In the first article, “British Columbia and the Japanese Evacuation” by W. Peter Ward, the Japanese evacuation is viewed as an occurrence due to the publics terror of the potential threat from the local Japanese-Canadians on the west coast of Canada during the 1930s. Which is definitely unlike J.L. Granastein and Gregory A. Johnson’s article, “The Evacuation of the Japanese Canadians, 1942: A Realist Critique of the Received Version” which deals primarily with the early to mid 1940s.
During the early and middle 1930s anti-Japanese feeling was not particularly intense in British Columbia. But in the closing months of 1937 a new source of stain bore down upon the west coast’s racial cleavage. Japan attacked China once again and, in Canada reports of this aggression provoked the first strong outburst of anti-Japanese feeling in a decade. (Ward 459)
This “outburst” was just one of many to follow the enemy Japan’s actions during the war.
Following this anti-Japanese spark that was inspired by the invasion of China, there was a rumor that hundreds of Japanese-Canadians were actually illegal immigrants on the coast of British Columbia. Even though this was only a rumor with no hard evidence, this caused some to believe that Japanese spies and military officers were already present in Canada. In Ottawa, Prime Minister Mackenzie King was trying to create a solution to this anti-Japanese hysteria that was felt on the west coast and now spreading eastward. Pressured by public opinion and the possible threat of spies living in Canada, King “promised a public enquiry into rumors of illegal Japanese immigration.” (Ward 461) On the 24th of March in 1938 the Board of Review, who was in charge of the immigration investigation, held its first public hearing in Vancouver. These public hearings calmed down the many protests of the terrified anti-Japanese locals so much that “when the board’s findings were published early in 1939, the report scarcely attracted notice.”(Ward 461)
In the summer of 1940 Alderman Halford Wildson headed a new campaign against Japanese immigrants, even though this campaign was minor and never really caught on, his campaign was still significant because the anti-Japanese feeling was back on the rise again after almost two years of no hostile action against the Japanese-Canadians. In regards to evidence that there was no threat posed by the Japanese-Canadians Peter Ward states in his article that:
In contrast the RCMP tended to minimize the Japanese threat. Since 1938 officers in “E Division, stationed in Vancouver, has also kept the Japanese under surveillance. In 1940 they assigned three constables to observe the community and also employed Japanese informants. Through continual investigation the force concluded that Japanese residents posed no real threat to Canada. (Ward 462- 463)
These series of statements are very similar to what is stated in J.L. Granastein and Gregory A. Johnson’s article. The major difference being that this article actually states more in detail, including the rumors of Japanese spies and military officers living in Canada.
In this atmosphere of improvisation and amateurism, many of the available reports by the RCMP and the military on the Japanese Canadians tended to focus on investigation of alleged “unlawful drilling [with weapons]” by male Japanese Canadians, reports of caches of Japanese rifles and ammunition, and accounts of suspicious fishing parties of well-dressed Japanese who did not appear to be fishermen. Rumors, plain and fanciful. (Granastein and Johnson 105)
It was easy to see that the evidence was not there and there was nothing to fear, since “95 percent of Japanese Canadians were law abiding.” (Granastein and Johnson 105) But regardless of fear, Canada nor the rest of their allies, had not a clue what was to happen five months later at the United States military base, Pearl Harbor.
Both articles look at Pearl Harbor as “the straw that broke the camel’s back” but, Granastein and Johnson’s article looks at it from a different perspective than Ward’s. Both articles are similar when mentioning the thirty-eight Japanese nationals that were interned by the RCMP for the safety of the community. But Ward’s article adds additional info that “the west-coast Japanese fishing fleet was immobilized” (Ward 465) The main difference between the two articles as I mentioned earlier was the take on what happened after the war outbreak. Peter Ward tends to stick with commenting on the west-coast residents and their reactions such as
In the week following Pearl Harbor some Japanese in Vancouver were victimized by scattering acts of vandalism. Fear of Japanese subversion again spread in the province. In Private, British Columbians began protesting to their members of Parliament. The weight of public concern also bore down on provincial newspapers. (Ward 465)
On the other hand, Granastein and Johnson’s article is about support for Japan from Japanese Canadians as well as Japanese Americans. Granastein and Johnson find through two books, Within the Barbed Wire Fence and Hawaii Under the Rising Sun, that Japanese Canadians had “a blind faith in Japan’s eventual victory”(Granastein and Johnson 111) and “most first-generation Japanese in Hawaii remained loyal to Japan.” (Granastein and Johnson 111) Further on in the paragraph Granastein and Johnson conclude that:
Nakano’s book demonstrates that the same response existed in British Columbia, and even Sanahara notes that the Japanese vice-consul encouraged some Japanese Canadians to seek interment as a gesture of support for Japan. Those of Japanese origin, of course formed a greater proportion of the Hawaiian population (about 35 percent) than did the Japanese Canadians in British Columbia (about three percent). Moreover, at this point it is impossible to determine if the links between the Japanese Canadians and Japan were stronger or weaker than those between Hawaiian Japanese and the mother country. These two factors could certainly have affected the situation. (Granastein and Johnson 111)
After reviewing and reading both articles in depth, finding their similarities and differences, and comprehending what both articles were trying to display, I’ve come to a conclusion myself, based upon the conclusions of Granastein, Johnson, and Ward. The events leading up to and after Japanese internment were not necessary, but at the time it seemed like the only reasonable option due to Canadian’s fear frenzy of Japanese spies and military officers. What was done was wrong, but if interment wouldn’t have happened, maybe things would have resulted differently in a less favorably way. I will leave you with the conclusion and a quote that I relate with the most.
None of this alters the conclusion that the Japanese Canadians were victims of the racism of the society in which they lived and an uncaring government that failed to defend the ideals for which its leaders claimed to have taken Canada and Canadians to war. Even so, this paper does maintain that there were military and intelligence concerns that, in the face of the sudden attack at Pearl Harbor, could have provided Ottawa with justification for the evacuation of the Japanese Canadian from the coast. The government in December 1941 was unaware of much of the data that has since emerged, and even if it had had it all, it simply lacked the assessment capability to put it together. (Granastein and Johnson 120)
The most important impact that has come out of the horrible anti-Japanese period is that we must learn not to make the same mistakes again. As the great English novelist, Aldous Huxley once said, “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.”
Works Cited
W. Peter Ward, “British Columbia and the Japanese Invasion, “in Jeff Keshen, ed., The Making of Canada – Reading Kit (Ottawa, 2002), p. 458-476
J.L. Granastein and Gregory A. Johnson, “The Evacuation of the Japanese Canadians: A Realist Critique of the Received Version,” in Jeff Keshen, ed., The Making of Canada – Reading Kit (Ottawa, 2002), p. 101-129