Introduction
Japanese Canadians celebrated 100 years of life in Canada in 1977. For many of those years, Japanese immigrants had to struggle against racism and discrimination. The early settlers from Japan were treated with disrespect and even hatred in some communities. Today, the situation is very different. Japanese Canadians such as scientist David Suzuki and painter Miyuki Tanobe are sought-after and celebrated across the country.
Japanese Canadians celebrated 100 years of life in Canada in 1977. For many of those years, Japanese immigrants had to struggle against racism and discrimination. The early settlers from Japan were treated with disrespect and even hatred in some communities. Today, the situation is very different. Japanese Canadians such as scientist David Suzuki and painter Miyuki Tanobe are sought-after and celebrated across the country.
For many decades, Canadian laws and people's cruelty restricted and harmed many Japanese Canadians. The worst discrimination began in 1942 when harsh wartime laws ruined the lives of many Japanese-Canadian families. Like many other newcomers, many struggled to make a living in their new home, or found opportunities to make their lives better.
Japanese immigrants to Canada have enjoyed successes in their own local communities and throughout Canada. Each generation of Japanese immigrants has a special name: the Issei (pronounced "ee-say"), meaning "one," were the first arrivals. Their children are called Nisei ("nee-say"), meaning "two." The children of the Nisei are called Sansei (san means "three").
Beginnings
The first Japanese man to settle in Canada came to British Columbia in 1877. Not every ethnocultural group can name the first to arrive, but the Japanese do have this information. Manzo Nagano was the first Japanese Canadian. He lived in Victoria, where he eventually owned a gift shop, sold Japanese food and ran a hotel.
By 1914, there were about 10,000 Japanese people, mainly men, living in Canada. Most of them settled in British Columbia. In Japan, their families were very poor. There was not enough work for them to earn a living, and not enough food. They hoped for prosperity and a better life in Canada. Many of this early group of Japanese newcomers, or Issei, were young men with very little education. Few could read or write. But they knew how to work hard. They got jobs in the fishing, farming, logging and lumber industries. Some owned businesses to serve other Japanese Canadians.
The first Japanese woman to move to Canada was Yo Shishido, who immigrated in 1887, right after she got married. Her two sisters came later. After them, other women came as "picture brides." When a Japanese-Canadian man decided he wanted to get married, he wrote to Japan, asking his parents to look for a suitable wife. When his parents found someone, the couple exchanged photographs. If both agreed to the marriage, the bride travelled to Canada to meet and marry her husband. Altogether, 6,240 picture brides found husbands in Canada. The system lasted until 1925.
Daily Life
There were about 85,250 Japanese Canadians in 2005. More than 53,000 of them are of mixed ancestry, which means that their heritage is Japanese as well as another culture. Japanese Canadians live, work, learn, play, and eat much like other Canadians. There are special Japanese dishes, but this doesn't mean that Japanese Canadians eat sushi every day. Still, in more traditional homes, families start a meal with miso shiru or miso soup.
Culture Religion
Japanese Canadians belong to many different religions, including Buddhism, an ancient religion practised by many Asians and non-Asians around the world. Others are members of Christian churches (such as Roman Catholic and Protestant), while still others are not members of any particular religious organization.
Festivals
Japanese-Canadian families observe all the official Canadian holidays. For some, New Year's Day is just as important as Christmas. During Oshogatsu (New Year's), Japanese Canadians enjoy lots of special food prepared only for this holiday. It is a time for families to gather and thank all those friends who have helped them throughout the year.
For Buddhists, Obon, the Festival of Lights, is a significant celebration. From July to September, Buddhists get together, usually in a park or city square. They dance traditional folk dances to recorded music or to live musicians playing the taiko (drums), fue (flute) and shamisen (a banjo-like instrument). The dancers, dressed in their colourful kimono, circle a yagura or tower where the musicians sit, to express gratitude to their ancestors.
Culture
Bazaars and spring festivals take place across the country. The Powell Street Festival is the largest celebration of Japanese-Canadian art and community. It takes place in Vancouver's east end, where the Issei first settled. The first celebration of this festival was in 1977. Now, people travel from all over Canada and the world to take part in the Powell Street festivities. There is traditional and modern dancing, music and entertainment. And, of course, everyone enjoys the food. Japanese and Japanese-Canadian artists and musicians display their work, and every day people show off their talents. It is a wonderful event for everyone, giving Japanese Canadians a chance to remember the past and celebrate the present and future.
