{"id":14209,"date":"2023-03-08T11:45:41","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T16:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/?p=14209"},"modified":"2023-03-08T11:48:22","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T16:48:22","slug":"najc-message-march-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/najc-message-march-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"NAJC Message, March 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Highlights of March Dates in Japanese Canadian History<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

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by Lorene Oikawa, Past President NAJC<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2023, the National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC) is reviewing the highlights of dates for each month, from the period 1941 to 1949. We are looking at the actions of government and the impact on Japanese Canadians.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

March 4, 1941<\/strong> The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) start the process of registration of Canadians of Japanese ancestry and finish their work at the end of August. No similar action is taken against anyone with German or Italian ancestry.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the year, Prime Minister Mackenzie King makes a public statement that \u201cThe great majority of people of Oriental racial origin who are now in Canada are thoroughly loyal to their adopted, or in the case of the larger percentage who were born in Canada, their native land\u201d but it doesn\u2019t stop him from initiating compulsory registration of all Japanese Canadians 16 years and older. His public statement was a response to a special investigating committee\u2019s report on the issue of allowing Japanese Canadians into military service. The committee recommended that Canadians of Japanese ancestry be exempted, but not because of any issues with loyalty or spying. In fact, police representatives from different branches reported that throughout the years there had not been any evidence of any \u201csubversive activity.\u201d Japanese Canadians had \u201can admirable record as law-abiding and decently behaved citizens.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>The mistrust of Japanese Canadians was being \u201cdeliberately inflamed by certain individuals for reasons which can only be ascribed to a desire for personal political advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

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March 4, 1942<\/strong> Under Order-in-Council P.C. 1665 Japanese Canadians are ordered to turn over property and belongings to the Custodian of Enemy Alien Property as a \u201cprotective measure only,\u201d and sweeping powers are given to the British Columbia Security Commission. Later, the office of the Custodian would quickly liquidate all assets without the owners\u2019 permission.<\/p>\n

The British Columbia Security Commission is established with three members, Chairman Austin Taylor, a Vancouver industrialist, Assistant Commissioner of the RCMP F.J. Mead, and Assistant Commissioner of the Provincial Police John Shirras. They will \u201cplan, supervise, and direct\u201d the forced uprooting of Japanese Canadians. An additional 21 members form an Advisory Committee including two provincial government cabinet ministers who were known for their extreme views against Japanese Canadians, Attorney-General R.L. Maitland, and Minister of Labour George Pearson.<\/p>\n

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March 16, 1942<\/strong> The Department of National Defence appropriates the Hastings Park grounds (official name is Hastings Park Manning Pool) in Vancouver and turns it over to the BC Security Commission. They use it as a \u201cclearing station\u201d where over 8,000 Japanese Canadians from outside of the Vancouver will be temporarily held until they can be sent to internment and work camps.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some local Japanese Canadians would take their vehicles to Hastings Park to be impounded. Some also had to go to register or for medical exams. An office of the BC Security Commission and a hospital was set up at Hastings Park.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Starting on March 16<\/strong>, the first group of Japanese Canadians arrive at Hastings Park and the families are separated. Women and children are forced to live in the livestock building. Boys (13-18 years old) and men are forced to live in separate buildings. All movement was controlled. In order to go to another building, a pass had to be requested and it wasn\u2019t quick or easy to obtain.<\/p>\n

All Japanese Canadian mail (incoming and outgoing) is censored from this date. Strict instructions are issued by the Canadian Postal Censor in Vancouver. Censorship resulted in delayed delivery of letters. For example, letters going from Eastern Canada to the internment camps would take from 10 days to a month.<\/p>\n

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March 25, 1942<\/strong> The British Columbia Security Commission direct Japanese Canadian men in Vancouver to report to the RCMP barracks as part of a scheme to force men to road camps and send women and children to internment camps set up in former \u201cghost towns.\u201d There is also an acceleration of the removal of Japanese Canadians from outside of Vancouver and by March 25, the population at Hastings Park is 1,593.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs the Commission moved to implement policy, the assumption that evacuation was based on \u201cnational security\u201d or was a matter of \u201cmilitary necessity\u201d was not questioned by policy makers, by administrators, by political opponents of Mackenzie King, by newspaper editors and columnists, by the churches, by Canadians in general, nor by men and women dedicated to the protection of civil rights. The fact that a group of people was expelled from a large area of the country, without hearings or trials and merely on the grounds of racial ancestry, and that all rights of citizenship had been abrogated, excited little comment across the country.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Ken Adachi, author, The Enemy That Never Was<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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March 31, 1943<\/strong> At Hastings Park, there are 105 Japanese Canadians remaining in the hospital. As of March 31, the hospital at Hastings Park is officially closed. Japanese Canadian patients and medical staff leave Vancouver. They travel by train to New Denver where a 100 bed sanitorium was built. Their arduous journey becomes even harder when a rockslide on the tracks means their trip becomes an overnight journey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn early 1942, 125 Japanese Canadian patients were transferred by the Director of Vancouver\u2019s Tuberculosis Hospital \u2018to free beds for use by Caucasian patients\u2019 according to the memories of Trenna Hunter, the head nurse who had to hastily change plans and set up two hospital wards and other facilities in the Livestock Building.\u201d<\/i> \u2013 Dan Tokawa, President, Japanese Canadian Hastings Park Interpretive Centre Society<\/p>\n

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March 31, 1949<\/strong> Removal of the last restrictions against Japanese Canadians takes place on March 31, 1949, four years after the end of the Second World War. The restrictions imposed under the War Measures Act and continuously extended under the Transitional Measures Act are lifted.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Japanese Canadians are freed and gain the full rights of citizenship including the right to vote in BC provincial elections and federal elections anywhere in Canada. British Columbia had denied the vote to Japanese Canadians and the Elections Act had a section that said those who were denied a provincial franchise were denied the federal franchise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Citizenship means some barriers are removed for Japanese Canadians. They are now able to get jobs in public service, obtain licenses including professional licenses, run for public office, practise law, and return to the fishing industry and other industries in BC.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tatsuro Buck Suzuki, a fisher and former union activist, contacted the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union and advocated for the return of Japanese Canadian fishers to BC. Suzuki, George Tanaka, Seijiko Homma and U. Sakamoto met with the Union and both groups agreed that returning Japanese Canadian fishers would join the union. The union leadership agreed to support their return as long as special licensing, geographic fishing restrictions, and parallel bargaining wouldn\u2019t happen. By 1950, more than 200 Japanese Canadian fishers had returned, but far short of the over 1,000 fishers that once held half the fishing licenses in 1919.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Japanese Canadians were free to move anywhere in Canada including the \u201c100 mile protected zone\u201d along the west coast of British Columbia. Any fears of a mass return of Japanese Canadians were unfounded. Japanese Canadians had been dispossessed so they did not have any property or possessions such as fishing boats which had been taken from them. They had been exiled to other parts of Canada and would have to start from scratch to build up resources that took years to obtain. Also, British Columbia represented the racism that forced their removal, dispossession, and exile, and some British Columbians continued to hold their racist beliefs. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Highlights of March Dates in Japanese Canadian History by Lorene Oikawa, Past President NAJC In 2023, the National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC) is reviewing the highlights of dates for each month, from the period 1941 to 1949. We are looking at the actions of government and the impact on Japanese Canadians.\u00a0 March 4, 1941 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10695,"featured_media":14210,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10695"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14209"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14214,"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14209\/revisions\/14214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/najc.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}