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

According to the novel Farewell to Manzanar, “I smiled and sat down, suddenly aware of what being of Japanese ancestry was going to be like. I wouldn’t be faced with physical attack, or with overt shows of hatred. Rather, I would be seen as someone foreign, or as someone other than American, or perhaps not be seen at all” (158). After the bombing at Pearl Harbor, the government saw all Japanese-Americans as enemies even though most, if not all of them, had done nothing wrong. They were taken from their homes and send to awful internment camps where they were treated as prisoners. The Japanese-Americans stayed in the camps four years, just because of where they come from. During this time Americans completely turned against the Japanese people living in their country and bombarded the news with anti-Japanese propaganda which showed how much racial discrimination there was, even back in the 1940s. While Farewell to Manzanar explores this concept, there are many questions in which the reader is left with. First, the Japanese-American Internment was fueled by more than war time panic, which reveals the question: what role did prejudice play in the Japanese-American Relocation? Then, there is the question: what modern day connections can you make with this time in American history? Lastly, this story leaves the reader with the question: do you think something like this could happen today? Farewell to Manzanar gives a glimpse of the lives of Japanese-Americans in the 1940s and

His family had a military background, his relatives held such roles as governor of Taiwan and before Japan was opened for trade his family was of the Samurai Class.Her father moved to the united states from Japan when he was 17 after dropping out of Military school. Having moved to America after living in Japan for 17 years he still had loyalties to both countries, and seeing them fight tore him apart, when asked the question “Who do you want to win the war” while being interrogated he responded “When your Mother and Father are having a fight, do you want them to kill each other? Or do you just want them to stop fighting?” ~ Farewell to Manzanar, Page 64. Because of suspicion that Papa assisted the Japanese military he was taken in for questioning before joining his family in Manzanar, and because he got back earlier than the others under suspicion he was suspected by the others to be a traitor, and they called him out as such, and “For a man raised in Japan, there was no greater Disgrace.”. This humiliation, brought him face to face with his own vulnerability, and being a very proud man he hated his own vulnerability. The disgrace and to a certain extent loathing eventually caused papa to exile himself to his barracks and start to drink more and more and become more and more emotionally unstable, at one point even threatening to kill his own wife while his children looked on in fear. While his internal conflict affected himself foremost, it also had a toll on his

They moved the Japanese-Americans for a reason. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, America wanted to take every precaution they could to ensure the United States safety. In doing so, the army and government took the precaution to create the internment of Japanese-Americans. They moved them to camps that they would keep them in and provide decent living conditions. The United States was justified in moving the Japanese Americans because some lived near vital naval bases that they could have infiltrated, there was no problem in doing so, and it would protect all citizens of America.

Canada is presently known for welcoming many racial groups into the country. However, the Canadian government is not always giving out warm welcomes to different ethnicities. During World War Two, the country rejects many Japanese and Italians who are already Canadian. The treatment of the Japanese and Italians in the Second World War is very unjust. The two groups face being put into internment camps against their own will, the government separates families and force men to work on farms with little pay. The government of Canada also mistreat the Japanese and Italian Canadians because they are full of fear and superstition.

In many times throughout history groups of people have been discriminated against based on race or religion. These people receive inferior rights because of the discrimination. In some cases they do not get citizenship, in others they are segregated from others, and physically harmed. Two groups of people that faced discrimination near World War II (WWII) were the Jewish people and Japanese Americans. Both groups faced very different types of discrimination by different oppressors with different motives yet their treatment was very similar and many events paralleled each other. The treatment of Japanese in WWII internment camps was as harsh as the Holocaust's treatment of the Jewish people.

Japanese internment camps from 1942 to 1946 were an exemplification of discrimination, many Japanese Americans were no longer accepted in their communities after the Bombing of Pearl Harbor. They were perceived as traitors and faced humiliation due to anti-Japanese sentiment causing them to be forced to endure several hardships such as leaving behind their properties to go an imprisoned state, facing inadequate housing conditions, and encountering destitute institutions. The Bombing of Pearl Harbor occurred on December 7, 1941 (Why I Love a Country that Once Betrayed Me). This led president Roosevelt to sign the executive order 9066, which authorized the army to remove any individual that seemed as a potential threat to the nation (“Executive Order 9066”) This order allowed the military to exclude “‘any or all persons from designated areas, including the California coast.”’ (Fremon 31). Many Japanese opposed to leave the Pacific Coast on their own free will (Fremon 24) . Japanese Americans would not be accepted in other areas if they moved either.Idaho’s governor stated, Japanese would be welcomed “only if they were in concentration camps under guard”(Fremon 35). The camps were located in Arizona, Arkansas, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and California where thousands of Japanese Americans eventually relocated. (“Japanese Americans at Manzanar”) The internment lasted for 3 years and the last camp did not close until 1946. (Lessons Learned: Japanese Internment During WW2)

As a nation, Canada is known to the rest of the world for being thoughtful, polite, and generally very accepting of all ethnicities and people. However, the treatment of Canada’s Indigenous population, Japanese Canadians, African American and Indigenous slaves seems to suggest otherwise. Canada's dark past may not be talked about often, but there are three main events that targeted specific ethnic groups which still affect those people today. Residential Schools led to major negative cultural consequences, as well as psychological and sociological effects. Japanese-Canadian Internment Camps were used to strip Japanese Canadians of their rights because of the World War II bombing of Pearl Harbor. And finally, for two centuries slavery was legal in New France, and in Lower Canada under British rule. Human beings were being held captive and were owned by many people, including governors, bishops, military officers, priests, and blacksmiths. All of these terrible consequences can be accredited to Canada’s imperialistic policies.

