Anti-Racism Learning Toolkit

When the federal government uprooted and interned Japanese Canadians en masse in 1942, Kishizo Kimura saw his life upended along with tens of thousands of others. But his story is also unique: as a member of two controversial committees that oversaw the forced sale of the property of Japanese Canadians in Vancouver during the Second World War, Kimura participated in the dispossession of his own community. This remarkable document chronicles a history of racism in British Columbia, describes the activities of the committees on which Kimura served and seeks to defend his actions.

An overview of the development and enforcement of Japanese internment camps. While it focuses on the American experience, the attack on Pearl Harbor impacted Japanese-Canadians as well.

Challenging the notion that Nikkei individuals before and during World War II were helpless pawns manipulated by forces beyond their control, the diverse essays in this rich collection focus on the theme of resistance within Japanese American and Japanese Canadian communities to twentieth-century political, cultural, and legal discrimination. They illustrate how Nikkei groups were mobilized to fight discrimination through assertive legal challenges, community participation, skillful print publicity, and political and economic organization.

In 1942, the federal government expelled more than 22,000 Japanese Canadians from their homes in British Columbia. From 1942 to 1949, they were dispossessed, sent to incarceration sites, and dispersed across Canada. Over 4,000 were deported to Japan. Cartographies of Violence analyses the effects of these processes for some Japanese Canadian women. Using critical race, feminist, anti-colonial, and cultural geographic theory, Mona Oikawa deconstructs prevalent images, stereotypes, and language used to describe the 'Internment' in ways that masks its inherent violence. Through interviews with women survivors and their daughters, Oikawa analyses recurring themes of racism and resistance, as well as the struggle to communicate what happened.

For communities who have been the target of political violence, the damaging after-effects can haunt what remains of their families, their communities, and the societies in which they live. Terrain of Memory tells the story of the Japanese Canadian elders who built a memorial in New Denver, British Columbia, to transform a site of political violence into a space for remembrance. The book shows how collectively excavating painful memories can contribute to building relations across social and intergenerational divides. Those seeking a deeper understanding of the potential of memorial projects in transforming the damaging effects of human rights abuses should read this compelling account of community building and social justice.