World War II was a global event like none other. It left the world devastated, with over sixty million people dead. (World War II Casualties, par.1) Due to the events taking place in Europe, many people failed to see the things that were occurring right here in Canada. These events changed the lives of many people, with one of the affected groups being the Japanese Canadians. After the United States had declared war on Japan, Canada had automatically joined as well. Once war was declared on Japan, racism and fear suddenly took over. They felt it was necessary to send the Japanese Canadians to internment camps. The Japanese Canadians were falsely accused of espionage, even when many had no ties to Japan. Others spent their lives trying to prove their loyalty to Canada, but were still interned. Even though the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) declared them loyal, due to the racial sentiments in British Columbia, they were still sent to the camps. The internment of Japanese Canadians during World War II was extremely unfair, as it was based on prejudices and assumptions - deeming it unnecessary.
The Japanese Canadians had lost their fundamental rights as a Canadian citizen because they were accused of espionage. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, suspicion quickly fell on the Japanese Canadian residents in British Columbia for being disloyal. (Enemy Aliens, par.6) They were deemed “enemy aliens” and began to send them to internment camps on the basis that they were spies giving information to Japan. They had no evidence of this and no one had ever been convicted of being a spy. At the time, six hundred and sixty Germans and four hundred and eighty Italians had also been classified as “enemy aliens” and interned, whil...
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“Japanese Canadian Internment.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopaedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 April 2011. .
“Japanese Internment Camps in Canada.” Yukon Education Student Network – Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 April 2011. .
Ferguson, Will. Canadian History for Dummies. Mississauga: J. Wiley Sons Canada, 2005. Print.
Granatstein, J.L. and Desmond Morton. Canada and the Two World Wars. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2003. Print.
Hewson, George. "Remembering the 1907 Vancouver Race Riot | Articles | Discover Nikkei." Home | Discover Nikkei. Web. 09 May 2011. .
Newman, Garfield. Canada: A Nation unfolding. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2000. Print.
Canada’s Little War. James Lorimer & Company LTD. Toronto [7] Canadians and Conflicts. Edmonton Public School Board [8] Haas. Suzanne. History Television.
The period of 1914 to 1939, Canada’s immigration policy got very unfair. Changes were made to the Immigration Act in 1914 that allowed the rejection of anyone from any race that was deemed unsuitable for Canada’s requirements. Also, in that same year, the Komagata Maru came to the coast of Vancouver. It was a ship that carried many from Punjab, India. The ship wasn’t allowed to dock and passengers weren’t allowed to disembark off the ship. The ship hadn’t sailed directly to B.C. from India so only 24 passengers were allowed to disembark; most of them were doctors or Canadian citizens already. Another act to keep out unwanted immigrants from Canada was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923. This act came into effect on July 1st, 1923. It banned all Chinese immigrants from entering Canada, except merchants, diplomats and foreign students. Before the Chinese Exclusion Act was put into place, the Chinese had to pay a head tax of $500 just to get into the country. The numbers of Japanese immigrants were also restricted. The Canadian government restricted only 150 Japanese immigrants to come to Canada in a year. In 1925, the government relaxed restrictions on immigrants coming from many countrie...
The War Measures Act was a law passed in 1914 by the Canadian Government in Canada during WWI, amongst many others that the government had passed that allowed the government to take control of communications, establish censorship of transatlantic cables, and organize the militia (Bolotta, Angelo et al. 39). The War Measures Act itself allowed the government to: censor and suppress publications, writing, maps, plans, photographs, communications, and means of communication, arrest, detain, exclude, and deport persons, control harbours, ports, and territorial waters of Canada and the movements of vessels, control the transport of persons and things by land, air, or water control trade, production, and manufacturing, and appropriate and dispose of property and of the use thereof (Bolotta, Angelo et al. 39). It gave the government emergency powers “allowing it to govern by decree” while Canada was in war (War). In World War I (1914-1920), it had been used to imprison those who were of German, Ukrainian, and Slavic decent, and was used in the same way again in WWII (1939-1945) to imprison Japanese-Canadians, and to seize all of their belongings. They were then relocated into internment camps and concentration camps (Bolotta, Angelo et al. 171). Both times, those that were persecuted did not have the right to object (War). Those these laws had been created for the purpose of protecting Canadians from threats or wars for security, defense, peace order and welfare of Canada it instead greatly limited the rights and freedoms of Canadian citizens and debasing immigrants of enemy countries both in WWI and WWII (Bolotta, Angelo et. Al 39).
“They spoke of the Japanese Canadians,'; Escott Reid, a special assistant at External Affairs, would recall, “in the way that the Nazi’s would have spoken about Jewish Germans.'; Just like in that statement, I intend to expose you to the ways that the Japanese were wronged by Canadians throughout the Second World War. As well, I intend to prove what I have stated in my thesis statement: After the bombing of Pearl Harbour, the Japanese in Canada were wronged by being torn from their homes to be put into internment camps to serve Canadians through hard labour.
