As Canadians, among the things we’ve come to take pride in is our willingness to face up to shameful things in our past, and our present. We haven’t always had the honesty or courage to do so but we’re learning, and we’re a better people for it. Top of the list is centuries of shameful treatment of indigenous Canadians, which we’re now facing via the process of “Reconciliation.” Shameful too was the wartime internment of Japanese-Canadians, for which our government belatedly apologized with the 1988 act of “Redress.” But apologizing doesn’t free us to forget – which is why this article by  Patricia Bader-Johnston  is important. – ed.

April 1st, 2024 will mark the 75th anniversary of the full release of Japanese-Canadians from wartime internment. Although the war had ended in 1945, it was not until five years later, on April 1, 1949, that Japanese Canadians regained full freedom of movement, and were permitted to re-enter the “protected zone” along the British Columbia coast. That anniversary makes this a fitting time to remember a time when racism was the norm and xenophobic hysteria prevailed over human dignity. 

In 1942, more than 22,000 men, women and children – most of them Canadian-born and many of them third-generation residents – were sent from the West Coast to the Canadian interior. 

Shortly after Pearl Harbor and the U.S. government decree banning Japanese from coastal areas, Prime Minister Mackenzie King followed suit, announcing that Japanese-Canadians were to be moved east, at least 2,000 miles away from the coast. The official policy stated that they must move “east of the Rocky Mountains or be deported to Japan following the end of the war.” 

When they were finally able to return, most found that nothing remained of what had been their lives before the war. Many families were indiscriminately split up with men sent to labor camps and women and children scattered in camps as far east as Northern Ontario. Accommodations often consisted of barns and stables, tents and hastily constructed tar-paper shacks. During the first winter of internment in these unheated, inhumane conditions many endured temperatures as low as minus 43 degrees.

On the West Coast there was a long and well-documented history of friction between whites and Japanese who immigrated to Canada between 1887 and the 1930s. Much of this friction occurred in Vancouver’s “Japantown,” along Powell St. in the city’s Downtown East Side. It was largely fueled by the deeply racist mentality of colonial society and fierce competition for jobs among immigrant groups. 

In the fisheries and lumber industries, Asian workers were paid lower wages, and then ironically decried for under-cutting white workers. The Japanese also aroused suspicion and hostility due to their tendency to stick to themselves, communicate in their own language and rarely inter-marry. This fueled an impression that they could never assimilate to become Canadians. Once war broke out, this lent credence to the suspicion that they must therefore be loyal to Japan. 

During WWI relations were somewhat better as Japan was allied with Britain. Eleven battalions of Japanese-Canadians served with Canadian forces, earning many decorations for heroism. But when white veterans returned from the war, racist sentiment flared again when they found that Japanese had filled coveted jobs in their absence, bought properties and built businesses. 

This resulted in an outbreak of racist violence that was dubbed the “White Riots.” Mobs marched through Chinatown and Japantown, smashing windows and vandalizing local homes and Japanese-owned businesses. Along with local anti-Asian groups, the mobs were reportedly instigated by Ku-Klux-Klan agitators from the U.S.

Institutionalized racism was likewise common in those days. Various types of fishing licenses were off-limits to Japanese and a web of other restrictions were applied to keep them out of the most lucrative fisheries. This forced Japanese-Canadians to look for opportunities further inland where they opened businesses and established farms.

By the eve of WWII there were 128 Japanese-owned businesses in the Powell Street area, including a large department store and a school that taught sewing to Japanese housewives.

On January 14, 1942, a federal government order mandated the removal of all male Japanese aged 18 to 45 from coastal areas of B.C. to a designated protected area 100 miles inland. Even harsher measures followed.

Subsequently, all Japanese-Canadians were required to sign over (ostensibly voluntarily) all their properties and possessions. Branded as enemy aliens, they were stripped of all human rights on the spot. No other member of a perceived “enemy” ethnic group in Canada ever faced similar treatment. For example, German and Austrian residents of Canada were not subjected to any similar form of complete dispossession. 

Japanese-Canadians being relocated were allowed to take 150 lbs. of belongings with them. Many women took along their sewing machines instead of baggage, clinging to the hope this would give them a livelihood after losing everything else. They were unceremoniously herded off to the Pacific National Exhibition fairgrounds where they were held in horse stables before transportation to various “safe” locations. Some were deported back to Japan.

The experiences of those interned families are now a matter of record. We can only imagine the horror they must have felt in first being branded as enemies of their country; the fear they experienced; the shock of losing all they had worked for; the degradation of being herded like cattle off to unknown locations, often split up from their families. And finally, one can only imagine the mixed emotions they must have felt once the last restrictions were lifted in 1949 – to realize they had nothing left: no belongings, no property, fragmented communities and a certainty that they were hated by the country they had loved. 

It is ironic indeed that the end to their ordeal came on April Fool’s Day. If only this history could be erased as a cruel joke. But this travesty occurred over a period of six years. It was inflicted on an entire community despite the lack of any evidence of collaboration with the enemy during or after the war.

Belatedly, the internees received “redress” from the Government of Canada in August, 1988 via an agreement signed with the National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC). The NAJC was formed in 1947 specifically to seek redress, a struggle that took 40 years.

Under the agreement, each internee received $21,000; a community fund was created; pardons were given to those who had been wrongfully imprisoned; and Canadian citizenship was restored to Japanese Canadians and their descendants who had been wrongfully deported to Japan in 1945. Redress funds were also used to construct the Japanese-Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto, which is where the largest group of former internees ended up.

This travesty cannot be undone. But by remembering what happened, we can ensure that Canada learns from the experience so that such a thing is never repeated. To this end, we must respect the resilience and the forgiveness of the Japanese-Canadian community, many of whom went on to become leading members of society, great Canadians like David Suzuki, Raymond Moriyama and Joy Kogawa.  

Patricia Bader-Johnston is a past chair of the CCCJ who has navigated Japan for over 40 years in public, private and entrepreneurial roles. She is a professor at Rikkyo University.

Opposite, Lemon Creek internment camp in B.C., 1944.

This page, Powell Street Parade, Vancouver, 1937.