See Terms of Use for publication and licensing information.
This oral history is from an interview conducted by the Oral History cluster of the Landscapes of Injustice project.
Japs aren't allowed. These where editorial comments in most of western Canada. The sentiment was, essentially, it's time to go home. Go back to BC, and in fact old Japanese Canadians nearly dodged being sent right back to Japan after the Second World War, which is just incredible to think about. These are Canadian citizens being sent back as - after two atomic bombs had just been dropped on a country, and the economy was ruined. It's almost unfathomable to think about, but it almost happened. So they moved to Medicine Hat and started farming. Fortunately after a couple of years of farming leased land, there was a banker at the Bank of Nova Scotia who had spent a lot of his career banking in BC and had lent a lot of money to Japanese Canadians, primarily so they could get a license and a boat, but only had good dealings with Japanese Canadians in BC.
You know what, I'm not going to let- it's easy to harbor and trade in anger and frustration and resentment. It's much harder, particularly, during that time when they did it, when there was still a lot anti Japanese sentiment. There was still a lot of racism. Both from a personal perspective in these very white towns throughout western Canada and elsewhere.