BROKEN PROMISES

Title: Broken Promises
Format: Digital
ISBN: 978-0-9950328-9-7
Publisher:
Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre
Jack Lindsay. City of Vancouver Archives, 1184-1537

MANY STORIES, MANY VOICES .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 2Foreword .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 3Introduction .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 4Many Stories, Many Voices: Community
Consultation in the Broken Promises Exhibit  .  .  .  .  . 10
BROKEN PROMISES  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 16
Dispossession is a Story of People  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 18
Land of Broken Promises .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 20
Home  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 22
Narrators: Life Before Dispossession .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 24
THE INTERNMENT ERA .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 38
An Old Story  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 40
Promise of Protection .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 44
THE OFFICES OF LOSS .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 46
Who Broke the Promise? .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 50
Living with State Power  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 54
Protest  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 58
LEGACIES OF DISPOSSESSION .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 62
Recovery  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 64
Narrators: Legacies .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 66
Legacies of Dispossession  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 80
THE STORY CONTINUES  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 92
Can Canada Offer a Just Home for All? .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 96

Many STORIES,
many VOICESBroken Promises is curated by the
Nikkei National Museum and the RoyalBritish Columbia Museum in partnershipwith Landscapes of Injustice.

Courtesy of Tosh Kitagawa

Landscapes of Injustice is a research project
headquartered at the University of Victoria,
with collaborators across Canada. The teamincludes researchers, community leaders,elders, archivists, and teachers dedicatedto revealing the history of the Japanese
Canadian dispossession. Each of us inherits
these histories of injustice as well as the
responsibility to tell them.

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FOREWORD

Jordan Stanger-Ross, PhD, Project Director,
Landscapes of Injustice, University of Victoria

In 1942, the Canadian government uprooted
and interned all people of Japanese descentliving in coastal British Columbia. The following
year, it authorized the sale of everything thatthe people had been forced to leave behind.
As a result, when Canada’s internment era finallyended, in 1949, Japanese Canadians had nothing
to return to. Their homes, farms, businesses,
fishing vessels, cars, family pets, personal
belongings – in short, everything that they had
been unable to take with them – were gone.
Broken Promises is the capstone exhibit ofLandscapes of Injustice, a project to unearth
and tell the history of the dispossession ofJapanese Canadians. Our research collective
is united by the conviction that this history stillmatters. The dispossession is a story about theviolation of human and civil rights at a time ofperceived insecurity, about measures taken in thename of national defence that made no one safer,
about the enduring harms of mass displacement
and the loss of home, and about the resilienceof people confronting injustice.
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INTRODUCTION

Sherri Kajiwara, Director|Curator,
Nikkei National Museum, Exhibition Co-Curator
Leah Best, Head of Knowledge,
Royal BC Museum, Exhibition Co-Curator

The Landscapes of Injustice (LOI) project
thoroughly investigates the forced
dispossession of Japanese Canadianscoinciding with Canada’s participation in
the Second World War. As described by the
project: It was an epitomizing moment in thehistory of twentieth-century Canada: a core
principle of liberal society—ownership infee simple—colliding with racial ideology.
When the members of the LOI researchcollective drilled down through the rich andextensive academic findings, the key building
blocks of the story emerged. What was taken
and what was lost? Where did this all takeplace? Who were the key perpetrators?
What are the lasting legacies?
But to truly contextualize all of this, we alsoneeded to understand life for the communityfrom the first arrival of Japanese people to
Canada and the enduring legacies of this4

history. Japanese Canadians had been citizensof this nation for half a century by the timethese events occurred. The forced dispersalof over 22,000 Japanese Canadians from theirhomes is often remembered as an unfortunate
but necessary result of war management.
But promises made by the state that asked foran entire community’s cooperation, promises
to keep them safe, promises to keep theirbelongings safe, were shattered within monthsof being made. Every promise was broken.
The journey to develop this exhibit has beenrich with collaborations both within andbeyond the Landscapes of Injustice researchcollective. The story of Japanese Canadiandispossession in the 1940s is complex.
Our challenge as curators was to unpack
four years of academic research and turnit into an engaging visitor experience that
could resonate beyond scholastic inquiry.
We needed to focus on why we needed totell the story, how to connect that story in ameaningful way to audiences, and what the
major take-aways would be for visitors. After
two years of rigorous exhibit development,
extensive community consultation, additional

5

Canadian Heritage grants, and last-minutenimbleness prompted by the global pandemic,
we respectfully present Broken Promises.
Researchers from the LOI project havemade invaluable contributions throughout
the curatorial process. Dr. Eiji Okawa wasinstrumental in illuminating the early life ofJapanese in Canada. Dr. Trevor Wideman’sanalytical expertise helped to ensure that
our selection of narrators was diverse inage, geography, livelihood, and gender.
Kaitlin Findlay was the connective tissue
between Phases 1 and 2 of this seven-year
adventure. Kaitlin’s graduate work mining the
Bird Commission files and her ability to thinkcreatively about massive amounts of data
provided the framework for the Offices of Losssection of the exhibit. Dr. Yasmin Amaratunga
Railton, our curatorial post-doctoral fellow,
was instrumental in managing the exhibition
development process, from securing grants,
to translating research into meaningful
exhibit displays, to orchestrating community
consultations. Truly, this was a team effort.
Dr. Jordan Stanger-Ross, who has led theLandscapes of Injustice project from day one,6

was a contributing writer along with Kaitlin
Findlay, and an active participant on the
curatorial team. Invaluable advice and insightwere provided by two dedicated membersof the project’s Community Council: Mary
Kitagawa and Vivian Wakabayashi Rygnestad.
Finally, the creativity of our designers Doug
Munday, Ria Kawaguchi, and Kirsti Wakelin
helped us to bring the exhibit to life.
The hope of Broken Promises is that lessons
can be learned from a difficult and messy
history and made actionable in the presentday. We invite you to follow the sevennarrators, identify what home means to you,dive into the bureaucratic mire located in
the Offices of Losses, review a samplingof case files that offer snapshots into lives
administrated by the state, listen to first person
experiences, and grapple with the legacies
that remain.

