Japanese Internment In Canada Essay

Today Canada prides itself with how multicultural and diverse it is, taking a look at the 20th century shows that it has not always been that way, and that there have been many obstacles to overcome. The mistreatment of Japanese-Canadians during their internment, denying the 376 passengers of the Komagata Maru food or water for 2 months after not letting them into Canada, forcing indigenous children into the residential schools where they were stripped of everything they knew and taught to be “normal Euro-Canadian citizens”. Those are the 3 main events of the 20th century that showed how truly intolerant Canada was with people of other origins and backgrounds.

After the Pearl harbour incident on December 7th 1941, Canada began to distrust any and all Japanese immigrants. Japanese-Canadian internment began to take effect after that, this was the forced relocation of the Japanese-Canadian citizens during WWI. January 16th 1942, was the day that they banned Japanese-Canadians from the West Coast. Less than a month after that, whether they were considered enemies or not, all Japanese-Canadians were forced into internment camps located in British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. After being sent to the camps many realized that they were completely isolated from the outside world, due to the camps being set up in such remote locations they would not have any contact with outsiders that were not military officials and guards. “I was a 22-year-old Japanese Canadian,a prisoner of my own country of birth. We were confined inside the high wire fence of Hastings Park just like caged animals.” said Tom Tamagi, a prisoner of one of the internment camps. The
Canada may seem like an amazing, free, accepting country today, but it has been a long road to