Japanese Canadians

Significance: Japanese Canadians, many of whom began as successful fishermen, were subjected to discrimination that took the form of restrictive immigration laws and incarceration in camps during World War II. In the postwar years, a new wave of immigrants with different professions and perspectives joined the older group.

The history of Japanese Canadians began in 1887, when a young pioneer, Manzo Nagano, landed in Canada full of hope for his new life. Coming from a fishing country and seeing the abundant salmon in British Columbia, he became a fisherman. According to the censuses of Canada, by 1901, of the 4,738 Japanese who emigrated to Canada, 97 percent resided in British Columbia and more than 4,000 were engaged in the fishing industry. Many were seasonal immigrants, who after the fishing season was over, returned to Japan and came back to Canada for the next fishing season.

Conflict with “White” British Columbia

Racial tension between whites and Asians had existed in British Columbia even before the Japanese arrived. However, serious racial tension between whites and Japanese started in 1899, when some Japanese fishermen broke a strike organized by the British Columbia Fishermen’s Union. Furthermore, the rapid growth in the numbers of Japanese fishermen (by 1901, the Japanese held 1,958 fishing licenses out of a total of 4,722 issued) heightened racial tension between the two groups. As a result, in 1908, the Lemieux Agreement (called Gentlemen’s Agreement in the United States) limited the annual number of Japanese immigrants to 400, and every new immigration law thereafter was more restrictive.

Picture Brides

Until 1908, Japanese immigration to Canada was exclusively limited to men. Although the Lemieux Agreement did not restrict the entry of spouses, married men, facing the possibility of further restrictions, rushed to bring their wives to Canada. Single men who wanted to build their lives in Canada arranged for marriages to “picture brides.” They wrote letters to their relatives in Japan, asking them to look for women to be their wives. The relatives sought out eligible single women in their villages and arranged for an exchange of photographs and brief histories. If both parties agreed, a marriage was processed without the couple’s ever actually meeting. The brides attended their wedding ceremonies without their husbands, then crossed the ocean to join their husbands in Canada. In spite of difficulties and setbacks, Japanese men and their picture brides led productive lives between the two world wars.

A Brief History of Japanese Canadians

Detention Camp

About a week after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in December 1941, twelve hundred Japanese Canadian fishing boats were impounded despite the fact that all were owned or operated by Nisei, second-generation Japanese Canadians who were Canadian citizens. Moreover, by April, all Japanese Canadians were ordered to go to detention camps through notices similar to the following, issued to the Vancouver Japanese by the British Columbia Security Commission.

Persons of Japanese origin residing in Vancouver should terminate not later than the 30th of April, 1942, all leases or rental arrangements they may be working under. They must also be prepared to move either to Hasting Park or to work camps or to places under the Interior Housing Scheme at twenty-four hours notice. No deferments whatsoever on business grounds may be made to the above orders.

About twenty-one thousand Japanese Canadians were evacuated to camps such as Kaslo, New Denver, Slocan City, Sandon, and Greenwood. The Canadian government sold the Japanese Canadians’ property while they were in the camps without any prior notice to the owners. For living quarters, the Japanese Canadians were given tents or huts that were previously used to house chickens, horses, or cattle and often lacked water and heating systems.

Life in the camps was a daily encounter with racial discrimination and confusion of ethnic identities, especially for Nisei, who saw themselves as Canadians. The Canadian government provided educational and church services in the camps. At the same time, Japanese Canadians received New Years greeting gifts from the Japanese Red Cross, reinforcing the notion of their being “war enemies.” Still, these internees made the best of their difficult circumstances. For example, by the end of the war, many camps had furo (Japanese-style baths) built by Japanese Canadians who followed the customs their parents practiced.

In March, 1945, just before the war ended, the Canadian government ordered Japanese Canadians to choose between “returning” to Japan or reestablishing themselves as Canadians contingent upon their living east of the Rocky Mountains. After the Japanese Canadians who had agreed to move to Japan heard about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan and the war’s end, they refused to go back. Nonetheless, they were deported to Japan. Until 1949, Japanese Canadians were not allowed to return to British Columbia.

Redress Movement

In 1988, after many years of negotiating with the Canadian government to redress the internment issue, the National Association of Japanese Canadians finally received an apology and payment of twenty-one thousand Canadian dollars for each survivor who was incarcerated during World War II. Because many Issei (first-generation Japanese immigrants) are not able to read or write English, the application process was not easy. Besides the difficulty with the English language, those who were deported to Japan were not always aware of the settlement. At the same time, some Japanese Canadians donated money to develop the Japanese Canadian community. For example, $100,000 went to the Nikkei-Voice, a monthly newspaper published by a nonprofit organization, focusing on human rights and the development of the Japanese Canadian community and its identity.

Post-World War II

In the 1990s, approximately sixty thousand Japanese Canadians lived in Canada, about 0.2 percent of the nation’s total population. This number includes post-World War II immigrants, including those who were temporary residents working for Japan-based companies. The new arrivals are called shin-imin by the older residents to separate them from the kyu-imin, the prewar immigrants. Unlike the kyu-imin, who immigrated as low-wage workers, the shin-imin immigrated as professionals, such as engineers or educators (including university professors and Japanese-language teachers); some also came as spouses of Canadians. The shin-imin and kyu-imin have separate immigrant associations and different perspectives toward the reestablishment of the Japanese social position in Canadian society. Descendants of the kyu-imin tend to regard redress settlement issues as the key element; however, shin-imin tend to believe that Japan’s economic success in the 1980s and 1990s is the major contributing factor to Japanese Canadians’ social achievement and do not know very much about the redress settlement.

The New Generation

Japanese Canadians are some of the leading figures in Canadian society. For example, David Suzuki is an internationally renowned biologist, environmentalist, and broadcaster who hosts the award-winning Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television series The Nature of Things. He is also director of the David Suzuki Foundation, an organization dedicated to addressing worldwide environmental issues. Joy Kogawa, a novelist and poet, received the Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Canadian Authors’ Association Book of the Year Award. Ken Adachi, who died in 1989, was an influential columnist for the Toronto Star and author of a book on Japanese Canadian history. His keen literary style was well known to most Canadians. Most Canadian sports fans recognize Paul Kariya, once a star in the National Hockey League, but many may not know that his father was born in a detention camp or that his grandparents were in the camps for more than five years.

Bibliography

Adachi, Ken. The Enemy That Never Was: A History of the Japanese Canadians. Toronto: McClelland, 1991. Print.

Kobayashi, Cassandra, and Roy Miki, ed. Spirit of Redress: Japanese Canadians in Conference. Vancouver: JC, 1989. Print.

Makabe, Tomoko. Picture Brides: Japanese Women in Canada. Toronto: Multicultural Hist. Soc. of Ontario, 1995.Print.

Makabe, Tomoko. Sansei. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1997. Print.

Morita, Katsuyoshi. Powell Street Monogatari. Burnaby: Live Canada, 1988. Print.

Nakayama, Gorden. Issei. Toronto: NC, 1984. Print.

Okazaki, Robert. The Nisei Mass Evacuation Group and the P.O.W. Camp 101: The Japanese Canadian Community’s Struggle for Justice and Human Rights during World War II. Scarborough: Markham, 1996. Print.