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9
Courtesy of Kayla Isomura

MANY STORIES, MANY VOICES:
Community Consultationin the Broken Promises Exhibit
Yasmin Amaratunga Railton, PhD,
Curatorial Post-doctoral Fellow,
Landscapes of InjusticeIn many ways, museum curation can be thoughtof as a form of storytelling. Extending thismetaphor, curators are not so much authors
as translators of knowledge. The story of thedispossession of Japanese Canadians in the
1940s at the hands of the Canadian government
is not a singular narrative. Research undertakenby the Landscapes of Injustice project illustrates
how the violence of the dispossession unfolded
over years of bureaucratic work, and in the dailyexperiences of those being administered for a
decade. It required the complicity of thousands.
Losses of home and place were specific harms towhich Japanese Canadians made complex andvaried responses. These losses are still felt today.
In Broken Promises, we have endeavoured
to translate new research on this topic whileremaining rooted in community knowledge
networks. To effectively do this, we adopted
what is known as participatory exhibit-making,10

an approach to curation that promotes
consultation with experts and enables thosewith lived experiences to tell their own stories.
We conducted community consultation at every
stage of the development of the exhibit, often
moving beyond consultation into collaboration.
Intrinsic to good storytelling has always been thepractice of good listening. Hours of discussion
went into the selection of thousands of archival
documents, photographs, letters, and oral
histories to best convey the personal andcollective experiences of Japanese Canadianfamilies. I’ve been honoured to sit in the homesof our narrators and to listen to their stories.
To understand the story of Masue Tagashira,research coordinator Kaitlin Findlay and I spenta day with three generations of the Tagashirafamily. Over tea and biscuits, Donald, Charles,
and Emma Jinnouchi shared stories and dozens
of family photo albums.
To ensure the translation of research to visitors,
we sought the advice of the Royal British
Columbia Museum, the Nikkei National Museum,the Canadian War Museum, and the CanadianMuseum of Immigration. We circulated draft text
with the Landscapes of Injustice Community
Council, as well as with historians, geographers,
11and legal scholars. Canadian primary andsecondary teachers tested interactive elements
for usability. We hosted public sessions at the
Powell Street Festival and invited the public togive feedback on schematics and to respondto specific stories and images. I was particularly
moved by Emma Nishimura’s artwork, which
encapsulates so poignantly her family’s history
and her response to learning about it. These
artworks now form part of the Legacy sectionof the exhibit and you can hear Emma talk about
her work in the oral history theatre.
Like any community consultation, ours had its
limitations. We are sensitive to the fact that there
is not always consensus within the broader
Japanese Canadian community on subjects
ranging from language and euphemisms to
the ethics of making research findings public.
To meet the challenges of telling this story, we
adopted a number of tools to engage different
voices. These included convening a research
integration committee of academics and holding
regular meetings with our Community Council,
a committee composed of Japanese Canadian
advisors from across the country. I feel
privileged to have worked with, learned from,and developed deep friendships with
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Mary Kitagawa and Vivian Wakabayashi
Rygnestad in this process.
Storytelling also supports dialogue for socialchange. The public consultations we held
across British Columbia performed an importanteducational function in communicating thishistory and promoting dialogue about racism.
Further stories emerged from these discussions.
In a community consultation session in the Gulf
Islands, Rose Murakami, whose sister Mary
is a narrator in our exhibit, shared with us theexperience of finding her family’s belongings atyard sales for years after returning to Salt Spring
Island after their forced uprooting.
As with all collaborative processes, participatory
exhibit-making is an opportunity to acknowledge
and express differing values and offers a safe
space for discussion. This theme is expressedat the end of the exhibit itself in the form of a
feedback feature. We invite you to reflect on
this difficult history, and to join the conversation
with researchers and the Japanese Canadian
community. It is our hope that this exhibit will
foster a personal connection to this history andwill allow for the continuation of the story.

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15
Courtesy of Kayla Isomura

BROKEN PROMISESThe Dispossessionof Japanese Canadians
Can you imagine someone taking your home,
all your possessions, and your freedom?
In 1942, the Canadian government forcibly
removed 21,460 Japanese Canadians from
British Columbia’s coast. People boarded trains
bringing only what they could carry. Officials
promised to protect the rest.
Instead, Japanese Canadians were
dispossessed: everything was stolen or sold.

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17
Jack Lindsay. City of Vancouver Archives, 1184-1537

DISPOSSESSION isa STORY of PEOPLE
A mother, banished from home, struggles
in winter to feed and clothe her children.
A fisher, his boat stolen, starts again far
from the sea. A family, forced apart bytheir government, longs for reunion.
Dispossession was fuelled by racism.
Politicians wrote it into law. Officials enforced
years of unjust policy. Others took what they
could for themselves.

This history is a resource.
It calls us to create a morejust Canadian future.

