We were in Canada last week and I heard that it too interned citizens of Japanese ancestry after

[pampango]

Pearl Harbor. I had not realized that Canada did the same thing that we did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Canadian_internment

Prior to World War II, there were about 21,000 Canadians of Japanese ancestry in British Columbia, of whom 70% were Canadian citizens. While immigration from Japan to Canada had begun at the end of the 19th century the Japanese were unwelcome and were subject to racism and discrimination. They were denied the right to vote and laws barred them from various professions. Their eligibility for social assistance and permits for forestry and fishing were restricted. The intent was to force them to return to Japan.

The Anti-Asiatic League, formed in Canada in 1907, was the source of much of the animosity toward Japanese Canadians. The League included rich white business owners, who used their influence to limit the number of passports given to male Japanese immigrants. This was meant to limit the number of Japanese workers in British Columbia, who by 1919 owned almost half the fisheries in the province. Japanese immigrants were seen as competitors for posts within the sectors of agriculture and fishing. The Anti-Asiatic League sought to restrict fishing licenses to white residents. This legislation was abandoned in 1925, due to strong discontent in the Japanese Canadian community. The government, however, continued to regulate the number of passports given to Japanese immigrants, in order to limit them from the working sectors of British Columbia.

Those living in "relocation camps" were not legally interned - they could leave, so long as they had permission - however, they were not legally allowed to work or attend school outside the camps. Since the majority of Japanese Canadians had little property aside from their (confiscated) houses, these restrictions left most with no opportunity to survive outside the camps. Prime Minister King issued a ruling that all property would be removed from Japanese Canadian inhabitants.

As one contemporary points out, there was economic benefits to be made with the internment of the Japanese. More precisely, white fishermen directly benefited due to the impounding of all Japanese owned fishing boats. Fishing for salmon was a hotly contested issue between the white population and Japanese population.

[aquart]

1. Funny how that works.

[EmilyKent]

2. Also Germans and Italians

and anyone deemed to be communist, like union organizers.

[Posteritatis]

4. RCMP saber-charged some strikers on horseback in 1919

We've come a ways since then, but still, holy damn.

[Posteritatis]

3. Canada's more racist policies were, ah, impressive until embarrassingly recently.

We stopped blocking Jewish immigration in the mid-fifties, if that gives you an idea.

[applegrove]

5. I think it was the late 1970s that our immigration policies stopped being racist.

[whathehell]

9. Link, please? n/t

[Posteritatis]

10. If not later, really

The stupidmost of them didn't start fading until the Hungarian revolution in 1956, anyway. The embarrassingly post-postwar era's only when they began to extract the more open bigotries.

I lack the necessary language to properly curse people like Frederick Blair for causing things like that to last as long as they did, and be implemented as severely as they were while he was infecting his office.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. I believe that David Suzuki's family was among those interned

Canada is usually a pretty sensible country, but like all countries, it has its dark side.

[shimmergal]

7. Yes.

From what I understand, Canadian treatment of their West Coast Japanese-Canadian residents was even worse than ours in the U.S.

There's a famous novel, OBASAN, by Joy Kogawa, based on her experience as a child sent to a Canadian internment camp. It's really powerful, and is now required reading in many Canadian schools. I recommend it to most anyone who'd like to explore the topic further.

[Brother Buzz]

8. Sam Hayakawa, born in Vancouver, B. C., had no problems interning Japanese Americans either

He said the relocation of 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast to inland camps was "perhaps the best thing that could have happened" because it integrated them afterward into the mainstream of U.S. society.

No skin off his nose. Hayakawa escaped internment because he was a citizen of Canada during World War II, teaching in Chicago, and his parents moved back to Japan.

Cressey Nakagawa, national president of the Japanese American Citizens League, said those remarks left a legacy of anger in the community. "You can't say he was well-liked." Had Hayakawa been a white man, Nakagawa said, "people would have called him racist."