Japanese Internment In Canada Essay

1515 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Race discrimination in canada 2018

The tendency to racially discriminate and victimise against certain minorities or a specific nationality was a long-lasting sting of racism which was a part of Canadian history. The discrimination by Canadians directed towards Japanese-Canadians during WWII was a significant historical event that needs to be addressed. After the Pearl Harbour attacks in Hawaii by the Japanese navy, 24,000 Japanese-Canadians were placed in internment camps, where they were stripped of their identity and freedom of rights based upon their racial origin. In the aftermath of the internment, many Japanese-Canadian natives were left without life savings, as all of their belongings were confiscated and never given back. This internment of the Japanese-Canadians occurred …show more content…

The internment of the Japanese-Canadians had a detrimental effect on their financial- being. The diminishment of valuables by the Canadian government including land, property, and fishing boats following the false assurance of the valuables being returned immediately after the war, left Japanese-Canadians completely abandoned. Mary Haraga, one of many children that experienced such harsh conditions during the time of the internment, was extremely devastated over the policies that families underwent and recalled “[m]y parents believed the government when it said that their...possessions would be held ‘in trust’. They did not imagine that once they were incarcerated, what they had taken a lifetime to build would all be sold or auctioned off.” The confiscated possessions were sold off to property managers without the owner’s permission, and they promised that the possessions would …show more content…

The fact that there was a need for the Canadian government to seize all of their property, itself shows how terribly they were treated and cared about. Likewise, if the Canadian government was suspecting Japanese-Canadians of being spies and reporting back to Japan for the war, the need to seize their property would be irrelevant and just another excuse to confiscate all of their property and torment them, which left them distraught. For this reason, the Canadian government may have purposely not revealed all of the information to the media. It is evident that Canadians did not want Japanese-Canadians in their midst since they were in a constant fear of disloyalty and fear as they were afraid of being sabotaged by Japanese-Canadians. The abolishment of possessions left Japanese-Canadians with little to no money to support their family. Additionally, the only source of income received was that of the men who worked. However, during this time, the fraction of the labour rates was very low and men made very little compared to what they deserved of $0.22-$0.25. Certainly, Japanese-Canadians had a drastically lower income in comparison to their white counterparts due to racism, which declared

Show More
Related

  • Farewell To Manzanar Analysis

    894 Words  | 2 Pages

    The novel, Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, tells her family’s true story of how they struggled to not only survive, but thrive in forced detention during World War II. She was seven years old when the war started with the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1942. Her life dramatically changed when her and her family were taken from their home and sent to live at the Manzanar internment camp. Along with ten thousand other Japanese Americans, they had to adjust to their new life living behind barbed wire. Obviously, as a young child, Jeanne did not fully understand why they had to move, and she was not fully aware of the events happening outside the camp. However, in the beginning, every Japanese American had questions. They wondered why they had to leave. Now, as an adult, she recounts the three years she spent at Manzanar and shares how her family attempted to survive. The conflict of ethnicities affected Jeanne and her family’s life to a great extent.

    Read More

  • Farewell To Manzanar By Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

    810 Words  | 2 Pages

    On February 1942, President Roosevelt issued an executive order, which was 9066 stating that Japanese Americans to evacuate their homes and live in an internment camp. This autobiographical called, “Farewell to Manzanar” by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston. Jeanne wanted to write this book to give details on her experience during World War II internment camps. “It is a story, or a web of stories my own, my father’s, my family’s -- tracing a few paths that led up to and away from the experience of the internment” (pg XI). Mrs. Houston had other books beside this particular book, some of the others were called, “Don't Cry, It’s Only Thunder” and “The Legend of Fire Horse Woman”.

    Read More

  • FLQ Crisis

    1029 Words  | 3 Pages

    Prime Minister Trudeau put into effect the War Measures Act for the first time in Canadian history during peace time. He did this without consulting parliament. However, parliament voted three days later to approve the use of the act. The civil liberties of the citizens of Canada were suspended while the act was in force. In a few cities, officials used the WMA to clean up the streets, picking up "undesirables" and throwing them into jail. More than 450 people were jailed in Quebec for suspected connections to the FLQ. Most were later released without any charges being laid. After the War Measures Act was put into effect, no other public figures in Canada were kidnapped. Eventually Pierre Laporte was murdered by his captors and Cross was released unharmed after his kidnappers were flown to exile in Cuba. But for many in Quebec, the question was raised : what might the federal government do if Quebec ever did decide to leave Canada... the use of the army in the streets and the loss of civil liberties left a bad taste in many people's mouths.