18

Salt Spring Island Archives, 2004-005-038

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LAND of
BROKEN PROMISESThe homes taken from Japanese
Canadians stood on land earlier
taken from Indigenous peoples.
British law promised to protect
Indigenous lands until treaties weresigned. In BC, this promise was ignored.
Indigenous peoples were dispossessed.
The struggle against this injusticecontinues today.

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ONE STORY WRITTENOVER ANOTHER•

The largest former Japanese Canadianneighbourhood in Vancouver, Powell Street,has been known from time immemorial by theMusqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and neighbouring
First Peoples as q̓əmq̓ə́mələɬp.

•

Thousands of Japanese Canadians fishedin Steveston. It is also known as qw’eya’xw
in Hul’q’umi’num’, the Island dialect of
this Salishan language.

•

A powerful Hul’q’umi’num’ creation story takes
place on the highest peak of Salt Spring Island,near former Japanese Canadian farms.

Courtesy of Susanne Tabata
Carver: Bernie ‘Skundaal’ Williams

The Survivors Totem Pole, located in
Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside,pays tribute to the diverse communities
who have defied racism and injustices.
It represents community survival
and is a lasting symbol of resistanceand inclusion.
Learn more at [https://bit.ly/3aC5SZr]

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HOME
Life before dispossession
By the early 1940s, Japanese Canadians
had lived in British Columbia for decades.
They put down roots in Canada, while
preserving connections to Japan. Despite
racism and discrimination, they flourished.
Canada was home: a place of hard work,
belonging, and dreams.
Japanese Canadian immigrants (issei)
and their children (nisei) built lives ofcommunity and connection. They fishedand farmed, grew gardens, and opened stores.
Families pooled their skills and resources.
Communities founded language schools,
cooperatives, churches, and temples.
Half of Japanese Canadians
were born in Canada.
Here, you will meet seven Japanese
Canadians whose experiences narrate
this exhibit.

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NNM 2011.79.4.1.3.71

KAORU ATAGI
Laughter, gull cries,
scent of cedar shavings
Kaoru (b. 1912) grew up in Steveston,a thriving fishing town. He watched his father,
Tsunematsu, fish in the summers and build
boats in the winters. The Atagi Boatworks
opened in 1905. Kaoru understoodthat one day it would be his.
The family remembers Kaoru’s father
as a master of his craft. “It was amazing
what he could do with those tools.”

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25
Courtesy of Susumu Tabata

EIKICHI KAGETSU
Saws rip through giant trees.
The canopy opens to blue.
Eikichi (b. 1883), an immigrant labourer,
slowly built a logging empire on Vancouver
Island. He became a community leader.
In 1936, he laid a wreath for fallen Japanese
Canadian soldiers at Vimy Ridge, France.
Eikichi’s wealth was hard-won. “The tree
trunk can be my pillow,” he wrote in his diary,“while I go into the woods to survey the trees.”26

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NNM 2016.14.1.14

TEIJI MORISHITA
Chatter at breakfast.
Store opens for the day.
Vancouver’s Ebisuzaki Shōten,or store, served Japanese Canadians
across coastal British Columbia.
Its motto was “Thin Profit, Thick Trust.”
Teiji (b. 1903) owned the store
with his older sister, Hide Ebisuzaki,
and her husband, Masatarō. All lived
and worked together. Teiji’s daughter
remembers a “crazy” busy home,“a big house with lots of people in it.”28

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NNM 2011.79.4.1.1.36

KEIKO MARY
MURAKAMI
Feast and field fit for royalty
When the British King and Queen visited
Victoria in 1939, they were served Murakami
strawberries. The farm, on Salt Spring Island,
was cleared by Mary’s father. He used
dynamite on the largest stumps, and built
their home by hand.
For Mary (b. 1937), it was an “ideal” childhoodof comfort. “We were free to roam.”30

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Salt Spring Island Archives, 2044-005-024

HIROSHI OKUDA
Roaring crowds, rain in the air
Hiroshi (b. 1914) inspired his Cumberland
classmates with his sportsmanship.
A letterman athlete at school and a varsity
player at the University of British Columbia,
he continued to shine. Hiroshi earned two
degrees. By the 1940s, he was an accountant.

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NNM 2018.3.4.4.47

MASUE TAGASHIRA
Walking home at dusk.
A streetcar clatters.
Masue (b. 1908) was an immigrant motherwidowed by a logging accident in 1933.
Her mother urged Masue and her two children
to return to Japan. Instead, Masue stayed,
telling herself, “I’m struggling now,
but someday the springtime of my life
will come. Then I can smile.”
For years, she worked at Vancouver’s
Tagashira tobacco and candy shop.
In the Powell Street neighbourhood,she met her future husband, Rinkichi.

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Courtesy of Donald Jinnouchi

TSUMA TONOMURA
Chopped cabbage,
pickled radish, warm broth
Tsuma’s (b. 1898) mother died when
she was ten. She lost contact with her father.
With few opportunities in Japan, she marrieda Canadian, Moichiro Tonomura.
In 1928, Tsuma joined the Tonomura clan,
the first Japanese Canadian farmers in Mission,a rich plain near Vancouver. She cookedfor everyone. Steaming sukiyaki, a Japanese
hot-pot, was a family favourite.

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NNM 2014.20.1.2.13 / NNM 1995.125.1.2

The INTERNMENT ERA
Seven years of internment,
most in peacetime
Canada declared war on Japan after it attacked
British and American bases on December 7, 1941.
To the RCMP and Canadian generals, Japanese
Canadians posed no threat. But politicians still
decided to uproot all “persons of the Japaneserace” from coastal BC.
After the war’s end, officials pressured thousandsof Japanese Canadians into exile in Japan.
Those who refused to go were told to moveeast of the Rockies. The violation of their rights
continued until April 1, 1949.

