Japanese-Canadians

Japanese-Canadians. The first Japanese came to Canada in 1877 and, although neither the Japanese nor the Canadian government encouraged the flow, by 1941 there were 23,000 people of Japanese origin in Canada, almost all living in British Columbia. Hard-working and slow to integrate, they stirred fears of the ‘Yellow Peril’ which increased exponentially as Japan turned expansionist in the 1930s. A Special Committee on Orientals, appointed in 1940, ordered registration of Japanese-Canadians and barred them from military service. There were, however, no plans for their evacuation from the coast or internment in event of war with Japan, though Canadian and American officials discussed the need for co-ordinated action at the Permanent Joint Board on Defense. After Pearl Harbor and the fall of Hong Kong, British Columbian fears increased, political and military leaders called for action, and on 14 January 1942, Ottawa decided to move Japanese male nationals of military age inland. As Allied defeats continued, the pressure mounted; on 24 February, following the signing of an executive order by Roosevelt, which empowered the military to remove Japanese-Americans from the US West Coast, the government ordered evacuation of all Japanese-Canadians, men and women, citizens and aliens. Over the next months, their property confiscated, Japanese-Canadians were moved to inland communities, often very rough. Men worked on road gangs, though before long labour shortages led Ottawa to encourage them to move eastwards to Central Canadian manufacturing plants. Evacuation resisters, along with Japanese patriots, were interned. On 4 August 1944, Ottawa decided to repatriate ‘disloyal’ Japanese-Canadians to Japan and later to include those voluntarily seeking to return; after protests, 3,964 went. The remainder established new lives east of the Rockies. See also internment.

J. L. Granatstein

Bibliography

Adachi, K. , The Enemy That Never Was: A History of the Japanese Canadians (Toronto, 1976).
Roy, P., et al. , Mutual Hostages: Canadians and Japanese during the Second World War (Toronto, 1990).