#japenese internment

[afterlifeofimages]

The Student Yearbooks of a Japanese-American Detention Camp

Topaz operated like any other 1940s U.S. high school, except its teenagers were prisoners of the federal government.

[streetviewhistory-blog]

The Livestock Barns, PNE

1142 Miller Drive, Vancouver BC

“Judy Hanazawa, 69, whose parents and sisters were among some 22,000 interned in B.C., said former internees want “to make sure no other people would have to go through what Japanese-Canadians went through.”

(Quote Source)

If you’ve ever been to Vancouver’s Pacific National Exhibit (PNE) during the Spring Fair, then you’ve likely visited the Livestock Building, which is usually full of exhibits featuring livestock from local farms, including miniature donkeys, alpacas, and rabbits. It’s bright but musty, smelling of hay and the kind of scents that follow farm animals wherever they go. 

In 1942, the Livestock buildings held more than 8,000 Japanese-Canadian internees, awaiting transportation to internment sites around the Country. These specific buildings hadn’t undergone any sort of retrofit from their original purpose before the women and children arrived - they were still full of hay and animal droppings, and entirely unsanitary. The people forced to live in these cramped quarters had no access to fresh air or any family members they’d been separated from, and most of their belongings were seized and later liquidated, so that the interned citizens were literally paying for their own detention. 

It seems like it’s easy for people to forget the reality and gravity of events like this and the impact they have the affected community, but they are part of our history as Canadians, and they live on in the physical space that we occupy, regardless of the way that physical space evolves as time marches forwards. 

This only happened 74 years ago. 

74 years before that (in 1868) British Columbia was only two years old. 

74 years before that (in 1794) George Vancouver had only just found the fabled Northwest Passage. 

While most current generations may not have had any direct effect or responsibility for this event, it is absolutely our responsibility to ensure that the memory remains, and in doing so, that it never happens again. 

Sources: 

http://hastingspark1942.ca/

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/japanese-canadians-push-for-pne-livestock-barns-to-become-historic-site