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The Low Road to Japanese Internship
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, the Canadian government amended the Defence of Canadian Regulations to create a 100 kilometre security zone along the coast of British Columbia in retaliation for the Japanese aggression. The Act allowed for the restriction of any persons from the security zone. However, it was the Japanese-Canadians who were arrested and sent out of the security zone, in retaliation for the events of December 7, 1941. Takeo Nakano related his experience of internment: "....we were promptly herded into the building normally used to house livestock exhibited at the annual Pacific National Exhibition. "Nakano was separated from his family during the course of the war, he was boarded onto a freight train, and sent off to a remote camp in the interior of British Columbia. Nakano shared, "I prayed that no matter what difficulties blocked our way, my wife our daughter and I would be reunited once again in good health "The frigid conditions and lack of privacy left Nakano feeling frustrated and restless during his trip to Yellowhead. Nakano arrived in the camp after a long journey by train. He experienced feelings of isolation and loneliness but he endured the treatment of the Yellowhead camp in hopes that he would be reunited with his family. Nakano remained in the camp until the end of World War Two. The Defence of Canadian Regulations created the 100 kilometre security zone in February 1942, two months after the attack on Pearl Harbour. The regulations were "To prohibit or restrict the possession or use by any or all persons, ordinarily resident or actually present in such protected area..." The Regulations stated that all Canadians could be arrested or detained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police without cause for however long. This gave the RCMP far-reaching powers during wartime and was designed to ease the fears of those Canadians who lived near military installations or Japanese communities.
In Nakano's account of his stay in the Yellowhead camp he related the sparseness of his sleeping arrangements while sleeping in a railway car; "Stepping up to look into the car to which eleven others and I were assigned, I quickly took in the scanty features of the accommodation." Also Nakano stated, "Six bunk beds were strung like shelves against the walls. In the centre of the car stood only a coal burning, potbellied stove." The box cars left Nakano with his crew exposed to the cold. Nakano recalled throughout his memoirs the feelings of cold and numbness that he experienced in the Canadian outdoors. Nakano said, "Unaccustomed to the cold, I felt it keenly. It was as though pins were being thrust into my ears. My fingers grasping the axe grew numb.". Nakano wrote, "In the evening I stepped outdoors to gaze at the pale crescent moon at the edge of the mountains. And I thought of how that same moon shone on my wife and our child, on the other side." This is further evidence that Nakano wished to be with his family and to leave the confines of his imprisonment. In conclusion, the government of Canada introduced the Defence of Canada Regulations in order to protect the coast of British Columbia from the possibility of further Japanese attack. Dave de Brou and Bill Waiser stated, "the Mackenzie King government took increasingly severe steps against the Japanese-Canadian community in British Columbia. The most draconian of these measures the forced evacuation of all Japanese (from the security zone)." However, the government of Canada created the Defence of Canada Regulations in response to the racist beliefs of British Columbians. Nakano was a male, Japanese-Canadian and came from a working class background. Nakano wrote his memoirs in order to share the difficulties of his experience while imprisoned. Nakano along with many other Japanese-Canadians were interned in camps due to the possibility of Japanese attacks along the coast of British Columbia. Their expulsion from the security zone was an indirect response of the Japanese attacks upon Pearl Harbour which started World War II in the Pacific theatre. Sources: 1. Dave de Brou and Bill Waiser, "Defence of Canada Regulations," in DocumentingCanada: A History of Modern Canada in Documents (Saskatoon: Fifth House Publishers, 1992), 387. 2. Takeo Nakano, "To Vancouver and on to Yellowhead Road Camp," in Within the Barbed Wire Fence (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 15.
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Contributor's Note
Originally published here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/260627/michael_allen.html and for sale here: http://www.constant-content.com/MoreDetails/74066-The_Low_Road_to_Japanese_Internment.htm
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