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NNM 1996.182.1.2

FAR FROM HOME
Between March and October 1942, thousandsof Japanese Canadians were forced into
camps in BC’s interior. Others were pushed
into road work, farm labour, and prisoner-ofwar camps across Canada.
Winter came early. Temperatures fell to record
lows. Japanese Canadians shivered in tents,
makeshift shacks, and abandoned buildings.
Betty Umakoshi grew up in Vancouver.
Her family was forced into a tent in the BC
interior. With no indoor plumbing, she drew
water from an icy well. She fell and cursed
at the sky, “What did I do to deserve this?”39

An OLD STORY
The internment followed
decades of racist law.
BC needed workers in the 1870s. Japanese
Canadians arrived. But, along with Chinese,
South Asians and Indigenous peoples, they
faced hostility and racism. Many thought BCshould be a “white” province.
Japanese Canadian men were barred fromvoting or holding public office. BC laws
forbade jobs in industry, public works, law,and pharmacy. Japanese Canadians were
excluded from desirable neighbourhoods.

The dispossession is part ofa much longer history.

40

QUICK THINKING

LAC 1970-170 NPC

Officials restricted what Japanese Canadians
could bring to internment. Japanese
Canadians packed what they could, thenstored, sold, loaned, buried, or destroyed
the rest. Today, many Japanese Canadians
still remember the chaos of these moments.
Careful choices allowed them to endure.

41

NNM 2010.4.4.12.36

CAREFUL DECISIONS“We had come originally, way back,from a warlord family of samurai.
And the only thing that my mothervowed was that she did not want
to give up the sword that had beenin our family . . . there’s no way she
was handing that in after all thesegenerations. One night, my motherand our relatives that lived in North
Vancouver, that were the boatmakers,
they came over and said, “OK, we’regoing to row out into the Straits.”
She threw it overboard. She didn’t
want to hand it in to the RCMP
because she didn’t think she’d ever
get it back anyway.”
Jean Ikeda-Douglas

43

PROMISE of
PROTECTION
In March 1942, the federal
government promised, in law,
to hold Japanese Canadians’
belongings “as a protective
measure only.”
Overseeing the work of the Custodian of
Enemy Property, Deputy Minister of State
Ephraim Coleman wrote: “I do not think it wasever contemplated . . . that [we] would deprive
the Japanese owners of their property.”
Then he and his colleagues did just that.

44

45
Jack Lindsay. City of Vancouver Archives, 1184-88

The OFFICES of LOSS
Promise of protection, soon broken
After Japanese Canadians were interned,
neighbours looted their homes. At first, someofficials tried to prevent the thefts, but theirefforts were not enough. Public and politicalpressure to sell mounted. The government
authorized the sale of all remaining property
in January 1943.

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47

Leonard Frank. Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, A.1985.001-1-58-LF.01632

Government offices created to protect
property instead became the headquartersof dispossession. Over 1,700 parcels of realestate and tens of thousands of belongings
were sold without consent.

Empty buildings,
stolen homes
In 1943, officials photographedvacant buildings to justify
their low sale prices.
Years later, Japanese Canadianscontested the sales using family photos.
The photos also show the rich histories
lived within each home.

Library and Archives Canada, RG33-69

Who BROKE
the PROMISE?
Large-scale injustice requires
many hands
People made dispossession happen.
Politicians signed it into law.
Senior officials decided the details.
Local agents put policy into practice.
Imagine warehouses of furniture,
clothing, musical instruments, and books.
The Custodian of Enemy Property,
a federal office, controlled everything
Japanese Canadians were forced to leavebehind. By 1942, 120 employees worked
in Vancouver’s Royal Bank Building, filingdocuments and cataloguing belongings.
Real estate agents inspected houses.
Government workers priced farms.
Auctioneers chanted bids to thousandsof eager buyers.

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51
Library and Archives Canada, e011178939-202

WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE
FOR DISPOSSESSION?
The policy targeted all “persons of the Japanese race.”
Yet, each policy maker had their own motives and ideas.
EXPLORE THIS CHART to learn
who was responsible for the policies.

MINISTER OF JUSTICE& ATTORNEY GENERAL
THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICEIn 1942, government lawyers
approved the seizure of Japanese
Canadian property. Today, theMinistry of Justice continues torestrict access to the files that could
explain this decision.

CITY OF VANCOUVERVANCOUVER
CITY PLANNERSMINISTER OF FISHERIESSECRETARY FOR
EXTERNAL AFFAIRSJAPANESE FISHING VESSELDISPOSAL COMMITTEE

University of Dalhousie Archives

Courtesy of Edmund T. Kimura /Gracieuseté de Edmund T. Kimura

KISHIZO KIMURA, government
appointee for the Japanese Canadian
community. Kimura served on
government committees that oversaw
the dispossession. Years later,
he reflected that, “from the current
perspective . . . when protests anddemonstrations are the trend, there
might be some who laugh at . . . silenceand obedience.” But racism was rife;
he chose to cooperate.

CITY REAL ESTATEFISHING VESSELSCity of Vancouver officials saw
an opportunity when the internment
began: the historic Japanese Canadianneighbourhood on Powell Street
could be demolished and replacedwith modern housing. This plan helped
to convince the federal government tosell. But the proposed redevelopment
never happened.

In January 1942, the government
formed a committee to encourage
fishers to sell or lease their vessels.
When some Japanese Canadians
refused to sell, the Committee forced
them. Years later, government lawyers
publicly admitted that the sales wereillegal, but buried the issue.

