Discrimination never disappears - From the Cluttered Desk with Keith Roulston

Watching MS NOW program host Rachel Maddow speak about her podcast Burn Order, dealing with the U.S. treatment of California’s Japanese population during World War II, made me think about Canada’s treatment of Japanese-Canadians.
So I pulled a 50-year-old book called Years of Sorrow, Years of Shame off the shelf. It’s one  of a number of books by journalist Barry Broadfoot in which he records the memories of people who lived through history-making times - including his most famous, Ten Lost Years about the Great Depression.

 

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbour, Hawaii on Dec. 7. 1941, both the U.S. and Canada declared war on Japan. There were about 50,000 people of Japanese ancestry who were living along the coast of British Columbia at the time. They were all rounded up and shipped to the cattle barns at the Pacific National Exhibition and later sent to former mining towns, now ghost towns, in B.C.’s interior. There they were housed, often more than one family to a house. The houses weren’t meant for year-round residency, so the migrants suffered greatly during a colder-than-normal winter.

 

Meanwhile, the men were put to work either in the bush or hacking out roads in the dense forest - these being men who had mostly worked on fishing boats on the coast. When they were moved inland some of the Japanese-Canadians put their furniture in storage and rented their houses. B.C.’s provincial government, which didn’t want Japanese populations along the coast, often sold the furniture and the houses. The price was so devalued and the government charges were so high that, in many cases, very little money was turned over to the imprisoned Japanese-Canadians.

 

While some of the Japanese actually came from Japan much earlier, most were born in Canada, yet they were treated as a threat by Canadian officials.

 

At first I thought this was something that could only have happened 70-plus years ago - that we had progressed from that sort of racist hatred. Then, on the first day of Hanukkah, in Sydney, Australia’s Bondi Beach, two gunmen attacked the crowd, shooting and killing 15 people - including a 10-year-old girl. A short time afterward, police in Toronto prevented an attack on Jewish Canadians.

 

Racism never seems to disappear. In the U.S., President Donald Trump has turned his U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) forces against Americans who are not legal immigrants - usually people of colour. Sometimes people who are born in the U.S. are arrested because their colour makes them suspect. Most recently the Somalian population of Minneapolis, Minnesota, estimated as high as 80,000, came under attack by Nick Shirley, who has created anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim videos, and who stirred up Trump’s anti-immigrant enforcement.

 

Meanwhile, back to the Japanese-Canadian situation during World War II, at the outbreak of war with Germany in 1939, many Japanese-Canadian young men, born in Canada, volunteered to serve in the Canadian armed forces. They were not chosen, and when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour, they were rounded up and sent to inland deserted mining towns.

 

Later, as the war turned and the allies became successful, American forces began using Japanese-speaking soldier-volunteers to help question Japanese prisoners. The British didn’t have any and then learned of Japanese-Canadians. They recruited a few dozen and prepared to induct them into the British army. Canadians would have been insulted to have Canadians serving for Britain. Our government intervened, so the soldiers would wear Canadian uniforms. It took several months for this change to take place, however, and one wonders how costly this was for British troops.

 

As World War II wore on, many Japanese-Canadians agreed to be transferred to Alberta and Manitoba to work on sugar beet fields. Some worked in Ontario in vegetable-growing regions around Chatham. There was trouble when these workers would go into Chatham in off hours. Some Chatham residents became worried and suggested the Japanese-Canadians be sent away, but farm owners needed the workers and knew them personally by now and voiced support for them.

 

I was pleased to read that in cities like Toronto and Montreal there was almost total support. Many people had never seen people of Japanese background and held no prejudice.

 

Ironically, it was the people and politicians of British Columbia who were the most prejudiced against Japanese-Canadians. Today we think of British Columbians as being among the most open-minded Canadians. What a pleasant change.