     During this time of crisis in America, the Japanese people in our country were done a huge injustice. They were stripped their constitutional rights, relocated to a location with poor living conditions, and when America apologized it was just too late. The mental and physical health impacts of this event continues to affect tens of thousands of Japanese

A key challenge the idea of Canada as a racially-inclusive society are the events surrounding immigration policy throughout its history. Two periods of history which display this are the events regarding Chinese and Asian immigration, and Indian immigration. Each of these moments display how the Canadian government used its power to ensure Canada was a white supremacist state. In the case of Chinese immigrants, the state used rigorous measures to reduce immigration, and initiatives to ensure individuals to did immigrate were not successful.

When the girl tells Stephen that “all the Jap kids at school are getting sent away” the application of this to “all” the Jap kids turns this particular case into a more general case that is associated to the larger Japanese population in Canada. Furthermore, when by saying “we are both the enemy and not the enemy” (319) the use of we can be implied to all Japanese-Canadians. By doing so the author persuades the reader that this is not only an individual case happening to this one specific

Although these Japanese Canadians were citizens of Canada for years prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, they were still immensely discriminated in British Columbia and other Canadian provinces due to the acts of their mother country. Federal cabinet minister from British Columbia, Ian MacKenzie stated “‘It is the government’s plan to get these people out of B.C as fast as possible. It is my personal intention, as long as I remain in public life, to see they never come back here. Let our slogan be for British Columbia: No Japs from the Rockies to the seas’” (“Japanese Internment”). The intensification of discrimination against the Japanese was attributable to the attack on Pearl Harbor in the United States and significantly escalated when the Japanese attacked Hong Kong (“Japanese Internment”). If any Japanese Canadian were to refuse and protest their repositioning into internment camps, they were immediately sent and detained in a “barbed-wire prisoner-of-war camp in Angler, Ontario” (“The War Years”). It was not until four years after the completion of World War II that the Japanese Canadians were given their rights back, but the discrimination still lingered through the provinces of Canada for many years afterwards (“The

The government had interfered with their legal rights and did not give them equal protection under the law. Simply, the decision of putting the Japanese Canadians into these camps where they were racially discriminated, which negatively impacted on the Japanese Canadians. The Japanese Canadians cannot simply change the color of their skin or who they are due to something others are responsible for, and not the responsibility of them individually. The discrimination that Japanese Canadians faced psychologically damaged the brains and had isolated them from the rest of the world because they were categorized as inadequate individuals. Japanese Canadians were being stereotyped as “enemy aliens” even though they had not done anything which would harm anyone. According to (Marsh, 2012), during 1943, Alberta needed workers, but refused to hire the Japanese, some of the Alberta farmers that did hire Japanese workers crowded them into small shacks, and cheated them of their wages. This negatively impacted the money of the Japanese Canadians earned for survival, and it also interfered with their well-being and health. According to the National Museum of American History in 1943 every resident in the internment camps were required to complete one of two questionnaires misleadingly entitled “Application for Leave Clearance” to distinguish whether they were “loyal” or “disloyal”. After Pearl Harbour all of the citizens of Japanese ancestry had been classified 4-C “enemy aliens”. This

The expulsion and interment of Japanese Canadians from the coastal regions of British Columbia during World War II was a completely unnecessary and racially charged course of action taken by the Canadian government. Facilitated by a politically active (and popular) anti-Asian lobby group in British Columbia that took advantage of a dispassionate federal government that was insensitive towards Japanese Canadians. The mass prosecution greatly affected Japanese Canadians socially, economically and significantly altered community development in the years following the war. Socially the Japanese suffered, their deportation from British Columbia’s costal regions divided and separated family/friends across Canada. The Japanese also suffered economically,

The Psychological impacts put upon the Japanese-Canadians, weren’t just the horrible experiences, or the separation of family and friends. Rather the impact due to the discrimination of the Japanese-Canadians by the government and the rest of society had a deeper impact. The hatred of the Japanese-Canadians by the Government and the people had an Enormous impact on the people’s well being, and the way they viewed themselves. The government after the relocation sold most of the properties and confiscated possessions of the Japanese-Canadians. They also took out all of the Japanese Newspapers, restricted Telephone and mail Services, thus Preventing Communication. Furthermore, the media was full of “Anti-Japanese-Canadian Rhetoric.” Finally the Greatest hatred against came from not the media, nor the government, but the people around them. Sent to remote and deserted areas, or work/concentration camps,