Cultural Centres
Japanese-Canadian cultural centres in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montréal provide classes and community centres for Japanese and non-Japanese Canadians. There, you can learn a martial art, find out about Japanese-Canadian history, or take a cooking class. You can take a course in Japanese arts and crafts like shodo (calligraphy), origami (paper folding), sumie (Japanese brush painting) or pottery. The majority of students are not Japanese, but in every Japanese-Canadian family at least one member knows how to fold a paper crane.
Beginnings
The first Japanese man to settle in Canada came to British Columbia in 1877. Not every ethnocultural group can name the first to arrive, but the Japanese do have this information. Manzo Nagano was the first Japanese Canadian. He lived in Victoria, where he eventually owned a gift shop, sold Japanese food and ran a hotel.
By 1914, there were about 10,000 Japanese people, mainly men, living in Canada. Most of them settled in British Columbia. In Japan, their families were very poor. There was not enough work for them to earn a living, and not enough food. They hoped for prosperity and a better life in Canada. Many of this early group of Japanese newcomers, or Issei, were young men with very little education. Few could read or write. But they knew how to work hard. They got jobs in the fishing, farming, logging and lumber industries. Some owned businesses to serve other Japanese Canadians.
The first Japanese woman to move to Canada was Yo Shishido, who immigrated in 1887, right after she got married. Her two sisters came later. After them, other women came as "picture brides." When a Japanese-Canadian man decided he wanted to get married, he wrote to Japan, asking his parents to look for a suitable wife. When his parents found someone, the couple exchanged photographs. If both agreed to the marriage, the bride travelled to Canada to meet and marry her husband. Altogether, 6,240 picture brides found husbands in Canada. The system lasted until 1925.
Daily Life
There were about 85,250 Japanese Canadians in 2005. More than 53,000 of them are of mixed ancestry, which means that their heritage is Japanese as well as another culture. Japanese Canadians live, work, learn, play, and eat much like other Canadians. There are special Japanese dishes, but this doesn't mean that Japanese Canadians eat sushi every day. Still, in more traditional homes, families start a meal with miso shiru or miso soup.
Culture Religion
Japanese Canadians belong to many different religions, including Buddhism, an ancient religion practised by many Asians and non-Asians around the world. Others are members of Christian churches (such as Roman Catholic and Protestant), while still others are not members of any particular religious organization.
Festivals
Japanese-Canadian families observe all the official Canadian holidays. For some, New Year's Day is just as important as Christmas. During Oshogatsu (New Year's), Japanese Canadians enjoy lots of special food prepared only for this holiday. It is a time for families to gather and thank all those friends who have helped them throughout the year.
For Buddhists, Obon, the Festival of Lights, is a significant celebration. From July to September, Buddhists get together, usually in a park or city square. They dance traditional folk dances to recorded music or to live musicians playing the taiko (drums), fue (flute) and shamisen (a banjo-like instrument). The dancers, dressed in their colourful kimono, circle a yagura or tower where the musicians sit, to express gratitude to their ancestors.
Culture
Bazaars and spring festivals take place across the country. The Powell Street Festival is the largest celebration of Japanese-Canadian art and community. It takes place in Vancouver's east end, where the Issei first settled. The first celebration of this festival was in 1977. Now, people travel from all over Canada and the world to take part in the Powell Street festivities. There is traditional and modern dancing, music and entertainment. And, of course, everyone enjoys the food. Japanese and Japanese-Canadian artists and musicians display their work, and every day people show off their talents. It is a wonderful event for everyone, giving Japanese Canadians a chance to remember the past and celebrate the present and future.
Cultural Centres
Japanese-Canadian cultural centres in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montréal provide classes and community centres for Japanese and non-Japanese Canadians. There, you can learn a martial art, find out about Japanese-Canadian history, or take a cooking class. You can take a course in Japanese arts and crafts like shodo (calligraphy), origami (paper folding), sumie (Japanese brush painting) or pottery. The majority of students are not Japanese, but in every Japanese-Canadian family at least one member knows how to fold a paper crane.
