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Japanese Canadian Internment

Subject: Japanese Canadian Internment

On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, kicking off the worst period of history for people of Japanese ancestry in North America, who from that point on were seen as enemy aliens. Within days of the bombing, over 1,000 Japanese Canadian fishing vessels were seized in Canada putting almost 2,000 fishermen of Japanese ancestry out of work. By early 1942, both the Canadian and U.S. governments ordered the relocation of all people of Japanese ancestry living along the West Coast to isolated town and camps further inland.

By February of 1942, the Canadian Parliament passed a bill declaring that anyone of Japanese ancestry living within 100 miles of the West Coast be relocated. From March to October about 22,000 Japanese were relocated under the "War Measures Act". Approximately 75% of these people were naturalized Canadians.

In the U.S. approximately 110,000 of Japanese ancestry were relocated under the "War Relocation Authority".

In both countries, the belongings and property of people of Japanese ancestry were sold and most of the proceeds were not awarded to the owners. In Canada, personal property, businesses and over 1,000 farms belonging to people of Japanese ancestry were seized.

A Minister in the British Columbia government announced, "Let our slogan be for British Columbia; no Japs from the Rockies to the seas." Other politicians weren't so blatant and insisted that the relocation was for security reasons and some even suggested that it was to protect people of Japanese ancestry from mob violence on the West Coast.

In Canada, families of Japanese ancestry were told that since they wouldn't be gone long, they didn't need to bring much with them. They were first herded like cattle into livestock pens at the Pacific Exhibition Grounds in Vancouver. Later they were put on trains and sent to remote areas in the interior of British Columbia. Thousands of the men were taken north to work on road crews to pay for the cost of interning their families, and entire families were sent to sugar beet farms in Alberta and Manitoba to work as laborers. "The beet farmers met us at the railway station," remembers one Japanese Canadian man who was relocated, "For them it was just like picking up slaves".

Today, some historians say that what happened to people of Japanese ancestry in Canada wasn't actually an internment, as the relocated communities were not fenced in or guarded. Though technically they may not have been interned, their activities and freedoms were severely restricted: they lost almost all of their belongings, their ability to earn an income, and were placed in remote areas. In other words, the outcome was the same as had they been put in guarded camps.

Several years later, in 1945, people of Japanese ancestry in Canada were given a choice to be deported to Japan or relocate east of the Rockies. Most chose to stay in Canada. Again, in 1946, the government attempted to deport 10,000 Japanese Canadians but public outcry made this impossible. By the end of the Second World War, the Japanese community in Canada was shattered and the spirits of the people all but broken. Few returned to the West Coast and those that went East did so as family units and small groups, but not as entire communities.

Why?

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