Jitaro and Sumiko Tanaka collection

This fonds contains 4 textual records and other records.

The collection consists of one series of textual material and documents, created and assembled by Jitaro and Sumiko Tanaka, related to the forced removal of Canadians of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast of Canada in 1942, the confiscation and sale of their property, and their dispersal and deportation from Canada in 1946, as well as the 1980s movement for redress of these injustices. The collection includes original documents written and compiled during 1941 to 1944, newsclippings from 1942 to 1946 as well as the 1980s, and a history of the Japanese Canadians written in the 1950s. Additionally the fonds includes one photograph portrait of Jitaro and Sumiko Tanaka.

Jitaro Tanaka was born November 27, 1905 in Shiga prefecture, Japan. His parents Jikichi Tanaka and Akuri Kawasaki had six children. About 1906 Tanaka's father Jikichi immigrated to Canada, coming to Vancouver. Jitaro Tanaka joined his father in Vancouver in 1911, aged five years old. Tanaka's wife to be, Sumiko Suga, was born in Vancouver April 5, 1912. Her parents were Kichitaro Suga and Hatsuyo Uyeno, who had come to Vancouver from Hiroshima; the family eventually numbered fourteen children.

The digital copies of the records were acquired by the Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective between 2014 and 2018.