X-Message-Number: 16914
From: "robin helweg-larsen" <>
Subject: Re: Japanese Internment
Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2001 10:44:54 -0400

This discussion is not off-topic in the larger picture: we all have to deal
with the realities of human psychology: the us-vs-them way of understanding
the world, and the advantages and threats that it involves.  It will still
be there when cryonauts are revived in 200 years'  time.
Lee Corbin wrote in part:

If the decision was incorrect---which, with the aid of hindsight
and the knowledge that Japan was not ready to invade North
America, it certainly was---then I find it still undemonstrated
that it wasn't merely a prudent precaution on the part of the
government.  (If however, you have any evidence---even if you
just once read it---that legislators profitted from the act,
then of course I'd be glad to learn about it.)

----

Legislators often profit financially simply by being in power and
influencing development proposals, and this has been as true in BC as
anywhere (it's often more true of provincial or state politicians than it is
of federal ones).  In addition, they profit politically by being reelected,
of course.  Politicians often 'play the race card' (or any other us-vs-them
card) to simplify issues and divide society, if they believe that they will
be seen as key representatives of the larger part of the division, and
thereby enhance their chances of reelection.  Reference Hitler vs the Jews,
Thatcher vs the coal miners, Indira Gandhi vs the Sikh community, Reagan vs
the air traffic controllers.

When I lived in Mission, BC, in the 70s and 80s it had only 1 or 2 people of
Japanese origin; in the 1930s it had been 30% Japanese origin, as much of
the very fertile Fraser Valley had been.  When all these people were
interned simultaneously, and their thousands of farms and homes flooded onto
the market simultaneously, the bottom dropped out of farmland prices, and
their 'fair market sale' was at a tenth what it had been a few months
before.  Farmland prices never dipped low enough again for any but a very
few Japanese Canadians to repurchase their homes.

In 1988 the Canadian Government formally acknowledged that it perpetrated
wrongs against Japanese Canadians, apologized, and implemented a restitution
package.

If you are seriously interested in this particular bit of history, try a
Google web search on "Japanese Canadians Fraser Valley".  The best-known
non-fiction study is probably Barry Broadfoot's:
Broadfoot, Barry. (1977).
Years of Sorrow, Years of Shame: The Story of the Japanese Canadians in
World War II.
Toronto. Doubleday Canada Limited.
0-385-12550-X.
Barry Broadfoot chronicles the history of the Japanese Canadians in WW II,
as well as their arrival in Canada, and dispersal after the war, through the
use of extensive oral histories. The end result is a detailed history of the
Japanese in Canada from 1877 into the future, with the benefit of the story
being told largely in the words of survivors. Thus, issues of racism and
discrimination are addressed, and no words are minced in the telling of the
actions of the Federal government and the people of Canada.

You could also look at:
Government of Canada & National Association of Japanese Canadians. (1988).
Terms of Agreement Between the Government of Canada and the National
Association of Japanese Canadians.
Ottawa. Government of Canada.
Canada acknowledges of injustice committed against Japanese Canadians. The
redress agreement sets out the conditions whereby the Government of Canada
makes restitution to the Japanese Canadian community through individual and
community compensation.

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