The War And Internment
During World War II, more than 22,000 Japanese Canadians were forcibly interned in Canada.
Following the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, members of the non-Japanese population of British Columbia, including municipal government offices, local newspapers and businesses called for the internment of the Japanese. In British Columbia, there were fears that some Japanese who worked in the fishing industry were charting the coastline for the Japanese navy, acting as spies on Canada's military. Military and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) authorities felt the public's fears were unwarranted, but the public opinion quickly pushed the government to act. Canadian Pacific Railway fired all the Japanese workers, and most other Canadian companies did the same. Japanese fish boats were first confined to port, and eventually, the Canadian navy seized 1,200 of these vessels.
In January 1942, a "protected" 100-mile wide strip up the Pacific coast was created, and any men of Japanese descent between the ages of 18 and 45 were removed and taken to road camps in the British Columbian interior, to sugar beet projects on the Prairies, or to internment in a POW camp in Ontario. A few men at the McGillivray Falls, just outside the quarantine zone, were employed at a logging operation at Devine, near D'Arcy, British Columbia, while those in the other Lillooet Country found employment with farms, stores, and the railway. Tashme, on Highway 3 just east of Hope, among the most notorious of the camps for harsh conditions, was just outside of the exclusion zone. All others, including Slocan, were in the Kootenay Country in south-eastern British Columbia.
Most people of the 22,000 Japanese descent who lived in British Columbia were naturalized or native-born citizens.[1] Those unwilling to live in internment camps or relocation centres faced the possibility of deportation to Japan. On February 24, 1942 an Order-in-Council passed under the War Measures Act giving the federal government the power to intern all "persons of Japanese racial origin."
In early March, all ethnic Japanese people were ordered out of the protected area, and a daytime-only curfew was imposed on them. Some of those brought inland were kept in animal stalls for the Pacific National Exhibition at Hastings Park, in Vancouver for months. They were then moved to ten camps in or near inland British Columbia towns, sometimes separating husbands from their wives and families. However, four of those camps in the Lillooet area and another at Christina Lake were formally "self-supporting projects" (also called "relocation centres") which housed selected middle and upper class families and others not deemed as much a threat to public safety.
“ "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.'" ”
—Ian Mackenzie, MP
Camp Conditions
The living conditions in the camps were so poor that the citizens of wartime Japan even sent supplemental food shipments through the Red Cross. During the period of detention, the Canadian government spent one-third the per capita amount expended by the U.S. on Japanese American evacuees. The BC Government refused to fund education for young Japanese Canadians.[citation needed] Then the Federal Government stepped in and helped out the Japanese and arranged classes from grades 1-10. With the help of the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, and the United Church high school became a reality so grades 11-12 came into effect as well. The first place to get a school up and running was in Lemon Creek.
Leadership positions within the camps were only offered to the Nisei, or Canadian-born, Japanese, not the Issei, the older generation.
Canada sold all of the Canadian born internees' worldly possessions. In 1943 the Canadian "Custodian of Aliens" liquidated these worldly possessions without the owners' permission. The Custodian of Aliens held auctions for these items. These items would range from farms and to houses, to people's clothing. They were sold quickly at prices below market value. The money that was raised from these auctions went to the realtors and the auctioneers; then it went to paying for storage and the handling charges. While under the Geneva Convention prisoners of war (POW) didn't have to pay for their camps.
Post-War
After the victory over Japan, the federal government moved to evacuate Japanese Canadians from British Columbia all together. Evacuees were given the choice between deportation to Japan or transfer to areas east of the Rocky Mountains. The majority opted to remain in Canada, and moved to Ontario, Québec and the Prairie provinces.
Following public protest, the order-in-council that authorized the forced deportation was challenged on the basis that the forced deportation of the Japanese was a crime against humanity and that a citizen could not be deported from their own country. The Prime Minister referred the matter to the Supreme Court in what was to be the first case heard in the newly constructed building housing the Court.
In a five to two decision, the Court held that the law was valid. Three of the five found that the order was entirely valid. The other two found that the provision including both women and children as threats to national security was invalid. In 1947 the deportation order was repealed, after 4,000 Japanese Canadians had already left the country. On April 1, 1949, Japanese Canadians regained their freedom to live anywhere in Canada.
