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| Barbed wire fence and tower - internment " L " Credit: Marcell Seidler/Library and Archives Canada/PA-143488 |
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941, little did the people of Canada realize the impact it would have on our country during the Second World War. Almost immediately, the property and possessions of thousands of people of Japanese descent in British Columbia was confiscated and sold. Entire neighbourhoods were wiped out. Some Japanese-Canadians, although British subjects by birth, and Japanese immigrants were seen as a threat to national security and were sent to internment camps.
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| Group of Japanese immigrants who had been interned during WW II, waiting for a train to take them to ships, which will take them to Japan. 1946. Credit: Tak Toyota/Library and Archives Canada/C-047398 |
Many Japanese immigrants were sent back to Japan.
When the restrictions were lifted in 1949, many Japanese-Canadians had nothing to return to. Their homes, possessions and neighbourhoods all gone.
Research more about Internment Camps in Canada during the First and Second World Wars.
Read more about Canada's treatment of the Japanese during the Second World War:
Canada's History: Japanese-Canadian Internment
Landscapes of Injustice
Copyright by Kathryn Lake Hogan, 2015.