JOHN ERSKINE READ, federal
government lawyer Read objectedto the dispossession: “The takingof the property away from thesemen has nothing whatever to
do with security.” He felt that the
government was “abandoning
completely the principle . . .
of fairness.” But with his career
still on the rise, he carried on.

PRIME MINISTER

United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs
Division, LC-USW33-019079-D

WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE KING, war-time prime minister of Canada
Publicly, King said that no Japanese Canadians had shown disloyalty. Privately,
he distrusted them. “No matter how honourable they might appear to be,” he wrote in 1941,“every one of them . . . would be saboteurs and would help Japan when the moment came.”
PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE
Assistant Private Secretary

PRIVY COUNCIL
Clerk of the Privy Council

CABINETCABINET COMMITTEES
Cabinet Committee on Japanese Questions (Est. 1942)
Cabinet Committee on Repatriation and Relocation (Est. 1945)
Cabinet Commitee on Japanese Problems (Est. 1946)

SECRETARY OF STATEOF CANADAMINISTER OF LABOURMINISTER OF
VETERAN AFFAIRSOFFICE OF THE CUSTODIANVANCOUVER OFFICE
OF THE CUSTODIAN

Joseph Alexandre Castonguay.
Library and Archives Canada, e006581360

Courtesy of Leslie Barnwell

GLENN MCPHERSON ANDFRANK SHEARS, heads of the
Custodian of Enemy Property, Vancouver
McPherson urged politicians to authorize
forced sales. Shears felt he had nochoice: his role was “carrying out . . .
Government policy . . . not making orsuggesting what the policy should be.”Multiple departments within
the Office of the Custodian
managed, and then soldJapanese Canadian’s Property.

MINISTER OF PENSIONS& NATIONAL HEALTH

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BC SECURITY COMMISSION
The Commission oversaw theinternment. Money from forced
property sales went to accounts
the Commission controlled.
Japanese Canadians had to use
these funds to pay for basic needs.
“We are quite within our rights inrefusing” provisions in the camps,
said one official.

Jack Lindsay. City of Vancouver Archives, 1184-198

IAN MCKENZIE, BC’s only
federal cabinet member. McKenzie
argued strongly for dispossession.
“Their country should never have been
Canada,” he said, “I do not believe theJapanese are an assimilable race.”
SOLDIER SETTLEMENT BOARD
IVAN BARNET, Soldier Settlement
Board Superintendent Barnet oversaw
the appraisal of Japanese Canadianfarms. He tried to buy them for lessthan their full value. “We must maintainthe Pacific Coast as a white man’scountry,” he said, “and . . . educate thewhite man to realize that he can makea comfortable living” by farming.

FAMILY HEIRLOOMSFARMSSome friends and neighbours
saved the personal belongings ofJapanese Canadians, returning themwhen they could. Most, however, looted
and stole. Rather than stop the looting,the government decided to sellwhat remained. Between 1943 and 1946,
it held 255 auctions and soldover 90,000 belongings.

Most Japanese Canadian farms
were sold to the Director of the Veterans’Land Act in 1944. These 769 farmlands
were deliberately underpriced by
officials. They wanted the lands tobenefit soldiers returning from war.

E.M. Finn. Library and Archives Canada, c18068

GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADALIVING with
STATE POWER
Records of injustice:
the Custodian case files
Remember the seven narrators you met
earlier in this exhibit? They received noticefrom officials while interned: their homes
were gone.
One read that her friend had betrayed her.
Another learned that a competitor bought
his business. A third was told that his home
was ransacked.
All seven narrators tried to keep controlof their lives and protect their families’
well-being. Outright protest carried risks.
For the Tonomuras, it meant imprisonment.
Filling out forms and reasoning politely with
officials often seemed a better choice.
At every turn, Japanese Canadians felt
the limits of their freedom.

54

55
Leonard Frank. Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, A.1985.001-1-58-LF.01634

PROTESTJapanese Canadians foughtfor justiceJapanese Canadians protested the forcedsale of their properties.
In letters to officials, owners described yearsof work to build their homes. These wereplaces they had raised their children, set downroots. They could not accept sales madewithout consent.
Japanese Canadians challenged thedispossession in court in 1943. JusticeThorson delayed his decision for over three
years. Meanwhile, most properties were sold.
Thorson dismissed Nakashima v. Canada
on a technicality.
After the war, Japanese Canadians lobbied
for a formal inquiry. Judge Henry Bird led
the Royal Commission. He took a narrow viewof loss, compensating only one in ten owners.

58

59
Library and Archives Canada, RG117-C-3

FORCED DISPLACEMENT
OF JAPANESE CANADIANS
1941–1951

Number of Japanese
Canadians displaced fromBC between 1941 and 1951
Cartography by Rylee Harlos and the Historical GIS
Cluster of the Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective

60

Federal orders uprooted Japanese
Canadians from the Pacific coast.
After the war’s end, officials pressured
Japanese Canadians into exile in Japan.
Those who refused to go were told tomove east of the Rockies.

61

LEGACIES ofDISPOSSESSION
We inherit the landscapesof injusticeRebuilding lasted for decades after theend of internment. Japanese Canadians
first had to find a home in still-racist Canada.
Loss — of language, education, belonging —endured for generations.
Many others profited from the dispossession.
Careers were made and fortunes built fromJapanese Canadian losses.
Dispossession is not a chapter that closes,
or a period that neatly ends. We walk atop
its sediment.