    Read More

  • The Canadian War Measures Act

    1582 Words  | 4 Pages

    The War Measures Act, which had been created for the protection and benefit of Canadian...

    Read More

  • Mexican Migration Essay

    601 Words  | 2 Pages

    The bombing on Pearl Harbor impaired America, which brought an increase to racial tension. However, this impairment brought all nationalities together. “Thirty-three thousand Japanese Americans enlisted in the United States Armed Forces. They believed participation in the defense of their country was the best way to express their loyalty and fulfill their obligation as citizens” (Takaki 348). Takaki proves to us that the battle for independence was grappled on the ends of enslaved races. The deception of discrimination within the military force didn’t only bewilder Americans that sensed the agony of segregation, but also to the rest of world who honored and idolized America as a beam of freedom for

    Read More

  • Internment of Japanese Canadians

    1973 Words  | 4 Pages

    Lee, Jeff. "Vancouver Council Apologizes to Japanese-Canadians for 1942 Support of Internment." Www.vancouversun.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Jan. 2014. .

    Read More

  • How The Aboriginal Assimilation

    1366 Words  | 3 Pages

    “To kill the Indian in the child,” was the prime objective of residential schools (“About the Commission”). With the establishment of residential schools in the 1880s, attending these educational facilities used to be an option (Miller, “Residential Schools”). However, it was not until the government’s time consuming attempts of annihilating the Aboriginal Canadians that, in 1920, residential schools became the new solution to the “Indian problem.” (PMC) From 1920 to 1996, around one hundred fifty thousand Aboriginal Canadians were forcibly removed from their homes to attend residential schools (CBC News). Aboriginal children were isolated from their parents and their communities to rid them of any cultural influence (Miller, “Residential Schools”). Parents who refrained from sending their children to these educational facilities faced the consequence of being arrested (Miller, “Residential Schools”). Upon the Aboriginal children’s arrival into the residential schools, they were stripped of their culture in the government’s attempt to assimilate these children into the predominately white religion, Christianity, and to transition them into the moderating society (Miller, “Residential Schools”). With the closing of residential schools in 1996, these educational facilities left Aboriginal Canadians with lasting negative intergenerational impacts (Miller, “Residential Schools”). The Aboriginals lost their identity, are affected economically, and suffer socially from their experiences.

    Read More

  • Assimilation In Canada

    533 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Indian Residential schools and the assimilating of First Nations people are more than a dark spot in Canada’s history. It was a time of racist leaders, bigoted white men who saw no point in working towards a lasting relationship with ingenious people. Recognition of these past mistakes, denunciation, and prevention steps must be taking intensively. They must be held to the same standard that we hold our current government to today. Without that standard, there is no moving forward. There is no bright future for Canada if we allow these injustices to be swept aside, leaving room for similar mistakes to be made again. We must apply our standards whatever century it was, is, or will be to rebuild trust between peoples, to never allow the abuse to be repeated, and to become the great nation we dream ourselves to be,

    Read More

  • Japanese Canadian Internment In Canada

    2153 Words  | 5 Pages

    The horrors of racial profiling during World War II had always seemed to be distant to many Canadians, yet Canada was home to several xenophobic policies that were a violation of many rights and freedoms. One of the cruelest instances of this was the Japanese Canadian internment. At the time, the government justified the internment by claiming that the Japanese Canadians were a threat to their national defense, but evidence suggests that it had nothing to do with security. The government made illogical decisions in response to the mass panic and agitation in British Columbia. To aggravate the situation, Prime Minister William Mackenzie King reacted passively to these decisions, as it was not in his best interests to be involved. Moreover,

