Protest Letters

This collection consists of letters sent by Japanese Canadians to the federal government protesting the forced sale of their property without their consent. The letters are part of LAC collection RG-117-C-1 on microfilm reel C-9476 and available on the Héritage site. For visitor’s convenience, the LOI team has transcribed the letters and linked authors and recipients to the rest of the database. Jordan Stanger-Ross and Nicholas Blomley explore the protest letters in their chapter called “‘My Land is Worth a Million Dollars’: How Japanese Canadians Contested Their Dispossession in the 1940s” (Landscapes of Injustice, 2020), which highlights the importance of property loss to the larger story of Japanese Canadian history during this period. These letters are a record of Japanese Canadian defiance in response to government-sanctioned social injustice in Canada and a testament to the strength of the community. For an immersive media exploration of the letters, their context, and significance, please visit Writing Wrongs: Japanese Canadian Protest Letters of the 1940s, a Nikkei National Museum digital exhibit created with the support of Digital Museums Canada.