62

Courtesy of Jeff NoonMark Sakamoto’s family rice tin

63

64

Tamio Wakayama. Courtesy of Mayu Takasaki

RECOVERY
Japanese Canadians
worked to rebuild home
Scattered, the seven narrators began again:
new jobs, communities, homes, and lives.
They strove for security. Many looked
toward the future with hope.
Japanese Canadians continued tofight for justice. They achieved Canada’s
first apology for a historic wrong in 1988.
A community, once reeling from loss,
now stands resilient.
65

KAORU ATAGI
Kaoru returned to Steveston in 1953.
He and his brothers bought a modest houseby the water and resumed boatbuilding.
Slowly, a Japanese Canadian community
re-emerged. Fishing companies, eager forskilled workers, hired Japanese Canadians who
returned. In 1972, community organizers openeda martial arts studio and cultural centre.
Still, loss lingered with the Atagis. Years later,
Kaoru’s wife urged him to forget the past:“You just have to give up,
that’s all gone.”66

City of Richmond Archives, 1994.22.9

67
Courtesy of Mas Fukawa

wa

s FukaCourtesy of Ma

EIKICHI KAGETSUThe Kagetsus moved to Toronto, where many
Japanese Canadians were starting again.
Life was precarious. Eikichi’s children worked
on assembly lines and as cleaners. His wife
took in sewing. Eikichi used the little money
he had left to open a gift shop and laundromat.

“Strive high,”
Eikichi always told his children.
School was a priority. In time, they flourishedas professionals across North America.

68

NNM 2016.14.1.6.28

69
NNM 2016.14.5.3
8

TEIJI MORISHITA
Teiji refused to move east. His daughters relocatedto Toronto. They had once shared their Vancouver
home and business with the Ebisuzakis, who stayed
in touch from Toronto and then Japan.

Eventually, the Morishitas
realized their dream: to reunite
the family in Vancouver.
In 1981, Teiji’s daughter, Nancy, saw the old store
being destroyed to make way for a new building.
She found a piece of the tilework that once proudly
announced “EBISUZAKI.” Friends helped her toreclaim the pieces and place them in her backyard.

70

Courtesy of Nancy Morishita

71
lian Morishita

Courtesy of Lil

Courtesy of Lillian Morishita

MARY MURAKAMI
The Murakamis returned to Salt Spring
Island in 1954. Mary helped her parents
start anew and studied at school.

When she first told her family’s story,tears streamed down her cheeks.
Eventually, she became a prominent
voice of this history.
Mary stopped a Vancouver building frombeing named after Howard Green, a championof the internment. She convinced UBC
to grant degrees to Japanese Canadians
it had expelled in 1942. She was awarded
the Order of British Columbia in 2018.

72

73

Courtesy of Mary and Tosh

Kitagawa

Courtesy of

BC Honours and Awar

013.61.
3

NNM 2

ds

HIROSHI OKUDA
Hiroshi faced racism in Montreal.
His professional degrees seemed worthless.
In 1947, angered by continued discrimination,
he became a founder of the National Japanese
Canadian Citizens’ Association.

Despite his activism, Hiroshi
seldom spoke about the internment.
His daughter, Sachiko, wanted to learn more.
Exploring her family’s history led her
to community engagement. She joined theRedress campaign and led the Ottawa Japanese
Cultural Centre for many years.

74

75

NNM 2018.3.1.4.12
Courtesy of Sachiko Okuda

chiko Okuda
Courtesy of Sa

MASUE TAGASHIRAThe Tagashiras returned to their old Vancouverneighbourhood. Masue’s husband wanted
their home and business back. She describedhim as kuyashii, or frustrated:“He was always looking
for what he had lost.”
In the 1980s, Masue joined the campaign
for a federal acknowledgementof wrongdoing and redress.

She wanted the injustice settled.
Masue was 80 on September 22, 1988,
when Prime Minister Brian Mulroneydelivered Canada’s first federal apology.
Asked about it, Masue could only smile.

76

Courtesy of Donald Jinnouchi

77

ion of:express permiss
lished with theia Network Inc.
ed
Material repub
stm
Po
of
n
a divisio
Vancouver Sun,

Courtesy of Donald
JinnouchiTSUMA TONOMURA
Funds were scarce in war-torn Japan,
where the Tonomuras started again.
They opened a small business. Their daughtersworked for the US Army. In high school,
Tsuma’s youngest son, John, struggled
to adjust to life in a foreign country.
In 1954, John sailed to Canada. He worked
and saved to support his parents’ return.
In 1968, they moved back to Vancouver.

“For all the suffering she endured,”
Tsuma’s daughter-in-law recalled,
she never complained.

“She was a pioneer, a grand lady,
and an inspiration to us all.”78

Courtesy of Marlene Tonomura

79-b.37.46.a95.125.2

NNM 19e Tonomura
Courtesy of Marlen

LEGACIES ofDISPOSSESSION
Loss is complex. It ripples through families,
shaping how they see themselves andtheir history. In time, new generations face
the past. Further Japanese Canadiansreflect on these themes.

LOSS
SILENCEFACING THE PASTINHERITANCE
RETURNS80

81

A Young Girl Holding a Cat on the Sidewalk.
Shigetaka (Steve) Sasaki Family fonds. NNM 2011.64.3.16

LOSS
The losses of Japanese Canadians cannot
be undone. As they rebuild their lives,
the impacts of dispossession linger.

