Japanese Canadians were loyal citizens during Second World War
Re: “Among the top,” Letter, June 8.
Gerald Egger says that Naomi Lakritz criticized Mackenzie King for moving the Japanese from the coast inland (because “they were the enemy”).
Egger’s attitude stands to be corrected. Assistant Commissioner F.J. Mead, head of RCMP officers responsible for West Coast security, and Maj.Gen. H.G. Crerar, chief of general staff, concurred that Japanese Canadians’ loyalty was beyond question. National security was an excuse, a wellorchestrated campaign of pressure from anti-Asian groups in B.C.
The majority of the 23,000 were Canadians of Japanese heritage or naturalized British subjects, such as my parents. Men between 18 and 45 were immediately rounded up to work on the construction of the Hope-Princeton Highway. Refusing to comply meant imprisonment at prisoner-of-war camps in Petawawa or Aylmer, Ont. The wives and children were housed in the horse stables at the Hastings Park Exhibition grounds, still with horse manure stuck to the walls. Is this what democracy is all about, Gerald?
Seven years after the internment started, and almost four years after the end of the war, all restrictions were lifted, and franchise granted for the first time. Among Japanese Canadians’ property confiscated and auctioned off, were 1,300 fishing boats, 600 stores and 700 farms in B.C.’s Fraser Valley, sold for $65 an acre.
I have taught for 25 years at the post-secondary level and served in the reserve air force for 13 years. I’m proud to be a Canadian and hopefully served my country well.