Following the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, members of the non-Japanese population of British Columbia, including municipal government offices, local newspapers and businesses called for the internment of the Japanese. In British Columbia, there were fears that some Japanese who worked in the fishing industry were charting the coastline for the Japanese navy, acting as spies on Canada's military. Military and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) authorities felt the public's fears were unwarranted, but the public opinion quickly pushed the government to act. Canadian Pacific Railway fired all the Japanese workers, and most other Canadian companies did the same. Japanese fish boats were first confined to port, and eventually, the Canadian navy seized 1,200 of these vessels.
In January 1942, a "protected" 100-mile wide strip up the Pacific coast was created, and any men of Japanese descent between the ages of 18 and 45 were removed and taken to road camps in the British Columbian interior, to sugar beet projects on the Prairies, or to internment in a POW camp in Ontario. A few men at the McGillivray Falls, just outside the quarantine zone, were employed at a logging operation at Devine, near D'Arcy, British Columbia, while those in the other Lillooet Country found employment with farms, stores, and the railway. Tashme, on Highway 3 just east of Hope, among the most notorious of the camps for harsh conditions, was just outside of the exclusion zone. All others, including Slocan, were in the Kootenay Country in south-eastern British Columbia.
Most people of the 22,000 Japanese descent who lived in British Columbia were naturalized or native-born citizens.[1] Those unwilling to live in internment camps or relocation centres faced the possibility of deportation to Japan. On February 24, 1942 an Order-in-Council passed under the War Measures Act giving the federal government the power to intern all "persons of Japanese racial origin."
In early March, all ethnic Japanese people were ordered out of the protected area, and a daytime-only curfew was imposed on them. Some of those brought inland were kept in animal stalls for the Pacific National Exhibition at Hastings Park, in Vancouver for months. They were then moved to ten camps in or near inland British Columbia towns, sometimes separating husbands from their wives and families. However, four of those camps in the Lillooet area and another at Christina Lake were formally "self-supporting projects" (also called "relocation centres") which housed selected middle and upper class families and others not deemed as much a threat to public safety.
“ "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.'" ”
—Ian Mackenzie, MP
Camp Conditions
The living conditions in the camps were so poor that the citizens of wartime Japan even sent supplemental food shipments through the Red Cross. During the period of detention, the Canadian government spent one-third the per capita amount expended by the U.S. on Japanese American evacuees. The BC Government refused to fund education for young Japanese Canadians.[citation needed] Then the Federal Government stepped in and helped out the Japanese and arranged classes from grades 1-10. With the help of the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, and the United Church high school became a reality so grades 11-12 came into effect as well. The first place to get a school up and running was in Lemon Creek.
Leadership positions within the camps were only offered to the Nisei, or Canadian-born, Japanese, not the Issei, the older generation.
Canada sold all of the Canadian born internees' worldly possessions. In 1943 the Canadian "Custodian of Aliens" liquidated these worldly possessions without the owners' permission. The Custodian of Aliens held auctions for these items. These items would range from farms and to houses, to people's clothing. They were sold quickly at prices below market value. The money that was raised from these auctions went to the realtors and the auctioneers; then it went to paying for storage and the handling charges. While under the Geneva Convention prisoners of war (POW) didn't have to pay for their camps.
Post-War
After the victory over Japan, the federal government moved to evacuate Japanese Canadians from British Columbia all together. Evacuees were given the choice between deportation to Japan or transfer to areas east of the Rocky Mountains. The majority opted to remain in Canada, and moved to Ontario, Québec and the Prairie provinces.
Following public protest, the order-in-council that authorized the forced deportation was challenged on the basis that the forced deportation of the Japanese was a crime against humanity and that a citizen could not be deported from their own country. The Prime Minister referred the matter to the Supreme Court in what was to be the first case heard in the newly constructed building housing the Court.
In a five to two decision, the Court held that the law was valid. Three of the five found that the order was entirely valid. The other two found that the provision including both women and children as threats to national security was invalid. In 1947 the deportation order was repealed, after 4,000 Japanese Canadians had already left the country. On April 1, 1949, Japanese Canadians regained their freedom to live anywhere in Canada.
No comments:
Post a Comment