    Read More

  • Japanese Internment After Pearl Harbor

    2439 Words  | 5 Pages

    On December 7,1941 Japan raided the airbases across the islands of Pearl Harbour. The “sneak attack” targeted the United States Navy. It left 2400 army personnel dead and over a thousand Americans wounded. U.S. Navy termed it as “one of the great defining moments in history”1 President Roosevelt called it as “A Day of Infamy”. 2 As this attack shook the nation and the Japanese Americans became the immediate ‘focal point’. At that moment approximately 112,000 Persons of Japanese descent resided in coastal areas of Oregon, Washington and also in California and Arizona.3

    Read More

  • snow falling on cedars

    1927 Words  | 4 Pages

    The novel Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson explores life of Japanese- Americans during the first half of the 21st century on the island of San Pierdro, a small island off the shore of Seattle. The novel opens on the trail of Kabuo Miyamoto in 1954 and focuses on his wife Hastue and the local one-armed reporter Ishmael Chambers. Later in the story Hastue and Ishmael, a white man had a secret romance in high school. Yet after the bombing at Pearl Harbor their lives will change forever. Kabuo and Hastue are forced into internment camps and Ishmael is drafted into war and is forced to fight the Japanese and losses his arm. In the internment camp Hastue is forced to forget her love and marry Kabuo who is ?right for her? because he is the same nationality. After the pains that World War II caused them they come back to San Pierdro, to start their life again. However the pains of World War II and the racial internment shadow their lives. The internment of Japanese- Americans is not just a stain on the United States Constitution, but on the morals of America. Japanese- Americans suffered several injustices by the federal and local government and by members of their own communities that did not stop at their relocation to the desert. In order to understand the background of the book. I needed to research the attack on Pearl Harbor and other events that lead to the incarceration of American citizens.

    Read More

  • Racial Profiling by Police in Canada

    2887 Words  | 6 Pages

    Systemic discrimination has been a part of Canada’s past. Women, racial and ethnic minorities as well as First Nations people have all faced discrimination in Canada. Policies such as, Charter of Rights and Freedoms, provincial and federal Human Rights Codes, as well has various employment equity programs have been placed in Canada’s constitution to fight and address discrimination issues. Despite these key documents placed for universal rights and freedoms Aboriginal and other minority populations in Canada continue to be discriminated against. Many believe there is no discrimination in Canada, and suggest any lack of success of these groups is a result of personal decisions and not systemic discrimination. While others feel that the legislation and equality policies have yet resulted in an equal society for all minorities. Racism is immersed in Canadian society; this is clearly shown by stories of racial profiling in law enforcement.

    Read More

  • Japanese Internment

    700 Words  | 2 Pages

    After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States was filled with panic. Along the Pacific coast of the U.S., where residents feared more Japanese attacks on their cities, homes, and businesses, this feeling was especially great. During the time preceding World War II, there were approximately 112,000 persons of Japanese descent living in California, Arizona, and coastal Oregon and Washington. These immigrants traveled to American hoping to be free, acquire jobs, and for some a chance to start a new life. Some immigrants worked in mines, others helped to develop the United States Railroad, many were fishermen, farmers, and some agricultural laborers.

    Read More

  • We Were Children Film Analysis

    1361 Words  | 3 Pages

    The government’s goal of the Residential School System was to remove and isolate the children from their families and their culture in order to assimilate the Indigenous race to the dominant new Canadian culture. What the citizens did not know about was the

    Read More

  • Japanese And Japanese Internment Camps

    2232 Words  | 5 Pages

    America has always pride it’s self on being a free democratic country where anyone from anywhere in the world could come and live in the land of the free. “The Land of the Free,” the American dream, the justifications for Americas’ intervention in foreign affairs. Americans have felt that it has been their responsibility to intervene in other countries where citizens are being oppressed by their government. However days after the December 7th, 1941 Pearl Harbor attack by Japanese aircrafts, such mentality quickly left the minds of the American government as well as the American people. Soon after the attack Americans developed a mislead fear causing the US government to place more than a hundred thousand Japanese and Japanese Americans in interment camps robbing them from their freedoms. Although there are distinctive differences between the Nazi Germany death/concentration camps and the Japanese internment camps, the basic morality of taking away humans basic freedoms focused around what they looked like and their practices, was the foundation for both forms of camps.

    Read More

More about Japanese Internment In Canada Essay

Open Document