MIDORI BRUNS
Midori (b. 1927) reflects on the loss of thebeautiful home her father had built. For her,
the hardest thing was leaving her pets.
“The home, it was a company home to start withand actually the only sentimental value is in
my head. What Dad had done to make life sopleasurable with having a summer house and him
inviting friends to have beer and whatnot under
the tree and that was a pleasant memory, a nicememory and Dad building us a little wee wading
pool. We left behind just about everything . . .
We took things like photographs and I brought
things that I wrote when I was a kid in thecomposition and essays and whatnot, those
things were the things that meant something . . .
material things . . . no, because we were only
allowed just so much. Clothing would, being afamily of six, would weigh a lot. But the saddest
thing was leaving the cat, our cat, Pet. He was awhite Persian with two different coloured eyes.
And when we left she was sitting on the fence
post. Oh yeah, that was the hardest thing.
And I just prayed that neighbours would feed
the cat, you know? Yeah, that’s the one thing
I regret. Yeah that’s the saddest thing, leaving
pets and living things behind.”
Midori Bruns

83

“I will tell you that
I knew nothing about
the internment growing up . . .”SILENCES
Many parents hoped their children would
look forward, rather than dwell on thepast. But silence leaves a gap that younger
generations often wish to fill.

TERRY WATADA
Terry (b. 1951) knew nothing of his family’s
experiences growing up. He describes
when he first learned about the internment
at university. He says, “It blew my mind.”“I will tell you that I knew nothing about
the internment growing up in the 1950s in
the East End of Toronto here. But then I went
to university. I think it was 1970. A groupformed in Toronto, a Japanese Canadian andthen an Asian Canadian group to discuss
themes of identity, racism, all kinds of topics.
Then I think the leader of the group, Allan
Hotta, decided to hold a conference in Toronto.
During that conference they actually set up
a photo exhibit which was put together by the
Vancouver people, of the internment. And it
was quite something, it just—yeah, surprised
me. I could use the term “blew my mind.”
So then I had to ask my parents, right?
Did this really happen? And of course mymother just said I was an idiot. ‘Why do you
want to know that stuff for?’ And she justclammed right up.”
Terry Watada

85

“What if you had said,‘I’m not going to do this.’”FACING THE PAST
If your family had looted, purchased, or
assisted in the dispossession of Japanese
Canadians’ possessions, how would you feel?
Many descendants struggle to make senseof their ancestors’ actions.

LESLIE BARNWELL
Leslie’s (b. 1949) grandfather, Frank Shears,
oversaw the dispossession of Japanese
Canadians. She reflects on his motivations
and the difficulty of living with his decisions.
“I don’t think, as I say, that I’ll ever come toa full resolution because I won’t be able totalk to Granddad. So, I think that he originally,
as I say, began with that intention that
he would be able to work on behalf of theJapanese people and preserve their lands andtheir goods for them. But it didn’t take very
long for the directives to come down to alterthat position. I don’t know whether or not if
somebody else had been doing the job it would
have been worse. You know, is it true what
my mum said, “If a bad job had to be done,
better that a good man do it”? I don’t know.
But I think, “Granddad, what if you had said,‘No’? What if you had said, ‘I’m not going todo this. Instead, I’m going to stand outside and
I’m going to speak up.’ ” Then I wouldn’t haveconflicted feelings.”
Leslie Barnwell87

Courtesy of Jon Sturge

Courtesy of Jeff Noon“. . . it shows what
they’re made of . . .
and how strong
they were.”

INHERITANCE
Decades later, ordinary belongings linka family to its history. Each object thatfamilies managed to save speaks of bothinjustice and resilience.

MARK SAKAMOTOMark (b. 1977) describes the personal
significance of the rice tin his family broughtwith them to internment.
“. . . my grandfather, Hideo Sakamoto, was a total
pack-rat. He just kept everything. And so after
he died . . . and we cleaned out the garage. And
at the very back of the garage—because it was
one of the first things that was put in the garage
in 1952 when he moved into the house—was atea box. A big tea box about 2 feet by 3 feet. Thistea box was tinned and it was tinned becauseof the small amount of weight that they could
bring, they brought a tinned box of rice. It wasliterally about a quarter of the weight that they
could carry. And it was just food, the basic stapleof their life. And thank goodness that they did
because for the first winter they did not havea lot of food. And for me it’s such a wonderful
and terrible reminder of the sacrifices that they
made during that period. The sacrifices that they
were forced into, the dilemmas that they wereforced into. I kept it because it . . . it shows what
they’re made of and how they could survive
and how strong they were. They were forced tochoose between the sentimentality of their lifeor their life.”
Mark Sakamoto

89

“So what it means
to me now is it’sunfinished business.

RETURNS
Some Japanese Canadians refuse to revisit
the places their families once called home.
Others find comfort in return.

LESLIE UYEDA
Leslie (b. 1960) recalls her “rage” at seeing her
former home in Vancouver and her conflicted
feelings about approaching the current owners.
“When I came out here I determined quite early
on to go and see if the house was still there.
So I would drive up there and just look at it
and see my family—imagine my family—there
on those steps. It has a very particular front,
this house, it’s on a corner overlooking a park.
It’s probably worth gazillions now. Part of whythat house means something to me is that myrage is involved in that house . . . because it’s still
there and I think . . . I wonder how the present
owners got it and the previous owners, how did
they get it? And did the first owners, after myparents had had to leave—my family had had
to leave—did they know how they came toacquire that house? That part of me thinks that,“Okay, I do want to know what happened tothat house and I do want to see if those people
there know how they got that house and—it
belonged to my family, not you.” That’s what
I feel like going up and saying. So what it means
to me now is it’s unfinished business.”
Leslie Uyeda
91

The STORYCONTINUES
The dispossession is an era
with enduring legacies,
not a closed chapter of history.
Today, Japanese Canadian storytellers andtheir allies are working to understand it anew.

