Report of the Special Committee on Orientals in BC

Report of the Special Committee on Orientals in BC

Description

Title Proper Report of the Special Committee on Orientals in BC
Date(s) 1941
General material designation
This file has an indeterminable GMD—digital object is not available at this time.
Scope and content
File consists of one item, a report and recommendations made in 1940 by the Special Committee appointed by the federal Cabinet War Committee in Ottawa, to examine "Japanese and Chinese in British Columbia from the point of view of internal security and with partial reference to the question of military training."
Name of creator
Roy Ryoichi Ito was born in British Columbia. During the internment period he was relocated with his family initially to work on a sugar beet farm in Alberta, then to Kaslo, BC, where he worked on The New Canadian newspaper, then to Hamilton, Ontario, where he began studies at McMaster University in 1943. He was recruited to join the army, and served as a sergeant with the Canadian Intelligence Corps in India and South-East Asia. After the Second World War, Ito completed his university degree and became a teacher, and later was employed for twenty-five years as a school principal. He retired in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1984. Ito was married and had four children. He wrote several social science books for use in schools and two histories of Japanese Canadians entitled Stories of My People and We Went to War.
Immediate source of acquisition
The digital copies of the records were acquired by the Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective between 2014 and 2018.

Metadata

Title

Report of the Special Committee on Orientals in BC
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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.