Lee, Jeff. "Vancouver Council Apologizes to Japanese-Canadians for 1942 Support of Internment." Www.vancouversun.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Jan. 2014. .
Sugiman, Pamela. "Passing Time, Moving Memories: Interpreting Wartime Narratives Of Japanese Canadian Women." Social History / Histoire Sociale 37.73 (2004): 51-79. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 8 Apr. 2014.
Ormsby, William. Crisis in the Canadas: 1838-1839 ; the Grey journals and letters. Macmillan of Canada, 1964
Much controversy has been sparked due to the internment of the Japanese people. Many ask whether it was justified to internment them. It is a very delicate issue that has two sides, those who are against the internment of the Japanese-Americans and those who are for it. With World War II raging in the East, America was still, for the most part, very inactive in the war. When America took a stand against Japan by not shipping them supplies, Japan became very upset. Japan, being a big island that is very overpopulated with little natural resources, depended on America to provide them with an assortment of supplies including scrap metal and oil, vital items that are needed in a time of war. Japan retaliated by declaring war on America and attacking Pearl Harbor. This surprise act led to many soldiers deaths and millions of dollars of damaged army equipment, including air craft carriers and planes. As a result to Japan declaring war, the Japanese-Americans were asked to and eventually forced to do their duty to the country and report to internment camps until the war conflict was over. Many opposed this act for a couple of reasons. One reason was that people felt that it was a huge hypocrisy that the Japanese were being interned while the Italians and Germans, also our enemies, were still walking around free in America. Another reason why many were against the internment was because many of the Japanese had already been in America for some time now. The Issei, the first generation of Japanese people that immigrated from Japan, had immigrated many years ago. A whole another generation of Japanese children had already began growing up in America called the Nissei. They were automatically U.S. citizens for they were born in America and for the most part were like other American children. Anti-Internment activists also said that the Japanese were being robbed of their rights as U.S. citizens. However, there are two sides to everything.
On December 7,1941 Japan raided the airbases across the islands of Pearl Harbour. The “sneak attack” targeted the United States Navy. It left 2400 army personnel dead and over a thousand Americans wounded. U.S. Navy termed it as “one of the great defining moments in history”1 President Roosevelt called it as “A Day of Infamy”. 2 As this attack shook the nation and the Japanese Americans became the immediate ‘focal point’. At that moment approximately 112,000 Persons of Japanese descent resided in coastal areas of Oregon, Washington and also in California and Arizona.3
The horrors of racial profiling during World War II had always seemed to be distant to many Canadians, yet Canada was home to several xenophobic policies that were a violation of many rights and freedoms. One of the cruelest instances of this was the Japanese Canadian internment. At the time, the government justified the internment by claiming that the Japanese Canadians were a threat to their national defense, but evidence suggests that it had nothing to do with security. The government made illogical decisions in response to the mass panic and agitation in British Columbia. To aggravate the situation, Prime Minister William Mackenzie King reacted passively to these decisions, as it was not in his best interests to be involved. Moreover,
After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States was filled with panic. Along the Pacific coast of the U.S., where residents feared more Japanese attacks on their cities, homes, and businesses, this feeling was especially great. During the time preceding World War II, there were approximately 112,000 persons of Japanese descent living in California, Arizona, and coastal Oregon and Washington. These immigrants traveled to American hoping to be free, acquire jobs, and for some a chance to start a new life. Some immigrants worked in mines, others helped to develop the United States Railroad, many were fishermen, farmers, and some agricultural laborers.
The History of Canada and Canadians Canada and World War 1. (n.d.). The History of Canada. Retrieved May 29, 2012, from http://www.linksnorth.com/canada-history/canadaandworldwar1.html
Thompson, John Herd, and Mark Paul Richard. "Canadian History in North American Context." In Canadian studies in the new millennium. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. 37-64.
Chong, M. R. (2002). Canadian History Since WWI. Retrieved May 19, 2014, from Markville: http://www.markville.ss.yrdsb.edu.on.ca/history/history/fivecent.html
Another policy established by the Canadian government was instituted by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, the policy of 1486 known as Order-in-Council which calls for the removal and detainment of "any and all person" from any "protective area" in the country, the week following the Security Commission of British Columbia established and began to carry out Japanese internment. (Marsh, 2016) In 1944 Prime Minister Mackenzie King addressed a new policy in which stated that Japanese Canadians were restricted from the Western Coast specifically the province of British Columbia those who did not adhere to the policy regulations would be subject to repatriated to Japan following the end of the Second World War. However, the lasting effects on Japanese Canadians were not because of the policy restrictions rather the conditions of the internment camps as families were detained and separated from one