that if there was an attack, the response would be aid from the Japanese Canadians in British Columbia through the accessibility of the Pacific Ocean. The initial reaction to Pearl Harbor was to take cautious emergency actions to avert civil unrest. Soon, the Canadian government passed the War Measures Act. It gave permission to intern all undesirable Japanese, tie up every Japanese-owned fishing boat in British Columbia, close all Japanese language schools, forbid the publishing of newspapers in Japanese, and seize all Japanese property. All of which were subsequently carried out. In 1941, there were twenty-three thousand five hundred Japanese persons in Canada, residing mainly on the coast of British Columbia. Of that, six thousand seven hundred were Canadian born, seven thousand were naturalized citizens, and the rest were nationals of Japan. However, nothing could make any difference. To the typical, white British Columbian, the Japanese were all lower-class citizens. Five hours after the attack on Pearl Harbour, forty-eight Japanese planes bombed Hong Kong where two Canadian battalions were stationed, and were inflicted with heavy casualties. The "problem" of the resident Japanese in British Columbia was then quickly set into the mainstream focus. Prior to declaring war on Japan, Mackenzie King had stated that the "enemy country" had "wantonly and treacherously" attacked British territory, and that "Japan's actions [were] a threat to the defence and freedom of Canada." On December 30, 1941, Ottawa was told there were going to be "interracial riots and bloodshed", and was advised that the Japanese be removed from the Pacific coast. Government officials insisted they could not trust anyone of Japanese origin. The Japanese Canadians had unfortunately come to witness the true extent of the bitterness that reeked from the Caucasian population.

In addition to the feelings of hostility towards the Japanese, all their hard work to successfully develop a stable living became worthless as evacuation and internment were seen to be the only logical solutions. The "partial" evacuation of the Japanese nationals was still not enough. All had to go. A multitude of political, economic and social organizations, as well as other pressure groups from British Columbia began a constant flow of propaganda against the Japanese. They demanded that further, immediate