Issuance of Licenses to Japanese

Issuance of Licenses to Japanese

Description

Title Proper F0 GR1378 BOX 08 FILE 07
Date(s) 1946
General material designation
This file contains a textual record.
Scope and content
Correspondence in this file center on the issuance of fishing licences to Japanese Canadians after the War. In the first letter, Provincial Fisheries Commissioner L.H. Eyres requests that no licences be issued to “persons of Japanese racial origin.” Eyres claimed that after the dispossession, “whites” replaced the Japanese Canadian fishermen and as a result the industry became “over-crowded.” He felt that allowing the Japanese Canadian fishermen back would “only aggravate this condition.”
The bulk of the correspondence relates to a request by the Salmon Arm & District Chamber of Commerce to allow C. Nakamura, an experienced coastal fisher, to obtain a commercial licence to fish ling and carp out of Shuswap Lake. They argued that due to food shortages as well as the need for the by-products, and based on Nakamura’s experience, it would be beneficial for the region to have him remove the “coarse” fish from the lake. Unfortunately, the government cited the War Measures Act, 1942, and the National Emergency Transitional Powers Act, 1945, as reasons for not allowing the licence.
Name of creator
Immediate source of acquisition
The digital copies of the records were acquired by the Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective between 2014 and 2018.
This record was digitized in full.

Metadata

Title

Issuance of Licenses to Japanese
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Terminology

Readers of these historical materials will encounter derogatory references to Japanese Canadians and euphemisms used to obscure the intent and impacts of the internment and dispossession. While these are important realities of the history, the Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective urges users to carefully consider their own terminological choices in writing and speaking about this topic today as we confront past injustice. See our statement on terminology, and related sources here.