92

“If we could, as Japanese Canadians,
take pride in our accomplishments andpride in who we are and who we were
and who we’re going to become, andif we could pass that on to the next
generations, that’s the important part.”
Vivian Wakabayashi Rygnestad

93

Courtesy of Vivian Wakabayashi Rygnestad

Vivian’s father Tadao Wakabayashi
challenged the dispossession in court.

Leslie’s grandfather, Frank Shears,
ran the Vancouver office of
the Custodian of Enemy Property.

“Canada did do things that brought us
into disrespect. And so I would say tofuture Canadians, we must never dothat again . . . And I encourage all of us
to work towards that end.”

Courtesy of Leslie Barnwell

Leslie Barnwell94

“I grew up listening to the stories of mygrandparents, of their struggles throughout the
war and after. I witnessed them trying to move
forward but always held back by their history.
Working in combination with my grandmother’s
sewing patterns and my etchings, I explore
my family’s stories, the experiencesof other Japanese Canadians, and the ideasof assimilation and cultural integration,
to find a sense of belonging.”

Anna Gaby-Trotz

Emma Nishimura

95

Can CANADA OFFER
a JUST HOME for ALL?
What would this look like?

96

Courtesy of Ali Lohan

Right to Remain March,
Downtown Eastside SRO Convention,
Vancouver, 2014

TELL US YOUR THOUGHTS
VISIT:
https://loi.uvic.ca/feedback

Your anonymous feedback will help us evaluate our exhibition.
It could also be used by University of Victoria’s Landscapes of Injusticeproject to analyze responses to this presentation of history.
University of Victoria research ethics clearance has been granted.

97

BROKEN PROMISES is part ofLandscapes of Injustice, a 7-year
community-engaged research
project. This exhibition is theresult of extensive research andconsultation with the Japanese
Canadian community, scholars,
and museum professionals.
Thank you to everyone who
contributed to the telling of thishistory. A special thank you toall of the individuals and families
in the exhibition and theirdescendants for keeping theseimportant stories alive.
This project has been made possible
in part by the Government of Canada.

98

A SPECIAL THANKS TO THE FAMILIESOF THE EXHIBITION NARRATORS:Mary and Tosh Kitagawa
Sus and Barbara Tabata
Susanne Tabata
Nolan Kagetsu
Kanaye Kay Kagetsu
Takako Huang
Mikiko Huang
Sachiko Okuda
Lillian and Nancy Morishita
Donald Jinnouchi and family
Marlene Tonomura

ORAL HISTORY CONTRIBUTORS:Leslie Barnwell
Midori Bruns
Mary Kitagawa
Art Miki
Yoshiaki Nagao
Emma Nishimura
Sachiko Okuda
Marilyn Overland
Vivian Wakabayashi Rygnestad
Mark Sakamoto
Betty Toyota and Joy Trapnell
Leslie Uyeda
Terry Watada
Jean Anne Wightman

99

WITH THANKS TO:
Maleea Acker, Editing
Ophélie Alvaro, Translation
Great Northern Way Scene Shop, Fabrication
Ria Kawaguchi, Kiko Communication Design,
Graphic Design
Jean-Pierre Lussier, Translation
Nicholas Massé, Translation
Multigraphics Ltd., Print Graphics
Doug Munday, Exhibition Design
Jamie O’Connor, Eos Lightmedia Corporation,
AV Systems Design
Ellen Schwartz, Copyediting
Kirsti Wakelin, Resolve Design Inc.,AV Exhibition Design
Xibita, Fabric Graphics
Chapter One

LANDSCAPES OF INJUSTICE:
Michael Abe, Project Manager
Yasmin Amaratunga Railton,
Post-doctoral Curatorial Fellow, Exhibition Co-Curator
Kaitlin Findlay, Research Coordinator,
Exhibition Co-Writer
Eiji Okawa, Research AssistantJordan Stanger-Ross, Project Director,
Exhibition Co-Writer
Trevor Wideman, Research Assistant

100

NIKKEI NATIONAL
MUSEUM & CULTURAL CENTRE:
Sherri Kajiwara, Director|Curator,
Exhibition Co-Curator
Linda Kawamoto Reid, Research Archivist
Carolyn Nakagawa, Culture, Education,
and Programs Coordinator
Lisa Uyeda, Collections Manager

ROYAL BRITISH COLUMBIA MUSEUM:David Alexander​, Head of Partnerships,
IT and Digital and Acting Head of Archives
Michael Barnes, Head of Exhibitions
Leah Best, Head of Knowledge,
Exhibition Co-Curator
Dr. Kathryn Bridge, Curator of History
and Art (Emerita)
Liz Crocker, Learning Program Developer
Caroline Davies, Senior Registrar
Kim Gough, Learning Program Developer
Janet MacDonald, Head of Learning
Chris O’Connor, Learning Program Developer
Dave Stewart, Digital Manager
Emma Wright, Archives Manager

101

CANADIAN MUSEUM
OF IMMIGRATION AT PIER 21:
Dan Conlin, Curator
Sara England, Exhibitions CoordinatorCharlotte Maus, Content Coordinator and Editor
Steve Schwinghamer, HistorianJAPANESE CANADIAN CULTURAL CENTRE:
Theressa Takasaki,
Archives and Collections Manager

102© Landscapes of Injustice 2020103