Japanese-Canadian Internment During WWII
After more than sixty years, it seems difficult for most Canadians to comprehend the reasons behind the internment of Japanese-Canadian during World War II. They were innocent Canadian citizens, mostly resided in British-Columbia, many of them even born in Canadian soil, yet they were stripped all their constitutional rights as a citizen. They were detained without trial to isolated internment camps in the interior until the end of the war. Their houses, cars, boats, and other property were confiscated and sold with unbelievable prices. After the war was over, they had to relocate to other parts of Canada or risked being repatriated to Japan. It is easy to dismiss this tragedy as abnormality of the history. Others try to explain it as the side effect of wartime hysteria. It is not uncommon to hear the stories of soldiers during the war doing some sorts of war crime due to the mental fatigue and battle hysteria. However, it deserves deeper explanations when a society, not battling soldiers, decides to send their neighbors of certain race to the intern camps. We need to understand the historical background of race-relation in British-Columbia in order to understand the issue better. In my opinion, the real objective of the internmen
"After experiencing recession post World War I, Federal Government passed the Exclusion Act in 1923, which barred all new Chinese immigration. )These opinions, of course, are unjustifiable. Looking back to those decades by our current standard, Japanese-Canadian internment was a violation to personal and civil rights. When these "inferior cheap labors" competed with Caucasian-Canadians in the labor market, then the simple conclusion for most of the union leader was total exclusion of these minorities from the society. It was part of enduring systematic racism. It is definitely a practical ssheme. Pritchett, secretary of the Vancouver District Labor Council, C. Once this basic principle is violated, a step to dictatorship and fascism is set. Eight thousand men ransacked Chinese stores without any police interference. "Despite strong support for left-wing populism in western provinces during the Depression, CCF only won three of the sixteen federal ridings in British Columbia. delegate to Ottawa conceded privately the war against Japan provided a heaven-sent opportunity to rid themselves of the Japanese economic menace forever more. After examining the history of race relation in the British-Columbia, it need not take a great effort to see that the Japanese-Canadian internment was not a stand-alone incident, nor it only caused by the hysteria of wartime. In 1924, the British Columbia Legislature passed a resolution asking that Japanese and Chinese immigration be stopped and that restrictions be placed on their industrial and commercial activities.
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